TNCSSP S4 EP 169 - Coach Mike Pegues

Butler University Assistant Men's Basketball Coach, Mike Pegues discuss his legendary playing career and his college coaching journey.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Yeah, yeah, this is killing counter Ani and I wonder
welcome you to a sports experience like no other, noone else.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Next to the note Capp.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Sports show with sports and co hosts Collide, authentic, unapologetic,
no head, No, let the convote begin.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
No Welcome to the No Cat Sports Show podcast with
sports and convos Colidne.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
I am your host of Cobra.

Speaker 4 (00:44):
Hey, yo, I'm your coach. I'm your host, coach Miltain,
What up coach?

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Are you doing today? Bro? Hey man?

Speaker 4 (00:51):
The weather says it all. Man, the weather says it all.
You're looking like old dog out there today. You're killing
killing outside.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yeah, got kicked out the house.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
The cleaning crew is here today, so they kicked me
out of the house, so I took it outside.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
But like you said, it is a beautiful day, so
I don't mind.

Speaker 5 (01:10):
Hey, that's called perfect Tom and brother perfect thim.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
But shoot, man, look, you know while we're here today, man,
we got a special guest man, somebody coming on to day,
man that you know I respected and the Maya. He's
a he's a he was a great athlete. He's he's
currently a hell of a coach man. And he's even
a better person. So you know, he's a former DMV

(01:38):
hoop star at the legendary Domatica High School and he
was coached by Hall of Fame coach Morgan Wooten before
taking his talent to the University of Delaware, where he
was the first player in school history to earn three
first team All Conference as well as his first Conference
Player of the Year. Our guess was also enshrined in

(01:58):
the University of Delaware Hall of Fame. He went on
to have a successful professional career overseas and in the CBA,
and I guess now boast an impressive coaching resume. We
coached at some elite high schools and at the college
level where he coached at school such as Delaware, Xavier,

(02:19):
Louisville and currently he's at Butler University. So without further ado,
please welcome to the show, my guy, Mike Pegee.

Speaker 5 (02:32):
Appreciated fellas. I appreciate the intro coach. You did your
homework on that one man into the Wikipedia page for
that one man. But I appreciate the love man, and
right back at you. You know, coming up in the
in the late eighties and early nineties, mid nineties, man

(02:55):
hooping everybody knew if you went to cross the bridge
and played over in Virginia.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Man, you we had to deal.

Speaker 5 (03:00):
With you at some point, you know, so appreciate give
you your flowers as well.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Man.

Speaker 5 (03:06):
You were a hell of a player, standout player and
did big things at Dayton.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
And you know we were similar, man.

Speaker 5 (03:13):
You know we both would like those tween of guys
which is like in vogue now in the NBA.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
We could have made some money in this day and age.

Speaker 5 (03:21):
Man, People like me appreciate our skill set at six
six back in the day, but now you weren't head
of a player too.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Man. I appreciate you having me on.

Speaker 3 (03:29):
I appreciate you, bro, and I know Coach Milton appreciate
you as well.

Speaker 5 (03:34):
Indeed I do, Indeed I do. I did a little
research man.

Speaker 4 (03:37):
You uh, you got some good stuff going on.

Speaker 5 (03:40):
Man.

Speaker 4 (03:41):
I'm liking what I'm seeing and just kind of looking
through your stuff.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Man.

Speaker 4 (03:46):
The one thing, the one thing I love about you, man,
is you you have that player development mentality approaching things, man,
and I love that that that's right up my alley.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
So yeah, sure, so so let's get right into it.
Because you know all o using listeners, they you know
they're eager to learn about your about your background and
that the No Cast Sportial podcast we like to start
from the beginning. As I mentioned in the in the introduction,
you you know use a hell of an athlete, US

(04:16):
standout basketball player, superstar basketball player out of the d
m V.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
But when did it start?

Speaker 3 (04:22):
Like when did your athletics career start as a as
a child? And was basketball your first love? And who
was it that that aspired you to to get into
athletics and door basketball?

Speaker 5 (04:35):
That's an easy question for me, easy aswer for me.
Code honestly, man, I was I was blessed, really out
of the wound to be born in Sharon Marshall.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
I gotta get her all the credit my mother.

Speaker 5 (04:46):
Uh she was a standout Division two player and back
then u DC used to be called Federal City and
uh she played for a legend Wanda Oaks I believe
her name was, and miss Bessy Stalker throughout her career
and she was a hell of a ball player in

(05:07):
her own right. And she actually worked in DC Department
and recreation in parks And so for a kid who
came out of the womb loving basketball with a ball
boy in his hand. That couldn't have been more set
up for me to naturally gravitate to playing ball. So
I spent I cut my teeth, as they say, on
the playgrounds of Washington, d C. In particular, it's now

(05:30):
called Patricia Harris, but it used to be called Friendship
on Livingston Road in Southeast DC.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
My mom worked there for a long stretch.

Speaker 5 (05:37):
So I took a lot of lumps on that playground,
you know, literally and figuratively, learning the game from older guys,
getting in the runs with the older guys, trying to,
you know, put a stranglehold on the kids my age
and elevate and get better. And I also spent a
lot of time up behind Junior High. They had a

(05:59):
summer camp that I'm not sure if you're aware of, Cole,
but back then, man, it was like the camp that
you had to be at.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
It was free.

Speaker 5 (06:07):
All of the best players, all met players would be
your counselors. We would get celebrities, coaches and people to
come in and speak. I can literally remember being at
that camp and Lyn bia Is coming there every Friday.
It was like a guest speak and you never know
who it was. The counselors would never tell you, but
Lin Bias popped up and spoke to us. Don Thompson,

(06:30):
Kirk Smith used to work the camp. My man Debella
Black used to work the camp. But a lot of
great ball players from the city Man at one point
would make their way through high in junior high because
that's where the youth games. Before AA you got involved,
youth games was a big deal. It was like Junior Olympics,
and you know, all of the best players would play

(06:53):
on the DC team and you would go out and
you would play against Jersey and New York and Philly
and whatnot.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
And so that's where with real hoop was up at
hind Man.

Speaker 5 (07:02):
So my summers at Hime, our winners at Friendship, and
you know, I got to get my dad some credit
as well. He played at played football at McNamara, but
actually wound up getting a scholarship to pitt Johnstown to
play basketball.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
So he was a good ball player as well.

Speaker 5 (07:19):
Had some great moments with him Sunday mornings in particular,
where I would go out and play with his buddies.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
We would hoop every Sunday.

Speaker 5 (07:26):
I couldn't I wasn't sure when I would see dad
early on in my life, but I was guaranteed to
see him on Sunday mornings and we would hoop together, man.
And I remember his buddies telling me, Man, you can't
play with us until you get a mustache. You gotta
get some pizza for us.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
You know, they used to be out there hacking.

Speaker 5 (07:42):
You know, you shot jump shots if you knew what
was best for you, because if you went to the hole,
he was gonna fill it, you know. So always always
proud of myself, man, IM playing with older guys and
taking my lumps and learning from the ground up, and
the playground is definitely where where I started.

Speaker 4 (08:01):
Man, M Yeah, await coach, So so God, that's awesome, man,
because when you when you mentioned, I'm glad you mentioned
your dad, Man, And I didn't know that he played football.
So what was that like to be able to get
out on the court and play with your pops?

Speaker 2 (08:21):
Man?

Speaker 5 (08:21):
Like you said, I know it's a physical game.

Speaker 4 (08:23):
You know, that's the way you know, that's the way
we as as we do now we keep the young
fellas from using all that athleticism.

Speaker 5 (08:32):
I didn't understand it then, but understanding now.

Speaker 4 (08:34):
Having two younger sons, you know, to having sons myself.

Speaker 5 (08:37):
So what was it like to be able to get
out there and hook with your pops? Man, it was awesome,
It was it was It was incredible. I look back
on it now. You know he'll turn before I believe
this September. So he's a long way from getting order
the court and you learn to church tho it's more
mister store. You see your pops move, it makes you

(08:58):
think back to what was you know, and uh, it
was so fun man like like you know, Sunday mornings,
like I said, is when they decided that they would
w hoop. You know, we used to go over to
Eli Eli Place over in southeast and play outside on
the concrete to.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
Be one hundred degrees out there.

Speaker 5 (09:15):
I remember being young once and they, you know, they
were always prepared, right him and his crew. And one
day I knocked over the cooler ice water. I knocked
it over. Man, this dude took to me. I thought
they was gonna kill me out there, you know what
I mean. But I just I just had a ball play.
My dad could play. He was a really good player,
you know. Even though he played football at mc namary,

(09:36):
he played safety. He was a good basketball player. He
had a good career. Pitch John said, they would always
like pick him first, like whoever was you know, you
would shoot back, then you would shoot for you know,
who got to pick the teams, and so whoever would
make that shot, Like I think, Mike, I got you,
you know, and I'm like the fun over there, and
I'm like last, you know what I mean. And so
my dad would have to go to his guys like, man.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
Pick myself up. I picked myself up, you know what
I mean.

Speaker 5 (10:00):
You know, he would always look out for me, try
to get me on his team and try to coach
me through you know everything, and more often than not,
like one of the one of the smaller guys would
check me because they knew I wasn't ready yet. And
so I remember as I got to about eleven or twelve,
my dad was like, man, take him down low.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
Man, you can post them up, you know what I mean.

Speaker 5 (10:20):
And so he was constantly coaching me on the floor,
you know, just integrate me into the trenches, you know
what I mean, trying to school me on what it's
like to elevate your game despite you know, your age,
and uh, you know, find a way you know, everybody
always older than you, stronger than you. They knock you down.
You get your ass up every time, don't hesitate, and

(10:44):
if you keep doing that, eventually things will start to
go your way. So it was great to be able
to play with Pops Man. And honestly, the best moments
were probably after we got done playing. Those guys would
go up to the store get they would, I mean,
old school right, go buy some bread, white bread, getting
blown in the cheese. Don't get a bunch of juice,
a bunch of beers, they say. You know, somebody was

(11:06):
rolling something and they were just out there eating, drinking,
you know, joning on.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Each other and the laughs.

Speaker 5 (11:14):
Man, after we got finished up was probably the best experience,
one of the best experiences I had growing up.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
That's so so, Mike.

Speaker 3 (11:26):
When when did it come to the point where not
only you knew it yourself, but other people in the
in the city, in the area started started to realize
that you was a hell of a basketball player. In
terms of like entering into your to to the ninth
grade was well, was there like a bidding more of you?

(11:46):
Because I know a lot of guys, you know, once
once they are tagged as that that next one up,
so to speak. You got high schools, you know, trying
to try trying to bed for you, trying to get
you to come there. You know, you ended up going
to Damatha. But how did that come into fruition?

Speaker 5 (12:04):
Well, it's funny because I went to public school from
pre k all the way up to eighth grade and
I went to uh well, used to be Roger B.
Tarni Middle School, which is now thankfully Thirdgood Marshall Juior
High because I never remember seeing one white kid at
Tarny back in the day, so I'm grateful that they

(12:25):
changed the name. They changed the name shortly after I left,
And uh you know, at the time, man, I was
just playing rec ball, Like I said, over my mom's reck,
I was playing. It used to be called the Tasty
Cake Junior Bullets, so you go. I was in ward eight,
so I would we would play against other recreation centers.
But then my mom had a friend in the Temple
Hills area, so I would use their address to play

(12:46):
with Camp Springs Boys and Girls Club, and I played
against some really good guys. I got to know a
lot of PG County guys playing with Camp Springs and
I always played up and then I came down to
my last year and I play my age, and that's
what I realized, Okay, I'm better than a lot of the.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
Guys my age. I'm playing in the city.

Speaker 5 (13:07):
I'm going to Hinde, playing against the best kids in
the city at Virginia at summer camp, and I'm looking
at my left and my right and feeling like, Okay,
I'm a pretty good player. But at the time, like
I said, I went to Tawney Middle School, so all
my friends were either going to Crosslond because Robby Tar's
right there off Brinkley Road. All my buddies were either

(13:27):
going to Crossland or they were going to Forestville. So
I wanted to go to Crosston or Forestville with my guys,
you know, And literally, did I know, Mom and Dad
had different plans.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
Man.

Speaker 5 (13:37):
They was like, it ain't no way you going across
there or Forestville. And they had already had it mapped
out for me to go to Damatha. But the thing is,
I hadn't heard from Damatha. But I remember I played
in the Libby Tournament, which was the big tournament at
Crosston High School. All of the local boys and girls
clubs were playing at it and I played well in

(13:59):
that tournam and a coach who actually wound up being
my freshman coach at Damatha. He came looking for me
after the game and started talking to my mom and
dad about the Matha.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
And even though mom.

Speaker 5 (14:12):
And dad man didn't have it, they found a way
to send me there because back then, you know, you
didn't really get a full ride to thea Matha. You
know that's I don't know how many guys you've spoken
to about that, but man, they lined and they said
they got a full ride, like you paid something. You know,
you Morgan than them. Wasn't going to just just bring
you on in there. You know, with no bill man,

(14:32):
he's gonna have to pay something. So I remember being
at the Matha taking out the trash during my free period, uh,
dropping off attendance notes. You know, they kept you doing something,
and so my mom and dad man credit to them.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
My mom worked like three jobs at a time.

Speaker 5 (14:46):
At times she would officiate part time, she worked at
hers part time, and then she worked at the Wreck
and my dad was a probation officer and he would
work at Athlete's Foot part time. So shout out to
him for the twenty percent discount on it kicks, you know,
coming up. But but yeah, man, they worked their tail
all man. They told me that was like, look the
money that we had saved for you to go to college,

(15:09):
so we we got to use that to pay for
you to go to Damatha.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
Man, So you got to figure this out. This thing
gotta work, you know.

Speaker 5 (15:15):
So, Uh they would take turns taking me to school
and pick me up because that was a hump from
Forestville where I grew up.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
It was a good thirty.

Speaker 5 (15:22):
Five minute hump every day with traffic and uh, you
know it was tis I'm out there waiting on them
to pick me up six seven o'clock at night, you know. Uh,
then I started getting on the bus and that took forever.
So it was a lot. It was a lot to
win into that, man, But uh I was happy.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
Ultimately. Then I went to Doamatha.

Speaker 5 (15:38):
I couldn't say that back then because nobody who wants
to go to an all boy high school, you know
with uniforms coming out of public school.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
Uh, it was a big transition.

Speaker 5 (15:46):
You know. I struggled academically my ninth grade year, almost
failed out. You know, had to figure it out. Man
had to figure out life pretty fast going up there,
you know, with all of the rules and regulations, and
it was it was, but it was good.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
You know.

Speaker 5 (16:00):
I chose the harder right over the easier wrong and
it worked out for me.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (16:04):
And when did you hit your stride at the Math?

Speaker 3 (16:06):
And when did you feel like, Okay, this where I
belonged and you started to get the feel of everything,
and academics and athletically everything was just clicking.

Speaker 5 (16:18):
Yeah, it was rough code. I mean, you know how
it was man like back then. You know, you would
go there and you would think, Okay, they recruited me
to come here, and then you realize it.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
They recruited a lot of dudes to come here, you know.

Speaker 5 (16:29):
And you know as a ninth grader at one time,
if you played varsity at the Math as a ninth grader, man,
you played in the league.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
Like that's how elite that place was back in the day.
You know.

Speaker 5 (16:40):
I think Dwayne Simpkins, who's a close friend of mine
to head coach at American University, was one of the
few guys who made varsity as a ninth grader didn't
actually play in the league where we know how good
of a player he ended up.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
Being at the University of Maryland.

Speaker 5 (16:52):
Yeah, so my ninth grade year, you know, I didn't
even try out for varsity because Morgan kind of stipulated,
like what he wanted right from all three levels, from freshman, JV,
and varsity. So you know, I took it on the chair,
played freshman balls in ninth grader, had a really good year,
and then my sophomore year, coach wanted me. I wanted

(17:13):
to play JV because I knew I would play more,
and all of my guys in my class were gonna
play JV, so I just kind of wanted to stay
with them, and Coach he wouldn't have it. He said, no,
I want you to play varsity. You need to learn
from At the time, Travis Lyons, who was a good
friend of mine.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
John shout out to my guy Trash big Horse.

Speaker 5 (17:34):
He was a senior, and even in the junior class,
my god Darryl Presley, who I wound up playing with
at the University of Delaware, shout out to.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
My guy DP.

Speaker 5 (17:43):
All of those guys were above me, and so he
wanted me to battle against them in practice because he
knew the iron Sharper's iron and then that would ultimately,
you know, better prepare me for my time on varsity.
So I played varsity as a sophomore, but I didn't
play you know what I mean, And that was called Honestly,
that was the roughest year of my life to that
point athletically. I had never sat on the bench in

(18:03):
my entire life. And I can vividly remember, man, just
being in tears, literally crying at my mom's and dad's
arms after games because I did not touch the floor.
You know, if it was a blowout, I got in.
But other than that, man, it was all about practice.
But coach had a vision for me, and I wound
up my eleventh grade year. I think you know what
to answer your question, Coach, we played Good Counsel at

(18:24):
home one year and it was a close game. It
was nip and tuck and great Christelle, who was the
six to eleventh center who went on to play at Florida,
was the starter starting center my junior year. He was
a senior and I don't know if he's fouled trouble
or not playing well, man, but I just remember playing
more of that game than any other game, and I
made some really key buckets down the stretch, and I

(18:46):
remember my assistant coach just like came up to me
and just showed a lot more enthusiasm than normal even
for him, and he was like, man, you can do it.
You did it, you know. So I felt like, Okay,
I'm starting to get the hang of this thing. Like
I'm not the little guy on the block anymore. Like
I can actually compete with these guys. And that moved
into my senior year. Was obviously my team, and I

(19:07):
had a pretty good senior year, not as good as
I would have liked. Lost the title the Avacosti in
the year that that still hurts me to this day.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
But we won the.

Speaker 5 (19:16):
WCAC which is no easy feat, and ended up having
a really good career man, but definitely learned a lot
of life lessons at Damatha and you know, I went
through it, you know, a lot of adversity, which ultimately
really set me up to have a really.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
Good career in college. Okay, and before I passed it
over the coach. So during that time your four years
at the MATHA, where were you playing AU and the summers.

Speaker 5 (19:41):
I was I was playing I started out early on
playing what we talked about before the show. Brian Napple,
a good friend of mine, good friend of yours. We
all played for this team called Auxen Hill Slam of Jams,
so some of the best players in the county. We
used to run it at our age group. Man like
we had to go out of town just to get
a close game. No, uh, we were elite, man like.

(20:04):
I mean from thirteen years old, fourteen years old, fifteen
years old, and then one into my senior year, I
moved over to DC. And it's funny because I actually
had lunch. How many people can say AAU coach now
at NAGM right, Troy Weaver was my AAU coach what

(20:26):
DC has saw and Curtis Malone obviously, all of those
guys came in hand in big moves. Mike Brown, all
those guys were around. But uh, I moved over and
he told me some wild stories.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
Man.

Speaker 5 (20:38):
He told me some stuff that I had no idea
what's going on behind the scenes. If y'all got a minute, man,
I'll share some of it with you.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah, this is your time, bro.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
Can I get the question for you too about AAU
because I think that president answer. But I'm gonna let
you go it to tell that story present.

Speaker 5 (20:57):
So it's so secreted back then, you know, high school
basketball was holding off for dear life going back, starting
at that point and started to become more and more prevalent,
right a.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
You starting to take over.

Speaker 5 (21:09):
A little bit, and guys like uh, guys like Morgan
Wooten wasn't happening.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
He's old school, you know.

Speaker 5 (21:15):
He wanted all the control, you know, he wanted to
stipulate you know, his when his players would be with him.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
And basically that was all.

Speaker 5 (21:23):
Year round as far as he was concerned, Like he
wanted you to work Mason Dixon Camp all summer. He
wanted you to play in every single summer league game.
And that couldn't be the case of you were going
to play high level AAU. And so Troy told me
the story that basically the AAU Nationals was the big event.
We didn't have all of these sessions like these kids
had to day where you have all of the visibility

(21:46):
and opportunity to play in front of college coaches like
they do now. You had, you know, select tournaments, you
know we do that, and so the Nationals was one
of them. And so the Nationals unfortunately failed during the
time when we were playing summer league and Morgan Mooton
basically that year he made me captain. Y'all, he may
be captain of the team. That mind you, nobody had
been captain at the MATHA since James Brown d James

(22:09):
Brown in nineteen sixty nine. He made me captain and
I'll never forget. After the game, he huddled us up
and he said, Fellaws, I understand that he always said. Men,
He said, men, understand that there's a big AAU tournament
this weekend. But my expectation is that everybody in this
huddle will be at our summer league game over the
art at our some of league games over the weekend,

(22:30):
basically saying and looking at me the whole time, like,
I hope, Mike GZ, you don't think that you're going
to play with DC Assault this summer. But behind the scenes,
what was going on, Fellas was Morgan Moulton had already
decided that I should the University of Delaware and played
for Michael. He knew I went to the AAU Nationals
and I played to my capabilities that they were high

(22:52):
major schools down there that I would have wanted to
talk to and would have been very much so interested
in hearing from. And so Toroy tells the story that
they took seven guys. They showed up at my house
that night in a fan. They were on their way
down to Charlotte, North Carolina. Troy was like, Mike, what
you want to do? Man?

Speaker 2 (23:09):
I already talked to coach. I know what he wants.
What do you want?

Speaker 5 (23:13):
But the reverence, right, the reverence in the fear that
I had of Morgan Wooten would not allow me to
get in that bad And so I stayed behind and
I missed. You know who knows right, Life twists and turns.
But I would have liked to have called my own shot.
Winton played in the Nationals and be seen. Troy Weaver

(23:34):
told me just this couple of days ago. He said, Mike,
it was six to seven high major coaches down there
coming up to me, like, where's Mike pegeese?

Speaker 2 (23:42):
We came here to see Mike, you know what I mean?
And I wasn't there.

Speaker 5 (23:47):
I was playing summer league back home when the coaches
weren't allowed to be because my coach, you.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
Know, wouldn't have it any other way.

Speaker 5 (23:54):
And back then, a guy like Morgan Wooten, and he
deserved every bit of politically got a pick jumping up
in my office here because he meant a lot to me,
and uh, it worked out. I'll just say that it
worked out. I had a great experience at the University
of Delaware. I don't have any regrets. But he was
looking out for his guy. Mike Bray was a former
thea matha student athlete, a distant coach, you know, Morgan Wooton.

(24:17):
You know nowadays a you guys get their coaches on,
you know, with different colleges. Morgan was doing that for
his coaches at at the matha years ago. Mike Bray
became an assistant coach at Duke in the nineties and
they sent that. Uh you know what he did was
Morgan said, well, look, you know, coach Kate, you want
Danny Ferry. Okay, good, you get Danny Ferry, but you
got to take Mike Braid. Which you know, that was

(24:38):
the type of stuff that was going on back then.
It came time for me to go to college, Mike Morgan,
Wooten and Mike Bray had already huddled up and said,
I mean, Mike mcgeese, if I'm at this thing right
up at Delaware, you know, and Upper North to me,
you know, I'm just a pawn in all of this,
you know.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
And Troy told me that story. Man, it hit home.

Speaker 5 (24:57):
It hit home because I was like, wow, Man, I
knew I was a little better than Delaware, but I
didn't know it was that deep, you know what I mean.
But like I said, it all worked out, and I'm
glad it did because I had a great experience at
Delaware and some really good memories and just I'll wrap
it up as I know, I'm long winded, but I
literally just came back from Robo Beach this weekend from

(25:19):
my hanging out with my teammates at Delaware, you know
what I mean. We try to do that every summer.
We bring our spouses and kids and we get together.
And I feel for young kids today who jump in
and out of this portal because they won't have those experiences,
like who you gonna get with in the summer when
you go to four different schools and you know, a
four different years, you know what I mean. So I

(25:40):
had that experience with my guys. You try to do
it every year, man, and we had a ball. Man,
We had a great experience, So hopefully that answers the question.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
Yeah, that's awesome. So the question I have about AAU
this this has been a debate. So I've been I've
been talking Curtis Belong to get them on the show.
Were you on scheduling?

Speaker 2 (26:01):
Right?

Speaker 3 (26:02):
I was like, you know, Curtis be the perfect person
to answered this question because he could because he was
there during the whole whole time. But now that your head,
I think you're the perfect person as well. So I
always had this debate. So you know, a you, I
played with Exactly three, Okay, big time Lou Wilson, right,

(26:23):
and then and then DC Assault came in and became
that that big time AU pro program from the DC area, right,
So I've always had the baits well players. I said,
I think Exactly three is the greatest AU program in
DC history.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
Got others just say DC Assault.

Speaker 3 (26:43):
DC Assault was more high profile because they had the
money behind him. You know, we had mister Bates old
yellow and red shirt and got to bring your own
red shorts. In your opinions, is you played for DC
Assault and you coached that DC Assault, what's your opinion
on the two program?

Speaker 2 (27:03):
Man?

Speaker 5 (27:03):
I just think I think it was like I think
it was a thing where both programs were elite during
their time. I really do code like because I would
have as a youngin right, like nine, ten, eleven, twelve thirteen,
you know, I wanted to play. I used to go
up to Central a lot of times. Y'all used to
practice up Central, right, because that's what Lou was at

(27:25):
the time. Those are the guys that I remember. I
know y'all had all the best players. I think, uh,
what was the team'll y'all were it? It was in Allentown.
Used to give y'all some run back in the day,
but y'all were clearly the best team. I think it
was like the eighties Lakers, right, and then you had

(27:47):
the Pistons come in the late eighties, the bad boys come.
You know what I mean too, great dynasties, you know
what I mean, just two different times. So I mean,
at the time, y'all were getting all the best players.
And then, like you said once, once DC assaw got
the Adidas money behind them, you know, and they started
to get the Mike Beasley's of the world and DeMar

(28:08):
Johnson's and the Nolan Smiths and the Quinn Cooks, guys
who ultimately became NBA players. It's hard. You can't knock
their greatness, you know what I mean. You can't knock
the run that they had. But you also can't knock
the run that y'all had either, man, because y'all had
all the best players before they came around.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
But just like in today's game.

Speaker 5 (28:27):
Man, you know, the money, the money changes things, you
know what I mean. And once they got that Adidas
deal behind them and they were able to travel and
go out to all parts of the country, man, and
showcase all of the talent that we have here. I
think that that really legitimized them. Man. So I'm gonna
stay out of it. But I just say too great
two different times.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
But to be but to be clear for our other
co hosts who couldn't join the day, Oh oh Dough,
just can you tell him the Blue Devils didn't stand
the chance?

Speaker 5 (29:00):
Blue the Blue Devils that man, they definitely run a second,
you know, I want to say. I know KD was
kind of like around that. He played a little bit
with the Salt, but then he got out of there.
He might have played with the Blue Devils, if I'm
not mistaken. Markel Starks Starks, who was a really good
player from the d n V Will had.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
You know, they got a couple good little.

Speaker 5 (29:22):
Players, but it's no way they can compete with an
executive three or DC saw in my.

Speaker 4 (29:26):
Opinion, go ahead and you know, oh gonna fire you
up for this. He can't even he can't even have
no conversation right now. But nah, So coach, you covered
a lot of regarding the questions I had. So my
question was going to be how did you end up

(29:47):
at Delaware? But you answered that already. So how did
it feel once you got the Delaware knowing and I
know you said you had no regrets, so I don't
want to, you know, kind of spend it.

Speaker 5 (29:56):
That you that you had in it.

Speaker 4 (29:57):
But how was it once you got out there as
a player? Because I me as a player. I played
football and I've literally gone to teams and watched them
from afar sid I'm too good to be here and left,
you know what I'm saying. So when you arrived at Delaware,
knowing your caliber talent and then getting around those guys,

(30:19):
how did you feel when you initially got there?

Speaker 5 (30:22):
You know and it all worked out?

Speaker 4 (30:24):
But was there any type of question in your mind
about Okay, why am I here? Or is that just
you just went because you had such a high regard
for your coach. You just went in with, Hey, I'm
gonna make this thing work, and I'm gonna go in
and just show them that I belong here maybe somewhere else.

Speaker 5 (30:39):
How did that If that question makes sense to you, Yeah, no,
that makes a lot of sense. Well, you know, the
first thing I would say is, you know, when I
got to Delaware, it wasn't I wasn't aware that I
felt like I was a good player, good enough to
play Hot Major.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
But it wasn't.

Speaker 5 (30:55):
I wasn't so my ego wasn't so inflated that I
felt like I shouldn't be here at all.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
And in fact, I remember going on my.

Speaker 5 (31:03):
Visit the year prior and playing pick up with those
guys and being like, hemn, you know, like these dudes
can hoop, you know what I mean, I get here,
I'm gonna have to show these guys that I can
hoop too, because like I was the best player on
the floor, you know, when I played pick up with
those guys on the visit and even starting my freshman year,

(31:24):
man like they had it was a senior. His name
was Greg Smith. He was from down by King's Dominion,
right near Richmond, Virginia, and he was a six to
seven post player. I was a six to sixth post player.
And this dude could shoot the lights out. He could
shoot the ball from seventeen eighteen feet like it was money.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
So you had to guard him there.

Speaker 5 (31:48):
And then he was strong and tough around the basket too,
and he was a good better athlete than me. He
could get off all I couldn't really get off the floor.
It was never a great athlete, but he was. He
was tough, and he was one of the better players
in our league and certainly best player on our team.
And so I had struggles, you know, I had tons

(32:08):
of struggles with him as a freshman, and it was.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
Because of him.

Speaker 5 (32:11):
In fact, he became the all time to even scored
my freshman year Delaware. I never forget they started the
game and celebrated him. I think he had about at
that time he had I think he finished the season
with about seventeen hundred and fifty points or something like that.
And so he was something to be wrecking with. And
because of him, I got a lot better my freshman year.

(32:32):
You know, I played it as expected. I started most
of the games, but I had I played a role.
You know, I certainly wasn't a guy.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
He guy.

Speaker 5 (32:41):
So my whole thing my freshman was trying freshman year,
was trying to outplay him, you know, trying to find
a way to outduel him every day and figure out
the way to compete. And I came above his but
he was a senior or he was a man, and
I was still a boy. In fact, Coach Brady called
me JV quite a bit, you know that freshman year,

(33:02):
you know, your high school, you know, and so again
iron Sharper's Iron know man. Because it got to a
point where I felt like I was starting to, you know,
compete a lot better against him and get my licks
back a little bit, and that helped me become and
then from freshman the sophomore year, you know, I knew
that he was gonna be leaving, and I wanted to

(33:24):
turn up and I wanted to be the guy. So
I made a big leap from freshman the sophomore year.
I went from averaging like seven a game as a
freshman to seventeen a game, you know, as a sophomore,
and it was large in part because of my all
of those practices and workouts and just watching him work,
you know. So but yeah, no, I felt like I

(33:45):
could have played hot Major. But back then, man, the
America East, which was a conference we played in, they
had dudes like I give you some names. Vin Baker
played at Hartford, Reggie Lewis god rest of Soul, rest
In Peace who played with the Celtics. He played a
Northeastern Uh, Malik Rose just graduated. When I got to Delaware,

(34:06):
he had just graduated. He was at Drexel, you know
what I mean. Joey Beard Virginia, right, he went to
Duke out of high school, but then he transferred to
Boston University. And Uh I played against and graduated with
Speedy Claxton who was a lottery pick out of Hofster
and and uh played for the Sixers. So it was pros,

(34:28):
you know, many major basketball was something to be dealt with.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
America East was a really good conference.

Speaker 5 (34:33):
I don't think it's nearly as strong as it once was,
but back then, man, like it was some dudes that
could definitely hopen. A lot of guys that you guys
wouldn't even know, but they could play in that conference.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
As well inrail exactly.

Speaker 5 (34:47):
Yeahreel played that Northeast and transferred from Georgetown to Northeastern.

Speaker 2 (34:51):
He played there for a couple of years as well.

Speaker 5 (34:53):
So yeah, a lot of a lot of d MB
guys were their way up to that league as you know,
northeastn Delaware, Dresstra, Towson. You know, Towson had some really
good teams as well. So it was a tough league. Man,
It wasn't a lot of nice off like you, you
had to bring your hard hat.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
You had to come hoop. You couldn't just show up
you you had to bring.

Speaker 5 (35:13):
It yeap mm hmmm.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
So so I mean we mentioned that on in the
onset of the show that I mean, you put in
major work at Delaware. You made three your three times
first team All All Conference, and you was playing the
year your your junior year at Delaware.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
Uh So with me.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
During that period, did did when you put them numbers
like that and you getting those accolades, I'm sure there
was a lot of tensions from your way, like did
you have like agents and scouts in your ear telling
you like, hey, look you you have a chance to
to to go go to the next level and here's
here's what we think you are right now.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
So how how how did that work for you? Yeah?

Speaker 5 (36:00):
No, it was you know, playing mid major basketball, right
and you know, Dayton was obviously a step up for
for U coach, but for US man, that Delaware was like,
you knew when you played against a hot major that
was your opportunity. You know, you knew it was gonna
be more scouts at that game than any other game
because you were probably.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
Playing against somebody that had NBA potential.

Speaker 5 (36:21):
And so I used to really try to rev it
up for those games, man, and played well.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
And I did have some really good.

Speaker 5 (36:26):
Games against our major schools, and I started to get
a little bit of traffic, a little bit of chirping,
you know. But I think that Mike Bray because of
the respect that that he demanded being with Duke all
of those years. Agents, you know, they knew all they
had to do was call him if they wanted to.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
Get to me.

Speaker 5 (36:46):
And I didn't get a whole lot of people coming
up to me directly, nothing really, you know, honestly, I
was I was a good steward. So like came to me,
I would break and nine times I attend, they weren't
really with it anyway. They you know, Mike was like, nah,
I got something for you, don't worry about it. The

(37:06):
media attention was was cool. It's so it's so crazy.
Whenever I see Seth Davis, we laugh. But Seth Davis,
who does the NCAA tournament on Turn of Sports, he
came up to Delaware and did a story on me.
This is when he was like a beat writer with
Sports Illustrated and uh, you know, they did an article
on me and Sports Illustrated one of the highlights of

(37:28):
my career. So that was cool. But Mike Bray got
out in front of a lot of that stuff and
you know, unbeknownst to me, here we go again with
you know, the powers that be. Uh.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
There was an agent, a guy named herbrew Doy out
of Chicago.

Speaker 5 (37:42):
That had a lot of duke players at that time,
and so Mike Bray had a really good relationship with him.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
And so if there were other agents that wanted to
do something.

Speaker 5 (37:50):
For me, I didn't really get a lot of face
time with them because Mike Bray, by the time I graduated,
had already had to set up for Meat to get
her door the agent that was related or yeah, some
previous perish with so but no, it was.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
Cool man to get the attention. You know, sophomore junior year,
had a.

Speaker 5 (38:13):
Big lead, one of the leading scorers in the country,
and uh, myself and Terrence Hood in fact from the area.
When the Magna Maryland Slam came in and did an
article on us, I never forget. The title was big Game,
Little State, you know. And we were both averaged. I
was averaging like twenty five. I think he was averaging

(38:33):
like twenty three. So we're putting up big numbers. Man
getting a lot of media attention. And uh, you know,
for me though, go I will say this, man, I
was realistic, like I wanted to play in the league.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
We all did hit but also new.

Speaker 5 (38:47):
Because back then we played, you know, it was real
powerful us out there. You know, you had the best
of the best. It was powerfoard era. It was the
power forward era of the NBA in my opinion. You know,
you talked about guys like Tim Duncan was the greatest
power forward, Dirk and Whiskey Shee Wallace, Chris Webber. So
I'm watching all these guys in the league and I'm

(39:07):
watching them play my position, which was the four, and
all of them, all of the best ones, are like
six six, and that I knew I was only six five,
And so in my mind, I was like, well, maybe
I can convert my game and become more of a three.
But I'm gonna have to get it, like I've gotten
everything else. I'm gonna have to go through the back door,
you know what I mean. I'm gonna have to go

(39:27):
from the ground up. And so after college I played
in CBA, and even then it was like here we
go again, you know, like these dudes get who they
meant and I'm back to being more of a boy,
you know. And I got to take my lips and
take take my lumps and figure it out. But no,
all in all, man, it was I had a really

(39:49):
good run at Delaware. I really tried to go out
the Hot Majors because I thought that I could play
at that level. And uh, but in the back of
my mind, I kind of knew that if I had
three more interest, I could probably really be in contention
to playing the league. But I don't, and so now
I just want to go try to just see the
world and make some money for as long as I can,
so I have more realistic expectations for myself than a

(40:13):
lot of kids do. Great coach, So we're gonna, uh,
I'm gonna take you back a little bit. You done
went through your your now kind of out of your
college plan.

Speaker 4 (40:28):
How did it feel to get you to get into
the Hall of Fame? Man, and go back and speak
to you folks at the Matha?

Speaker 2 (40:34):
Oh, Man, that coach touch the nerve with that one man?

Speaker 5 (40:38):
That was all for me. It's harder to make the
Hall of Fame at the MATHA than it is most diversities.
Like I literally got inducted into the Hall of Fame
of Delaware maybe.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
Five years after I graduated.

Speaker 5 (40:52):
And uh, you know because of what I did that
that was a four conclusion. But I wasn't exactly sure
if I would make it at the math you know,
Like I said, we lost that city title game by
twelfth grade year. I thought they might hold that against me,
you know, but but Noah, it was it was. It
was surreal, you know, because of everything that I struggled

(41:12):
through from ninth grade on. You know, I didn't want
to be there a lot of days, especially my ninth
and tenth grade years.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
Man, it was hard.

Speaker 5 (41:20):
I wasn't playing varsity, sitting on the bench my tenth
grade years and varsity played freshman as a ninth grader.
Just had a lot of hard times there, man, And
to have fought through all of that, you know, on
and off the court, and to get to a point
where you graduate from there and you look back and
you know, you make a lot of great memories. Man,

(41:41):
it was awesome that they thought highly enough to induct me,
and then beyond that. At that time when I got inducted,
unfortunately I was going through a divorce and so what
second fellas? Oh, but unfortunately I was going through a
divorce at the time. And I took my son with

(42:02):
me on that trip, and I'll never forget. I was
sitting in the proud with him before they were going
to announce my name up and his godmother was saying,
you know, do you want me to hold him or
you're gonna take him up there?

Speaker 2 (42:15):
And he was acting squirrelly.

Speaker 5 (42:17):
He had to be like two or three at the time,
and he didn't want to go to anybody else. He
just wanted to be with me. I said, I'm gonna
take my son up there. With and it was one
of the best decisions I made. You know, he tried
to take over. He tried to act like he was
the Hall of Fame. It was a great moment. I literally,

(42:37):
it's funny you mentioned that. That's why I said it
touch the nerve. We watched that video. I think I
did like a three four minute speech or whatever. We
watched that video the other night in bed, and he laughed.
He thought it was so funny, you know, just to
see himself up there and you know, just holding him
and telling my story a little bit and being inductive. Man,
it was a special moment for sure. That's dope.

Speaker 3 (42:59):
So so so, Mike, did you go did you go
to pre draft camp or anything like that?

Speaker 5 (43:06):
Yeah, you know what, coach I So, you know, back
and even to this day, Portsmouth is the big deal, right,
that's the first. You know, everybody wants to get to Chicago,
but you got to get to Portsmouth, especially if you
know generally if you're a mid major, guy's hard to
get right to Chicago. And so I was on the
list of guys that were supposed to be at Portsmouth,
but I was an alternate.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
And I'll never forget it to this day.

Speaker 5 (43:27):
Kenny Blakeney, who's not the head coach at Howard, was
my assistant coach at Delaware, right, and that was my guys,
still is to this day.

Speaker 2 (43:35):
And so because I was an alternate.

Speaker 5 (43:37):
They said, hey, listen, you should come down because somebody
can get hurt or somebody might not show up and
you'll be in there, you know.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
And I'm like, Blake was like Mike, We're going down there.

Speaker 5 (43:50):
So we drove to Portsmouth and I'm you know again,
I'm on the alternate list.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
They had the guys.

Speaker 5 (43:57):
I don't know how many guys they select, but I
wasn't on that the initial list. I was on that that,
you know, a few guys down from all the other guys.

Speaker 3 (44:06):
That's crazy career. You had, you an altered different portsman.

Speaker 5 (44:10):
Yeah, it's crazy, Jo, Like I felt like, man, I
scored over two thousand points in college.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
Like I said, I ain't had no picks. You know.

Speaker 5 (44:17):
I gave it the hot majors, just like I gave
it the guys in my conference.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
And so I didn't.

Speaker 5 (44:21):
I didn't think anything of it, like I thought I'd
be in lock. And for whatever reason, I was an
alternate man. And so you know, nobody, everybody showed up,
nobody got hurt, and me and Blake literally went down there,
man for like a day and set around to see
what was going to shake, and nothing shook, man. So
we came back and I never got in. And so

(44:41):
then I started to do some other stuff.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
Like.

Speaker 5 (44:45):
I went all the way out to Cali, Like the
NBA Summer League was starting to surface a little bit,
and they had it all that long Beach one year,
and uh to two was out there. You're right, my
man too. So two was out there, and uh we
played in like this event that was like more so

(45:05):
free agents, right, and we would play and then the
NBA guys would come on after us, you know what
I mean. And so it gave like overseas scouts and
opportunity to see some of the NBA guys and the
free agent guys. So I did a little stuff like that.
The G League was just starting to come around, you know.
I did a couple of those things, like I said,

(45:26):
the CBA, but I never really felt like I got
a shot.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
To play in front.

Speaker 5 (45:32):
On the on the floor with other NBA potential guys,
you know what I mean, in that setting, like a
Portsmouth or Chicago pre draft camp.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
So again, and I knew it had everything to do
with my hype.

Speaker 5 (45:44):
Man, because a lot of what I did was back
to the basket at sixty six and back then. I
just don't think that they thought that it translated to
that level when guys were six ten, six eleven, you know,
playing my position, which is why I knew I had
to be as my professional on which I did some degree,
but I had to do it overseas.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
Yeah, it ain't nothing wrong with that, yeah.

Speaker 4 (46:07):
Mm hmmm. So, so speaking of the overseas stuff, can
you share with the listeners and the viewers?

Speaker 2 (46:14):
Man, how what is that like?

Speaker 4 (46:16):
Because a lot of times, I think a lot of
players feel like, because America dominates the sports so much,
were used to.

Speaker 5 (46:26):
What was it like taking your game overseas?

Speaker 4 (46:30):
What was that experience like as far as the talent,
change your culture and just just kind of change because
I think you got to change your game up a
little bit too, because it's it's a little bit different game.

Speaker 2 (46:39):
Correct. The rules are different.

Speaker 5 (46:41):
You know, obviously the officiating is is slanted towards you know,
Warden calls for the for the for their players. You know,
they call us imports. So that should tell you a
lot right there, you know you yeah, man, like they
can like they know who you are, they know what
you're supposed to do, but they can care less about you.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
At the same time, you.

Speaker 5 (47:02):
Know that that first step going right and they call
it travel. Oh my god, look the jab cross. I
had to learn, Kobe to put the ball down first.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
First, yep, I had to put the ball because if
you did it, if you made that move, it was
a travel. You know.

Speaker 5 (47:19):
I remember like being around the rim and putting something up,
something up on the rim and them knocking it off
the rim. I'm just about to go ahead, you know,
they going down the other end, you know. So, and
then back then it was the wide.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
Lane, you know.

Speaker 5 (47:33):
So, yeah, that paint and yeah, it was just different, man,
getting used to the rules, getting used to the officiating.
It's a very very physical game. It's well coached. In
most places where you go. They're not big on you
isolating and dribbling the ball and doing a whole lot.
They want you to pass and cut and move and screen.
And you know, now, if you're getting the rhythm, you

(47:55):
know they gonna let you rock. But at the same time,
They want you to ingratiate yourself to their brand basketball
and not come in heavily like prideful about playing doing
things your way. And if you can find a way
to meet them in the middle, that's when you'll have
the most success.

Speaker 2 (48:11):
But for gods to go over there and.

Speaker 5 (48:13):
Think they're gonna do things the way they've always done
them and kind of put their nose in the air
and act like, oh, y'all don't know nothing about basketball.
I'm from America. I play ball. You know, we got
the best basketball. Like, you better be a hell of
a player. You better be getting thirty or forty at
night if that's how you're gonna roll. You know, because
as we've seen, the game has grown immensely and some

(48:35):
of the best coaches, some of the best actions that
you see wind up being utilized by NBA coaches. It's
coming from Europe, no mistake about it. Like they know
the game and they can coach the game, and their
players are getting better every year.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
You know. I'm on a college coaching staff.

Speaker 5 (48:53):
Now where we utilize the euro League as much as
we use the NBA to educate ourselves on the nuances
of the game and the different actions that we want
to look at, and defenses and all types of stuff.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
Man, I mean they run some good stuff over there.
That like I said that.

Speaker 5 (49:11):
Their kids play for bread and meat over there. You know,
they don't go to school. Like you know, as a
thirteen fourteen year old player, you're really good and you
can make their main team. You can feed your family,
you know what I mean. That's how big of a
deal it is over there for their players and for
their coaches, and it's a way out, you know, like
it is for us as well. But you can't underestimate

(49:34):
the influence and the knowledge of the game that they
have over there. So luckily, I was raised to be humble,
you know, I definitely wanted to go over there with
an open mind.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
And I went over there, man, and.

Speaker 5 (49:48):
I played for you know, different situations, you know, like
you talked about the change and lifestyle, getting adjusted to
the cultural differences and the language difference. Just it's a lot.
It's a lot to take on. It's not for everybody. Man,
you over there, you're gone, you know. I remember getting.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
Lost.

Speaker 5 (50:13):
I was crying. I was like, ship, I'm this you
know what I mean? This flight like ten hours, like
I ain't gonna you know, I thought I was going
out of space or something.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
Yeah. Man, it was rough.

Speaker 5 (50:26):
But I went to Italy my first job out, and
man it was it was. It was something else. I
was in a beautiful place called Remeny, Italy. I love.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
Yeah, yeah, I was in Remeny.

Speaker 5 (50:42):
Man.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
I was right there, like San Marino, that right on
the water.

Speaker 5 (50:49):
Okay, okay, yeah right there, man, I was right there.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
I was playing.

Speaker 5 (50:53):
I got herb redored so crazy because he sent me
over there right for a trial phase.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
I never forget this.

Speaker 5 (50:59):
I was always playing something called the Cords Cup, right,
and I was playing a couple of games, and he's
gonna have his overseas agent check me out, and they
were gonna base where I should go next based on
my performance. So I never forget that first professional game
they threw the ball up. I was like, damn the
pro I'm getting played paid to play basketball. And I
was shook the whole first half, like I took myself

(51:19):
out of the game right with that thought, you know
what I mean. And I didn't play well at all
that first half. And I'll never forget this. The overseas agent.
He had a pretty pretty little Italian woman with him.
He sitting on the front row, and at halftime, this
man got up and walked out. He left right now.
In the second half, Kobe, I had like thirty five
along In the second half, I went bananas, went crazy,

(51:42):
and we wound up losing at the buzzer and then
were playing another game and I had another twenty five piece.
But I just felt like he didn't see the best
of me, you know what I mean, He just saw
what he wanted to see and made an early, you know,
observation and ran with it. And I think that kind
of that to the deal that they were trying to
give me, which initially was okay, they were.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
Gonna send me to France, right, they gonna send me
to France.

Speaker 5 (52:06):
They said that it was more English spoke in that
particular part of the country.

Speaker 2 (52:13):
It was a good league.

Speaker 5 (52:13):
It was A two, right, and I did bet the
second division, but it was on the team that back then,
if you were like top two in the league of
the A two, you would go to A one and
then bom two teams at A one would go down
to A two. And so it was a team that
was emerging that had a chance. So it was gonna
be for like like ten grand a month. I was like,
all right, you know, I'll take that. And then he

(52:35):
called me back and he's like, this is on a
bus ride home from Switzerland, and he's like, man, that
deal fell through. You know, got something else, a little
less money, not as good as a team. And I'm
just like, hold on, I'm getting jerked around. Your partner
left that halftime. You sent me with a deal that
I like. Now you're taking that back and putting something

(52:55):
else in front of me. You know, I don't like it.
I just want to go back home. And this is
the guy Herb brew doing and Mike Pray put me with,
and I never forget when I met with him, he said, Mike,
I've had a lot of clients, but the one thing,
my one rule is if you ever leave me, I
will never take your call again.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
But I left him.

Speaker 5 (53:12):
I told him to send me home because I found
out I was drafted in the CBA, so I wanted
to get home anyway. I'm like a few months into
being in Italy, no English at all. I mean, the
spaghetti and the lasagna and the piece just good, but
damn I wanted something else, you know what I mean?
I wanted a cheeseburger sub from the Capitol carry out
the sub official las. You know, I wanted to do

(53:33):
something else, and I was just tired of being there, man,
and I asked him to send me home. They sent
me home, and I played in the CBA my rookie year,
and then later on in.

Speaker 2 (53:42):
My career, I tried to call that got back, and.

Speaker 5 (53:44):
You know what, he was a man of his word.
He never took my call.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
But I blunched around. Man. To wrap it all up.

Speaker 5 (53:51):
I played in Argentina, I played in England, I played
in New Zealand. I played in some great places, played
against some really good players, actually made against some coaches
that wind up and some being in the front office
and in the NBA.

Speaker 2 (54:04):
You know.

Speaker 5 (54:05):
So I had some really good experiences, man, But little
that I know, my knee was falling apart at a
really bad college damage in my right knee, and in
fact last summer I had neither placement full knee replacement
in my knee because it just wore down over the years.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
Man, a lot of mileage on that knee.

Speaker 5 (54:22):
So uh, I was only able to play from age
twenty two to twenty seven. So I only got five
seasons out of and man, but I was able to
see the world and do some things.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
Man, it was it was a really cool experience.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
Awesome when'd you play at an Argentina? That that was
the last country I played in. That was the last
country I played in.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
Too. I played for quarterback Okay, yeah, yeah, what was
it called tennis?

Speaker 1 (54:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (54:45):
Yeah, that tennis? Yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 (54:47):
I played with the REGARDDSS.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
Okay, okay, I remember them.

Speaker 5 (54:52):
I played for a tennis They wore green and they
thought they was the Celtics too.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
Yeah, I thought they was the Celtics. But I was
in quarter.

Speaker 5 (54:59):
I was in quarter but and uh man, funny story, man,
So you talk about lifestyle change, how about this coach?
So I'm over there y'all bringing all this stuff up.
So we practicing right one day, and so the guys,
like the coaches in the front office people, they kind
of running around talking and Spanish, and I know a
little bit of Spanish. M bocito, right, a little bit right.

(55:20):
So me and another dude, Cortez Rose, he went to
Kansas State. He was a hell of a player. He
spoke better Spanish than me, and so they run over
to him because everybody's done look like a little bit
of a panic, and uh, they like they tell Cortez
what's up. And Cortezes looked to me and it was like, Mike,
it's a jail break. So it was a jail in
the neighborhood in which we practiced, and it was a

(55:42):
real live jail break.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
Criminals running through the streets.

Speaker 5 (55:46):
You know, who knows what they did, murders whatever, and
so everybody had We ran up out of practice and
we Corteille.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
We we had a car, but we lived.

Speaker 5 (55:56):
Close enough the way we could walk to practice, so
we had to home through the streets, were looking over.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
Our shoulders looking for dudes and orange jump shoots. They
talking about the cultural change.

Speaker 5 (56:07):
Man, I loved it, Like you sound like you was
living in Lorton right right right.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
It was like DC jail in there that day. Man
running for their life.

Speaker 5 (56:17):
Man.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
But Argentina was it was a beautiful place. But it
was the halfs and hats man.

Speaker 5 (56:22):
You know, you know what it's like coach to go overseas, man,
like you you find out how sweet we got it,
you know, like it was it was people who had
a lot of money living a beautiful lifestyle, and then
it was literally people living in huts out of water
without a s oh Man. Man, yeah, man, good good
mostly good times over there, mostly good times.

Speaker 2 (56:45):
Yeah, go ahead, coach jumping there.

Speaker 4 (56:51):
So yeah, so so you've been you you're now on
the coaching and at the coaching level, I have a
couple of good friends that you guys probably both know,
Kevin Keats, James Johnson, Walt Webb, all those dudes are
coaching at the next level. But being a football player, man,
you run in to guys that never played the game right,

(57:16):
but that makes them that still doesn't mean that they
can't be good coaches.

Speaker 5 (57:20):
Can you talk about that.

Speaker 4 (57:21):
Have you ran into guys like that at the coaching
level that have never played the game but they studied
the game to the point and still end up being
good coaches or have you experienced something different with that?

Speaker 5 (57:35):
I would say that more so in my case, I've
seen guys who haven't played at the highest levels. You know,
they haven't played at a date and they haven't played
at a Delaware, they didn't play for a Damatha, but
they played right. They were very good. They weren't very good,
but most of the coaches that I've come across that
I know that are somebody that I would, you know,

(57:58):
get on the phone with and talk hoops.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
With and ask questions to, and you know, things of
that nature confide in.

Speaker 5 (58:06):
They're guys who have at least played, they just haven't
been as good. You wouldn't know them from their playing days,
but they loved the game so much and they probably
got to a point in their career Playwright realized, I'm
never gonna make any money playing this game, but I
love it and I'm gonna learn as much about it
as I possibly can. And honestly, a lot of guys

(58:28):
who come to that conclusion sooner set themselves up to
be moving ahead into college and their coaching ranks a
lot easier, a lot smooter, and a lot faster than
guys like myself, who you know, you kind of chase
the dream, right you about playing and you want to
try to pursue, you know, the ultimate goal, the AKA

(58:48):
and playing professionally and.

Speaker 2 (58:49):
Playing for money, and you chase it for a while.

Speaker 5 (58:51):
It was probably a blessing in disguise that my knee
went out on me at twenty seven, because I didn't
get into college coaching myself until I was thirty, which
is relatively eight.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
You know, Whereas there.

Speaker 5 (59:01):
Were guys who I had never heard of, they were
already were already college coaches, already moving up the ranks,
that were like GA's the second that they graduated college,
you know, because they knew that they had no business
even thinking about pursuing a professional career. They didn't even
have a chance to, so they got right in coaching
right away. And uh Shaka's smart for instance, who I

(59:24):
worked for my first year at VCU. Shaka loves the game,
I mean loves it as you can see, you know,
through the passion that he but I'm telling he loves
playing it. When I was going to be staff games,
when like we wouldn't even it would be days. We
didn't even talk to each other the next day after
the staff game, I mean talking ship, you know, and

(59:45):
we went at it.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
We went at them staff games.

Speaker 5 (59:49):
Yeah, man, he loves the hoop, and but he knew
that he wasn't going to go play professionally. He became
a GA and his uh I think he went to
a Division three school, I can't think of it right
now in Ohio.

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
You know, he was a video coordinator at Dayton. Yes,
absolutely under Oliver Down.

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
That's right. That's when that first first man shot. Okay, yeah,
that's right.

Speaker 5 (01:00:13):
He talked a lot about op in the Times that
that Dayton man after That's right.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
Yeah, No, Shaka was the first. He gave him an opportunity.

Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
Man.

Speaker 5 (01:00:21):
That's a crazy story as well, how I got into
college coach, because when I got back at twenty seven, Man,
I didn't know what I was gonna do in life.
You know, it's a it's an eerie feeling, Kobe, as
you know, probably you as well, coach, when they stopped
sharing for you, man, when they when they stopped doing this,
you know, you can't pick up that ball to make money.
It's not a part of your daily life anymore. It's
it's weird. It's hard. That transition is hard, and a

(01:00:42):
lot of other people, man, have sadly, you know, taken
eight lives because of it because the game has been
taken away from them. And so it wasn't that extreme
for me, thank god, but it was still none the less,
it was hard and I didn't really know what I
was gonna do next, and so naturally I gravitated to
working with kids.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
And ball, and I did some teaching and work a
lot of odd jobs.

Speaker 5 (01:01:02):
Went to o'conno, coached under Joe Wooten, obviously my mentor son,
who I loved to death. Joe's my guy. And I
went back to assault and it took me three years.
You know, I thought, just because I scored two thousand
points in college and played overseas for a few years,
and I should automatically get a college job. It doesn't
work that way, you know what I mean, It doesn't
work that way. You know, those points you scored don't
mean nothing with to come and coach. And so I

(01:01:23):
had to prove my worth.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
I had to.

Speaker 5 (01:01:24):
I had to get it out of the mud and
coach from high school and from AAU and and luckily,
man like you know, it's it's it's like they say,
it's not what you know, it's who you know. You know,
And Joe Wooten introduced me to Dave Teller, who at
the time, Dave tell him had the biggest basketball scouting service.
He's now director of scouting for the Spurs. And I
didn't know Dave, but unbeknownst to me, Dave knew me.

(01:01:47):
You know, Joe Wooden introduced me to Dave at a
high school tournament that I was at and Dave walked
up to me and I should put my hand out,
and I said, Dave, tell him, it is a pleasure
to meet you. He said, Mike Mageese, I know everything
about you. Never know who's watching. Dave was actually working
on his master's at the University of Delaware, so he
used to broadcast my games. To broadcast my games. Now

(01:02:11):
you think about this, What if I was an asshole
at Delaware? What if I was a guy who thought, oh,
I'm too good to be at Delaware and that was
the stigma that I had, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
Or Mike Bray said I was a bad guy.

Speaker 5 (01:02:24):
They tell him had recommended that I get the job
at BCU with Shaka Smart, who was his best friend.
Not at all, but because I was a good dude.
I was raised the right way and I did things
the right way. They tell him. Made a phone called
sharkas Smart and that's how I got my start in
the business when I was thirty years old back in
two thousand and nine and.

Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
Been in it ever since.

Speaker 5 (01:02:42):
So just a short story, But man, I think that
says a lot. Man Like you know, you never know
where your help is gonna come from, So be a
good dude because you never know who's watching.

Speaker 4 (01:02:52):
That's and that's crazy you said that, because I was
going to say the same thing kind of reverence that
when you when I was talking to you about your
Hall of Fame speed at at the MATHA. You know,
you you're looking out into the crowd and you're seeing
all these faces of people that were there when you
were in high school.

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
You know, luckily you went.

Speaker 4 (01:03:11):
In and did everything the right way, because one, you
probably would have never been able to get up there.
But then to imagine having that stigma, you're you're ingratiating
yourself to the crowd, and you didn't have that personality
or that that type of reputation coming out of high school.
So I'm glad you touched on that because a lot
of kids don't don't understand it. Like you know, they

(01:03:32):
get caught up in the social media area and they
worry about, you know, saying and doing stuff on social media,
but they don't understand who's watching and where they're watching from,
especially not because of there's so much attention, you know, and.

Speaker 5 (01:03:45):
Odds on them now. So that That's an awesome point
that you made. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. Everybody's a
journalists these days. Man, anybody who got a phone as
a journalist, you know. And I tell the kids that
I coach now, man, like, be careful, you know, treat
people to right way, treat the jamming to here in
the right way.

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
Treat your teachers and your classmates the right way. You know.
Just be a good dude.

Speaker 5 (01:04:06):
You know, don't do it for your own personal game,
but just be a be a good guy. You never
know who's watching. You know, who's got their phone out
when you had a party, you know what I mean.
Like all of that stuff is a reflection on you,
on you first and foremost you and your family, but
also our family. You know, you you don't want to
misrepresent yourself man by wild'n out because you don't think
anybody's looking. Somebody's always watching, especially these days.

Speaker 3 (01:04:29):
Indeed, indeed and Mike how much they're coaching with DC
assault develop you and get you prepared for coaching at
the next level. Because I know there was a lot
of coaches from that coaching treat that went on and
and and got college jobs and went on to do well,
did that help you a lot to prepare you for

(01:04:50):
the next level?

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
Yeah, it definitely did.

Speaker 5 (01:04:52):
I wouldn't not so much like extras and those per se,
but just more so like the grind of it, right,
like investing in the kids, you know, get them the practice,
taking them home, interacting with them and their players.

Speaker 2 (01:05:03):
You know, we had big time players.

Speaker 5 (01:05:05):
We had everybody think was how major you know, whether
they went, how major or not they were, how major talents,
And so being able to find an angle to communicate
with them and to get through to them with something
is a skill you know that I would obviously use
and still use them to this day, you know. So
being able to you know, in the heat of the moment,

(01:05:25):
right when a guy does something dumb and you know
you're enraged, he's enraged, like learning over time how to
get the most out of that situation as opposed to
just appeasing your own you know anger, you know what
I mean, or just jumping on a kid, like just
finding different avenues in different ways to get through to

(01:05:46):
the kids. Because at the end of the day, the
most important thing is to get the message across, right,
is to fix the solution, fix the problem and get
to the solution.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
So just being able to interact.

Speaker 5 (01:05:56):
With kids, their parents, recruiting, travel, you know, being out
on the road. You know, you want to have a
good time, but you got sixteen seventeen year old kids
out in Vegas. You know you got to make sure
they square it away first, you know, So all of
that stuff translated to college. You know, when I got
the VCU, we had Larry Sanders. You know, I love

(01:06:20):
Larry Sands. Larry Sanders was a hell of a player,
and so being with Assault had I had already coached,
and I knew if I would just be myself and
come from the heart, that I could reach Larry and
all the other players on our team, just like I
was able to reach the Assault.

Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
So it definitely helped out.

Speaker 3 (01:06:41):
And skip skipping, you know, a few years up a
little bit. You we we talked a little bit offline.
You you coached under coach Matt and I think that
you got your start there at Xavier, correct, Yes, Ted,
is about your experience coaching at ZAKI and under.

Speaker 5 (01:07:01):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):
It was.

Speaker 5 (01:07:03):
It was mind blowing, man, because I was at that
time went from VCU to Delaware for two years, back
to my alma mater, and I was comfortable at Delaware
is obviously home for me, my second home, only a
hour and a half north of my hometown, and I
had at that time no real ambition of moving up
because I had just got Delaware. I just finished up
my second year. I was working for a really good guy.

(01:07:25):
I was making the most money that I made to
that point. I knew it was more money out there,
but I wasn't really chasing money. I was chasing more
so quality of life and the opportunity of being in
a good place around good people and learning and growing
and out of nowhere, I got.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
A call from Chris Mack.

Speaker 5 (01:07:41):
And I didn't know Chris Mac from a can of paint,
but going back to what we talked about earlier, he
had heard good things about me.

Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
We actually had a GA on our staff who was
a GA there.

Speaker 5 (01:07:54):
And little that I know, the people that Xavier, Chris
Mack and the staff that they were gonna lose they
lost to assistant coaches. And so when Bellaguy on staff
was kind of communicating with this GA about me off
and on throughout the year, just like what's he like?
Is he a good recruiter? Is he a good dude,
player development, does he do good scouting? Like all of

(01:08:14):
this information was you know, all of these exchanges were
going on behind my back through the GA I didn't
even know about it. And so at the end of
the year, sure enough, they lost to assistant coaches and
they called me. They called a buddy of mine, Ashley Howard,
who was an assistant coach at Villanova. Great dude, great,
great ball player out of Philly as well, he played
at Drexel. And man, we packed up and uh actually

(01:08:38):
we went on the interview. He hired us both on
the spot and then we packed up my my Tahoe
man back then and drove out Ohio. Man. And you
know to when you get out here in the Midwest,
it's a little different. It's different, right, like quality of
like lifestyle slower, but the basketball part is different.

Speaker 2 (01:08:57):
You know, we hooped our eat we don't.

Speaker 5 (01:09:00):
We're not well coached, like we guys are really good coaches,
but when it comes to the fundamentals of the game, right,
I mean, these guys they just put on clinics in
terms of the way they coached and the expectations that
they put on young players. And so I had to
kind of learn the game from a different angle when
I got under Mac, because he's obviously born and raised

(01:09:22):
right in Cincinnati. He worked under Sean Miller that had
really good coaches throughout his career. He learned a lie
from Sean, and he basically wanted to, you know, implement
what Sean had already been doing. He wanted to run
it back a Xavia. And so I had to learn
all new terminology, you know, things like you know whatever.
They I would call something you know whatever, and they

(01:09:44):
had a different terminology for it, and I couldn't mess
that up. I had to get that right because he
wanted everything filter down from him through us to the players,
and he wanted consistency on that. He's a hard working guy,
extremely prepared every day, very very very demand. He never
lowered the rim, as he would say, no, little kids,

(01:10:07):
they want you the lord of rim so they can
make more shots.

Speaker 2 (01:10:09):
He never lorded the rim.

Speaker 5 (01:10:10):
You know, them gonna be ten feet every day, the
standard gonna be the standard every day. You know, fifteen
minutes before practice, I want you laughed up and ready
to go. So when we when that horn to go off,
you know, these next two hours we get into it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
You know, and so.

Speaker 5 (01:10:25):
I had to learn and adjust to his plan for
his course of action, his perspective on the game and
how things should be done. And it was an adjustment
for me, but I knew it prior to me getting there,
and I was hungry.

Speaker 2 (01:10:40):
I wanted.

Speaker 5 (01:10:40):
I wanted to show him that, hey, I can make
this adjustment, you know what I mean, Like, I love
the game, I know the game, I know people.

Speaker 1 (01:10:47):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
I just have to get used to how you do things.
And I got used to it.

Speaker 5 (01:10:51):
And sure enough, man, like my first year there, we struggled.
But for the next five seasons as Xavier, we went
to the NCAA tournament. We went to two sweet seats,
two Sweet sixteens, We went to an Elite eight. We
were a one seed Exavier. We were a seed. You know,
we won a Big East regular season championship doing Villanova's
height when they were really good with Bruston and all

(01:11:12):
those guys.

Speaker 2 (01:11:14):
So we won a lot of games. Man, it was
the most winning and I had done in my career.

Speaker 5 (01:11:18):
And from there, you know, he was able to get
the Louisville job, and you know, I clearly adjusted to
how he wanted to do things because he knocked on
my door towards the end of the season. He said, Hey,
I'm gonna take this Louisville job. I want you to
go with me, you know. So I went to Louisville
with him. We were there for four years, got off
to a pretty good start, and then on the back
end it kind of got ugly.

Speaker 2 (01:11:39):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:11:39):
He wound up stepping down and I became the interim
head coach as you guys at Louisville, and that that
was a mind blowing experience as well, because I hadn't
stood up as a head coach since AAU. You know,
I coached Quinn Cook on sixteen or another I was
the head coach. That was the last time I was
the head coach. So I remember with the day he
told me, man, I couldn't believe it. But Christmas is

(01:12:02):
a great coach man, good guy, disciplinarian and in terms
of you know, the expectations and the man's and I
get it, you know what I mean, you got to
be a little bit of a dick, you know, to
be honest. If if you're gonna win at a high level,
it's high stakes, you know. And he understood that, and
he was prepared and ready every day, great energy every day,

(01:12:27):
well thought out, well thought out plans in terms of
things we needed to get done, and he carried.

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
It out and he was a professional. And I learned
a lot from.

Speaker 5 (01:12:35):
H No. So so you touched on a little bit.

Speaker 4 (01:12:39):
So you've been at VCU, Delaware, Xavier, Louisville and now Butler,
what is what is that? And while at Louisville you
went from assistant coach to interim tag, right, you got
the interim tag? What is what was the biggest challenges
of moving through those because the three four different programs,

(01:13:01):
three or four different locations. Yeah, and you at Louisville
with all the that's probably one of the one of
the blue tip spools out there. So what was what
were some of the challenges and what was the biggest
differences with making those transitions?

Speaker 5 (01:13:16):
Well, like I said, you know, initially going from being
an East Coast guy and seeing the game pretty much
through one leans and then going.

Speaker 2 (01:13:23):
To XAV and working for Mac, who was totally different.

Speaker 5 (01:13:26):
You know, it was very structured, was very coordinated and
his plan of action and how he wanted to do
things and learning all new vernacular. But I was able
to be with him for ten years, so I grew
in that system. And so one of the biggest challenges
I had coming here to Butler and I'll go back
to Norville was learning a different way after being with
Mac for ten years, you know, and that has you know,

(01:13:48):
Thad's got his own thing going and he's a phenomenal guy,
but he's not Chris Mack, you know. And I had
grown and groomed myself under you know, Mac and doing
things his ways, and so having to adjust here Butler's
been different. The approach right like Mac was, you know,
he rad on cages, you.

Speaker 2 (01:14:05):
Know what I mean, Like it was.

Speaker 5 (01:14:07):
You know, it was gonna get in your face, he
was gonna raise his voice. He was gonna kick your
ass out of practice if he wasn't ready to go.
You know, he was more of an authoritarian, you know,
whereas that is more laid back and he wants it
to be more of a positive and free flowing environment.
And you know, it's more love and pass on the
back than it is puts in the ass, you know.

(01:14:28):
So that's that was an adjustment and of himself. And
I'm still getting used to that because that's how I
was coached, you know, I was coach hauler.

Speaker 2 (01:14:35):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:14:35):
Morgan never cussed, but he'd lets you know what he
was wrong, you know what I mean, Mike Bray would
and he would let you know he was wrong. But
going on to Louisville, man, that that that really, like
you said, blue chip, blue blue blood program, and I
knew it was blue blood program.

Speaker 2 (01:14:55):
I thought I knew going up there.

Speaker 5 (01:14:57):
And then all of a sudden, I'm sitting in my
office one of the first days and the sid comes
and he was like, hey.

Speaker 2 (01:15:04):
Local news is here. They want to interview you.

Speaker 5 (01:15:06):
I'm like, interview me, Like I'm an assistant coach, Like
that's that's anact to deal with that why I didn't
even talk to me? And if you walking into our
media and it was like twenty members of the local
commedia and the cameras on my head coaches, you know.
So that's that's what I knew that I had stepped up.

(01:15:29):
You know, we we had leveled up. You know, we
got the Louisville A c C. And we were at
a rough time man, you know, right after the team
knowing the old federal investigation and cheating and all of that,
and really habit our ability to recruit. Uh. But nonetheless
I thought we did outstanding job. I firsht year we
took the team and how many could get the tournament team.

(01:15:50):
We were a tournament team. And then that following year,
that was the CODE year, we were special. We were
number one in the country at one point and we
would have easily been the top five seeds of tournament,
probably had the best chance of my career to make
a final four, but unfortunately COVID shut everything down right
around conference tournament times, so you never know what could
happen there. And then that third year, we were literally

(01:16:13):
the first team.

Speaker 2 (01:16:14):
Out, like asked the spot.

Speaker 5 (01:16:16):
You never want to be here, man, Like we were
in the sixty fifteen sitting at the table. You know,
Louisville does everything big, so all the cameras there and
for us to find out that we were the first
team out, man, at that at Louisville, that that's when
you started.

Speaker 2 (01:16:34):
I feel like it was getting away from us.

Speaker 5 (01:16:36):
And but that next year, man, and you know, some
stuff went down and coach got suspended for the first
six games.

Speaker 2 (01:16:44):
And I'll never.

Speaker 5 (01:16:45):
Forget it, man, because it's good of a coach. It's
black bulls guy all the time. He could be obviously,
but not all the time. He's pretty blunt and direct.
He caught the staff meeting, he was like, fellas some
things went down, I've been suspended for the first six games,
and Mike, you're gonna be the head coach for the

(01:17:06):
first six games. Try not to fuck it up, trying
not to go oh and six like that was his
motivational speech, to be trying not to go oh and six.

Speaker 2 (01:17:13):
And it's the first that I had heard.

Speaker 5 (01:17:15):
About any suspension or me having a step into that position.
So you talk about Floyd like my chin here brown
like I had no idea I was coming, but I
had to quickly gather myself, man, And I called Shaka,
you know who's my guy, and I asked him for
smith advice. And one of the things he asked me
to do, he said, Mike, above all else, be yourself.

(01:17:36):
Said second of all, write your thoughts down every day.
So I started a journal throughout that whole process, man,
And I'll go back and read it now because it
invigorates me even now to this day. It reminds me
of the passion adversity, and you know, all the challenges
that I had during that time, but I learned a
lot about myself as a person, as a coach.

Speaker 2 (01:17:58):
Definitely went through some struggle. But those first six games, man,
we went.

Speaker 5 (01:18:01):
Five and one, lost a tough game to Firman at home,
a game you shouldn't lose, and I had to deal
with all of the social media scrutiny from the Louisville fans.

Speaker 2 (01:18:12):
You know, who is this guy, who's this clown? What
was he doing?

Speaker 5 (01:18:15):
Shouldn't be there coach? Blah blah blah. And you know,
then we go to the Bahamas and we played Maryland. Sorry,
we played Mississippi State, Ben Howland, and then we played
Maryland at the time Mark Turgon and man, when I
tell you we won both of those games and won
that chip, it was the Baja Mar Championship.

Speaker 2 (01:18:33):
We won that.

Speaker 5 (01:18:35):
That that was That was a surreal moment for me,
you know, to go for being a long time assistant
coach and finally get an opportunity to be a head
coach and win that event.

Speaker 2 (01:18:43):
I'll never forget how gracious Ben Howland was after we
beat them.

Speaker 5 (01:18:46):
We beat him by like twenty We beat them about
thirty most of the game, and we blew him out.

Speaker 3 (01:18:51):
Man.

Speaker 5 (01:18:51):
After the game, he shook my hand. He said, you
did an unbelievable job. You were You had your team
so prepared. You guys were so ready. And to hear that,
you know, just have a guy like him Camplement, who
was playing in Final Fours, competing for Final Fours championships.
So it was a cool experience, man. But then on
the back end, it wasn't so great. You know, we

(01:19:12):
lost a lot of games. On the back end, Coach
Mac decided to step down, and he kind of left
me holding the bag a little bit because the guys
had checked out. We weren't a tournament team. Guys were
frustrated out how the gear gone. With coach being suspended
and then me being the head coach. I think they
got a little used to me being the head coach.
And then when I came back, I came back coaching

(01:19:35):
and I should have been consoling.

Speaker 2 (01:19:37):
Yeah, I mean, and Troy Weaver, my longtime mentor, told
me that.

Speaker 5 (01:19:40):
He said, Mike, I thought you did a great job
those first six games, man, you coaching your ass off.
And he said, well, when you came back, you were
still coaching, and you should have been consoling them guys
because they had been through a lot and I should
have felt that and I didn't. That's one of my
biggest regrets, you know. But we competed, you know, we
you know I'm sitting there. How about this, I'll give
another little story. So they honored Denny Crumb at a game, right,

(01:20:03):
So we played Duke at home. Mac decided to leave.
When we played Duke in Carolina. That's a good time
to So we got Coach K. We got Duke at home.
We got Tall Hills coming in after that. So they
honored at Dinny Crumb. So they taking all these pictures
and I'm like, I'm like photobambing.

Speaker 3 (01:20:21):
Man.

Speaker 5 (01:20:21):
I feel like, you know, it's me, Denny Crumb and
Coach K out there taking pictures.

Speaker 2 (01:20:26):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:20:26):
So one day, man, I got to get that thing
and a big frame and put that up in the
basement because that's an awesome moment. But stood up in
the Dean Dome.

Speaker 2 (01:20:33):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:20:34):
It was really competitive against Carolina twice. Should have beat
them once at home. That was the only tech I got.
I thought they robbed us on that one. But got
the chance to coach against Mike Bray. He was at
Norther Dame at the time, and they were beating us
the whole game, and we came back and I thought
we were gonna get them, but they snuck out, you
know at a ACC tournament win beat Clemson, you know

(01:20:57):
on the back end. So it was cool experience, man,
it really it was gratifying for me, you know, and
let me know that I could do it. You know,
I'm given an opportunity, and I pursued my head coaching
jobs there after, came in second at g W Capudo,
got the job, and uh interviewed for some other things.
But I've been I've been pretty uh fortunate and obviously

(01:21:17):
and and comfortable being here at Butler and until something
else was in and stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:21:21):
So I know, I said a lot. Man, could y'all
along within it? That man, we love, we love we
love hearing it. Uh wow.

Speaker 3 (01:21:31):
So so during that time doing during your coaching extent, Uh,
there were a couple of opportunities too to go back
to Theamantha, did you ever consider that, because I know
that job opened up twice within Yeah, yeah, that's that's
a great question.

Speaker 5 (01:21:49):
Called it crossed my mind, But uh, I wasn't in
a place where I felt like that was the best
move for me, you know, Dwayne Simpkins. Then I've had
conversations about a Corey and McCrae, who's an assistant coach,
the Mattha Grant up at BC, some of the other guys,
you know, because you know, a shout out to the

(01:22:11):
current head coach, Mike Jones.

Speaker 2 (01:22:13):
I think he's doing a good job. I think he's
a great dude. I think he's he's got a.

Speaker 5 (01:22:17):
Tall task, right like you, trying to replace two lessons,
Morgan Woo and Mike Jones, you know, the original Mike Jones,
who really did a great job taking over the program
after Morgan retired, and the expectations for that place and
through the roof and they always will be, you know,
I hope so anyway, certainly during my lifetime.

Speaker 2 (01:22:35):
And so he's got a you know, he's.

Speaker 5 (01:22:38):
Got a huge mountain in front of him to try
to get us back to, you know, in Hell one
of the best schools in the area, let alone in
the country. Now you know, PBIS has taken up taking
that over, uh and other schools are chopping at the bit,
you know, Saint Johns Gonzaga, mc NA, Murray's got a

(01:22:59):
really good team this year. They honestly, they're probably the
most talented team in the WCAC and so Mike's got
a tall task in.

Speaker 2 (01:23:06):
Front of him.

Speaker 5 (01:23:07):
But I thought about it, but I just felt like
after being in college so long, I was better suited
to be in college, and to be honest with you, coach,
I didn't want to go back home and have to
get back in the streets. In terms of recruiting kids
out of elementary school, kids in junior high, you.

Speaker 2 (01:23:26):
Know, grappling for them, I just didn't see me doing that.

Speaker 5 (01:23:31):
I just felt like that was a little you know,
I had moved so far along in my career that
I felt a lot more comfortable. If I'm a recruit,
I'm going out and I'm recruiting high school kids and
not kids that young, because I'll be honest, I can
watch the fifth grade and playing like that, he's pretty good,
but by the time he in ninth grade, he might
not even like basketball, you know what I mean, As
far as I know, at least, I got a better feel.

(01:23:53):
You know, when kids in high school, you know how
serious they are about the game. So that's a different
level of coaching, a different level ofations and understanding, and uh,
I didn't think it was best you know, good enough
fit for me.

Speaker 3 (01:24:08):
Yeah, and shout up to my man, my guy coach
Strickland is who took that job for a temporary time
for Mike took the job correct.

Speaker 2 (01:24:17):
Yeah, yeah, they came.

Speaker 5 (01:24:19):
To Pete on an interim basis and piece of great guy.
You know, I know, well, did did you play for Pete?
He was out?

Speaker 3 (01:24:27):
He was out head assistant coach at Dayton that that
that was my guy me and didn't we didn't miss.

Speaker 2 (01:24:35):
Dude?

Speaker 5 (01:24:36):
Yeah yeah, no, piece of great dude, great coach. I
felt bad for him because a lot of the MATHA
players just felt like the administration mishandled that by throwing
Pete out there, because you know, a lot of people
I think I think it was a little racial connotation
to it.

Speaker 2 (01:24:55):
I think people felt like they were.

Speaker 5 (01:24:57):
Trying to rewind the hands of time, and after Mike
had done such a great job, the expectation on as players,
form of players was that you know, another form of player,
you know, a brother, more than likely would take the job.
And so when they threw Pete out there, it was

(01:25:17):
like hold up, y'all trying to pull a move, you
know what I mean, Like y'all just threw Pete out there.
There was no conversation with the alumni people. Some people
they are writing checks and it's like, hold up, I
don't have any say so on this, and so they
I think they really put Pete in a bad spot,
you know. And I didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:25:36):
I didn't like the process.

Speaker 5 (01:25:39):
Not so much Pete being there, because he's an awesome
guy and a great man, a great coach, and uh,
but just the process was murky and and it wasn't
very well done in my opinion. And and then fast
forward to you know, them hiring Mike. I think he's
a good guy, goes without saying, and he was doing

(01:26:01):
really good things at Saint Stephen st Agnes. But the
idea of having a non the math of guy there really,
you know, shook some people up. Myself as well, I
can speak for myself, like I wasn't in love with
that notion, to be honest. I'm happy for Mike. I
hope he gets it turned around. I think he's a
great dude, a good coach, but having somebody over there,

(01:26:23):
you know, looking over at the bench and not seeing
the math of guys but like, oh, that's such and such.
He graduated and you know, ninety four and he played
with whoever. You know, not having that camaraderie is a
little weird and uh, you know, but I tell you what,
it can all be absolved that Mike gets the program
turned around and win some games.

Speaker 2 (01:26:42):
I you know, winning cures all. So hopefully he can do.

Speaker 5 (01:26:45):
That right right.

Speaker 3 (01:26:47):
And one of the reasons why I asked you that
question was because when I saw that job opened up,
I was like, your name was the first first name
that popped in my man.

Speaker 2 (01:26:56):
I was like, one day, if Mike interested, they come
getting that job.

Speaker 3 (01:26:59):
Because I just felt like a the matha person would
have some like some sense of responsibility you and some
of that form of love to like, hey, we gotta
go in there and make sure the ship is still
it's like in the right direction right right now.

Speaker 5 (01:27:14):
It definitely, it definitely crossed my mind. But I think
at the time all of that was going down, I
may have been at Louisville maybe, or you know, Zay
back in Xavier, and man, I had I had a
taste of you know, I was one game away from
being in the final four, right oh, and then now
I'm at Louisville and I'm in the A c C.
And it's big time, and honestly, I'm making the most

(01:27:37):
money I made in my career. And you know, I
know you're gonna take a huge pay cut if you
go to the math and you do that financially, and
then just thet the law being in the college coaching ranks,
man being on the biggest stage is playing on TV.
Not to say that I'd gotten big time at all,
but I just felt like I had got to a

(01:27:58):
pinnacle in my career where I felt comfortable and I
was I was in a good place, and uh, I
didn't want to change all of that to come back
to Damatha because quite honestly, I feel like there's so
many qualified candidates that could take that job and study
the ship form of Damatha, guys that would do a
really good job there. So hopefully it works out with Mike,
and if not, hopefully somebody else from our ranks, uh

(01:28:22):
who actually walk those halls and wore that uniform man
can step up and get us rolling.

Speaker 3 (01:28:27):
Yeah, because I had even asked both why don't you,
why don't you put your name in there? Because I
know he was coaching. So yeah, but yeah, that don't
also to see any of you guys that that I
know take the helm of that job. Man, that's pretty dope, no.

Speaker 2 (01:28:46):
Doubt, no doubts.

Speaker 4 (01:28:51):
The only only question I had coaches, you know, growing
up in in the DC area and being a college coach,
I know, a big part of responsibility recruiting. What what
is it like going back into the area. I'm assuming
that's part of your area, would be to come back,
that would make the most sense. But what is it
like to come back now after you know the different

(01:29:12):
the different colleges, and still be able to go into
your neighborhood and recruit recruit talent from your area.

Speaker 2 (01:29:18):
Yeah, no, it's it's it's a privilege. It's a blessing,
honestly to be able to come home.

Speaker 5 (01:29:25):
Uh. As you mentioned, I definitely recruited D D M
V area, but I recruit outside of the area as well, everywhere.
You know, it's all about relationships these days.

Speaker 2 (01:29:33):
Uh. Uh.

Speaker 5 (01:29:34):
When I when I got off the plane in DCA
and you know I'm driving a sitwell, friends, when I'm
driving at the math or wherever.

Speaker 2 (01:29:41):
To go see a kid, man, I get goosebumps.

Speaker 5 (01:29:43):
You know, just thinking about my time growing up in
the area, playing on the playground, playing at the matha uh,
you know, you know, just being where those kids are
now being there at one point, you know, and now
I'm the guy evaluating them. It definitely, uh, you know,
reminds you of of God's grace, man, in God's goodness
that I'm able to do what I do. You know,

(01:30:03):
I get paid to evaluate basketball players in the coach
basketball and you know, to have a living doing this
after all of the blood, sweating tears that I invested
in at a young age man means a lot to me.
Is something that I definitely don't take for granted. I
love being back in the area to recruit, in particular
because it's a lot of familiar faces. Now I will

(01:30:24):
say this, I have not had a lot of success though,
you know, I feel like it's like Jesus Christ man.
You know when in Bethlehem, you know, they didn't call
him the son of Man. They called him carpet boy.
You know, it was like the only place man where
they would acknowledge his greatness, you know what I mean.
So I've had a lot more success a lot of

(01:30:46):
times in North Carolina and in Georgia and you know,
just random places around the country than I have in
my own hometown. I don't know why I can't get
more love. I will say this, I don't know why
because the last player that I recruited out of high school.
Now I have had players out of the portal. It's
a lot easier to recruit out of the portal because
it's speed dating. You know, you're literally recruiting these kids

(01:31:09):
for five or six weeks at the most, you know
what I mean. The kids generally have a really good
feel for what they want to do out of the portal.
But it's a lot more of an investment when you're
recruiting a kid out of high school to college. Right
and so, But the last kid that I recruited from
the area out of high school Ta Xavier was Nase Marshall.

Speaker 2 (01:31:28):
He's a pro. Yeah, he was just yeah, that's what
that's my young boy.

Speaker 5 (01:31:36):
I love Nause Death my guy, Toy Franson shout out
to Nause and Toy Frens and Who's who. Toy was
the head coach at the Museum AAU programmed. It was
on the Puma circuit this summer. Toy's been a big
time grassroots guy.

Speaker 2 (01:31:50):
For a long time.

Speaker 5 (01:31:51):
He was Nausey's right hand man along with his mom,
Nause's mom. Obviously they helped, you know, keep nause on track.
And anytime I turn on the TV and I see
Nage in that Dallas Matterage uniform, man, it you know,
touches my heart. Man makes me feel good knowing that
I played a small role, you know, in his process.
And so that's pretty good proof that I might know

(01:32:14):
what I'm doing here. So you would think that guy's
back home with thor brother Bone, you know. So, But
it's tough, you know, because the kids in our area,
the area is so oversaturated with coaches coming in and
dying to recruit our players. And we've had a wealth
of talent over the years, and every year there's always

(01:32:37):
good players, but these kids are over recruited in our area,
you know what I mean, and a little spoil and
they've gotten away from who we used to be, which
is on the playground, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:32:49):
And and it's the quality of life, right like our
people are doing a lot.

Speaker 5 (01:32:52):
Better now than we We're doing a lot better now
financially socially than we were back in the eighties and nineties,
you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:33:00):
There's still a lot of challenges out there.

Speaker 5 (01:33:02):
But you know, you just look at the DC public
school system, right, dciaa high school basketball Like when coaches
would come in, Yeah, they would go to Damatha, but
they would go across the bridge to Virginia. They would
go They going to Dunbar, They going to Anacostia, They
going to Ballue, you know what I mean. So we
don't live in the city anymore. A lot of us
can't afford to. We are in the counties. And so

(01:33:24):
that's a reflection on the players too. You know, the
lot of these kids coming out of quarter sacks. We
didn't come out of quarter sacks, you know what I mean.
We came out of you know, projects and small you know,
two bedroom apartments like myself, you know what I mean.
So we we had a different chip on our shower
than these kids do. Nonetheless, it's still a lot of talent, right,

(01:33:46):
but the kids are a little different, a little more spoiled,
a little more entitled, not as much grit and toughness
as I think we had. Because you know, you go
to your neighborhood playground wherever it was, and play and.

Speaker 2 (01:33:59):
If you you might not get back on the court.
That's what it used to be. It's not that anymore.

Speaker 5 (01:34:04):
Now. You just go, you know, to a gym air
condition and you work out with your training. You drivele
through combes all day and you might place the one
on one or two on two.

Speaker 2 (01:34:13):
You know, but it don't really mean nothing, you know,
it doesn't. It's just it's just different, you know. So
I love our area.

Speaker 5 (01:34:20):
I think I still think we got the best talent
of concentration of basketball talent. Uh and inside our belt
Way is anywhere else in the country. And it's it's
great to come home and be able to recruit those kids.
But you know, it's it's it's some definitely some challenges,
some hurdles. I think that these younger kids gonna have
to get over if they want to continue to, you know,

(01:34:40):
make sure that area is one of the best in
the country. Got to get a little tougher, a little grittier. Yeah, absolutely,
I just asked it more so a two point question.

Speaker 2 (01:34:50):
So you have.

Speaker 3 (01:34:51):
But now, the state of Indiana has always been known
to be rich in basketball culture. Actually lived in Indiana
back the day for about six years. I grew up
in Gary, Indiana. Okay, So I kind of I remember
how how strong the basketball culture was in Indiana because
I was there at the time.

Speaker 2 (01:35:12):
You had your big dog, Lynn Robinson was in high.

Speaker 3 (01:35:14):
School, you had Sean temp and like I think l
Cart Area or whatever the case may be. So, so,
how's the recruiting process in the state of Indiana for
you and what challenges does the NIL give you? Yeah, well, Indiana,
like you said, Rich, I love the T shirts that
the Pacers had.

Speaker 5 (01:35:36):
You know, I forget exactly how it went. But everywhere
else it's basketball. But in Indiana, you know, it's something different,
you know what I mean, It just means more, you know,
it's it's I'm lucky enough to be here at Hinklefield House,
you know where they actually shot the movie Hoo'shes. You know,
people get off a bunch, jump out their cars and
come in here and toward this place.

Speaker 2 (01:35:57):
If it just means a lot here.

Speaker 5 (01:35:58):
So it's great to be at the stitution stayed with basketball,
you know, is the cow bell. You know, it's what
people love the most. It's what they love the most.

Speaker 2 (01:36:10):
Recruiting is good.

Speaker 5 (01:36:10):
It's a lot of great high school coaches here, a
lot of fundamentally sound kids here to know how to
play the game. In particular, learn how to play the
game without the ball, all right, you know, really shoot
the ball well, can pass it, can cut, understand the
importance of cutting and moving without it, and setting good screens.
So whenever you get a kid from Indiana, more than

(01:36:31):
likely you're gonna get a well coached kid, you know
what I mean, a kid that really understands the game
from a team so much from an individual aspect.

Speaker 2 (01:36:43):
But as far as the.

Speaker 5 (01:36:43):
NIL, you know, I'll just say this, you can't be
a good college program without money. It's not gonna happen.
You know, whether it be football, men's basketball, women's basketball,
you got no shot. It's just how it's set up,
you know. And that was really the case back then.
You know, the money was just being passed under the table.
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:37:04):
Uh, Now it's being passed over the table when it's legal.

Speaker 5 (01:37:06):
And so Butler's try to catch up because we weren't
prepared for the transition to NIL.

Speaker 2 (01:37:13):
But we have a new ads going into the second year.

Speaker 5 (01:37:16):
Now he's done a phenomenal job of trying to, you know,
help our alums and our donors and everybody that supports
Butler basketball understand the importance of you know, how nils
can impact the college athletics the revenue sharing going on,
I think in the balance of playing field to some degree.

Speaker 2 (01:37:36):
Uh. Now you're looking at football programs being.

Speaker 5 (01:37:40):
You know, they obviously won't get the line's share of
the twenty and a half million that the athletics department
has to give to the kids. Generally, cap basketball somewhere
between four and five millions, So it gives us a chance,
you know, to be competitive in in that space.

Speaker 2 (01:37:57):
But we've we've had a lot of success. Everybody's a little.

Speaker 5 (01:37:59):
Un We've had a lot of successful transfers, being able
to get kids from other programs that want a bigger role,
more playing time, more opportunity. We tend to invest more
in those guys than we do freshmen because you just
don't know what you're gonna get out of a freshman.
But nonetheless, man, you know, it's it's it's a it's
a brave new world, you know what I mean. It's

(01:38:21):
a brave new world. It's totally different from what it
was when I first got in. And like I said
at the top, you know, unless you got a bank
roll unless you got at least minimum four to five
million in nil budget part time being good and you
know this year, you know, rap sharing or change seconds.
But I mean it's teams out here this year in

(01:38:42):
basketball that they have buddets of ten to fifteen million, easy,
you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:38:46):
That's hard to compete against, you know.

Speaker 5 (01:38:50):
So, like I said, we've done a better job here
at Butler raising awareness and getting more people to donate
and help support us. And I think and pray and
hope that will be reflecting on the floor. I like
our team this year. I think we got a chance
to be pretty good and be pretty competitive in the piece.

Speaker 3 (01:39:08):
Man, that's that's awesome. We were definitely gonna be tuned
in seeing what those Butler boys do this year. Man,
definitely chanting for you. And I don't even remember when
you got that introm here. Good job at Louisville. Man,
we were celebrating out here in the DMV because I
was expecting, Hey, they don't sign my man, don't give
them five years or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:39:29):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:39:30):
So we were we were great, man, and Man, that
was a proud movement. Yeah, Nah, I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (01:39:38):
Car.

Speaker 5 (01:39:38):
I definitely do man, Trust me, I felt the weight
and the pressure of home and representing man, and like
you know, my legs was a little wildly to start out,
you know, had to get back used to it and
standing up man.

Speaker 2 (01:39:51):
But I wanted to.

Speaker 5 (01:39:52):
I wanted to represent, you know, for our hometown for sure, man,
and gat experience. Hopefully that I'll get a chance to
do against something at some point in my career.

Speaker 3 (01:40:01):
Yes, that's what's up. So before we let you get
out of here, Mike, we got this thing we called
rapid fire, So ask you some questions. We try to
make it as tough as possible. It ain't as tough
as as it may seem. And you gotta ask him
quick on the spot.

Speaker 5 (01:40:18):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:40:19):
So for example, I might tell you give you two
names and you gotta pick one that you think is
better or something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:40:28):
Okay. So so.

Speaker 5 (01:40:31):
So coach, you wanna jump off the rapid fire.

Speaker 2 (01:40:35):
All right, let's do this.

Speaker 4 (01:40:36):
All right, We're gonna go uh start Bencher cut And
this is strictly hospital the duo of Alan Orbson, Tony Rutland,
Stephan Welsh or Calvin Baker or Anthony uh Anthony Baker
and Jordan Butler.

Speaker 5 (01:40:59):
Oh man, I'm not even not familiar with them last
four names, to be honest.

Speaker 4 (01:41:04):
So I'm I'm a bench Jordan Jordan Baker. My bad,
I can't even remond damn handwriting to Jordan Baker. Okay,
that's that's all your peninsular boys down there in uh
in the seven five seven area?

Speaker 5 (01:41:17):
Okay, which of those? And it's strictly high school now strictly.
Oh well, that's easy. I'm gonna start ai in Rutland
and I'm a bench and cut the other guys because,
like I said, I'm not even ass familiar with those guys, man,
So that's an easy one for me, okay.

Speaker 4 (01:41:35):
And then the second part to that is which duo
would you want to compete against and who would you
have as your your number two to go against them?

Speaker 5 (01:41:45):
Uh? I'm a i Rutling for sure, and I'm gonna
go my duo. This is my error, now me talking.
I'm gonna go Kelly Taylor and Tony Parham.

Speaker 2 (01:41:56):
Out of curl. Yeah tough, yeah yeah yeah. I was
just talking about them guys out to day. Man.

Speaker 5 (01:42:05):
They used to murder us when I was a junior.
They were senior as my junior year. They used to
crush old Tim Hill and Terry McGahn. That was our
back court. They were good players, both of them guys,
but that was a different level of bump when we
went against them. Yeah, said Taylor name.

Speaker 3 (01:42:22):
That's gonna I'm gonna skip it around to my questions
to give you this one first. Who are your five
most underrated players out of the DMV.

Speaker 5 (01:42:34):
Five most underrated players out of the DMV. Man, that's tough.
That's a tough one, man, because I feel like a
lot of dudes got their flowers, to be honest. Uh,
I'm gonna say in my era, I'm gonna say Dink
Peters for sure. I'm gonna throw Dink out there for sure,
because I think that although Dink was first team All

(01:42:56):
mat and he and he got a lot of attention,
I don't know that people knew how dominant Dink was.
Like when Dink got his big gass up and down
the court, he was hard to deal with and he
was tough to god. Another guy I'm gonna go with,
I thought from a you know, from the early nineties area,

(01:43:17):
would would be Dicky Simples now bys because and Dickie
are both good friends of mine.

Speaker 2 (01:43:22):
But Dickey was a really good player.

Speaker 5 (01:43:24):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:43:24):
He was uh.

Speaker 5 (01:43:25):
He was the guy that they was all matt and
went on to play at Providence. Really really good player,
played with those legendary boards teams. Although he didn't get
a ton of playing time. He was out there with
depth and a really good player. Underrated, underrated Darren Kelly

(01:43:50):
who I played against at Carroll Carroll, I was at
the mind that he played on my AAU team. Darren
was big time man. I'm one to say Darren went
to Texas. I think I'm out of high school and
I'm not sure that he finished there. But Darren, Darren
had bounced. Darren can score the ball. He could shoot it.

(01:44:13):
He was a really good player. Chris Turner was a
really really really good point guard of mind that I
played with the AAU to play that Dumbar that never
wound up playing Division one basketball, which was travesty to me.

Speaker 2 (01:44:27):
He was.

Speaker 5 (01:44:27):
He was an unbelievable player man. He could handle the ball,
had a big crossover, could shoot the three, he could
do it all. He wound up finishing up at Dumbar.
He was on those that Dumbar team we were supposed
to meet Dumbar in the city title and my junior
year and we lost to McNamara and Dumbar lost to Cardozer,

(01:44:49):
which was crazy because everybody thought it was a hit
on collision. So Chris was on the team with Mike Gill.
I think Frank McQueen was on that team. They were loaded.
They were loaded, and Chris Chris was a good player.
He was a really really good player. And other than that, man,
I'm gonna say, I'm gonna shot.

Speaker 2 (01:45:09):
My guy, Greg Harris.

Speaker 5 (01:45:11):
I thought Greg Harris, who graduated with me at the
MATHA was a really good player.

Speaker 3 (01:45:14):
Man.

Speaker 5 (01:45:15):
He went to Mount Saint Mary's. He was a high
major athlete. He was sixty three, big guard. He do
a lot of things. Man, he could score the ball,
he could facilitate, you know, had a rough go out
of it at the math that didn't really get a
chance to play, you know, you know, really good significant
minuce until his senior year high school. And he had
a strong career at Mount Saint Mary's. But he was

(01:45:35):
he was probably really underrated as well. Okay, yeah, yeah, coach,
So I'm gonna switch to the w n B A.

Speaker 4 (01:45:47):
Last year's class recruiting class of Clark, Brink, Cardozo, uh Jackson,
and of course Reese. This year's class of Becker's mccaren, Citron,
Epherian Amore and on Morro and.

Speaker 5 (01:46:09):
Rivers, which coach group be taken. I'm definitely taking the
Caitlin Claw class. I haven't kept up with the w
that much this year, in part because Caitlyn has been
out so much, and in fact, fun of fact, her
boyfriend is on our staff here, Butler Conor McCaffrey, uh,
So I've had a lot of access with Caitlan then,

(01:46:31):
a lot more than most people would like. She comes
our games, my son is five. She loves playing with
my son. When she comes to she'll watch some practices.
So I'm a little biased because of that, But I
just think that that may be the best of Big
class of all time, especially if Kaitlyn can get healthy
and get back to doing what she's capable of. And

(01:46:53):
Angel Reese, who you know, has her struggles finishing, but
I think that she's a very very dynamic player and
transcendent with the rebounding and her ability to get double doubles.
I love Cardoza. I got a soft spot for the
for the for the Big girl.

Speaker 2 (01:47:08):
I love her.

Speaker 5 (01:47:08):
I think she's a good player. Hopefully bring can get healthy.
She's really talented as well. But I haven't you know,
Becker's this special. I like her, she's she's a good player.
I think she's gonna, you know, be at the forefront
of that draft class for a long time to come.
And I haven't really followed up as much on the
other players, but I'm gonna pay a closer attention to

(01:47:29):
them as they get closer to the playoffs to see
if to see.

Speaker 2 (01:47:32):
What they're doing.

Speaker 5 (01:47:33):
But I think that that previous class could be one
of the best ever the w n b A has ever.

Speaker 3 (01:47:38):
Yeah, hey, he Mike, if you didn't say Kaitlyn, they
would have ran you about Indiana.

Speaker 2 (01:47:44):
But no question, if anybody never found out out ship,
my own co worker would have got me man like girl.
So I definitely had to go with Caitlyn.

Speaker 3 (01:47:57):
Yeah, I got another went for you start being to
cut Kobe Jordan Lebron.

Speaker 2 (01:48:07):
All right, I'm working the way back. I'm cutting Lebron.
God he's doing he gonna cut off many. He ain't
gonna the interview is over.

Speaker 5 (01:48:25):
He need talk Kobe and Lebron got no hero, No Hey, Letsten,
you're talking to a guy who must have watched who
must have watched Come Fly with Me a million times?
So you know who I'm starting. You know who I'm starting.
I'm starting black Jesus, I'm starting black Mike. I'm a
bench Kobe because he got everything from Mike, and.

Speaker 2 (01:48:47):
I'm cutting bron Man. I'm done, I'm done.

Speaker 4 (01:48:50):
Hey, hey, he ain't gonna want to talk to you
no moreview over with man. Look look at him, he
threw he done. Hey if you ain't you want the
guas you see how we can hit that button? Right
he would, We would have ended the show.

Speaker 2 (01:49:06):
So, man, you a BRODDI you ain't Mike. Come on, man,
you caught in the matrix too. Man, you took the
blue pill.

Speaker 1 (01:49:13):
Man.

Speaker 5 (01:49:14):
Oh man, come on.

Speaker 2 (01:49:17):
I'm a diehard Jordan guy.

Speaker 5 (01:49:18):
Man so much.

Speaker 3 (01:49:20):
But I will say this, I was a diehard Jordan
fan all the way up until probably late nineties.

Speaker 5 (01:49:28):
All right.

Speaker 2 (01:49:29):
Remember when I was young, I.

Speaker 3 (01:49:31):
Was in Gary, Indiana, right outside of Chicago, so that's
all I saw was Jordan's, the Bulls everything. Actually, the
first basketball game I ever went to was a Bulls game,
and it was a Ricky Michael Jordan against a older
doctor j That's my first experience of seeing basketball.

Speaker 5 (01:49:50):
It was that game.

Speaker 3 (01:49:51):
So I was bulls Jordan everything. On one side of
my room, it was Jordan posters. On the other side,
it was Michael Jackson. So that's that's how it was.
But as I grew up and started learning the game
and playing the game and everything, and I just started
making my own decisions.

Speaker 2 (01:50:09):
And when I saw Lebron, I said, man, I ain't
never seen nothing like it. Yeah, I get it, I
get it. I Mean, here's the thing. I'm not a
Lebron hater. I'm not a hater. I'm not one that's good.
That's good. I'm definitely not one of the guys that's
just going to dismiss.

Speaker 5 (01:50:25):
His greatness because, like you, you know, you can't, you
can't not acknowledge the fact that this man is sixty nine,
two hundred and fifty sixty pounds whatever. He is flying
up and down the court for MOS's career, jumping out
the gym, passing the ball and facilitating the way that
he can and as well as having the ability to

(01:50:47):
score the ball and get to the round and when
he's making jump shots, he's really good.

Speaker 2 (01:50:51):
That coach.

Speaker 5 (01:50:53):
Coach, Yeah, man, you don't have to justify to this. Ah. Listen, man, hey, listen.

Speaker 2 (01:50:59):
I'm trying Jordan's. Jordan's, Jordan's the go. Lebron is a go.

Speaker 4 (01:51:07):
It ain't no compens It ain't even a conversation. How
you how you he gonna cut me off in a second.
But that's okay, But look how you how you're gonna
grade up after you? After you score the most points
and the guy who held all the most points won't
even consider the greatest not it off?

Speaker 5 (01:51:26):
Man, get it now. Now. I'm not a Lebron hater either.

Speaker 4 (01:51:31):
I'm not a Lebron hater either, But the thing that
puts Lebron below Kobe and Mike for me, just for me,
is the fact that all those attributes that he has,
the dude could just simply go and dominate the game
by getting in a low post, but he prepares prefers
to go out and try to make everyone better.

Speaker 5 (01:51:49):
So I'm not gonna knock him for that.

Speaker 3 (01:51:50):
But if you just enough, coach mill Man, that's that's enough. Mann. Hey,
time out, man.

Speaker 2 (01:52:03):
It was coming. But no, look, my I only thank
Covie with Lebron. I think he's great. Coach, could to
see you back coach.

Speaker 5 (01:52:11):
Hey, hey, I'm surprised he let me back in. But listen, man,
my thing, Kobe is like, you know, for us, game
point is everything, okay, being able to like be incredibly
clutched when it matters the most and like wanting that
moment everybody know you getting it. And I know the

(01:52:32):
numbers would say that Lebron has boy game winners. That's
what the numbers say, right, But but when I watched
Mike and then when I watched Lebron and I watched
in particular in the games, I just see I just
feel like, man, that's the guy I'm gonna get a
ball to more and out before I would give the
Lebron that that's that's that's one of the biggest not

(01:52:52):
not to mention the six and oh championships.

Speaker 2 (01:52:54):
And I know we can, we can.

Speaker 5 (01:52:55):
This could be another two hour debate, but so it's
that it's that part. You know, it's in the finals.
But I think about my goat is, Man, who am
I giving that thing to? And I can just you know,
move out the way, and I feel like we be
in good shape. I just feel like if you cut
Lebron off and you don't let him bully you to
the rim. I'm not as worried about him making a
jump shot exactly. And I know Lebron is a better

(01:53:17):
three point shooter statistically, but we all know that the
three point shot wasn't.

Speaker 2 (01:53:22):
As in vogue then.

Speaker 4 (01:53:23):
Been playing for eighty years, he should be the best
of everything.

Speaker 2 (01:53:27):
Right, But but I just, man, who am I giving
that rock to?

Speaker 5 (01:53:30):
And I don't have one reservation in my mind about
him making the right player him scoring that ball.

Speaker 2 (01:53:35):
For me, that's always gonna be Mike. So that's that's
where I ended right there. Man.

Speaker 5 (01:53:39):
But you know, all the great players, all the Hall
of Famers, all the transcendent I give Lebron as flowers
on and off the court.

Speaker 2 (01:53:47):
He's done a lot.

Speaker 5 (01:53:48):
He's represented himself extremely well, the same way that Mike did,
you know, throughout his career. I know Mike had the
little game and thing, but shit, everybody liked to have fun.
But both guys were stand up guys, and uh, you
know that's tough, you know. And Kobe God rest his soul, man,
like you know, another just a dog, you know, absolute
dog man guy that just worked his ass off you

(01:54:11):
know what I mean, was a killer. I had the pleasure.
How about this code we played against Kobe. I tell
you a quick story. I've been the Delaware Shootout. I
don't remember that event. I was with DC Assaws. And
when I tell you, we beat the breaks off of them.
We beat them like thirty because Kobe was out there
playing with the PA team. But he was the tallest dude,
and everybody else on his team was like six two

(01:54:31):
white boys. So Kobe had to do was basically double
a triple team him. Now, if they had forty five,
he had forty, right, so he got his, But we
beat the brakes off of him.

Speaker 2 (01:54:41):
I never forget.

Speaker 5 (01:54:42):
I sold it from one of the other little white
guys on the team, and I went down and thought
I had a layup, and Kobe introduced me to the
chase down block. Remember they had like four courts in
the Delaware field House. We was on court one. Kobe
came down the block my shot. The referee had to
run all the way down to court four man to
go get man.

Speaker 2 (01:55:01):
God.

Speaker 5 (01:55:02):
But nah, I was great man. I actually can say
I played against Kobe. Tim Thomas was in that event
to great. Tim Thomas claim out my year. Hell of
an event, man, But yeah, man, three great players, I
might gonna be my goat man.

Speaker 2 (01:55:15):
Ain't nobody gonna change my mind. Man, I respect it.
I respect it. But I'm just letting you two brothers
know you on the wrong side of history.

Speaker 5 (01:55:27):
Lookt up with the kids today about that, you know,
because all the kids in the locker room all lebroad.
They ain't seen nothing. I said, a couple of them
with me, But that's red man. Most of these kids
a broad guy. So I get it every day.

Speaker 2 (01:55:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:55:40):
And don't don't get me wrong, I don't get heart
baron when somebody say Jordan is a go I don't
get heart baron when people say that.

Speaker 2 (01:55:46):
Because he might be, he could be.

Speaker 5 (01:55:48):
It's subjective, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:55:50):
But when you put Kobe over Lebron, that's when I'm like,
we saw them they played during the same time. We
saw them playing against each other. We saw Kobe, we
saw Lebron dominate Kobe in the twenty two games they played.
He dominated him and wins and lost his and statistically,
so I'm like, so, I can't.

Speaker 2 (01:56:10):
You know, I get it.

Speaker 3 (01:56:11):
He's a baby Jordan's and he was a Carmon copy
of Jordan's. And you know you love Jordan's, so you
gotta love Kobe. But come on, man, let's let's let's
be honest here. Okay, okay, all right, all right, switch
to speed.

Speaker 5 (01:56:27):
I got another one for you, Michael Vick, Lamar Jackson. Yeah,
that's tough, because really, Lamar and Lamar without Mike Vick.

Speaker 2 (01:56:42):
You know, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go Mike Vick.
I'm gonna go, Mike.

Speaker 5 (01:56:48):
Boy, that was another one. Man, I could have hit
the button on that.

Speaker 2 (01:56:51):
You know, I'm Baltimore.

Speaker 3 (01:56:52):
I'm a Lamar gut So okay, I ain't he Look,
he was just he was the standard though he was
he was he was And then you got it.

Speaker 5 (01:57:02):
If I wouldn't have been mad had you not, had
you thrown Randall cut a Ham in there. Forgive both
of them to not over random, but without random them
two guys think who they are?

Speaker 2 (01:57:13):
Man, Random started that.

Speaker 5 (01:57:14):
He started that. So yeah, Cam Newton, Cam Newton and
Josh Allen. I'm gonna go Josh Allen. I'm gonna go
Josh Allen. I think Josh you know, he's proven to
this point his career is still going that he can.

(01:57:34):
He cannot only run by you and run over you,
but he can throw, he can he can spend that thing,
you know. And he's the only one who's beating Mahomes
and Mahomes everybody talking about Mahomes and the Chiefs, and
now he just got to be able to do it
in the playoffs. But in the regular season he been,
he's been getting this, he's been doing this thing against
one of the best teams of our current days.

Speaker 4 (01:57:54):
So yeah, I'm go Josh Allen on that one. Got
another one, coach, I got a couple. Man, We're gonna
stay on. Let's stay on. We're gonna stay in the
DMV area, and we're gonna go. That's high school football
player from the state of Virginia. And I'm gonna throw
some names off for you, Okay, Percy Harvin, Kerry Kirby,

(01:58:17):
Mike Vic, Alan Ebson, somebody I think don't get a
lot of mention is wrong with Curry.

Speaker 5 (01:58:25):
North Carolina played basketball and football. Yeah, I remember all
of Kurr. I mean people don't remember Brona Kurr was
National Player of the Year. Yeah, yeah, yeah, hard to
knock even one of them. I know Percy Harvin was
a standout receiver. I'm gonna go Vic, though.

Speaker 2 (01:58:44):
Man.

Speaker 5 (01:58:44):
For me, Mike Vic was just he revolutionized that position
for me, man like. And like I said, Mike connerhand
was unreal. But when mike Vic came along, it was
like two point zero, you know, nasty the way he
threw that thing. And it was such a precision too,
man Like, a lot of people talk about the speed
and him running past you, but when he was in

(01:59:05):
that pocket, man, he would drop it right in there.

Speaker 2 (01:59:07):
I mean he would drop it right in the plastic.

Speaker 4 (01:59:09):
And then yeah, that was a I remember there was
a commercial out and people thought it was Ai, you know,
before AI.

Speaker 5 (01:59:15):
But them throws that he was making was real.

Speaker 4 (01:59:17):
They of course they they super imposed the last where
he knocked the dude out of the stadium, But that
was an actual throw that he threw the distance.

Speaker 5 (01:59:28):
Man, He had the tightest spiral, man, and that ball
was on you, like, right as soon as.

Speaker 2 (01:59:32):
You came out of your break. He put it right
on you.

Speaker 5 (01:59:34):
Man. So I gotta go Mike Vic for that one
good back in his hometown too. That's that's big time. Yeah,
go ahead, coach, I'm gonna switch again back to w
n b A. Uh start Bencher cut Charyl Miller, Diana

(01:59:57):
Tarassi or Canvas parkt even though Cheryl Miller and player,
I gotta give a flower. I'm not. I'm not gonna
dis but yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:00:05):
Dark Bencher cuts. She said, Cheryl Miller, Diana to.

Speaker 5 (02:00:08):
Rossi and Kandas Parker and this Parker Man, that's tough.
Anne to Rossi is like that, I want to see
her new document documentary to get a better perspective on her,
but I'm gonna I'm gonna have to cut her. I'm
probably gonna bench Candas Parker, who I loved, who's probably

(02:00:29):
top two or three best women basketball players that I've
ever seen.

Speaker 2 (02:00:33):
But it's based on the footage that I saw of
I'm gonna pay Harmer to go.

Speaker 5 (02:00:39):
I'm gonna I'm gonna start Cheryl Miller man like one
hundred points in high school. You know, everything that she
did at USC, I can't imagine what she would have
done and if the w n b A had been
in place when she was in her prime. I'm gonna
give her her flowers and start her Man. But having
in terms of who I saw Candas Parker, for sure

(02:00:59):
was definitely one of the best three women's Yeah yeah,
yeah yeah. Let me see what I got. Private school,
public school.

Speaker 2 (02:01:11):
Man, I'm going to private school. You already know, Yeah,
I got to. I got to.

Speaker 5 (02:01:20):
My people's paid that bill, so I gotta respect that.

Speaker 2 (02:01:23):
In fact, I got, I got.

Speaker 4 (02:01:25):
I got one last one for you, and it's it's
completely unsports related. Your top five Black movies of all time?

Speaker 5 (02:01:33):
One?

Speaker 2 (02:01:34):
Okay, Well, we were sitting.

Speaker 5 (02:01:36):
I was supposed to do this interview from my house,
and I would have probably been at my dining room
table and have been a poster behind me, the posted
behind me of Harlem Nights. Oh okay, I'm going Harlem Nights.
I'm not just gonna go funny. I'm gonna go all Genres.
I'm gonna go glory. I'm gonna go glory with.

Speaker 2 (02:01:58):
Denzel and there.

Speaker 5 (02:01:59):
I'm gonna go back New School and I'm gonna go
Black Panther, that Big Bowls Man, Unbelievable movie, Boys in
the Hood, Classic, Gotta have It.

Speaker 2 (02:02:12):
That's four. I could go a lot of different ways
with this fifth one. It had. It had a big
effect on me.

Speaker 5 (02:02:24):
So I'm gonna just say minutes to society. Yeah, Yo,
you know what surprising is I.

Speaker 2 (02:02:32):
Left out Friday, I left out.

Speaker 4 (02:02:35):
Yeah, it's it's a lot of them. It's a lot
of them. You ain't you keeping you keeping your card
on all of them?

Speaker 5 (02:02:42):
Yeah? Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:02:42):
And then it's one that most people always put it
in the top five that you just say scarface, but
black movie.

Speaker 2 (02:02:50):
He said, though that's not a black movie, my bad.

Speaker 5 (02:02:52):
Yeah yeah, okay, if you said gangs the movies, Godface
definitely in there.

Speaker 2 (02:02:57):
Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Speaker 5 (02:02:58):
Yeah, I feel a little I probably would go Friday
over minutes. To be honest, I'm Friday over minutes.

Speaker 4 (02:03:07):
Here's one that a lot of people don't give credit
for being a black movie.

Speaker 2 (02:03:10):
White chicks. Hell no, I can't think about that.

Speaker 5 (02:03:15):
I can't do that.

Speaker 3 (02:03:16):
I can't coach man man, who is the button man?
Hit that button? Hit the button?

Speaker 2 (02:03:26):
Wait?

Speaker 5 (02:03:26):
What cot be off man?

Speaker 2 (02:03:33):
A body cash man?

Speaker 5 (02:03:35):
Camp Williams is rolling around in his green right man.

Speaker 2 (02:03:38):
Hey, hey, but you got to think about it.

Speaker 4 (02:03:40):
Look at Dami, what the Wayans Brothers and then no
boy and and and it's probably one of the one
of the biggest who Marling and Sean Marling and Sean
and then your boy, the big dude from Training Day
Terry Crews.

Speaker 2 (02:03:56):
Yeah. Yeah, and they were.

Speaker 5 (02:03:58):
They were the major role players in the whole movie. Man,
that's that's like saying a lot of people say die
Hard is a Christmas movie. That's like saying that's that's
that's controversial. Their coach, that's that's that's controversial at the least.

Speaker 3 (02:04:16):
Oh yeah, I respected though coach. I might describe these
people using one word.

Speaker 2 (02:04:34):
Dad matter.

Speaker 5 (02:04:36):
Ohn uh, gracious, Mike brek.

Speaker 2 (02:04:46):
Uh, leader.

Speaker 5 (02:04:51):
Morgan woo, yeah, the goat h h h.

Speaker 3 (02:04:58):
And then just the land question I have for you,
And we asked us of all about d MV legends
that's been on this show, eleven ball players including you.
So you gotta pick ten others from the DMV to
go with you anywhere around because you don't care for
New York, l A, Chicago, wherever. Yeah, to take your

(02:05:22):
mind to go bump against the best in the country.
Who are who had a ten ballplayers from the DMV
you taking with you any any era?

Speaker 2 (02:05:32):
Any era? It could be. It could be high school.

Speaker 5 (02:05:35):
Dudes, you who would college shoes even pro dudes?

Speaker 2 (02:05:38):
Who who you taking to your ten? Yeah? Okay, I
gotta go well, I'm gonna go Steve Francis. Okay, that's go.
I'm gonna go Beasley. Mmm. I'm gonna go Kevin.

Speaker 5 (02:05:55):
Durant Uh, I'm gonna I'm I'm gonna take Kirk boone
man because if we're going to Chicago and New York,
we're gonna need that. We're gonna need that thoroughness. We're
gonna need some toughness. So I'm gonna go. I'm gonna
go Bone Smith. I need some shooting, so I'm gonna go.

(02:06:16):
I'm gonna go Keith Beeny mmmm. He never signed shot.
He didn't like, never show one, he didn't like never
you know, I'm gonna go Keith Vieanie. I'm gonna pay
homers to the dude who I was chasing back in
the day, man, because Morgan would always say I played.

Speaker 2 (02:06:34):
I reminded him of we were similar Adrian Dantley that
I see that too.

Speaker 5 (02:06:44):
Yeah, yeah, I gotta go a d So that's six
h man for me growing up.

Speaker 3 (02:06:50):
Man.

Speaker 5 (02:06:50):
One of the dudes that that I thought revolutionized the
position was Walt Williams. Yeah, God damn, I mean walk
at six' nine playing the point and playing every position
was unreal to, watch AND i never get cold watching
Them duke games on mathing or what there, was Like

(02:07:11):
channel two on cable whatever they Would they would lose every,
time but he would keep him in the, game and
the crazies would be, like.

Speaker 2 (02:07:19):
Hey, walk nice, Socks, hey nice.

Speaker 5 (02:07:22):
Socks he had to be High jones like we used
to wear him and he was out there frying them.

Speaker 2 (02:07:29):
People they couldn't do nothing with. Him he was getting thirty.
Five SO i Love.

Speaker 5 (02:07:32):
Walk that's.

Speaker 2 (02:07:34):
Six She.

Speaker 5 (02:07:39):
So many different, players so many different eras man who
was a, good good player Ninety you Know i'm gonna
Give i'm gonna give my young boy Keep boging his. Credit,
MAN i gotta get both credit because you, know not only.

Speaker 2 (02:08:04):
Was bogie.

Speaker 5 (02:08:06):
He was he. Was he was like our little version
of a lebron, type, Right Like bogie was really good
at a young. AGE a lot of people knew, it
a lot of people had big expectations and came to
The matha and he was a freshman on. Varsity another
one of them guys WHO i, said if you're a,
freshman you know WHAT i, mean you played play in the.

Speaker 2 (02:08:26):
League he did. That he went To, kentucky had a.

Speaker 5 (02:08:30):
Solid college, career actually went to school for all four,
years If i'm not.

Speaker 2 (02:08:34):
Mistaken.

Speaker 5 (02:08:35):
Yea and it was a long TIME nba, Player LIKE
i want to, Say keith got twelve thirteen, years maybe
more thirteen out of, it you, know and a lot
not a lot of guys can say that they've done. That,
Man they've had that long a running THE. Nba SO
i think you got to Give Keith bogs his. Credit, Man,
sure three, more three more, shit that's.

Speaker 2 (02:08:58):
TOUGH i need. IT i feel LIKE i need a.

Speaker 5 (02:09:03):
Center, Man i'm gonna. Go the dude was a dog
to me Man Mike smith From, Dumbbar oh, yeah. YEAH
i just Thought mike was an animal man only about six,
eight but he was a dog.

Speaker 2 (02:09:14):
Man yeah. Yeah when The.

Speaker 5 (02:09:16):
Providence was up there With Dickie simpcons WHO i mentioned,
Earlier uh just played.

Speaker 2 (02:09:20):
Hard was was was tough as.

Speaker 5 (02:09:22):
Nails i'm gonna take.

Speaker 2 (02:09:24):
My, guy.

Speaker 5 (02:09:25):
Man i'm gonna take my, guy Big Den. Peters he
gonna play some back up five To Mike. Smith, Yeah
i'm gonna take my, man Big man for, sure BECAUSE
i know we can throw it in the post and
him and he gonna get it. Done uh UH i
can't take no parent high school players because that might

(02:09:45):
be a, Violation SO i can't say. That i'm gonna
Just i'm gonna go ahead and Take Quinn. Cook, Okay
i'm gonna take Young. QUINN i coached when good, player you, know,
dynamic never another, kid never short.

Speaker 2 (02:10:06):
Shot he didn't like play, hard you, know was.

Speaker 5 (02:10:09):
Very very confident in his. ABILITY i always liked that About.
Quinn SO i think that's a good tend to take
around the country for. Sure.

Speaker 3 (02:10:17):
Nice, Nice that's a solid ten right. There, YEAH i
got my money on. Y'all, yes, Sir, yes.

Speaker 2 (02:10:26):
Looking out of. Town we show, up, yes show? Out, yeah.
Man BUT i appreciate y'all for having. Me, man, yes.

Speaker 3 (02:10:33):
Sir, Oh BEFORE i let you, GO i want you
to tell me the backstory or, something BECAUSE i almost
forgot to ask you. This, Okay my memory is usually,
good but it's kind of. Hazy BUT i remember you
so it was it was BACK i will say late.
Nineties i'm gonna say me and me and some of
my good, men we leaving out the. Club we're coming

(02:10:55):
out The ritz or something something like, that and then
come down the. Street it's a school. Bus somebody blowing
a horn and it was you driving the school. Bus
it's A dc school. BUS i believe either you was
driving or you was on the bus one of it.
Too BUT i was, like these foods that stole the.

(02:11:15):
Bus so So i'm, like are you driving through with
a club? Back do you remember?

Speaker 5 (02:11:22):
This? MAN i don't remember that, code but it does
sound like it sounded like SOMETHING i could have been
a part, of not not.

Speaker 2 (02:11:30):
The steeling, part not the stealing. Part, definitely it was
definitely no brand lossity. Involved but you KNOW i was
my mother worked at, rent you know WHAT i, Mean
and SO i was on a lot of those.

Speaker 5 (02:11:41):
Buses, MAN i was wanted to me it wasn't a short, bus,
man hopefully it was just the long.

Speaker 2 (02:11:46):
Bus that's one of them. Stores that's one of them.
Stores he can't quite. Recall, YEAH i.

Speaker 5 (02:11:53):
CAN'T i.

Speaker 2 (02:11:54):
CAN'T i can't quite.

Speaker 5 (02:11:55):
WHAT i can't quite remember what led up to it
while we was on, there especially that night out the
club THAT i should have been in The wrints is
WHERE i should have. BEEN i know you probably went
to go SEE R e in The. Wrists, yeah but, nah,
man we had a lot of access a lot of different.

Speaker 2 (02:12:14):
Things that the. Wreck, Man So i'm probably riding with.
Somebody daryl was with. YOU i once Say daryl was
on the bus and it was some other. People it
was all. HOOPERS i remember that was All. Hoopers BUT
i remember you. Vividly, YEAH i think you was driving the. Bus,
nah could have been. Me he look the butler hoops out.

(02:12:37):
There it w Wasn't it wasn't like it was. Somebody definitely.
Coach would never.

Speaker 3 (02:12:45):
Never listeners and especially our young viewers and, listeners any party,
words any words of the couragement and.

Speaker 2 (02:12:59):
Motivation, yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:13:01):
Nawu first of, all LIKE i, Said, man thanks for
having me. On first time actually ever did a podcast.

Speaker 2 (02:13:06):
Man SO i had a lot of fun with you.

Speaker 5 (02:13:08):
Guys, man appreciate you thinking to me when it comes
to stand out playing from the d N, V i
definitely pride myself or putting the work in man and
molding myself into one of the better, players at least
in my.

Speaker 2 (02:13:19):
Era and, uh you, know just for the.

Speaker 5 (02:13:21):
Young, listeners, man just you, know if basketball or football
or whatever your passion may, be it could be the,
piano it could be whatever you, choose whatever your walk
of life, is, man just be incredibly passionate about, it
dive into.

Speaker 2 (02:13:35):
It, uh eat, it, live live, it breathe.

Speaker 5 (02:13:38):
It every day you'll get to you you'll get the
return on, it you, know predicated on the amount of
work that you put. In you. Know and, uh as
we talked about, earlier, man just the importance of being
a good, person you, know in your daily life and
your daily, walk be a good person, Man love on,
people leave would, love Give god the glory and, uh

(02:14:02):
good things will happen for. You so, uh nothing, groundbreaking,
man but just some some basic principles to live.

Speaker 2 (02:14:08):
By IT i think will serve everybody.

Speaker 3 (02:14:10):
Well, awesome, Awesome and you, KNOW i want to thank
you on behalf of The no cast for your podcast
for coming on here And grace in the show dropping
some whizsom dropping some nuggets and and talking about your
your your journey because it was definitely a special. Journey
so look you, family anytime you want to jump, on

(02:14:32):
even if it's just to talk some. Shit, hey you always,
welcome you, Know, jay is it nothing? Man You you
always welcome, Here, Man and we appreciate.

Speaker 5 (02:14:42):
You, Absolutely, bro appreciate, you, coach appreciate the. Coach thanks
for having me.

Speaker 2 (02:14:48):
On, man y'all have.

Speaker 5 (02:14:49):
Played salute is a pleasure to media, man and good
luck this, season all.

Speaker 2 (02:14:53):
RIGHT i appreciate. That, yes, sir go, Dogs, yes sir, Salute,
YES a solute