#70 - Nick Brandl - The Jouirney From A Small Town Wisconsin Dairy Farm - The Vision Quest Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
There's a sweet song.
So, everybody, we're back.
I haven't had an episode in awhile, so I apologize, but I did
have one's coming out on Sunday.
Drew Nix, you can move that allyou want, go ahead.
Drew Nix of the Red Clay Strays, that'll be on Sunday, and then

(00:25):
I'm gonna have your episode outMonday.
I'm gonna do like an episodeblitz Sunday.
There's gonna be an episode,then Monday, then Tuesday, then
Wednesday, all right.
I think that'll be the end,because then we got tournaments
coming up Everybody.
I am speaking to a good friendof mine.
Comedian announcer right.

(00:47):
Announcer yeah, you are doing?
Is that the official way to sayit?
Are you a sports caster?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
You can call it a public address announcer.
I've done radio as well in thearea.
It's just everything.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
You're a man of many faces.
You're a coach, you're ateacher, you are a good friend.
You are a contributor to thecommunity.
I mean we go out a lot.
When we were in the, in thecommie club, we went out a lot.
So you contribute to thecommunity quite a bit.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Definitely did that.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Yeah, yeah, so we supported Oshkosh quite a bit,
but his name is Nick Brandl.
Everybody I used to have, Iused to have the clapping button
.
I got rid of the clappingbutton though, but it's been a
while.
We haven't, we haven't.
We haven't been face to face, Ithink, in maybe a couple of
years.
Yeah, Easily.

(01:34):
But you still look like NickBrandl, I still do.
You still look like Nick andNick get old Nick from the
comedy club man.
So where you come from I'm nottoo unfamiliar with because
Christina's cousin was.
She lived in Calinersville,recently passed away, but over
the Manitowoc area.
But now you're not fromManitowoc, it's a town outside

(01:59):
of Manitowoc, right.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Well, the address is technically Manitowoc but it's.
I was like 500 yards from goingto Valder's.
Oh, right on the line was yeah,so I had the longest drive.
The bus ride was terrible.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
The bus ride.
I had to have been to.
Well, you know, you had a lotof scenery, a lot of cornfields
things like that.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
I saw enough of that, but you lived on a farm?

Speaker 1 (02:23):
right, I did.
You grew up on a farm, so youweren't you weren't just a kid
that was hanging out doingnothing.
Your dad put you guys to workright 100%.
So what kind of was it?
A milk farm.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
It was a dairy farm, yeah, dairy farm.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Okay, wow, okay.
So you're up at 3, 4 am up indad sometimes, or all the time,
was that your summer?

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Summers were pretty full with that, yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Okay, Like it was yeah, it was just.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
You know, like you tell people, there's one of the
bits in comedy I have Kids insecond grade would be gone for a
week and I'm like, are theydead?
It's like no, they went onvacation.
I'm like I don't know what thatmeans.
You know, we don't know.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
We don't not now, we definitely don't.
But you guys are a wholedifferent, not knowing what that
means.
Yeah, Cause there's somethinggoing on.
Yeah, Something going on.
If you guys didn't havesomething going on the farm,
typically there's somethingfamily-wise going on.
I mean, I would assume you knowyou guys got birthday parties
and all that other stuff whenyou're young.
If you had time, for that.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, even if there was time for that.
It was just kind of weirdbecause, like my, my, my grandpa
on my dad's side, and like abunch of his brothers and
sisters, and then my mom'sfamily, we I want to say there
was 90% of us in like a two anda half mile radius.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
So you're quasi Amish , yeah, quasi.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Amish.
I'm not going to call it acommune or anything, but no, we
lived all so close to each other, so even then there wasn't
reason to like travel to go.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Right, and it was.
Who knows, your uncle probablyfixed the wagon wheels on the
other side Right.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
I mean, if it, if it was anything, it was, you know
the holidays and stuff and we'dall get together and you know
the sheep's head table would begoing and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
But how sweet is that , though.
You got everybody kind of rightin a tight little area, yeah,
you know, like especially havingyour cousins close by, I mean.
So you weren't necessarily Iget for lack of a better term
like lonely as a kid.
Right, you had, you had cousinscoming over or friends, friends
still coming over, things likethat.
But you obviously got intosports, right, and yeah was
there time for you to be insports?

Speaker 2 (04:28):
There was time, because my dad was also on the
volunteer fire department forone of the small oh man Okay,
and they had their little youthbaseball, for you know all the
ones that were around there.
So I, you know that's where Istarted out.
I mean, I watched all the timeand you know brewers, packers,
stuff like that, and my birthdaywas around the home opener for

(04:51):
the Packers and season ticketsand stuff.
So you know all of that stuffstarted early.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
But as far as like organized stuff, baseball was
probably the first one where Istarted in, like you know,
second or third grade.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Nice, okay, well, and we were young enough to where I
mean it's see, like in my, mybrain instantly went to like
travel ball.
Yeah, like instantly, causethat's what we know now, that's
what you see.
Yeah, these kids walking outthe $400 gear package and $600
shoes and stuff like that.
But we had teams that stuckaround town.
I'm sure they still do now.

(05:22):
I mean, kakana's got a decentyouth program that goes on, but
that's really unless you wereplaying for Marcos you know,
back in the day, remember thatname, I do.
Marcos and teams like that.
I mean those.
Maybe those teams would go outof state once in a while, but
those guys all just went aroundthe Fox Valley, yeah, whereas O
Y B stayed right in Oshkosh.
You know stuff like that.
What did you guys have up byyou?

(05:42):
It was just the fire department, was that that kind of thing?

Speaker 2 (05:45):
That's what it was kind of based around.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
So you had a place that had a you know a picnic
during the summer, you know afirefighters picnic, whether it
was Newton, newton or Valder'sor white law or anything like
that.
Those were, you know,reedsville.
Those were the teams that we,you know, would go and play
Cleveland.
That's why I learned ofCleveland, wisconsin, before I
learned to Cleveland, ohio.
That's where that started.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
Oh man, yeah, ours is cleaner, though, yeah,
cleveland's cleaner, I canattest to that, that's for sure.
But when, when you started, um,getting into baseball, where,
where you ever were, you ever toa point where you're getting to
the, you know, like travel ball, like we talked about, did you
wind up doing that type ofbaseball?

Speaker 2 (06:27):
I didn't do any of that and, like even as it got to
high school.
You know I played all mybaseball during the summer
because spring, once I got tohigh school, I was more involved
in golf.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
Oh, okay, okay, so well, I see I knew you do.
I would say I know you're doingnow.
I didn't know you did back inhigh school.
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
So when did that?
That started like freshman year.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Um, yeah, when, when I was in junior high cause it
was a you know a guy my sisterwas dating.
At the time she was in collegeat UW, a man at Twalk and you
know he lived in two rivers andthen one day he's like oh, I'm
going golfing.
Yeah, he's like you want tocome along.
I'm like I've never done itbefore.
It's you know, I've watched iton TV.
It looks kind of boring.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Watching it is very boring yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yes, until you get to your age now.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
Now I'm like, oh, sunday.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
Sit down.
I'm like I'm pretty cliner andhe and he took me out to this
course in two rivers that Idon't think exists anymore, but
um yeah we golfed and he's likethat was actually pretty good,
like you're sure that's yourfirst time golfing.
I'm like, yeah, it's it doesn'tseem to.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yeah, you know it's easier baseball Baseball's
moving.
Yeah, right, just sitting there.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
Just by physics.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
It should be easier, right.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
Right, it should be it should be so nice.
So now that was a goodjuxtapose for sports, because
golf was in a different time ofseason than baseball was right.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
In the high school.
They were both in spring.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
Oh were they?
Yeah.
So I kind of had to like make achoice and I'm like, yeah, I
don't know I get to miss moreschool for golf.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah Well, free golf.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, and you know plus, it's free golf.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
I played for the golf team in Oshkosh and that was
tell you what, at North we hadMuny, his Muny passes, yeah, and
that's gone, that's way gone.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
No, that's, that's a whole.
We'll probably get to thateventually in this podcast.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, I'm sure you will.
Oh, I'm sure we will.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
So now you're getting my blood pressure up.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
So we wound up leaving off with with golf here.
Where did where did that windup taking?
Did you play that all throughhigh school then?

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Yeah, I played golf all through high school.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
Letter, did you four year letter?

Speaker 2 (08:39):
Oh yeah, and then Oshkosh University, UWO, had a
men's golf team, but theystopped then in like 94.
And I graduated high school in96.
There wasn't a men's golf teamto go to there and like I got,
like you know, and this is,think about recruiting now and
think about recruiting in like1995.

(09:01):
Oh my God, I mean I got.
I got a few letters from likedivision two schools I remember.
One was like Eastern New Mexicostate.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
Okay, yeah, no, no, I mean.
I'm not going to do that.
Imagine what the courses werelike there, ew no way.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
Just dry, just yellow , all the time.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Rocks and road runners going around.
Yeah, no, no thanks.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
So, yeah, I mean, you know, as far as collegiate
sports note go, I wasn't, youknow, that wasn't going to be in
the cards for anything.
Yeah, um, you know.
And then all of a sudden, aweek into college, that turns
into broadcasting, gettinginvolved in sports that way.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
So did you?
Was that something that you hadinterest in, though, like when
you were younger as far as youknow, like broadcasting or not,
even not even that, but I guessentertainment in general,
because that obviously we'regoing to lead into that a little
more, but anything like thatspark your interest in high
school?

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah, I mean that was always fun.
I remember at county stadiumthe brewers.
I mean you could, you and abuddy could go and do like an
inning.
Yeah, you could call an inning.
Yeah, Really, they tape it foryou.
Yeah, it was like way up inleft field, up in the corner,
and you have a VHS recording andyou just call the game.
For I don't know, what it was.
But and I'm like, oh, I didthat once in high school and it

(10:15):
was pretty fun.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
And when I was going to go into you at UWO, I was
going to do journalism.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
Okay, okay, I was going to print journalism.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
Yep, um, and then one day, um, I was in, I had a
class in a building and therewas a sign up thing to do the
football game.
Okay, we were doing a footballgame on TV this weekend for the
Titan TV and I'm like I didn'tknow we had a television station
here.
It was pretty cool.
So I signed up, um, and you know, freshman, I have no idea

(10:41):
what's going on and we get there, there's a meeting the day
before and they're like, okay,this person's doing this, this
person's doing this, you'regoing to meet at this time to go
.
Um, and they're like, you know,if you can be there at seven in
the morning, we're going to getthe cables going and do all
that kind of stuff and all thegrunt work and that and then you
can just sort of learn theropes and everything.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
This is.
This is enough for me righthere.
Yeah, it's a magic.
Call them those cables nothanks.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
So, um, the morning of so Saturday morning, there's
the game at Titan stadium and weget there early and all of a
sudden, at like 10 o'clock, theproducer who was doing this was,
like you know, on the phonewith someone and like, so you're
not going to make it, what'sgoing to get?
You know, you said you weregoing to be here, bob.
I'm going, oh man, and it wasthe guy that was going to do the

(11:26):
sideline reporting.
Oh, they had a camera and theyhad the microphone down there.
Damn, yeah.
So she comes to me and it'slike have you ever, do you have
any experience doing anythinglike this camera stuff?
I'm like, yeah, of course I'vedone that, I could do that.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
Total lie, yeah, so that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
We go down there and they're like okay, this is what
it's going to do.
They give me these sheets andit's like here's your.
You know, this is what we'regoing to do.
So they'll tell you.
The person the camera says okay, in a minute we're coming to
you with this.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
Okay, yeah, I can definitely do that.
Yeah, I can go get a shirt andtie.
I got a button down shirt andlike a Mickey Mouse tie.
You just got that later onthat's the only tie I had back
in my door.
That's awesome.
I'm like all right there it is.
So.
They did that a couple of timesand you know, after the game
there was like interviews with afriend.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
You know some of the players and and she was like wow
, you did a great job.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
We, you know, we do this.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
You just handled all of it, like you just talked to
all the guys.
Yeah, huh.
It was just like oh, you knowso in your head where you just
thinking like well, I watched,you know what's it, whoever on
any on any Monday night, youknow game?
Yeah, was that kind of whatyou're basing what you did off
of, or I just went with it?

Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, cause it's just sort of, you know, you're,
you're on the field and you'reyou're looking at this stuff.
You have a different view ofwhat they have way up in the
press box.
Yeah, you can hear coaches onthe sidelines.
Right, you know when they, whenthey go to the field and say
you know, down to so and so forthis.
And oh yeah, defensivecoordinator yeah, it helps.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
Your smart too, you know like it helps that you pick
up on.
You know those things as far as.
So here's, here's the, here'sthe deal like it.
That makes it so amazing to beable to just do that.
You're retaining all thatinformation.
And then, number one I canimagine you at the end of the
game, going through a whole game, and you can roll a dex in the
back of your brain at some point.

(13:19):
Oh, I remember when coachSchmidt said this and blah, blah
, blah, and like you can pullthat up.
Yeah, so you were able to justdo that.
Just this free, free fire rightthere.
First try.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yeah, well, because I mean they went, you know
there's half time they go intowell it's.
It's a smaller locker.
It was a smaller locker roomthen underneath the stands at
Titan stadium, yep, and they,they came back and the head
coach was Ron Cardo, who was alegend there and was like
drafted by the 49ers and stuff.
Yeah, you know, he doesn't knowwho.
The crap.
I am Right, and as he's walkingby and I'm like I said we're

(13:51):
not going to be live, but can Iask you a couple of questions?
He's just like, uh, sure, youknow, and I'm like, okay.
So you know, brian Tomlack, youknow early interception, but
you went back to the passing,you know, yeah, and then they
came back down and I'm like,okay, doesn't seem too hard.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
So did you understand the plays back then too, like
where you kind of so are you astatistician?

Speaker 2 (14:11):
Oh, don't, even, don't, don't even start getting
into that now.
I am a numbers geek beyond all.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
It's just funny because there's the one guy that
I talked about.
Like we have like a sitter onthe table.
He's Wisconsin grappler, he'sfrom Indiana, but he deals with
like rankings, yeah, so he'slike a numbers and stats guy too
.
So, like he can he may not beable to remember every single,
but he can remember certainmatches from, like you know, 20
years ago, like no, no, Iremember this and like, yeah,
but he can pull randominformation up that there's just

(14:38):
numbers and numbers and numbers, whereas you're able to to
break something down like itduring an interview, as far as
like a play, because youunderstand all that and you
understood it at that pointalready too.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
Yeah, Numbers and stats like that, this is great
how this is all tying in.
You go back to.
You know, like when I wasgrowing up, you know I had an
older.
My cousin, Chris was two yearsolder than me.
He's not a sports guy, you know.
He was more into, like you know, cars and stuff like that.
And he was a little in thesports, but you know, whenever

(15:10):
we would hang out, I'm like youwant to throw, do you want to
you?
know, so I would literally likeI'd be outside.
I would like I play a footballgame with myself.
Okay, okay, I have a notebookand I'd write down stats and
stuff and I'd do that Wow Iwould throw the ball.
I would throw a tennis ball upagainst the bar.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yeah, and you know and like okay, hit this way is
this many times and I caught itthis way, this way, this way,
yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
Or I would just make up stats for like a season or
something, you know, wow, and Istill have some of those
notebooks and you know, that'swhere.
That's where that started andthat really helped when I got
into coaching.
Yes, very much so.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
So, so you got into.
You got into the, theannouncing thing in college,
yeah, which then led to causewhat was?
What were you originally goingto college for?

Speaker 2 (15:58):
It was going to be journalism.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
Okay yeah, journalism written journalism right.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
And then I switched it to the radio TV film.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
What did that must have just felt natural.
I mean, yeah, after doingcomedy with you and stuff like
that, like it's just, it justseems more natural for you to
speak than it is to write.
I mean, I don't get me wrong,it's not that you can't write or
anything like that, but it'smore of the flow and, like what
you're, you know what you'reinto.
So when you started your, youknow your college career out
with doing, announcing and anddoing whatever.

(16:25):
I mean, obviously, I know thewhole crew of you guys hung out
together and had a great college.
I would say experience, yeah,as far as the group of friends
you had, you guys were.
You're pretty, pretty regularwith each other and you still
talk to each other.
What was what?
What type of experiences didyou have going into college as
as that type of career Cause weactually had a young man on here

(16:47):
, lucas Peters, who was lookingat doing the same kind of thing,
yeah, and he did a great jobwith his interview.
But what, what were you lookingfor?
To?
What were you looking to getout of it Once you like?
Were your goals to be on I'mgoing to be on NBC or did you
have a more individualistic goal, like I want to start my own

(17:10):
thing and do this.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
You know I'm everyone is always looking at.
Oh, you know I want to go to.
You know ESPN or Fox Sportslike that, and you go.
You know we would go to likelike one.
You know we did.
We did help to broadcast aSunday night baseball game at
the old metrodome through ESPN.
We got to go there and you know, do that Nice.
You talk to people, yeah, andyou get to talk to the play by

(17:34):
play guys.
And you know, working at radiostations down in Milwaukee and
stuff and doing that.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
Okay, yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
And you know they'll just tell you like you could.
You know you could be at a hugeuniversity like that and you
could be the number one persondoing that all four years.
You are so far behind where youneed to be to do like national
level stuff, right.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah, sure.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
That's just like sports.
Yeah, you could get to, youknow, I mean you could graduate,
you could go to a local radiostation and you could do you
know the high school stuffthat's going around here, and I
mean you could make a goodliving and do that kind of stuff
.
For all of a sudden someonesees you and then you go to.
You know Milwaukee and you knowyou can do it that way.
So my aspirations were just youknow, I want to get as much

(18:16):
experience as I can.
I want to have as much fun as Ican.
I want to do as many differentsports as I can.
Yeah, build up that resume.
I want to do radio as well, asyou know TV stuff.
Yeah, yeah, for sure, and youknow, see where that takes me.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
And then coaching came along.
So that was.
We're just going to kind ofroll into that a little bit.
So when you were, when you werein school, you weren't,
obviously you weren't doingintramurals or anything like
that.
Nope, you're trying, you guysare, you're doing your school
thing, you guys are having fun.
What type of interactions wereyou getting Like?
What was your oddest type ofbroadcast and what type of sport

(18:55):
or event?
What was the oddest thing thatyou did while you were in
college?

Speaker 2 (19:00):
Oh boy, we did.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
Look at Lucas, pay attention.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
The one that kind of threw us off a little bit was we
did a swim meet.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
Okay, oh yeah.
I mean, obviously we get thesport, but it's like, yeah,
that's.

Speaker 2 (19:20):
And and it's just not announcing it's so much
different with, like, thecameras and stuff, because I
mean they could do a footballgame with one, two, three, you
know four cameras maybe.
Yeah, you could do it that way.
You know swimming, you have tohave.
You know there's eight lanesthe one that's going to point
down, that sees everything, butwhen you're doing like the
introductions and stuff anddoing that, so you have to

(19:41):
alternate you know there's morecameras that are involved and to
announce and make it exciting.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
Like I don't know, right, you know, I don't know
the athletes, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
You almost had to bounce, like the entire time,
from athlete to athlete, toathlete to athlete to, kind of
because one might be ahead andthe other one's going to do this
, because that would stillthat'd be exhausting.
Yeah, that would be extremelyexhausting.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
And if and if you don't do homework beforehand, be
you know, hopefully they havethe, the heat sheets out.
So you know, okay, and in thislane is this kid from River
Falls.
Yeah, and you know, and you canpronunciations and all that
kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
That's crazy Shit, that's that's.
I mean that that's taxing whenyou think about it.
Like if you just if you sataround and waited for action,
you'd be waiting forever, mm,hmm.
But to make the action is a lotof work in that one.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
Wow, that's a lot of work.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
And then there's then there's a flip side of that,
where the toughest one I've everhad to do on radio was a hockey
game.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
Really High school hockey game it's fast paced.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
You miss a number.
You know you get a little bitbehind.
You know sometimes you'reskipping passes here and there.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
You know, forget that one you know he passed it there
.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
You know, let's do a hug Hug.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
Hug, hug, yeah, yeah, all over the place.
Man, that's, that's crazy.
So, as, as you're growingthrough some of that and I don't
say going, I say growingthrough some of it because I
mean, obviously you're learninglessons as you go along you guys
are still in college.
Where, where were some of thethings where you noticed, um,
because you're, you're seeingnew things, what were some

(21:11):
things that you took away, thatyou're like I'm, I'm never going
to do that again, or I'm, ornot even again, I'm never going
to do that Like that's, they'renot going to catch me doing that
.
Um, oh boy, um, I think PearlJam called it the, the uh,
creation of no.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
Yeah, yeah, probably criticism of teams, coaches,
decisions, that kind of stuff.
Okay, so the game happens onSure Saturday and then Monday

(21:50):
we're back in the radio station.
You know doing, you know andyou're.
You got to be careful with thatkind of stuff, cause you might
you might not think they'relistening.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
Oh sure, yeah, yeah, you got some personalities.

Speaker 2 (22:01):
Like you know, uwo early on the football team, my
first three years they'reoffensively they could score.
Defensively was kind of rough,but they couldn't kick extra
points.
Oh really, I remember one gamethey gave up like they had a
great soccer team.

Speaker 1 (22:18):
How do they not have them?

Speaker 2 (22:19):
Well, they gave up in all divisions record number of
rushing yards in a game to RiverFalls.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
I mean, I think they gave up something near like five
or 600 rushing yards in thegame.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
Like River Falls.
I'm just, we're just going torun, run, run, run run, run and
um.

Speaker 2 (22:34):
both teams scored seven touchdowns and UWO lost 49
to 45 because they missed extrapoints.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Oh, no, yeah, that's horrible.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
Yeah, so we, you know that happened week after week
and one time, you know, we goton the air on Monday and we're
like, oh man, it's just so roughto call this game and it's like
, yeah, what we need to do is weneed to have some sort of like
giveaway or something where weget someone to come out there,
just pick someone out of thestands to come and kick an extra

(23:06):
point, because it's not, andone of the assistant coaches
happened to be like listening.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
During the game.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
No, like during the Monday broadcast on the radio
when we're like going over thegame from the weekend and
criticizing everything and thenall of a sudden we're getting
like emails and they're talkingto professors and stuff and I'm
like my God, I'm 19 years old.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
What are you doing?
You were in so deep, yeah,you're in so deep, yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
I mean in interviews and stuff like that.
You have to find that medium ofyou know asking a question that
can make them angry or hey.
You know, big game coming uptonight against the rivalry.
What's your plan?

Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah, yeah, I hear you.
I've had a couple I think I'vehad a couple where I've asked
questions like man they reallyshouldn't have, I really
shouldn't have done that one,but they, you know some.
Some people can take it well,Some people can handle Well yeah
you might, you might havesomething there or whatever.
But yeah, some people can'thandle it, no, especially when
they're in charge of shit.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
Then they make it look, almost looks like they
can't be in charge of shit, butit happens.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
Hey, it happens and honestly, when you get, when
you're passionate aboutsomething and obviously you guys
are fans of, like, your sportsteams at your school, you know
and you knew which teams arelike, you guys had your
interests in football,basketball.
I mean you guys were theaverage type college kids that
were watching all the popularsports and you were a numbers
guy, you know.
So it's like you guys like toput two and two together and see

(24:34):
maybe some of your friends winor whatever.
So, yeah, I can see that I meanyou're passionate about
something, so we're not callingout.
So what?
Anything that did you did youlearn the ups and downs and
after a while the coach is likeall right, you're good, you're
good, not a problem.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
Yeah, I mean, for some sports it took a little bit
longer.
Yeah, Um, like, when we gotthere, the women's basketball
team the year the year beforehad just won the national
championship.
Yeah, kathy Bennett was thecoach and she moves.
There was a new coach and thenew coaching staff just treated
us so well.
Yeah, the four years we werethere, nice, unbelievably so
well.

(25:08):
Yeah, you know other sports.
It was tough to, you know, getinterviews and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
Yeah, yeah, but you know, most of the coaches there.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
I mean at a D3 university like that, even if
it's just you know the schoolradio station or stuff.
They, you know they want to getthat right word out there Right
For sure.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
Yeah, well, and I think too, you know just.
I mean, like, what I did theother, you know, with the whole
image thing with kids, like Imean, I spoke my mind, you know,
and I had a conversation withwith Malibu.
At the same time, though, too,it's just like you can't, you
can't expect something to to notbe spoken about.
You know what I'm saying, like,and I think especially and

(25:48):
you've been in coaching I meanyou, you get it and you
understand that there are goingto be the dude sitting in a
recliner calling the players.
You know what I'm saying.
So I mean, you guys know thereare those guys out there, but
there are sometimes people thatdo see something and you're like
, yeah, you're right, you know,but you don't always want to
tell them that though, right, Imean, as a coach, you're not
going to sit there and give upand just be like, oh, you, total
, you got me, you got me, man.

(26:10):
Sorry, you know, so neverthought of that.
It's a conversation worth having, though, just to, at least you
know, just kind of say, hey, youknow, guys missed four times in
a row.
Yeah, maybe it's fix something,maybe maybe a little bit.
So, as you're going throughcollege now, your junior, senior
year, things like that, likewhere where are you?

(26:31):
Are you just kind of you'redoing your thing?
Were you getting interested in,like going to somewhere to do
announcing where you're talkingabout coaching, what, what's
happening with the coachingthing?

Speaker 2 (26:42):
Well, coaching started out my freshman year.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
Your freshman year.

Speaker 2 (26:45):
I had absolutely no intention of coaching.
I had never thought about it.
Yeah, it has.
You know, it just wasn't on mymind.
Yeah Of a friend of mine wascoaching.
He was in the RTF program aswell and he was coaching like
eighth grade basketballsomewhere.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
That sounds really awesome, like why a?

Speaker 2 (27:03):
Uighur or something Awesome.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
And he's getting into coaching.
He's like, oh, yeah, it's a lotof fun, that's cool, yeah.
So I'm like, yeah, okay, yeah.
And we had an assignment forthe, the, the sports show that
we did on on Titan TV.

Speaker 1 (27:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
Every like there was a camera person and a reporter
assigned to go to all the highschools and get a package on the
winter sports.
Okay, yep, um, I had, um,ironically, no, I had Oshkosh
North wrestling, so I had to go.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
I'm so sorry.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
So I had to go with you know someone with a camera,
and we went and we did aninterview.
Yeah, now my package was done.
And then a day later someoneelse is like oh, I was supposed
to go do Oshkosh West Girlsbasketball.
I can't do it now.
Can you go?

Speaker 1 (27:52):
Like yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
I can?
You know I could do that onthat day.
That's totally fine.
Yep, and I went there and itwas on a Tuesday.
Um, the Packers had played.
We had a Sunday night radiosports show.
The Packers were playing TampaBay that night.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
Who's that Rolodex folks I was talking about?
See, he's pulling it out rightnow.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
The Packers were playing Tampa Bay that night and
I said if Tampa Bay beats GreenBay on Sunday night football
I'll shave my head.
And Tampa Bay beat them, so Ihad to bick my head.
So now I'm walking into that'sawesome, I'm walking into high
school.
You know the camp, you knowthis weird looking guy and um

(28:30):
campus creep.
And you know, I do, I dointerviews, yeah, and we get
everything done.
And I noticed that and backthen, um, girls, freshmen, boys,
freshman basketball was fromthe start of the season until
about Christmas time.
Yeah, and then girls freshmanbasketball was from January to
the end of the season.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Yeah, it was split.
Yeah, I don't know it was soweird.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
So there was only the varsity and JV practicing and
there was like 28 kids betweenthe two teams and like two
coaches, no assistant.
I'm like I seem kind of weird.
So I was thinking and I justasked the head coach.
I'm like, again, total lie.
But I'm like, you know,coaching is something I've been

(29:13):
interested in.
You know you can want some help.
You know I got a.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
You know played and everything.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
Yeah, yeah, okay, she's like well, you know the
season's already started and youknow you have to be a volunteer
and stuff.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
I'm like yeah, that's totally fine.
I'm going to have classes andstuff.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
Give me a schedule, we'll see what goes on.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
That's how it started .
Wow, basketball.
Yeah, so basketball was thestart.
So we're what.
I'm okay Out of interest, yeah,okay, out of curiosity here.
Where did where?
Where did you like coaching?
What were you thinking aboutcoaching before you started
coaching?
Cause you said you told themyou did have you've been

(29:48):
thinking about coaching.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
But that was I hadn't you know, it hadn't been you
know, okay.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
It was just at that, that time, you just kind of
thinking about it and it waswith my you know my buddy.
That had been you know talkingabout this and having fun.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe that would be
fun.
You know, I've you know, withcoaches I've had in the past,
they've had an impact on me.
Maybe, maybe this could besomething that's fun.
So you went through you.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
Obviously you weren't , you was unpaid, but whatever
the position is.
But as you're going through,like the next year, yeah.
What?
What are some of therequirements?
So I I mean, obviously I'vealways had interest in coaching,
but what do they require of,like an assistant coach, like
what do you?
What do you?
What's your job?

Speaker 2 (30:22):
So well as far as the job goes.
I like the first week I wasjust getting the lay of the land
, sure, and you know, makingsure I'm there on time, getting
names down, stuff like that,seeing what the coach was trying
to do, and I'm just trying toget comfortable.
Yeah, um, and you know shewould have me help out with the
JV sometime, um, but, and thehead coach at that time, um,

(30:50):
she's retired now but, very sheholds like the single season
scoring record at UWO women'sbasketball.
Okay, yep, hell of an athlete.
Yeah, pretty gruff personality.
So the first second week, endof the first week, started the
second week.
I'm getting, okay, I'm seeingwhat they're doing here.
They're going, yeah, and theyrun through a play and it

(31:11):
doesn't go well, and this andthat, and we had a.
We had a tall, tall scur on theteam who, by the way, was three
days older than me.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, I said you know,shelly.
You know, if they're notgetting you the ball down in the
block, we'll just go up to theelbow, set it.

(31:34):
Set a set of screen.
Yeah, Try to open some stuff upand then pop back down and
we'll run back through it, right, you know?
Yeah, and Terry the head coachthe first time I saw the look
and the girls were quiet too.
They're like oh, oh.
And Terry the head coach looksand says if I want Shelly to set

(31:57):
a goddamn high screen, I willtell Shelly to set a goddamn
high screen.
Okay, I don't think I talkedfor like another year and a half
.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Three, a third.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
Then I'm you know, then I'm like, okay, doing the
stats and stuff getting all thenext couple of years.
I like notebooks.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
I like notebooks guys .

Speaker 2 (32:18):
That was like my first year and a half of
coaching.
Oh my God.
Yeah, this person's going tokill me and those first few
years we were terrible Really.
Oh my God, we were like we.
My second year we won one gameyeah, and man, it was the last.
Second is at home againstKikana.
It was the last second lengthof the court pass.
Girl Jamie Spurl caught it.

(32:40):
She made a left handed layup.
She hadn't made a left handedlayup in her life before that.
I'm pretty sure she's nevermade a left handed layup in her
life since that moment, magicmoment, yeah.
And that was wow, and thenKikana yeah.
And you know, and it was aftertwo years, after two years I'm
like okay, now I'm getting ajunior year college.
You know performance, you knowI'm going to be a freshman stuff

(33:02):
like that.
Yeah, and I was going to be likethat was a fun two years.
It was a cool experience, Right.
And after that season was done,Terry said you know, if you
want to stick around, stickaround, because we're we're
going to be good.
You're like, and my, my, mythought was we can't get much
worse.
We were one in 20 this year.
Yeah, she ended up being right,so I stuck with it.

(33:22):
And so many years with that.

Speaker 1 (33:25):
Obviously you.
You, you were coachingbasketball, Yep.
So oh, that's nice, she nevercomes down here.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
There's a new person ever.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
There's my dog bone up trumps in your way down.
This is so weird.
I've never had this dog comedown here during a podcast, ever
Like I sit down here and work.
Oh my God.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
Anyways so.

Speaker 1 (33:51):
ADD, add, squirrel, um, so, when you're, when you're
, uh, I don't even rememberwhere I was now.
I lost my, lost my train ofthought.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
I'm talking about coaching basketball.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
Yeah, yeah, whoa, it's so.
So where did you wind up?
Getting into other sports?
And so you're talking aboutmaybe one or two years of
coaching.
Thought it would end, but thenobviously you carried on.
When did was this?
Just, it was because I know youcoach softball, yep Right.
And did you coach golf too?

Speaker 2 (34:19):
Um, I started golf, probably about let's see what is
it nine years ago.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
Did you?
Yeah, it's such a such a shorttime ago.
Yeah, I understand you,everything you do, you, you,
it's longevity.
So where, when did you startgetting so weird?
What did you start getting into?
Uh, like softball.
When did that pop up?

Speaker 2 (34:39):
Uh, softball.
There was an opening for thefreshman head coach or the
freshman coach position.
Yeah and um, I knew the headcoach you know he was math
teacher there and you know hehad he worked some of the
basketball games and stuff.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
Um, and then there was like a I'll say a staff
gathering after school on Fridayone time.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
Was this after you graduated college?

Speaker 2 (35:04):
Um this was, this would have been my junior year.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
Okay, all right, so we're timeline.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
Okay, all right, good , and you know, we were the old
golf central.
Oh yeah, we were out there, andthen all of a sudden he started
and he's like, oh, you likecoaching basketball, yeah.
And he's like well, what do youknow about softball?
I'm like, well, you know, Iplayed baseball for all this
time he's like, well, we'relooking for freshmen softball
coach.
If you're interested, you know,come and talk to me one day.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
And so I went in and talked to him in his room and,
like he I didn't expect it, hegot a softball bat out of his
closet in his room, yeah, andsaid show me a softball swing.
Whoa.
And I'm like did you know?

Speaker 1 (35:43):
a softball swing.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
Well, I knew it wasn't a baseball swing.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
Obviously, if he's asking yeah, that directive.
A question you know.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
I thought in my head I'm like I'm just gonna do a
baseball swing, but make it realquick.
And yeah, you know, yeah, youknow I did that and you know he
was asking some questions and I,when he got to pitching, I'm
like I'm gonna tell you rightnow I have no idea about Fast
pitch.
I don't know how to.
If you asked me to throw, yeah,an underhand fast pitch right
now, I would not be able to doit.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
I don't have that expertise either.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
Yeah, nope, and he's like well, we got a couple
coaches on, you know, pitchingcoaches on staff.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
But you know want to do it.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
You know nice, so okay.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
So this is where I get kind of turned around with a
lot of like rules as far as thecoaching rules, and I asked
Melda a little bit about when Italked to him the other day.
But so you're a student, stilla student, right, while you're
coaching at a high school, right, which not?
It's not an oddity to have that.
So it's not, that's not, that'snot the, that's not the odd
part to me.
So Because you're, you're anassistant coach, right, and then

(36:43):
you're the freshman baseballcoach right, the first one is
Right and then you're thefreshman baseball coach, right,
the freshman team softball,softball.
Yeah, when You're a studentworking there, are you always
Unpaid?
Like how does that work?

Speaker 2 (37:01):
You can get paid as long as you know you got to go
through the normal backgroundcheck.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, sure, just like any other, any other coach.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
But since, but since you're not on staff there, yes,
back then there was a I had togo to UW Stevens Point.
Okay for like a Friday nightand all day Saturday for this
coaching education course.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
Okay, okay, so I've been, I've been through stuff
like that for soccer, yeah, soit makes sense, okay.
So now you're, you've gottenyour coaching kind of careers, I
guess started, yeah, with agood tenure, starting in college
and helping out in college andthen growing Mm-hmm with those
programs as they went alongbecause, like you said,

(37:44):
basketball get wound up, gettingbetter that's.
It was softball kind of in thesame area where, where you kind
of working, you seem like adevelopmental type of guy, you,
you know, obviously, becauseyou're able to work with a
freshman team and obviouslyKnowing the track record of gosh
West softball team wasn'tterrible, yeah, you know.
So obviously you were able todevelop some kids and turn some

(38:07):
you know, sometimes your scrubbyguy, you know girls that are
playing softball for the firsttime, yeah, and turn them into
something.
So I mean, what was, what wasthat like from that aspect of
coaching?
Because you were an assistantcoach with a Coach who has a
system, you know, and and hasthings whether he wants it, and
as a freshman coach, you'reobviously balancing certain

(38:28):
things off of what the headcoach wants you to do.
Yes, you know, as those kidsare coming up, but you're still
had able to develop kids.
What was that like for you tobe able to kind of take them
from the beginning?

Speaker 2 (38:38):
to start with freshman is a lot different,
because it's freshman.
Yeah, that's all you get right.
You know, now they have like JVone, jv two, where you, yeah,
move them around fresh.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
Yeah, they're fresh.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
They're fresh man, they're coming out of middle
school and they're still, yeah,anchored in middle school.
Yeah yeah, but you know it's alot of fun.
You know you know what the headcoach wants.
Mm-hmm.
Some years you get a little bitof talent.
Yeah, you know when that's toogood, they're gone on JV.
I don't want, I don't want youto be too good.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
Yeah, easy pump the brakes pump the brakes.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
You know there were, there were some, there were a
couple seasons.
I didn't really have a pitcher,it was just the best athlete
really because there were threepitchers on varsity.
Yeah you'd use one or two onand if there were only five in
the system, then knew how topitch.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
Yeah that's rough.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
You ever see like 20 walks in a seven inning game.
Oh, but you know it's.
It's just kind of fun to seethem because these are kids that
you know.
Again, you move level to level.
Yeah, it's a Decimal percentageof the kids that are gonna move
on right right in high schoolit's a little more.
But going from high school tocollege, college approach, you

(39:51):
know, it's just such a smallnumber, mm-hmm.
Some of these kids, this isgonna be the only time in high
school they play sports.
Yep, they're not gonna move onfrom freshman.
Nope, you know, you got somekids that you know how to throw.
Yeah you know they've neverheld the bat before.
You know they did t-ball fouryears ago and now their friends
going out, so I want to go.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
Yeah, and it's tough.
I mean it's especially whenyou're going through a.
You know your youth, you knowjust a portion of it, and then
not either being good atsomething and so, but that's
gotta be rough.
As a coach, though, too, I mean, aside from the athlete,
because You're you're constantlyon an uphill battle.
Yeah, you know, not even somuch a battle.
Obviously you enjoy doing it,so there's, there's some type of

(40:28):
a fruit there for you, butthere's just, it's just, it's a
grind, you know, and in year toyear, you just don't know what
you're gonna get.
And then, like you said, you'redealing with varsity team that
may need someone, someone'sinjured, they got a pole,
another person here.
You know a lot of moving around.
I kind of heard some othercoaches talking about that stuff
too with.
You know football andeverything too.
But when you're, when you'relearning, learning how to

(40:50):
develop kids because I mean,you're still a kid yourself,
mm-hmm, you know doing the stuff.
So Learning how to developthese kids, and I remember
coaching some 13 year oldscoming out of high school, you
know, and I was coaching withMegan I Always forget her last
name fresh out of high school,and it was just different
coaching kids that were, youalmost feel like a big brother,

(41:12):
yeah, kind of big sister kind ofthing, where, where, when
you're coaching, you're justlike come on, man, come on, how
hard is this?
Like calm down, yeah, but inreality there's a psychology to
it, you know, like trying towork with kids like that, and so
when does that take you,education wise, when you start

(41:32):
developing what you want to dofor a living?
That's got a change.
That had to change thetrajectory a little bit of what
you want to do, just deal withkids.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
Yeah, you know I'm saying, you know, and being in
that school setting Yep, and solike that.
But you know, going back tothat first couple years of
basketball, the varsity team forthe first couple years were
terrible, mm-hmm.
And then one year a group ofFreshmen came up Yep, they're
pretty talented.
Yeah they were better than ourvarsity kids really and and that

(42:02):
they were and the head coachkept him together.
Yeah, on JV for a year nice,because if we're gonna be, if
we're gonna be two and nineteenand we bring these kids up, yeah
, they were seven and fourteen.
What's the difference?
Right, let these kids playtogether.
Yep develop and the JV coach hehad played at UW La Crosse.
He's a good guy, he's.
He was an old-school type ofcoach.

(42:24):
Okay, Yep but you know, I thinkthat year that the other really
good JV team was Fond du Lac.
Yeah and they were gonna playeach other for the second time
and you know they're keeping,you know he's like, oh, you know
we're tied with them in theconference and stuff and that we
can practice.
He was, he was getting on himpretty good, yeah.
And Terry, the head coachAfterwards, you know, came up

(42:48):
and said you know, these areyoung, remember, these are still
freshmen.
The kids, they're still kids.
I know they're good.
Yeah, I know you have a teamthat's better than mine this
year, mm-hmm.
And she, she pointed up at thewall we're like the conference
championship banners on and shelooked at them and said when you
see a JV conferencechampionship banner up there,

(43:10):
let me know.
And that stuck with me because,yeah, there isn't you know,
just not I, if you're worriedabout.
You know winning like that atthe freshman level.
You know freshman softballthere.
I can tell you a number oftimes where it was.
You know, oh my god, we got thelead.
Yeah, last inning at seven tosix.
These two kids haven't playedyet.

Speaker 1 (43:30):
Yep, they're gonna get to play right, right, yeah,
and that's what it's all about.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
And the other kids are gonna be like, oh, I have a
chance to win about a blim, likeit doesn't matter, that's not
what we're here for.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
Yeah, that's what they're there for you guys get
to there.
You can worry about that, butright now it's about getting
better.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
Yeah, and I think it's lost.
Yeah, I mean, the parents losethat too, you know.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
I'm saying you gotta.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
Talk, we talk about that a lot, lot dude cuz and I
was quasi one, you know like Imean I there were times where,
you know, I felt like there werecertain things that weren't
going.
You know the way that theyshould, but at the same point,
though, too, like I played Iplayed at a high level, you know
like.
I understand how those coachesare Feeling, but at the same

(44:11):
time, though, too, I also knowsome of those coaches don't give
a shit.
Yeah you know that's not.
There's no, there's no magic tothis formula that these people
are still.
There's still assholes outthere and some of them coach
yeah, you know, and that's nodoubt how it goes, because it's
just everyday people.
But you were, you seem to besurrounded by people that had a
Vested interest in the kids andhow they developed.

(44:32):
You know, it wasn't, it wasn'tjust lost in the wins and losses
which I think a lot of parentsyou know get concerned about.
As far as well, my kid shouldget time.
But I'm also, you know, I'm oneof those parents.
It's like, well, maybe your kidshould get better.
You know, maybe, maybe, bringthem to practice when he's
supposed to be there.
How about that, you know andbut there are, like you said,
some kids are there and that'sthey're not gonna leave.
Yeah, they're just.

(44:53):
There's certain things thatLiam's.
Liam's not gonna play baseball.
Yeah like I'd be surprised if wecould hit a baseball, you know.
But he can wrestle really well.
You know you wrestle reallywell, but I'm not gonna be like
why is he playing for the youknow the Titans right now and in
football, like you should bedoing that?
It's a lot of realisticSituations are in front of you

(45:15):
when you're coaching, when youcan see a kid develop and get
better and you can tell a parenthey, If this is something
they're interested in you know,there's, you should.
You should take them to this.
You know you should get theminvolved in this because a lot
of coaches like I don't knowwhat it was like for you in high
school, but I don't remember acoach gun you know gunther
angloman run around writingletters To any colleges for kids

(45:37):
to play soccer somewhere.
You know, like it wasn'thappening.
No so the more the parents getinvolved, the the better it can
be.
But it seems like there's nevera level.
I'll level ahead like all thetime like there's.
Have you ever had a team, or isjust you didn't have to worry
about parents?

Speaker 2 (45:56):
For a couple years with the girls basketball team.

Speaker 1 (45:58):
Yeah okay, Well, not okay.
But was that the couple yearswhere all the girls knew each
other Play together?

Speaker 2 (46:04):
They were on there and we were really really good.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
Right, but that's probably because everybody knew
each other.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
That does a part of it.
Yeah, you know, yeah, winningdoes cure things.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
But I can tell you the flip side of that you get.
You get too many big heads in aroom.
Yeah, start to climb togetherand not everybody likes a
headache and someone startsbitching about the other one.
But but with coaching and inthe balance that you guys had
what, what was, what was thedynamic between, like that you
kind of saw as far as the kidsdeveloping and what they had

(46:41):
when you were, when you Startedcoaching, versus what it is now.
You notice a big difference.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
Yeah, I notice a big difference just because of the,
just the myriad of things thatgo on during the summer okay,
okay, you think it's, you thinkit's a grown exponentially for
the sports that you're in.
It has.
You know that was part of thereason I got out of basketball.

Speaker 1 (47:06):
Yeah, there's too much.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
It was just well, it's.
You know so many kids playing,I saw so many kids, three sport
athletes, yeah, and it startedto dwindle.
And then all of a sudden it'soh, you know, we have a
basketball tournament.
You know, here's the schedulefor the summer that we're giving
you at the beginning of May.
Yeah, take a look at it.
Yeah, things don't work out.
If you have, you know, anotherone.

(47:29):
We're not saying you have to beat every single one of these,
yeah, because we know you'redoing anything.
It's your summer, yeah, kid,right, you play volleyball too,
right, yeah, but if it, if itcomes down to you know, we, we
have a, we have four games at atournament down in Waukesha.
Yeah, and you're telling me Ican't go because I have

(47:49):
volleyball practice, then we'regonna have some problems.
You know, if, if it's, if it's,if there's both matches that
weekend and you pick volleyball,sure, just didn't when it
happens in two weeks.
Yeah, basketball, you knowwe're not saying you have to do
that, right, right, but it juststarted to get so many different

(48:09):
things for kids and you know wehad, you know we pay for these
tournaments and all of a suddenwe got a call to school the day
before and back out you know,and that's not a good look.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
That's not, yeah, no, do the Do the parents?
Obviously the parents are theresponsible ones.
Uh-huh, getting the kids there,taking places, things like that
.
But do you find your, do youfind yourself noticing that, as
time has gone on, the parents ofparents, in as far as coaches
perspective, the parents havegotten worse with, not just

(48:40):
because of the parents are whothey are, but like, let's talk
about the level that the kidsare playing at, though, too, you
know, like you, like you said,a lot of these kids are
individualizing.
I'm playing, they're playing asingle sport more and they're
they're sticking to one sport.
Are you noticing that theintensity of the parents level
has picked up more because ofthat type of thing in certain?

Speaker 2 (48:59):
aspects.
Yeah, yeah, yeah oh.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
And it's a it's a money thing.
I mean every parent's.
I put $3,000 a year into thisand whatever way and what you
chose to, you chose to do thatfor your kid.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
Did you see my kid this during that Chicago
tournament this summer andplayed those three games?
It did what you know.
Well, you know you, first ofall, you paid, you know that, a
you team or whatever to do that,yeah, and second, you know,
second of all, yeah, we saw it,but that was, yeah, that was the
you know C-level tournament orwhatever.

(49:34):
Yeah, you know.
Yeah, they're doing that there.
They come here.
It's, you know, and it you knowwe could say you know, come to
print.
You know we would say come topractice and watch.
Yeah, you know.
Yeah, you know it's.
It's a different type of thing.
You know we never closedparents out of practice.
Yeah, if you want to come andwatch, as long as you, let us do
, you know.
Yeah, we'll talk afterwards.

(49:55):
Yeah, just come a watch and see.
Yeah, get an idea of what'sgoing on, don't just drop your
kid off and drive away.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
Yeah, and I'm one of those parents like I Would say,
probably until like three yearsago or so, like when Liam was
finally like eighth grade, Ionly watched like the last half
hour of practice, mm-hmm.
Only because I got I had tocoach them still.
Yeah, so I have to have an ideaof, like, what he's working on
or what he's doing or whatever.
That's literally all it's for.
Yeah, I was, I don't want toknow anymore because that's the

(50:23):
level they're at right.
They're adult enough and shouldknow at the point, at this
point, you go to practice youthere for a reason I don't.
Typically there's only, there'sonly been social reasons why
I've spoken my voice, mm-hmm.
I have never told a coach thatwas a horrible call.
Why aren't you putting my kidin?
As a matter of fact, last year,yeah, it was state team, state

(50:44):
and we're wrestling Marshfieldand Liam had lost to the kid
from the 160 from Marshfield andwe're like all we can wonder if
we'll get a rematch.
You know, build a kind ofsquare way.
Was it what we wanted?
Yeah, fuck, yeah was what wecan.
Did he get it?
No, no, because now, with theteam needed right.

(51:04):
Yeah, was I, was the wind kindof taken out of me?
Yeah, a little bit, but we'reabout to win a third team state
in a row, mm-hmm.
So like I as an athlete canunderstand calls, you know, like
a coach, like someone would sayto me oh, how come he made the?
How can we told him to takedown instead of going neutral or

(51:25):
whatever I like?
I have no idea.
Like they work on stuff all thetime.
I have no clue what I've doneit.
No, but that's, they may knowmore than I do.
I mean, they work with themlike every day.
So I don't question coaches, youknow, and I think a lot of
parents, I think a lot ofparents just kind of throw the
ownership like kind of flag toomuch, like, hey, oh, I paid the

(51:48):
bill, you know, kind of thing.
Well, maybe you should startyour own club, you know, maybe
you should start your own teamand play, you know, and honestly
, I started a dual team there,you know, we put some kids
together to the state and takethem somewhere, but it was to
get those kids better.
You know, that's all becauseall these kids wrestled together
and like those four girls orfive girls that were on the

(52:08):
basketball team together, thatkind of stuck together.
They've been playing togetherforever.
That's kind of what we tried todo with some of the kids and as
you develop kids in sports, theytend to notice the the
differences between coaching.
And the more you put them indifferent environments and allow
them to play in different youknow, not that necessarily
different sports, but indifferent places with different

(52:30):
people, they learn to be morecoachable.
You know they react differentlyto each coach and eventually
learn the type of coach theylike.
Did you have your type ofcoaching style that you like?
Like what?
Can you describe your type ofcoaching style?

Speaker 2 (52:47):
I I try to keep I've always tried to keep it as
level-headed as possible.
Okay, like I didn't like to gettoo emotional.
Yeah, there's gonna be timesyou do it because you know,
especially in like a basketballgame or something.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
You know bad call happens in softball and it just
boy.
You know.
Yeah, there is that, but it'salways, you know.
Move on to the next thing.
Yeah, you know, golf is acompletely different animal.
You know, when you're out therewith golfers and they cuz
you're not there all the time,right.
You know you have ten golfers onthe course and you can't.
But you get one calls you overand they need help with

(53:22):
something and, yeah, they'relooking for advice.
I always tell them I'm notgonna tell you what you should
do.
Yep, yeah, you're the threeoptions.
You know you do this, do this,do this.
Here's what the results willprobably be.
Yeah, but here you hear yourthree choices.
I'm only gonna give you thosethree choices.
Right, I know you think you canget that ball underneath that
tree and you're not gonna dothat.
So here you three and I letthem choose.

(53:44):
Okay, you know, yeah, that's,it's more of an individual.
Yeah or within the team you knowI kind of give that ownership
to them.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
Okay and Well.
Ultimately they're gonna beasking themselves those
questions yeah, you know, like,well, I can do this, or I can do
this, or I can do.
You know they got to make thatchoice I can.
You're already planning thatseat of trying to make the right
choice on your own.
No kind of thing instead of hey, I don't.
You should go this way, youknow.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
I'm trying to steer them some way.
Oh, of course, yeah, I'll saylike, oh, you can just punch
your hybrid out there orotherwise.
You know, you can get a nineiron over the tree and then you
can hit another one out of thegreen.
Yeah, and I want them to hitthe nine iron.
And I say hybrid because I knowlast week they said I hate my
hybrid, I'm not gonna.
So they'll go like well, Idon't like hitting my hybrid, so
I'm gonna hit the nine.
I'm like okay, that's yourchoice, you know go ahead.

Speaker 1 (54:30):
You made, you created the funnel, yeah, created the
funnel for them to go down intoit, hopefully hopefully pushing
you in the right direction,right, right, so that's, that's
clever.
That's clever I mean in, Ithink, honestly, with with the
level of intelligence that youknow, that we talked about that
you have, as far as being ableto retain things and knowing how
things work and being able topick up on people, I mean, let's

(54:52):
face it, I mean you did comedy.
We got to be able to read things, you got to be able to pick up
on things you know.
So you got to.
You got to be able to to adaptto certain situations.
So that's not only good for anathlete, that's more, more of a
thing that a coach should havebeing able to adapt and, like
you said, you don't, you're kindof even killed.
Yeah you know you're not whenthe time for excitement comes.

(55:13):
I'm sure you're excited foryour athlete or whatever it is,
but you also know when to like,hey, we're not done yet.
Yeah, not quite done yet.
Yeah, that's hard.
As an athlete, you know that'swhen you're pumped up about
something, you're you don't givea shit about what's going on.
You're like let's go, you wantto keep.
You know pounding the ball downthe field.
Or you want to Go and you knowsmack one off the off the tee

(55:34):
and just wail on it whenactually good, kind of take her
easy.
Yeah, you know it's a big dog,leg right.

Speaker 2 (55:39):
You don't want to, just be well.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
No, you remember, you slice, you know, you know you
don't you don't water there,yeah, so let's cover down.
You did a great hole in oneover there, now relax.
But yeah, now you, you're kindof you're, you're you're going
through college, you're you'regetting into, you're getting a
lot of experience with coaching,you're loving coaching, you're
change your direction foreducation.

(56:02):
You decide to teach.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
Well, that that comes later, that's later.
There's a little gap in there.
Before I shit yeah so where?

Speaker 1 (56:09):
what happened then?
Where where's this?
What's the story with that?

Speaker 2 (56:12):
I still did.
I still did some like radiostuff.
Okay, you know, I worked inthat for a while.

Speaker 1 (56:18):
Okay, while coaching while coaching while you're just
picking up all kinds of sportsdata, then yeah, shit man and
then after I was oh god, what,what year would that have been?

Speaker 2 (56:31):
How do you remember what yours probably like 11
years ago?

Speaker 1 (56:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
There was a like a teacher's assistant or a
paraprofessional spot opened upyeah okay, now I can get into
the school and, you know, getinsurance.
Yeah, yeah, it's important, youknow, and in being schooled
during that time, and that madea little bit easier.
Yeah and then it led to oh,this, this program.

(56:56):
Here is a, you know, 12 week,12 week long weekend program
that you can get your teachinglicense.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
Okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (57:05):
Then it eventually, you know, went into that.
So I've been teaching for thismy 11th year doing that now so
shit.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
What are you?

Speaker 2 (57:11):
teaching.
I'm in special ed I mainly helpout with, like the social
studies department, and I alsolittle math.

Speaker 1 (57:19):
Okay, oh, you're a patient man.
Yeah, oh, yeah.
So I got lost and I'm sureyou've heard plenty of people
talk about comic-core math.
Yeah, that's that's where Ikind of left the education
portion of my kids life becauseI was like, why are they
changing shit?

Speaker 2 (57:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:38):
I got old like in a hurry when that stuff, when,
when it was Bryce, I came homewith that.
When Bryce came home with thatand I he's like, can you help
with my math?
I can't figure this one problem.
I was like what's the what'sthe triangle for?
Yeah what is the?
What is that?
Oh well, that's this we get.
This is how we add thistogether.
I'm like whoa, beep, beep, beep.

(57:59):
Back the truck up dude.
So I actually had to call,leave a voicemail for his
teacher like look, this is whatI showed Bryce last night,
because that's what I learned.
I don't know what you guys gotgoing on.
And then she like email me likea link Mm-hmm.
I was like you think I'm gonnalook at.
This I'm not gonna pull this upand you're like, and you're
thinking in your head like you,dumbass parent, you should just
look it up.
And it was so frustratingbecause it was like I can't even

(58:22):
help my kid.
Yeah you know, and you guys have, especially when you guys are
teaching that stuff, way morepatience.
I mean, I, I have two kids,nick.
Okay, I, I love my kids.
Don't don't get me wrongwhenever, because everybody
always thinks I'm all wow, whata crabby bastard, I Shouldn't
have had kids.

(58:43):
Like, for their sanity, fortheir sake of mind and peace of
mind, I shouldn't have had kids.
Yeah, not because I don't wantkids and that that that my kids
suck, it's because I personally,as a person, shouldn't have
been around kids.
So when I was knowing that,like I have friends that are
teachers and I have family thatwere teachers, like I don't, I

(59:04):
don't know when that gene camefrom, where they had the
patience for that, but youobviously met Some of my cousins
through coaching and their momis a teacher and I've never,
I've never understood that she's.
She was always nice person,always nice.
You know we're growing up,stuff like that.
So I mean I, I can see herpersonality doing that, but it's
like, oh, it's just that.
Oh, the patience I can coachkids.

(59:26):
Yeah, because it's something Ienjoy, it's a sport or whatever.
So that takes away from a lotof the kids stress.
How has it been for you and inthrowing yourself not only in
the mix of coaching but then nowteaching.
So obviously you must have,obviously, you like to see kids
grow, you like to see kidsdevelop.

(59:47):
You like to see kids you getsmarter and accomplish things,
and is that ultimately whatdrives you when you're, when
you're doing the stuff You'redoing, because a lot of it is
you're around kids.
Yeah, we're teaching, you'recoaching, so is that kind of
turned into like a big portionof your life as far as what you,
what you do and focus on?

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
Definitely.
Yeah, I mean it is.
Again, this was nothing Ithought I was ever gonna get
into.
Yeah, but with coaches andteachers I've had in the past.

Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
I saw what they Did for me.
Yeah, part of it with the, withthe special education
background.
Yeah, my little sister specialneeds.
I grew up, okay, I told so,okay, you know.
I sort of saw what she wentthrough in the educational
system.
Yeah, changes that have gonethroughout the way.
Yeah, you know, and you bringup, like you know, the common

(01:00:38):
core stuff and all this yeahthey're changing this and
changing that.
Yeah, you know, I've looked atit the entire time.
The the phrase I like to use,among many that my kids have
heard many, many, many timesyeah, I don't care about the
labor, just show me the baby.
Okay, okay, yeah, I don't carehow you get there.
Yeah, just get there if you canshow me how you did it.

(01:00:59):
You know you, if you just writedown 97.4.
I'm gonna be like, well, how'dyou do it?
Yeah you know, if it, if it wasthe common core way, if you
broke it into tens, if you did,it's this right using your
fingers, I don't care.
Yeah you got the answer and youuse brain cells to do it right.
So I don't, I don't care howyou get there, you know and math
is probably the only one thatyou can have them.

(01:01:20):
You know all sorts of differentways to do it.
Sure, but you, you know people.
Different people are going tolearn different ways and show
different things.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
Yeah, yeah, right on, and that's how that's kind of
how I mean I dealt with ADHD andstuff like that growing up.
I mean they tried to take me,have me take Ritalin.
I spit it out.
I did because it just made medrowsy.
It didn't help me focus onanything.
I mean, literally it's a typeof thing where you just need to
learn your way around it.
It's not something you need tolike medicaid over, so but

(01:01:50):
learning, learning kind of likethat.
Everybody does learn adifferent way, like everybody
has a certain thing.
That and that's how you I meanover time studying you know
figuring how you learn the bestway.
And then people you know kids,pick up on them.
They're like well, it was wayeasier when I did this.
I didn't pick up on that kindof stuff you know like, but
having teachers that were thereto help you along, I had got

(01:02:12):
five, probably five really,really good teachers.
That I'll never forget, youknow.
But I have way more teachersthan that throughout my life,
right.
So, not every teacher is thereto grab you and bring you along
to kind of show you.
So it's nice to know thatthere's someone that's like that
in the school system still,because obviously the school
systems had some pretty coolscares that come around and
probably not make you want toteach.

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
So yeah, so yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
So now we branch off into a little more of what
happens after college, and soyou're still coaching and you
got into teaching.
Yeah, there's this comedy clubthing that comes around that
floats by, literally.
That's how it happened to me.
Yeah, like I was, I was walkingmy dog and Noah was over.

(01:02:57):
I don't know if it was a Mike'splace.
We lived over there, was thatMike?
Mike lived there too.
Your fire is another one there.
Ok, so they were there and I'mwalking past and I think I did a
double take because I thought Iwas like, was that no one?
No one.

Speaker 2 (01:03:12):
I think it everybody knows Was it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
Yeah, look, that looked like the guy from the
pizza place.
I'm pretty sure that was no.
So I turned around and he goes,brad, and I was like no, what's
going on?
I'm like what the hell are youdoing over here?
And just tell me Mike was there.
He goes hey, we're talkingabout starting up this comedy
club.
I'm like, oh, that's prettycool Me, you know, like I'll
stop in sometime.
It goes and obviously you knowNoah and I sit around talking

(01:03:36):
about movies and shit like that.
It's kind of joking around.
And he's like you should, youshould, audition for the comedy
club.
I'm like what are you talkingabout?
Like, why would I like?
I don't have, I'm a landscaper.
Good, I don't want a littledifferent.
Yeah, I mean, I don't makeappropriate jokes so you

(01:03:57):
probably don't want me on stageat all.
So he's like, no, no, no, hegoes, here's what it is, you
need to come down.
And I'm like, ok, it's fine,you know, I'll Sure try it out
walking and go tell Christinaabout it.
And she's like seriously, and Iwas like, yeah, I said
auditions, I guess, are like ina next tomorrow night or
something like that.
So it's down.
I can't remember what the hallthat was at Because I didn't go

(01:04:22):
to school.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
Yeah, yes, it was like the experimental theater.
Yes, it was.
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
And they gave you a script they read from and I
can't.
I think thought mine had to dosomething with a leprechaun.
I can't remember what I didthat and and I can't remember
who else there Maybe it wasMarkovich.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
OK.

Speaker 1 (01:04:44):
Ryan might have been there when I first tried.
And then I would say I knowNoah and Mike and and Kyler
Kyler were there yeah it's again.
I'm getting old.
Forty five hit dude, nick gotcrazy.
This is completely insane.
So that was my experience and Idon't understand how I got it
yeah, and it's great that I did.

(01:05:06):
I had an awesome time doing it,yeah, but what happened?
How did they approach you?
Obviously, this is somethingyou probably you probably heard
about them talking about a weekbefore.

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
Oh, yeah, yeah, and how long was that in the works.
Oh, they had been talking aboutit for a couple of months and
then they were looking for the,the spot to to lease, and then
they got that, and then we gotto get people and we're going to
hold these auditions and myfirst thought was I'm busy
enough, I mean my.
God, all the stuff I'm doing.
I can't add that in there.

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
Yeah, no lie.
So I told them.

Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
I told them I don't know if I'm going to you know,
maybe later or something, but Idon't know right now if that's
the best way to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):
And then I wanted the day of the auditions.
I had a softball game.
We got done, I got back toschool and then I just messaged
him.
I said, ok, are you guys stillthere?
I'll come and audition.

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
Yeah, yeah, come on down.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
So you know, like you said, they had a script.
Yeah, do like an improv thingif you wanted to do, and then
they're, you know, and thenthey're like telebat joke or
something, and so I decided for,like the improv thing I was
going to do, I had my seeds.
Oh yeah, I packed them in and Ipretended to be like a third
base coach, Nice, but like mic'dup, you know.
So you could hear what I say,you know.

(01:06:17):
Come on down, we got this.
Hey, oh too, you know what'sgoing to happen, right, you know
what's going to happen.
Be smart.
I know what's going to happen.
Fucking, strike out to the.
You know and you know and I didthat.
That's pretty good.

Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
That's good.
So that was, and it wasinteresting in the beginning,
because I didn't, so I know I do.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
Yeah, we're doing like skits and stuff, right?
Yeah, I'm not a paid actor,yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
Yeah, we're doing like full, like shows, like
we're remembering like almostlike full scenes from movies,
yeah, from like what was thatHulk and what was that one that
was?
That was one of the first onesthat was the first one.

Speaker 2 (01:07:04):
Yeah, it was like and I was Hulk.
Yeah, there was Hulk and likeBatman and Superman and stuff.
Yeah, because I do the superman.

Speaker 1 (01:07:11):
Yeah, I was like superhero some shit like that.
But it was fun doing it becauseI mean, obviously I was
learning what you guys hadlearned in college and what Noah
and those guys learned incollege.
Yeah, when it came to theaterand things like that.
So that was definitelyinteresting.
It was intimidating, oh yeah,you know, because it was one of
those things where I didn'tfully understand what the fuck

(01:07:33):
was going on.
I had no idea and I was justlike, ok, I'll do that, you know
, and I was jumping through allkinds of hoops.
So when?
But you had done so, how weird,how different was it for you to
do that type of thing?
Had you done any type of comedylike that before?

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):
I had done.
I had done stand up, maybe likethree times before you had, I
had like three times yeah, yeah,yeah like places you would not
think would have stand up.
I had no improv stuff like that,but once we got going and I saw
you know, first thought was OK,we're watching whose line is in
any way.
That's awesome.
My second thought is man, 12year old, you was finally

(01:08:16):
getting his due at this point.
All the crap that you pulled inschool and that kind of stuff,
this is your time.
Yeah, 12 year old Nick, to getin there and just be goofy.
Yep, all the crazy stuff thatwould go through your head.
Now you can do it now, right.

Speaker 1 (01:08:28):
And not even have any shame.
No, that was the best part.
Yeah Was just letting it rip.
I mean and sometimes, I think,and only because I didn't know
enough, but I think in thebeginning I think it was too
structured.
Yeah, I know that the game hasto have a way to go you know you
have to, but it felt likethey're, you know, like they're.

(01:08:48):
There's so much structure thatyou couldn't figure out how to
feed off of everybody.
So I got to the point where Ihad, you know, and everybody had
their own thing, but they hadthe certain people that they
like going on stage with.
Yeah, you know, because it wasdifferent in when you went with
what you're comfortable with, Itypically would either pick you
or Noah.
You know, because I, your, yourhumor and comedy was pretty

(01:09:10):
similar to mine, whereas yourknowledge in things where you
guys could pull all kinds ofshit out of your head and know
what you're talking about,whereas mine is just gibberish
and kind of like mine numbing,kind of like I had to make a
sound with it for it to be funny, right so?
But I was always trying to feedoff of you guys, so I would see
that kind of stuff.
Where are you able to applysome of the struggles that you

(01:09:34):
had with comedy and just kind ofworking through things and
apply that to like coaching andsome of the situations like you
have with your athletes.

Speaker 2 (01:09:44):
Um, yeah, I would.
I would always use humor andyeah, in times when it was
needed.
Yeah, Um I.
It's used more in teaching.
Yeah, you know when stuff Imean technology goes wrong, or
you got to do this, or yeah,this lesson plan changes, or you
have this set and now these twokids are you know yeah you know
you kind of constantly bethinking on your feet.

(01:10:04):
Or you know again, high schoolkids just saying something,
whether it's inappropriate andthey realize it, or they're
arguing.
You know you have to be able tobe able to switch gears, just
like that, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:16):
So it's funny that you mentioned that, because I
know we we listen to like Liamtalk to his friends quite a bit.
Obviously, we pay attention andthe the funny part of listening
to those guys trying toconversate and having having a
fluid conversation, not just a,not just a bro conversation,
where it's just apshit comingout of their mouth.

(01:10:37):
You know, put an actualconversation where you hear them
, maybe even like being genuineabout something, and you hear
them place like a swear word,right, and they don't know
you're there.
They kind of realize that itmight be someone there, but they
place it correctly and you likeyou can't even get mad, yeah,
and you're like, okay, all right, I'm going to let.
If you'd have done two, we'dhave had a problem.

(01:10:58):
Yeah, you placed it correctly,I'll take that.
Do you find yourself havingmore luck with kids, with the,
with the type of teaching styleand coaching style that you have
, than you notice maybe otherteachers?
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:11:11):
I would say that and I crazy pants I wear too.
There's kids that know thoseare magnificent.
There's kids that know who I am, that don't know my name
because they're just no crazypants guy Wow.
But yeah, with with humor andstuff like that, because you
know, especially with part ofthe population I deal with,
where they're used to just beingin trouble, or you know, things

(01:11:33):
are just not going right, yep,um, and all of a sudden they'll
be in class and I'll be, youknow, saying okay, use this next
couple of minutes.

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:11:42):
This problem will come back.
We'll go over it and then thechatter will start and and a kid
will just be working onsomething and then you can hear
the calculator going and thenyou'll just hear him say oh shit
, yeah, and it just.
You know, yeah, it comes outmeaner, and you know everyone
else, and I'm like, if you gotto go to the bathroom, just let
me know.
And then they, and then it waslike what?

(01:12:05):
I'm like, oh, I thought youmeant you.
No, you don't have to.
Oh, okay, everyone laugh.
Get back to work.
Good, we're done with that.
I don't have to fill outpaperwork for office referral or
something.

Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
Glad that went that direction.
Yeah, because as a kid you'relike what, wait a minute, he
just swore he's not in trouble.
Man, I better place thatcorrectly.
So when you like, you're stillobviously teaching coaching.
Yep, what does your coachingbasketball?

Speaker 2 (01:12:38):
Now it's just golf, now just golf.

Speaker 1 (01:12:39):
Okay, fall and spring , I have the winter off.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
Now I run the scoreboard for the basketball
games.

Speaker 1 (01:12:44):
It's a lot easier.
You do announcing still correct.

Speaker 2 (01:12:48):
I didn't do any football games this year but
I'll do.
You know, I'm like the backupguy for the radio station in
Appleton and we'll Are you awareof our friend named Tieg
Fenwick?

Speaker 1 (01:12:59):
Yeah, you know Tieg.
Yeah, tieg's been on here acouple of times.
Obviously, it does wrestlerpodcast.
Yeah, yeah, he does football aswell.
I know he does a lot ofannouncing.
So that's kind of why I broughtit up, cause I was thinking
about that when you first gothere.
I was like you probably fuckingknows Tieg.

Speaker 2 (01:13:12):
I bet you he knows Tieg.

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):
Yeah, another nerd.
Yeah, another guy that knowsnumbers like a Rolodex, like
it's.
I am amazed that when I ask youguys questions that deal with a
distance of time, that youreyes don't just roll in the back
of your head, just like, andthey come back and you're like,
bam, you have all thisinformation, like spit out, what

(01:13:34):
is it?
Hey, how Cause Christina doesit too Right.
So was it easy for you to taketests?
Were you a good test taker withthat?
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:13:46):
I didn't like I didn't.
I had bad study habits in highschool and that caught up with
me in college and just you knowI there were a lot of things I
could remember If it wasdifficult for me you know if I
remember a lot of shit if I, ifI would get homework back and it
had a bad grade on it, I'm like, okay, I'm going to have to
study for you know, but most ofthe stuff I could, you know, I
could coast through.
Yeah, like boy, should I havegotten better grades in high

(01:14:08):
school?
Yeah, were they bad?
No, but you know it was, youknow balancing, you know on a
farm, sports, that kind of stuff, and you had to give that much
time to homework, which made therest of it easy.

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
That's.
The other crazy thing is that Imean that you had that much.
You had that much going on as akid, you know, with the farm,
and then then your interest insports and then plus getting
homework done.
And obviously I know yourparents.
I mean that's just about howany farm community was around
your dad.
The kids always did theirhomework.
It's not like your dad was justlike nope, fuck that, you need

(01:14:44):
to milk dude.
I don't care about three plusthree, they had you guys get
your homework done.
But I know that a lot of thefamilies were very wise with
that, but it's just amazing thatyou were able to to like,
strive throughout and not andnot just want to quit on
something.
You kept doing more.
Yeah, you know you were workingon a.

(01:15:06):
You're not working.
You were raised on a farm andthen you wanted to do sports,
you know, and then obviously yougot school and then you wanted
to do more after that.
So it's it's it's kind ofdaunting.
That's why I talked to peoplethat I talked to, just because
of the things that they'vechosen to do over time.
You didn't choose to be born ona farm, but no, you could have
not done sports.
You know you could have not andyour parents could have not

(01:15:27):
taken you to sports, and so it'sinteresting, the different
things that people go throughthrough their lives, through
sports, through school, you know, and just through life in
general, that become what Ialways think is just the vision
quest has never really done.
Until you're done, you know,and where's that, where's that
place for you at the end, like,I mean, like at my place, is not

(01:15:49):
in town and in the middle ofthe woods, you know, and we're
getting there slowly but surely,but like, what's what's your,
what's your end?
I mean, what's your legacy?
Do you think, right now, as faras leaving let's say you walk
away from coaching you know,what do you think you're trying
to leave for the kids that youcoach?

Speaker 2 (01:16:09):
You know, just, was it a positive experience?
Were you treated fairly?
When you know when, when youleave, when you leave school,
and five years down the road yousee me out somewhere.
You know this has happened,whether it's you know, you know
grocery store or out doing stuffor having to forbid a bar.

(01:16:29):
You know they'll see you andyou know they'll come up and
they'll, you know they'll send.
They're like oh my God, we hadso much fun doing this and do
you remember that one time thatthis kid did that?
You know they don't.
Nobody remembers the scores.

Speaker 1 (01:16:42):
You know no right right.

Speaker 2 (01:16:44):
Varsity, maybe if there's a banner hanging
somewhere and stuff.
But even those teams theyremember the stupid stories and
the people they've hung out withfor sure.
You know you just don't want itto be a situation where, yeah,
that guy sucked, I have any funon his teeth or anything like
that.

Speaker 1 (01:17:01):
It was maybe do burpees all the time yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:17:04):
He was just, he was never fun.
It was always.
Yeah, he was always in a grumpymood.

Speaker 1 (01:17:07):
And that's.

Speaker 2 (01:17:08):
You know that's not what it.
That's not what it's about.

Speaker 1 (01:17:10):
Right.
Well, if there's one thing Iknow the kids should be able to
take away from at least beingcoached by you is that there was
definitely definitely fun.

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:17):
Because you're a funny dude.
You know you're a funny guy andobviously you like what you're
doing.
So you have, you have a passionfor it.
So, which makes things a numberone not just easier for you,
but it also makes it easier forthe kids.
And if someone that wants to bethere.
You know, especially, even eventhrough a losing season.
I mean, you've been throughthose, I've seen them.
You know they're not fun butyou like the sports and you like

(01:17:38):
.
You know, just like me, I likecoaching and like developing
kids and watching them grow intothe people that they become.
And hopefully, like you said,the one day you run into a map,
you know Chick-fil-A or whereveryou're in, and it's a hey coach
, really good to see you.
Man, Remember this.
And now the other things thatwind up telling you a story, you
know, while you're hanging outwith people, that's the fun part

(01:17:58):
.

Speaker 2 (01:17:59):
And if and if you're you know, we had a 26 and 0 team
.

Speaker 1 (01:18:02):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:18:04):
One of the best teams girls basketball teams in the
history of the state.

Speaker 1 (01:18:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:18:09):
Was that season fun yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:18:10):
Yeah, were my cousins on that team.

Speaker 2 (01:18:16):
I don't believe so Was that before them?

Speaker 1 (01:18:18):
I think so.
Yeah, definitely not after them.
Yeah, well before them.
Interesting, who was on thatteam?

Speaker 2 (01:18:26):
That was like Nicole Alberg and Meredith Hansen and
Jess Alcox.

Speaker 1 (01:18:29):
Oh, okay, okay, yeah, that was just.
That was a little after Igraduated high school and that
was only like that was 2003.
Yeah, that was like five, fiveyears after I graduated, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:18:41):
Nice.
But you know, going off of that, those seasons, yeah, those are
fun.
But, like, when you look at aseason and you're like, man, we
might be a 500 team at best,yeah, and then you finish like
15 and five, yeah, that'sawesome, that's sweet, that's
like we surprise people, youknow.
You know a season where, like,everyone's like, yeah, you're
going to win, you're going towin, it's the best team.

Speaker 1 (01:19:03):
It's funny.
You mentioned that though, too.
I mean because you're stillhumble.
I mean you walk into a room andyou're just like, well, we'll
see how we do this year.

Speaker 2 (01:19:09):
Yeah, I don't know if it's going to be great.

Speaker 1 (01:19:10):
I think Machak did that one year.
He was, he was I think it wasthe year before they won their
second state title.
He was like, ah, I don't knowif we're going to make it to
state this year.
They went on to feed it, yeah,and like it's like.
It's one of those things whereyou're not.
It's not even so much that hewas down on the team, but he had
, he had high hopes, but hedidn't get his hopes up.

Speaker 2 (01:19:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:19:29):
Kind of thing, because you just don't know
what's going to happen.
You're, you're leaving a legacybehind of of not worrying about
that stuff and just making surethat the kids are, you know,
having a good time playing asport in a place that they're
only going to be at for a shortamount of time.
Yeah, so you know four yearsand make it worth it.

Speaker 2 (01:19:46):
We're getting close to the scary part, though,
because I'm going to be startingto coach kids of the kids.

Speaker 1 (01:19:54):
Oh no, it's the, it's the it's the recycle, it is,
it's the recycle.

Speaker 2 (01:20:02):
And then that first year there was a girl on the
basketball team was three daysolder than I was.

Speaker 1 (01:20:06):
Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 (01:20:07):
I've been there a long time Like if I, if I like,
if I retire from teaching at 58and I'm still coaching, like
golf and stuff, that'll be like40 years I've coached at that
school.
They're going to have to likename a broom closet after me or
something.

Speaker 1 (01:20:26):
Something a chair, a chair with a plaque on it, or
something Right A roaming chair.
Whoever, whoever won that dayaround around the golf gets to
sit in the chair.

Speaker 2 (01:20:36):
I, I, I before that the chair of Nick Brandl.

Speaker 1 (01:20:39):
Well, dude, I've kept you here long enough.
I mean we, I definitely want tohave you back on.
So I think, I think I thinkthis could go somewhere.
Yeah, you know, like the common, like I said, the comedy thing
is kind of plus.
Now that I can I tell you howmuch wrestling have been
watching.
Sure, dude, I watched the Utahmiddle school conference.

(01:21:03):
Yeah, no, I, it's just a.
All it is is a blind YouTubedive.
That's really all it is.
I just I type in wrestlingduels.
Now I've seen so many 1990scollege wrestling duels Like I
don't even want to watch collegewrestling anymore, kind of over

(01:21:24):
it.
So I was like you know what?
We're going to start lookingfor some youth wrestling.
We're going to look where itmatters, right in the youth
conference.

Speaker 2 (01:21:33):
I am so glad I'm not coaching basketball or softball
now.

Speaker 1 (01:21:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:21:39):
Because you know, even even 20 years ago, I'd be
like oh there's, you know, thisSaturday college basketball game
double header, holy cow, Icould, I could watch that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:47):
You could be watching that.

Speaker 2 (01:21:48):
You could be watching that.
Yeah, if I was doing that now,with like ESPN plus and stuff,
it's like, oh man, at fiveo'clock on Thursdays, southeast
Louisiana state playingLouisiana Monroe, I'm going to
watch that.
I would just be watchingbasketball.

Speaker 1 (01:22:04):
It's ruining everybody.
The internet has ruinedeveryone.

Speaker 2 (01:22:08):
There's just too much .

Speaker 1 (01:22:09):
They televised everything now and it's like
they talk about us being aliens,like turning into like what we
think aliens look like, becausewe're set, we don't do anything,
like we can just do everythingwith our brains, we don't have
to physically do anything.
I don't think we're going tolook like that.
No, I think we're going to looklike giant blobs.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:22:23):
It's going to go the other way.
It's going to be a big.
It's going to be smaller head.
Right, right, You're going tohave to roll somewhere.

Speaker 1 (01:22:29):
Yes, in mobile blobs, and we'll all be on hover
rounds because we can't walk androlling You're going to get
dirty rolling everywhere.
So you literally would need the.
I call it the deagle chair.

Speaker 2 (01:22:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:22:41):
Mrs Deagle from Gremlins.
You need a deagle chair to pickyou up.

Speaker 2 (01:22:45):
Chair goes underneath and the deagle chair puts you
down there you go.

Speaker 1 (01:22:48):
And the deagle chair actually attaches to the wheels.
It's part of the system.
Oh my cow, I just invented that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:53):
I should better patent that right now.

Speaker 1 (01:22:55):
It's recorded.

Speaker 2 (01:22:56):
So we yes, it's mine Stamp it.

Speaker 1 (01:22:58):
Yep, was that lick stamps?
He's.
I don't know what that one is.
All right, man, we got to, wegot to get.
Crash.
I'm going to play this.
Jason Winans his son wrestled,the son graduated.
He's the guy who put the CelticCross in my back.
920 tattoos.
920 tattoos sponsored the show.
Nope Perfect.
I got to bring these guys up,so he did the song.

(01:23:20):
He's also used to being a band.
It worked out great and he dida great job and I'll.
I'm going to keep that aroundfor a really, really long time.
He also did the tattoo and thenmy hat here.
Okay, yeah, this is from 920hat company.
Okay, I'm doing a lot of 920shit.
I'm sorry, it's a Jay, why?
Why is tattoo company is calleda Appleton tattoo company, not

(01:23:44):
920.
Okay, but he's still a 920phone number, all right, and
it's on the website and it'salso on Google.
When you Google Appleton tattoo, you can find it Yep, yep 920.
Hat company Trevor does a greatjob, but, nick, I appreciate you
joining me, man.

Speaker 2 (01:23:59):
Oh, thanks for having me, it was great.

Speaker 1 (01:24:01):
I know it's it's.
It's been a long time and Ithink it was.
It's been way too long.

Speaker 2 (01:24:05):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:24:06):
So when I tell you that we're going to have you
back on, we're going to have youback on like full force and
we'll like maybe, talk aboutmaybe, like some football coming
up or whatever, and I'll bringsome wrestling shit up.

Speaker 2 (01:24:16):
Perfect.

Speaker 1 (01:24:17):
And just make just banter and just talk, just like
we used to.
I'm all for it All right guys.
This has been the vision questpodcast.
This has been Nick Brandl heygolf coach at Oshkosh West,
teacher at Oshkosh West,comedian, extraordinary.
You doing any?

Speaker 2 (01:24:32):
standup November 3rd and 10th Actually November 10th
at the time theater in Oshkosh.

Speaker 1 (01:24:38):
Shut the front fucking door, dude, be there.

Speaker 2 (01:24:40):
That's awesome hosting for Kostaki Econopolis.
Whoa yeah, it's a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:24:47):
It's a lot of respect to that guy for having that
name.
High five to that guy.
Go check him out at the time.

Speaker 2 (01:24:53):
The or when it'll be, november 10th, 7pm Fox Valley
comedycom.
You can get tickets.

Speaker 1 (01:24:59):
Dude, I'll make sure I put that on the episode too.
Bingo, awesome.
Thanks, nick, you betno-transcript.

All Episodes

#70 - Nick Brandl - The Jouirney From A Small Town Wisconsin Dairy Farm

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#70 - Nick Brandl - The Jouirney From A Small Town Wisconsin Dairy Farm