@BenThomasPreps @al.com joins @ONTHEDMARK1 May 7 FOX Sports the Game

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
To the two five one area codedown the Spanish Fort Daphne area and we

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bring in al dot COM's Ben Thomas. Good morning, Ben, got game
Thomas? How are you, sir? Good? I'm doing wonderfully. How
you guys doing. We are good. And I'm gonna say this, I
don't know how, but you doone of the best. You do the
best job of keeping up with everythinghigh school all weekend. I don't know.

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I don't know how you did allwhat you did, but you did
a good job. Yeah, Idon't know about that. I mean I
have some help. I mean,you know, we we can't be everywhere,
so we use a lot of theinformation that the HSA sent out.
And I did get out cover acouple of games this week, so that
was good. You had to beat Spanish Fort, right, I had

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to go to Spanish Fort sair Land, and let me tell you they were
There were some of the longest gamesI've ever been a part of. Really,
I don't know. I mean,it was the game on Thursday night,
Game two didn't then I don't thinkI got out of till eleven thirty.
In a Saturday's game, the homeplay the umpire would not call a
strike. I mean, he probablyhad the smallest strike zone of any umpire

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I've ever seen in a game threewhere you're already down to you know,
your three, four or five arms. Um, they were nine walks combine.
I'm talking for both teams. Therewere nine walks in the first two
innings. I mean, he justwould not call a strike. And so
it's that game lasted almost four hours. Of course it went extra innings and
before Spanish fort beat their land twelveto eleven. So it was an exciting

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game, but it just didn't.It wasn't. It wasn't what you call,
um, you know, great greatplay there a bunch of hairs,
a bunch of walks and that typething. But anyway, regardless, I
appreciate the confide what h I said. I appreciate the comlinment. We do
the best, We do the bestwe can, and I have some Mike

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Paring and Dennis Victory helped me helpme post a lot. So we're yeah,
the next two weeks. They wereoff that night that onto a concert
and I said, what, youguys need to be home because the next
two weeks I'm gonna need you yeawith softball and baseball and everything else.
Oh, you did good, andyou kept what we're recruiting. You've kept
up with the track and field,you kept up with soccer, you kept

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up with everything. And I wassitting I was working at the park and
just rolling through your tweets. Sogood job there, Local, go ahead.
I'm just gonna say, yeah,it was Thursday. Saturday night was
busy because, like I said,my two main guys that helped me were
out, and so I came backfrom my game, I had to write
my game that had to had severalother baseball games we had that we're posting.

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You know. One of our issuesis, you know a lot of
our guys, a lot of ourpart time guys, they can't post,
so they just sending in the storyto us. So then we edited and
put it online, which is,you know, a ten or fifteen minute
process each time we do that.So it's I hope it comes out all
right, and I hope I hopethere aren't giving any mistakes. That's the
main thing. Oh, y'all doa good job. Ben Thomas with us.
He works with al dot com.You can follow him on Twitter at

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Ben Thomas Prepps, or you cango to al dot com and read his
uh stories every day. All right, let's let's do a little baseball locally,
Smiths and Central. They were rightback at it, Ben, getting
ready to play to see who goesto the championship game right over here at
Darnell and Nelson Field in Phoenix City. That ought to be a good atmosphere.
I mean, just like like likeyou said that Saraly in Spanish sport

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atmosphere down here this week. Idon't know that I've rain kind of put
a little bit of damper on itbecause they couldn't play Friday got pushed back
to Saturday. But I mean itwas one of the biggest baseball crowds,
you know, in a high schoolstadium I've seen. There was some feistiness.
Some Spanish sports students had to bemoved a couple of times because they
were a pairent that Jeff getting necessarilyand pretty good. So um that happened.

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That happened with Opalaca I many yearsago, Jeff, we were doing
the game and the principal had tocome down there and clear him out being
he was oh and he was soupset at him. Whatn't you Jiff,
Well, I've heard I think it'shappened twice. They've they've had two home
playoff series with Acadore and was nowwith their Land, and I think it
happened both times where they were downthe right field line and they were giving
the right field or grief and uhand they had to have a moved so

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um anyway, Uh, just Isay that to say other than that,
it was a great atmosphere. Andthen when you get two rivals like this
week we have ums right at BaysideAcademy playing their two area rivals and just
like you've got Central Central Phiix City, the raining champs, uh playing Smiths
Stations. Central had a great seriesdown at Enterprise this week. Some of

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the coaches over there, Coach Blackman, a coach Turner, we're messaging me
about how good that series was.Went three games. Um. I think
Central lost the first game, didn'tThey came back and won the next two
and smith Staking came down here andpretty well took care Baker swept Baker that
game was. That series was plaguedby rain two. They that was a

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weird thing. Like on Friday theyplayed, they played six innings and then
they had like a five hour raindelay, and they wanted to do They
were in the sixth innings, sothey wanted to get that game in if
at all possible, and they finallydid. And then they played game two
on Saturday, and Baker and ourstation won that game. So that should
be a that should be a goodseries win. Those two games, they

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looked fairly evenly matched. Yeah,let me back up. I said it
was one nothing. That was Gametwo Enterprise one, Game one, three
two, and then Central came backone one nothing, nine four, and
so yeah, you're right. Centralwon the game one to wrap up the
area championship. Smith's won Game twoten zero in that series. It was

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the last game. Central did nothave to have the win. However,
we did look at the lineup,didn't we, Jeff. They played their
same starters that last game, thatthat game, so they did not,
you know, come out, theydidn't. There was nothing. It was
nothing sketchy because you know, theydidn't say we won a championship. So
let's play the JV exactly, whichwould have kept Auburn out had you know.

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The deal was it Smiths wins one, Auburn was out and Smiths won
one, and they got in.But you know a lot of people are
saying, well, what if Centraldoesn't play their star. I was like,
well, that's his business. Buthe did play as starters, you
know. Yeah, UM will sayso there's several kids, so that that
ought to be good series best DaviutHills and Thompson. There ought to be
a rowdy crowd m and that that'sthe other seven eight semi final. UM,

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Thompson and Bob Jones had a greatseries series obviously won that and I
think Thompson won six to five inGame three, hit a two run home
where maybe in a six or seventhinning. Um, they've been number one
most of the year. So,um, that's that's your four left in
seven eighths. That's Station Central,that's Daviut Hills, Thompson. UM that

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should whoever comes out that that shouldlead to a good UH state final series
next. Yeah. Thompson thirty sixand six, Best, Dabut thirty and
nine, Central thirty one and nine. Smith's uh I got them twenty four
Yeah, that's right, well twentyfour fifteen, Yeah, somewhere in there.
So that'd be the only team thatdone of thirty wins. But they

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play a very difficult schedule. Soyeah, and then in six A you
got, as we mentioned, Spanishfour wins. JD. Pruce done a
good job there. He came fromEnterprise, came out of the GW along
program. I really think he doesa good job because they're not they're not
a team with a lot of Done guys on it, and they got

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some good, gritty players, butthey're pretty young overall and they just got
hirt at the right time. Theyweren't very good mid season, had a
bunch of injuries. They're about fivehundred and they I think they won,
you know, something like sixteen outof last seventeen or something like that.
They go to stan Hope Elmore whowas twenty nine and five. And then
in the other half, you know, they're Coleman, who didn't seem like

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they were very good all year,but they're always good. They're twenty three
and twenty and then they got toplay number one Oxford thirty five and six.
So that's your that's your four andsix. That should be That should
be a fun week. Yeah,now you were talking about whose team whose
record? H oh Garden, OhColeman. Yeah, that is interesting,
isn't it. The twenty three,twenty record. Yeah, you gotta wonder

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who they played, though, wellI can look it up. He just
said, because they're such a goodprogram, some teams they choose not to
play. Yeah, they know theyplay a tough schedule, There's no doubt
about that. But you know whenI do that. I'm in charge of
the baseball rankings. And Jacob Winfreyworked for the Coleman Coleman towns and he
keeps us up to date, andI've asked him this year. I'm like,

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because I just Coleman's one of thoseteams like Alabama and football, where
you're just gonna see exactly you are. They're gonna be there, kind of
like g W Long too, ifyou really want to know, Hawk is
one of them. Yeah, butgo ahead being and I kept them up
there, and I kept them upthere, you know, And finally asked
Jake is what what is this Colemanteam wants to be? And he said,
yeah, they're just not not notreal good right now. I think

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they finally dropped out of the ranking, and uh, but yet here they
are again. Yeah. Yeah,well you got Oxford, Um you mentioned
Hartsehall. Oxford went up two heartson and swept them out. Oh no,
that's a huge, huge series forthem. Right. Let me look
at this here, Ben, Let'swill run real quick. This is a
Colman schedule. Excuse me. MadisonAcademy, Gardendale, Shelby County vs.

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Davie Hills Provident School in Jacksonville,Florida. Cartersville, Georgia, Daphne vs.
Davie Hills, buck Horne, Hewitt, Trustill. These are all seven
eight so far. Central Thompson,Okay, buck Horn, Decatur, Bob
Jones, Golden wherever they're at,Haleyville, Hazel Green, Ridgewood, Illinois,
IMG in Bradenton, Florida, Venice, Florida. Um yeah, muscle

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shows, you got a bunch inhere. Hearts Yeah yeah, Coleman,
I mean Heartsill. You know thoseteams, those those schools play everybody because
they expect to be here, youknow, when we get to this point,
so they don't play everybody to makethem better. Um So, anyway,
it should be a good weekend.You know. Basically we got games
today because we still I was goingto ask you about that we had,

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well, we still have a quarterfinalseries down here that didn't get completed tow
St. Paul's, the Monoplus andSaint Paul's they got rained. We had
a bunch of rain down here Fridaynight like for two hour span and UM
and Saint Paul's they just like Bakerand Smith Station. They had played about
six innings and they uh, theycould not. They finally were able to

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well. I think they start onthird. I can't know when they started
milk, but anyway, they theythey could only get one game in then
they had to play the h Theyasked what they played. They started Friday,
They came back Saturday and finished gameone, but they couldn't I guess
the field conditions were so poor theycouldn't couldn't play game two. So they're
playing today at three uh game two. Demophlus won the first game four to

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two, So if the Saint Paul'swins today, they got to play two
games today. So they're still playingtheir their quarterfinals series. But I believe
five A is the last series nextweek, so that gives them a little
bit of flexibility, Whereas you know, the other series semifinal series start tomorrow.
In a lot of cases, alot of them playing there tomorrow because
you know next week obviously starts onMonday, so you gotta have your pitch

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and have enough time to rest,no doubt about it. Interesting. So
they'll play at what three o'clock todayin a double heater. Uh, well
it could be just one game,could be a double hitter, but yeah,
three o'clock they'll played. They'll playtwo of Saint Paul's wins game one.
Okay, all right, anything elsein baseball you want to bring up?

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Um, I'm just looking, um, like I said, excited down
here about that. Ums right,Bay Side series. There Area rivals playing
again at Bay Side, So Ithink that's gonna be cool. Um,
I'm looking at their earlier classes here, Um, Appalachians number one. In
one day, they're still around GWLong. They're another one of those teams

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that you know, I think they'vegot an HSA records, seventeen titles in
Class two A. Sou to me, it's gonna be Its gonna be a
good week. Like I said,it starts early and really starts, it
goes all week and then this weekyou know, at the end of the
week we got to stay Cycer Championship. Well I was about to go,
we can't go there. They wererolling right along. We've we've just about

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ready to get them crowned, aren'twe. You just mentioned it. Yeah,
yeah, they go up to Huntsvilleand play Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
All the championship matches this year onSaturday. That's good in the case
before you know, they've played somechampionships on Friday and the rest on Saturday.
But they're all on Saturday. Sothat'll be a challenge for us to

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cover. But we'll try and getit done. And then of course you
got you know, you got foursoftball regionals going on around the state.
So a lot happening is we kindof get to the close of this sports
season, uh for high schools.And not to mention, a lot of
teams are good playing spring football rightnow. I mean I'm working on a

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post right now. Old you knowsome top spring football games to watch in
the next couple of weeks. Sothere's a lot going on there. Certainly
is Ben Thomas on our Hamilton's hotline. Hamilton's with two locations here to serve
you, and Ben is live.It is fort down there in uh Spanish
Fort Daphne, Alabama. I'll sayI'm both to get it right. And
he's here with us. Every moneycovers a lot of high school, all

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of high school in Alabama track andfield. We crowned some champions down there
are Polka Indians got the boys.We're proud of our Polka Indians in this
neck of the would have been tenplayers, ten participants. Yeah, they
were up and Coleman right, um, yes, yes, that's that's right.
They yeah, big, that's abig one. They did. Obviously
didn't have it. They don't havea home track, I understand, so

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they write for them to win thestate championship without whether I had a home
track is big. Big story vanColeman, I think was that Dayville had
a sprinter, yeah one, Ithink the one hundred and two hundred in
place of Phil Stavius Daldell, whowas one of the young men killed in
that terrible shooting in Dayville. Andso that was just kind of an emotional

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storyline there. The coaches talked about, you know, asking them, hey,
do y'all y'all still want to run, you still want to compete even
after this tragedy, and they did, and you know, man went down
there, uh and one two events, So congratulations to them. And then
you know down here in seven AHoover and Scott's first swept and their two

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classifications seven A and five A M. And then Jaylen Mbaqway won the one
hundred and two hundred and six sixA meet dash And that was a little
bit disappointing because it looked like andwe thought going in that those those races
were going to be between he andRyan Williams sarah Land mister football wide receiver.

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But unfortunately Ryan pulled out, pulledup, tweaked something in the prelim
preliminary, so he had to pullout, so he did not get to
run against Jaylen. Mother of Alabamacommit football commits. But so Jaylen Mbaqway
wins there, so and that youknow, they did a good job,
Alvin. Those officials did a goodjob getting that track going because there was
a lot of rain down there andgold Shore Thursday and Friday and they were

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still able to get that thing completedby Saturday night. Yeah, good for
them that they got that completed.Uh, and it's over. Soccer is
next, right being in the righton that in between well in soccer,
yea, we go ahead, Well, soccer championships they're coming up. Yeah,
like I said, regionals and allthat stuff. Tennis. I think

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tennis is the only tennis and trackor the only thing we've we've completed.
That's it. Yeah, yeah,that's exactly right. I was getting confusday
at essay too on that. Sogive us for us on store. We
got baseball or semifinals UM this weekand then all week Tuesday through Friday and
maybe Saturday. I guess, um, and then I'm looking here, I

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don't get my thing open. Holdjust saying let me check on checking on
golf. Yeah, I was.I saw that. I know they're there.
Well, I'll let you look atthat. This is being Thomas.
You're on the mark. So golf. The golf State Tournament is the fifteenth
and sixteenth, UM, eighth andnight. Actually they're in sub state today
and tomorrow, so I'm getting closeto closing it out. On golf.

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As we mentioned, we got thefour softball regionals going on UM around the
state. This week, we gotsemifinals, We've got soccer, and then
next week we'll we'll be headed tonext week. If I talked y'all on
Monday morning, I'll be probably beon my way driving to Jacksonville and Oxford
for the state Baseball softball Championships.Well, there you go. You got

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your room, you had your roomset. Last year you were well out
in front of that, wasn't youbig boy? Oh? Yeah, wasn't
Yeah last year, it wasn't it. Last Yeah? Last year was the
first year they had it there whenMontgomery when everything fell through a Montgomery and
I had an inside force. Yeah, that's what I'll said. You got
scooped. That's because they're there,Because they're not a whole lot of than
Jackson, Alabama. I mean,there's a good many in Oxford and Anniston

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area, and there's you know,buy the Softball Complex down in Anniston,
Oxford. They have hotels around there, but U and Greater Jacksonville there's basically
the Hampton in and I think ared Room or something like that. So
there's a there's not a lot ofchoices there. But we're actually going back
there for the Sports Writers Convention inJune at Jacksonville State, So I'll be

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there, be there. Okay.I wondered, so we couldn't get it
worked out? I wondered what happenedthere? Is that what you decided to
do? Yeah, I mean Ijust yeah, we wanted. We wanted
to have it at Auburn and itjust didn't work out. I mean the
people at Auburn, I don't think, you know, they had some other
plans and we just couldn't get workedout there. So we're going to Jacksonville
State and I think it'll be it'llbe good up there. All the other

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excited about coming to Auburn and gettinga tour of the facility and we meet
with Cooke Freeze and that type ofthing, but just didn't work out for
whatever reason. Well, maybe wecan get it worked out next time.
Being I hate that, you know, we tried anyway. Yeah, I
thought when we had the mayor onour side, I thought of yeah,
don't be as lamb done, butjust didn't go through. From yeah,
well, um, I will saybefore I get off, we had a

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big commitment yesterday kind of too,Kwan Fagans from Thompson. They're twenty twenty
five safety who's rank probably he's probablyone of the two best players in a
great class in the state of Alabamafor that year. That's the Ryan Williams
class as well. He commits toUSC Southern cow and his brother who went

(18:32):
to Alabama, but is in thetransfer portal committed to USC as well,
so they're both gonna be Trojans.Although you know, two years left for
an quant anything could happen. Anythingcould happen there before he gets to California.
But that's pretty big news because Iunderstand that he is one of the
better safeties and that has come alongin high school football in a long time.

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So the Trojans are getting some talentout Alabama. It's interesting in it.
That's a long way to go.But but you know what a lot
of I call those, uh notcommitments, I call him pledges. Yeah,
they may be. I mean twoyou got two years of two years
of high school football left. Anythingcan happen that because people aren't gonna stop

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recruiting. He's that good. Andhe had nine interceptions last year. Nine
interceptions, and for a high highschool team, especially a good one that
wanted to stay championship, that's it'shard to get nine interceptions in the year.
I mean, wow, people aren'tgonna throw it very much. How
dangerous dangerous you are back there.So I understand he might play corner for

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for Thomson this year, so thatthat may limit his interceptions because people aren't
gonna throw there. He probably Iwouldn't. I wouldn't have let him get
now, I wouldn't have thrown.How's Coachy Washburn doing. I know he
told me last time that he was'tbe on y'all for a while. Yeah,
Jeff, he's doing pretty that inthis but with even a week I
didn't see m misterday. Uh,he's hanging in there, but he's got

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a little hill, but he's headingthat way, and he's heading that way.
I go. Yeah, we'll keepyou updated on that. How's your
family? Everybody good? Everybody's good. Yeah, just uh, getting ready
to get out of school next week, and and then I'll then I'll be
trying to work and fix him lunchand trying to keep him getting something to

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do during the summertime. Yeah,let me ask you this. I his
flag football team. I'd work out. They lost a tough playoff game on
Saturday. Yeah, the number oneteam. They played pretty well. That
they had a good team. Theyjust they just for some reason couldn't They
played, had a tough schedule,but anyway, okay, they weren't able
to They weren't able to get it. Did I tell you I don't.
Did I tell you about Philip Rivers? Well, you telling about how dog

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on feisty he was out there,I mean with his yeah, yeah,
he because he looks so his youngestson. He coached the team with it
that his youngest son played on anduh and in our same league. But
we didn't play them, but Isaw him. We played him out,
Yeah, we played that. Weplayed Tuesday night, had to win to
get in the playoffs, which wedid and Phillips team didn't play that night.

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But I saw him and his sonswatching a game, like, what
are you? What are you doing? Man? He's like, we played
the loser of this game here onSaturday. I said, letting me get
this right. Are you scouting football? He said? He said, yeah,
I meet up with it. Hewas scouting what what age being hole
worthy? Eleven and twelve? Ilove it. He's scouting him eleven and

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twelve? Baby, he ready,I love it. That's awesome. I
don't know. I under checked withhim say all that came out. If
it was he, please tell mehe wasn't. He didn't have a pad
writing notes. Please don't know.Okay, he was just saying it.
I was gonna say please tell me. No, he is that. Whether
it's on Friday night or Saturday morning, Man, he is not. He

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is still competitive. You know.He told me when he took the job
down here at Saint Michael that Iasked him about there'd been some talk about
him being announcement maybe. He said, Look, I just don't think I
could. I don't think I coulddo again do a job where I don't
have some influence on the scoreboard.Is he's a competitor. He is a
competitor. I love that scouting twelveyear old runner ups. That's what I'm

(22:18):
talking. Man. We appreciate whatyou do, buddy, Thank you so
much. All Right, I havea great week. You got it.
You can get Ben