July 8, 2026 • 21 mins
Petros Papadakis in Los Angeles joins Dick Fain to talk about his family restaurant in the San Pedro area, his interest in soccer coming from that neighborhood, the Seattle celebration of the World Cup with six games here, the intersection of politics and soccer once again rearing its head, plus LeBron James moving on from Los Angeles this year.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's time for our weekly conversation with college football analyst
Petros Papa Dakas.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Not that I'm a smart guy, I'm stupid.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Brought to you by Sweet James Accident Attorneys, forty one yours.
If you're hurt in an accident, called Sweet James right
away at eight hundred and five hundred and fifty two hundred.
Sweet James will be sweet to you, but tough on
insurance companies that will.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Bully you rue.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
I don't know buh. Now with Petros, here's Dave Softi Mullers.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Four o'clock hour on a Wednesday, and that means always
regardless who is commandeering the show, whether it's Dave Softi
Muller or myself, it is time to talk to our
good friend from the Southland, Petros Papa Dacus.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Brought to you by that would be the one and
only Sweet James, the dence Beard of Justice. He can
come through for you. If you've ever been in a
car accident or a motorcycle accident. Perhaps you've been bitten
by a dog, perhaps you've been bitten on the by
a dog on your balls. Either way, Sweet James knows
how to extract the money you are owned from the
insurance company. So give them a call. Eight hundred and
(01:12):
nine millionaires number. That's eight hundred and nine zero zero
zero zero zero zero or Sweet James dot com with
offices in Los Angeles and Seattle.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Oh beautiful. I was spying on you today, Petros. I
was looking at your Twitter and scrolling. I was doing
some doom scrolling on computation.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Not at nothing.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
I just I saw a picture that peaked my interest.
It was one of the Papadakas Taverna. Is that the
old restaurant? Yeh yes, the old restaurant. And I just
wanted a little bit know a little bit more about
the restaurant that you put out on and.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Like the years that you guys owned it. You know,
what could I you know, what would I go in order?
If I was at the Papadakas Taverna all those same The.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Restaurant was older than me. Now it's not because it's closed,
but it was open. And I was born in nineteen
seventy seven in the restaurant my father and they're opened
in nineteen seventy three, and it was a traditional Greek taverna,
which means kind of a dinner house. With soup, salad
and charbroied meats is what they specialized in. And they
(02:15):
would dance around and play loud music and it became
a very interesting place, an eclectic place. There was jazz
shows there and there was a lot of celebrities that
used to eat there, even though it was all the
way down in San Pedro, which is sort of a
forgotten place though it is part of the city of
Los Angeles. It's the harbor area of Los Angeles. If
(02:39):
your listeners have seen the movie The Usual Suspects, that's
primarily only shot in San Pedro. If people are trying
to make a hilly area with a harbor look like
San Francisco, a lot of the time they shoot in
San Pedro. So that's the area that my family is from.
That's where the restaurant was, and as it relates to
(03:02):
the University of Washington, I remember Dick Baird used to
talk about it all the time, how they used to
come down with Don James when they would play on
those Rose Bowls and the whole team would come down,
or the coaching staff at least maybe the team would
come down and eat at the restaurant. The USC team
when I was a kid used to come down and
(03:23):
eat the restaurant. I think Frank Solich took Nebraska down
there when they played in a BCS champions Do.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
You have enough food? Did your mom and dad have
enough food?
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Defeat? We had enough food well, and we had enough
food for everybody we had. I mean, we could handle
a football team and regular business and private parties at
the same time. So I grew up there. I was
started when I was nine and worked in the kitchen,
worked as a bus boy, worked as a waiter, did
basically everything you can do at a restaurant except for
(03:53):
I wasn't. I spent one one summer at the grill
and that didn't work out so well. But yeah, that
was my family's restaurant. It became as I became a
football player, my older brother a football player. My dad
kind of related more to his USC days and it
became kind of an athlete's place for a while. It
(04:13):
was always a family place, but I mean when I
was a kid, Liz Taylor, I remember serving her. Oh yeah,
Harrison Ford and anybody you can really think of. George Harrison,
the Beatle was there because there were you know, Dave Mason, the.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Musicians, sure, regular mom and pop shop.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Man. Well, it was though, like it was like every
person that walked in was greeted by my father and
generally probably you know, sexually assaulted in a way, you know,
kissed on the lips women, you know, the long embrace
very much. I mean there were belly dancings. There was
(04:56):
belly dancers. I used to watch the belly dancers change
when I was a kid washing dishes. So yeah, it was.
And when you grow up there, when you're twelve years
old and all of your colleagues are Greek or Italian
waiters that carry guns and none of which are college educated,
and you're in San Pedro, a harbor town, which is
(05:18):
a pretty gritty, fist fighting type of place, it was
a pretty interesting childhood, without a doubt.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
So was was soccer a big thing when you were
growing up in the San Pedro area?
Speaker 2 (05:30):
No? I mean, well, there's a lot of Croatians and
Serbs in Pedro, so they whenever Croatia makes the World Cup,
they close down a whole street and put up a
screen and they all wear their red and white checkers.
And okay, that's really actually a few years back, maybe
eight nine years ago, is the first time I ever
stood in a group and had a beer with people
(05:51):
I knew Croatian guys from Pedro and watched people watch
soccer and you kind of get that feeling where the
ball bounces around and the emotion is kind of everywhere
around you. And it's different from being in a football game,
which I haven't sat and the stands for in a
long time either. So it's I can see how the
(06:12):
community connects and how you know these people. For US,
US soccer loses and it sucks, and oh, it's kind
of a deflator. And then you wake up the next
morning and check the news about training camp or the
Mariners or whatever, and it's these people live the shame
for the next four years. Yes, And I think that's
(06:34):
very hard to relate with as American sports fans.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Is that one of the reasons why we're never going
to be great at it, because well, the pain does
not exist for longer than like twenty four hours.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
With US. I guess I just don't think our best
athletes soccer is not their first choice. Yeah, I mean,
and I don't think that's an insult to the sport,
which has grown tremendously in the last twenty five years,
thirty years in this country. But I just don't think
our best athletes are Maybe they will start, maybe maybe
(07:07):
they'll be. There's definitely more than there used to be,
but I think our best athletes are still playing football,
baseball and basketball. That being said, this has been thrilling
and it's not over, and it's it's a great advertisement
for our country and everybody loves it. I went to
a soccer game in Greece when I was a kid.
I think it was an ike A e K which
(07:29):
is one of the clubs out. It's like the one
of their insignias is like a middle finger on a start,
and you know they find it out well. The other
Greek clubs are pentathon Ikos right and and Olympia Coast.
People have heard of that and they all have. People
don't realize they have a soccer and I didn't either,
but they'll have like a soccer team, a water polo teams,
(07:53):
hoops team of course, and so on and so forth.
They're these sports organizations. But I went to one of
those in it was crazy, you know, there was there
was fireworks and everybody was smoking a cigarette and screaming
and singing at the same time, it's a really special thing.
But it's not American. There's there's no doubt about that.
(08:13):
There's not much about it that's American because there's no
commercial breaks, and without commercial breaks, how can we really
consume good point? But I think it's been great. I do,
and I think I explained this to Softie. I've been
around my whole life in La and I remember the
eighty four Olympics. I was old enough to remember how
everybody it was a different city then, but everybody was
(08:35):
still very worried about traffic and leave town and don't
be here. And you kind of realized, Wow, this city
can really take a punch and absorb an event. It's
huge and yeah, sprawling and huge. The Super Bowl things
come all start game. But that stuff happens in other cities,
Miami or something, and it just locks the whole place down,
(08:56):
and it happens here and you're barely aware of it.
That con trast is this. When Mexico has played, it
doesn't matter where they're playing. There's watch parties all over
town right where the US played, where there was games
at so far here this city was clogged. So it's
pretty interesting to see that happen, of course doesn't usually.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
No, I mean, we're very proud of ourselves up here.
I mean, your friend, my friend, Colin Coward called this
the North American Capital of soccer just the just the
other day, they said this the This the place where
the US team should be playing at.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
I mean, I think as disappointing as.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Look pretty good the other day until they took the
what do they call it the pitch.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Yeah, until they took the pitch. Everything looked great until
the team.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Actually made Yeah, they went out with us. But you know,
I think this is I mean, at least go out
like Paraguay kicking everybody in the calf.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
That's exactly right, just getting ticked off at everybody.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
I mean, I honestly think this is a place where
a World Cup final could be hosted.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Here in Seattle.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
The way that we embraced this whole thing it was amazing,
and it was It was a big enough city that
it could handle and yet a small enough place where
it totally just enveloped the entire culture of the city.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
I think was a really cool balance.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
It looked really special, It looked bigger than the Super
Bowl celebration, and obviously It's a great town with unbelievable
scenic views and a pro stadium for every sport or
all but one. So I think it's a great I
would never have a problem with that. I'd rather be
(10:31):
there than in New Jersey on that giant parking lot.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Oh yeah, that was just that's just a terrible place
to have the final. But I'd rather have it at
so Far than than They're no question about it. Petros
Papadakas coming to you as he always does in the
four o'clock hour on a Wednesday. One more question on soccer,
and then I want to move to you your favorite topic,
Lebron James, the Balligan situation. We haven't talked to you
(10:54):
since that whole thing went down, the red card, the overturning,
the Trump getting involved. You know, what's your what's your
take on that whole thing?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Well, I don't know much about soccer as far as
how that kind of stuff works. But I did hear
more than one person say the same thing that was
kind of safe to say without having a stance one
way or the other. Somebody said, well, I just I
don't like it when politics on soccer mix and it's like, well,
(11:24):
did you watch the World Cup when it was in cutter,
a desert country with Bedouins everywhere and heat that blows
people's faces off. Why do you think it was there?
Do you think that might have been a little bit political?
I mean, these are literally countries that are run by
politicians and governments. Putting a soccer team together or a
(11:48):
program together, and of course it's political. And I don't
know if the President flexed his muscle because the World
Cup has been such an enormous success for FIFA here
in the United States in particular, and Mexico and Canada
of course, but here in particular, it's been wild. I
(12:09):
work at Fox and I know Fox executives, and the
only difference is I don't know if this means anything
to the listeners or not. The one thing you don't
have to do when you carry the World Cup, if
you're Fox, you don't have to cut the game. That's
a world feed, right. Everybody's calling the same action, which
(12:30):
is kind of interesting when you think about it, because
everybody's a little late on the replays. Nobody really knows
what's coming. There's one French guy in a truck somewhere going, oh,
you know, cutting the game, and then everybody else has
to just follow along. So Fox doesn't have to get
a producer and a director and a whole truck full
of people for every game. They have to get a
(12:51):
play by play and an analyst and a sideline person.
They have to have their studio shows set up, and
that's a huge undertaking, of course, but you don't have
to do that. It's not like producing twelve football games
in a weekend collegen prices. You got to cut all
those games, so that part of it they don't have
to do. But that being said, their ratings are one
(13:13):
hundred percent or something more than they projected in everything.
They're getting ratings for games where Britain and Mexico plays
that are like NBA Finals level or World Series level ratings.
So everybody's been thrilled with this. And if he flexs
a little muscle because of that, Mate, I don't know.
I don't know how these things work. I don't understand
(13:35):
the sport well enough. But the president that we have
certainly has been involved in sports his entire life, it
seems right, and so I and I think he had
part of bringing the World Cup here, So I do
remember him flexing out with some foreign dignitary type desk.
So I guess it doesn't shock me. And the outrage
(13:57):
is kind of funny because there seems like there's a
lot of different examples of this sort of stuff happening
throughout Yeah, in soccer and throughout soccer. Did you know?
And I didn't know this that And I only know
this because I'm an Orthodox Christian, you know, Greek Orthodox,
the Egyptians fifteen and they've killed a lot of them,
but fifteen percent of Egypt is Coptic Orthodox people. The
(14:20):
native people that are Orthodox Greek Orthodox or yeah, they're Christians,
they're not allowed to be on that soccer team. Really, yep.
And we had fifteen percent of our society here is black, right,
mm hmm, Well that used to be us with baseball. Wow,
twenty twenty six in Egypt.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
That's a great exactly, let's just rewind eighty years ago.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
That's last you coach, Holy smokes. Well, Petros Papaegas Joins.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
I heard just talking about Lebron last week with SOFTI
and the end of the era in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
The end of the road.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
Yeah, the end of the road, and the.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Part that got me the part that got me was
the whole jersey retire thing, because I just thought, Okay,
you know, reserve the statues for the Jerry West and
the Kobe's and that that's fine, but like the retired jerseys,
that to me just seemed like, pardon the pun, but
a slam dunk.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
And I went up and looked at it.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
I asked my friend Claude or whatever the name of
the most recent gpt AI is, and there is not
one player that's ever played that is retired and has
seven All Nbas with a team, and eight All Stars
with a team that doesn't have their jersey retired.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
So I was like, well, this just seems like a
no brainer.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
But you think that it might not happen just because
of the relationship with the new ownership group.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Oh I don't know that could happen, because it could
have been written into his last deal.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
For all I know, I must be retired.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
It could be. I mean, would you be surprised pretty
calculated group.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Yes, that's true. That's true.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
I've spent the last three weeks trying to act like
we broke up with you. You know, it's kind of
like everybody sort of knew this was going to happen
for a year at least. They were hopeful. But it's
an interesting question because I can tell you and it's
true for every single person that showed up at the
games because their fans of Lebron James. The Lakers lost
(16:15):
two fans during the Lebron era. There's not going to
be a local push because people like Lebron. There's just
not There's not enough. He didn't have. Kobe was a
polarizing player, and he's going to have four statues when
it's all said and done out there. This isn't even
in close. And maybe that's unfair when you put it
(16:37):
like that, eight All Nbas, five hundred All Stars, whatever.
Maybe it is unfair in that regard, but it's just
everything that everybody has said about it, that you've heard
from the city. Never really felt like he was a Laker,
even though he had the uniform on, didn't do a
lot to endear himself to the city. Every single big
Lebron moment was some kind of individual. Almost everyone was
(16:59):
some kind of individual accolade or an aale loop from
his son. You know. It just it's see, the whole
thing felt even to people in this city, which is
an extremely shallow and self serving city. He seemed everything
he did seemed enormously self serving, and I just maybe
(17:19):
he gets it. Maybe that happens, Maybe it doesn't, probably
because it's written into some corporate deal that's going to
be made, or some relationship he has with Mark Walter,
the Guggenheim Group, the new owner. Maybe maybe there will
be no relationship with them. They obviously want to move
on from him and build around Luka Doncic. So either way,
(17:41):
I don't think there's going to be an outcry in
Los Angeles for it at all from the outside. If
you look at it on paper, you'd say, oh, of course,
but not on the inside.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Now, what was the reaction to Steven A's comment that
you're never gonna win with three white guys leading your team.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Rodney Pete said that too, that you know, too many
whites and all that. I mean, it's I mean, it's racist, right.
I mean I sat in a I mean I sat
in a sociology class in USC I remember, with a
bunch of my teammates. You know, it was like one
of the things you had to take and we all
sat in the back, you know, big class, like two
(18:17):
hundred three hundred people, and the teacher said black people
cannot be racist because they're a minority and an impressed minority,
and because they're an oppressed minority, they cannot be racist.
And I'm looking around at my teammates and they're kind
of nodding their heads. I was like, these are the
most racist guys I know, Like, what are you talking about?
You know, like, I get it, that's the academic stance here.
(18:41):
I mean, I'm a white running back at USC and
the nineties. What are you talking about me? I wanted
to stand up and testify, like the Blues Brothers at
the church with James Brown. I wanted to be like, hell, no, teacher,
you stupid at us. I'm sorry to I'm starting to
destroy your thesis. But I'm on the USC football team, sir,
(19:02):
and it's nineteen ninety eight maybe seven. But that being said,
I think that stephen A. Smith is Look, we all
say things. I say a lot of racial things about
I say black guys, say white guy, say Mexican guy.
And I don't. I don't think it's a big deal,
(19:22):
and I don't expect people who admonish me. I love
everybody and without Latino fans and black people, and I mean,
no one would listen to us on the radio, and
it's our most of our audience. So I don't want
to sit here and jump all over him and say
other than to just have fun and look at every
(19:43):
team and just be like, well, you know, there's another
white guy available, But that would bring it over the
top everyone, you know. I mean, it's something that we
can all.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
Have fun a quota. Man's no question about it down there.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
And when you say that, like, well you know there's
one too many, one too many black guys on your
yachting team. If you can win it yachting with that
many black guys, I mean you know that's racist, right,
You'd get admonished for that, right. So, I mean we
live in a world of gray area and nuance. But
and Steven A. Smith is deep down really what he
(20:15):
is as an entertainer. I don't take him seriously as
some kind of beacon of society. He's an entertainer. I
mean I met that guy twenty years ago and he
had a bodyguard with him, and I was like, why
does he have a bodyguard him? Right? And we were
on the sideline at USC like which is already secure, right, like,
(20:39):
why what's going on? But I thought that was kind
of funny. So that's kind of maybe always how he
Maybe that's always how he's been. He's very important, and he.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Acts like we love you, man, we were glad.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
I love you, Dick.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
We're glad. You don't take anything too seriously. It's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I try. Well, unless USC is not going to play
Notre Dame. Oh that's you, or somebody wants to hire
another air raid coach down here. That's right, look my chicken.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
Yes, you draw your line right there, and I think
that's right there. I think that's fair. Thanks, Petros will talk.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
To my stand Yes you too, Dick. Have a great day.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
You've had, Petros Papadakis.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
We'll bring Hugh back into the fold next on ninety
three point three KJR FM
It's time for our weekly conversation with college football analyst
Petros Papa Dakas.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Not that I'm a smart guy, I'm stupid.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Brought to you by Sweet James Accident Attorneys, forty one yours.
If you're hurt in an accident, called Sweet James right
away at eight hundred and five hundred and fifty two hundred.
Sweet James will be sweet to you, but tough on
insurance companies that will.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Bully you rue.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
I don't know buh. Now with Petros, here's Dave Softi Mullers.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Four o'clock hour on a Wednesday, and that means always
regardless who is commandeering the show, whether it's Dave Softi
Muller or myself, it is time to talk to our
good friend from the Southland, Petros Papa Dacus.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Brought to you by that would be the one and
only Sweet James, the dence Beard of Justice. He can
come through for you. If you've ever been in a
car accident or a motorcycle accident. Perhaps you've been bitten
by a dog, perhaps you've been bitten on the by
a dog on your balls. Either way, Sweet James knows
how to extract the money you are owned from the
insurance company. So give them a call. Eight hundred and
(01:12):
nine millionaires number. That's eight hundred and nine zero zero
zero zero zero zero or Sweet James dot com with
offices in Los Angeles and Seattle.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Oh beautiful. I was spying on you today, Petros. I
was looking at your Twitter and scrolling. I was doing
some doom scrolling on computation.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Not at nothing.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
I just I saw a picture that peaked my interest.
It was one of the Papadakas Taverna. Is that the
old restaurant? Yeh yes, the old restaurant. And I just
wanted a little bit know a little bit more about
the restaurant that you put out on and.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Like the years that you guys owned it. You know,
what could I you know, what would I go in order?
If I was at the Papadakas Taverna all those same The.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Restaurant was older than me. Now it's not because it's closed,
but it was open. And I was born in nineteen
seventy seven in the restaurant my father and they're opened
in nineteen seventy three, and it was a traditional Greek taverna,
which means kind of a dinner house. With soup, salad
and charbroied meats is what they specialized in. And they
(02:15):
would dance around and play loud music and it became
a very interesting place, an eclectic place. There was jazz
shows there and there was a lot of celebrities that
used to eat there, even though it was all the
way down in San Pedro, which is sort of a
forgotten place though it is part of the city of
Los Angeles. It's the harbor area of Los Angeles. If
(02:39):
your listeners have seen the movie The Usual Suspects, that's
primarily only shot in San Pedro. If people are trying
to make a hilly area with a harbor look like
San Francisco, a lot of the time they shoot in
San Pedro. So that's the area that my family is from.
That's where the restaurant was, and as it relates to
(03:02):
the University of Washington, I remember Dick Baird used to
talk about it all the time, how they used to
come down with Don James when they would play on
those Rose Bowls and the whole team would come down,
or the coaching staff at least maybe the team would
come down and eat at the restaurant. The USC team
when I was a kid used to come down and
(03:23):
eat the restaurant. I think Frank Solich took Nebraska down
there when they played in a BCS champions Do.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
You have enough food? Did your mom and dad have
enough food?
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Defeat? We had enough food well, and we had enough
food for everybody we had. I mean, we could handle
a football team and regular business and private parties at
the same time. So I grew up there. I was
started when I was nine and worked in the kitchen,
worked as a bus boy, worked as a waiter, did
basically everything you can do at a restaurant except for
(03:53):
I wasn't. I spent one one summer at the grill
and that didn't work out so well. But yeah, that
was my family's restaurant. It became as I became a
football player, my older brother a football player. My dad
kind of related more to his USC days and it
became kind of an athlete's place for a while. It
(04:13):
was always a family place, but I mean when I
was a kid, Liz Taylor, I remember serving her. Oh yeah,
Harrison Ford and anybody you can really think of. George Harrison,
the Beatle was there because there were you know, Dave Mason, the.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Musicians, sure, regular mom and pop shop.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Man. Well, it was though, like it was like every
person that walked in was greeted by my father and
generally probably you know, sexually assaulted in a way, you know,
kissed on the lips women, you know, the long embrace
very much. I mean there were belly dancings. There was
(04:56):
belly dancers. I used to watch the belly dancers change
when I was a kid washing dishes. So yeah, it was.
And when you grow up there, when you're twelve years
old and all of your colleagues are Greek or Italian
waiters that carry guns and none of which are college educated,
and you're in San Pedro, a harbor town, which is
(05:18):
a pretty gritty, fist fighting type of place, it was
a pretty interesting childhood, without a doubt.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
So was was soccer a big thing when you were
growing up in the San Pedro area?
Speaker 2 (05:30):
No? I mean, well, there's a lot of Croatians and
Serbs in Pedro, so they whenever Croatia makes the World Cup,
they close down a whole street and put up a
screen and they all wear their red and white checkers.
And okay, that's really actually a few years back, maybe
eight nine years ago, is the first time I ever
stood in a group and had a beer with people
(05:51):
I knew Croatian guys from Pedro and watched people watch
soccer and you kind of get that feeling where the
ball bounces around and the emotion is kind of everywhere
around you. And it's different from being in a football game,
which I haven't sat and the stands for in a
long time either. So it's I can see how the
(06:12):
community connects and how you know these people. For US,
US soccer loses and it sucks, and oh, it's kind
of a deflator. And then you wake up the next
morning and check the news about training camp or the
Mariners or whatever, and it's these people live the shame
for the next four years. Yes, And I think that's
(06:34):
very hard to relate with as American sports fans.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Is that one of the reasons why we're never going
to be great at it, because well, the pain does
not exist for longer than like twenty four hours.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
With US. I guess I just don't think our best
athletes soccer is not their first choice. Yeah, I mean,
and I don't think that's an insult to the sport,
which has grown tremendously in the last twenty five years,
thirty years in this country. But I just don't think
our best athletes are Maybe they will start, maybe maybe
(07:07):
they'll be. There's definitely more than there used to be,
but I think our best athletes are still playing football,
baseball and basketball. That being said, this has been thrilling
and it's not over, and it's it's a great advertisement
for our country and everybody loves it. I went to
a soccer game in Greece when I was a kid.
I think it was an ike A e K which
(07:29):
is one of the clubs out. It's like the one
of their insignias is like a middle finger on a start,
and you know they find it out well. The other
Greek clubs are pentathon Ikos right and and Olympia Coast.
People have heard of that and they all have. People
don't realize they have a soccer and I didn't either,
but they'll have like a soccer team, a water polo teams,
(07:53):
hoops team of course, and so on and so forth.
They're these sports organizations. But I went to one of
those in it was crazy, you know, there was there
was fireworks and everybody was smoking a cigarette and screaming
and singing at the same time, it's a really special thing.
But it's not American. There's there's no doubt about that.
(08:13):
There's not much about it that's American because there's no
commercial breaks, and without commercial breaks, how can we really
consume good point? But I think it's been great. I do,
and I think I explained this to Softie. I've been
around my whole life in La and I remember the
eighty four Olympics. I was old enough to remember how
everybody it was a different city then, but everybody was
(08:35):
still very worried about traffic and leave town and don't
be here. And you kind of realized, Wow, this city
can really take a punch and absorb an event. It's
huge and yeah, sprawling and huge. The Super Bowl things
come all start game. But that stuff happens in other cities,
Miami or something, and it just locks the whole place down,
(08:56):
and it happens here and you're barely aware of it.
That con trast is this. When Mexico has played, it
doesn't matter where they're playing. There's watch parties all over
town right where the US played, where there was games
at so far here this city was clogged. So it's
pretty interesting to see that happen, of course doesn't usually.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
No, I mean, we're very proud of ourselves up here.
I mean, your friend, my friend, Colin Coward called this
the North American Capital of soccer just the just the
other day, they said this the This the place where
the US team should be playing at.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
I mean, I think as disappointing as.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Look pretty good the other day until they took the
what do they call it the pitch.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Yeah, until they took the pitch. Everything looked great until
the team.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Actually made Yeah, they went out with us. But you know,
I think this is I mean, at least go out
like Paraguay kicking everybody in the calf.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
That's exactly right, just getting ticked off at everybody.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
I mean, I honestly think this is a place where
a World Cup final could be hosted.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Here in Seattle.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
The way that we embraced this whole thing it was amazing,
and it was It was a big enough city that
it could handle and yet a small enough place where
it totally just enveloped the entire culture of the city.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
I think was a really cool balance.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
It looked really special, It looked bigger than the Super
Bowl celebration, and obviously It's a great town with unbelievable
scenic views and a pro stadium for every sport or
all but one. So I think it's a great I
would never have a problem with that. I'd rather be
(10:31):
there than in New Jersey on that giant parking lot.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Oh yeah, that was just that's just a terrible place
to have the final. But I'd rather have it at
so Far than than They're no question about it. Petros
Papadakas coming to you as he always does in the
four o'clock hour on a Wednesday. One more question on soccer,
and then I want to move to you your favorite topic,
Lebron James, the Balligan situation. We haven't talked to you
(10:54):
since that whole thing went down, the red card, the overturning,
the Trump getting involved. You know, what's your what's your
take on that whole thing?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Well, I don't know much about soccer as far as
how that kind of stuff works. But I did hear
more than one person say the same thing that was
kind of safe to say without having a stance one
way or the other. Somebody said, well, I just I
don't like it when politics on soccer mix and it's like, well,
(11:24):
did you watch the World Cup when it was in cutter,
a desert country with Bedouins everywhere and heat that blows
people's faces off. Why do you think it was there?
Do you think that might have been a little bit political?
I mean, these are literally countries that are run by
politicians and governments. Putting a soccer team together or a
(11:48):
program together, and of course it's political. And I don't
know if the President flexed his muscle because the World
Cup has been such an enormous success for FIFA here
in the United States in particular, and Mexico and Canada
of course, but here in particular, it's been wild. I
(12:09):
work at Fox and I know Fox executives, and the
only difference is I don't know if this means anything
to the listeners or not. The one thing you don't
have to do when you carry the World Cup, if
you're Fox, you don't have to cut the game. That's
a world feed, right. Everybody's calling the same action, which
(12:30):
is kind of interesting when you think about it, because
everybody's a little late on the replays. Nobody really knows
what's coming. There's one French guy in a truck somewhere going, oh,
you know, cutting the game, and then everybody else has
to just follow along. So Fox doesn't have to get
a producer and a director and a whole truck full
of people for every game. They have to get a
(12:51):
play by play and an analyst and a sideline person.
They have to have their studio shows set up, and
that's a huge undertaking, of course, but you don't have
to do that. It's not like producing twelve football games
in a weekend collegen prices. You got to cut all
those games, so that part of it they don't have
to do. But that being said, their ratings are one
(13:13):
hundred percent or something more than they projected in everything.
They're getting ratings for games where Britain and Mexico plays
that are like NBA Finals level or World Series level ratings.
So everybody's been thrilled with this. And if he flexs
a little muscle because of that, Mate, I don't know.
I don't know how these things work. I don't understand
(13:35):
the sport well enough. But the president that we have
certainly has been involved in sports his entire life, it
seems right, and so I and I think he had
part of bringing the World Cup here, So I do
remember him flexing out with some foreign dignitary type desk.
So I guess it doesn't shock me. And the outrage
(13:57):
is kind of funny because there seems like there's a
lot of different examples of this sort of stuff happening
throughout Yeah, in soccer and throughout soccer. Did you know?
And I didn't know this that And I only know
this because I'm an Orthodox Christian, you know, Greek Orthodox,
the Egyptians fifteen and they've killed a lot of them,
but fifteen percent of Egypt is Coptic Orthodox people. The
(14:20):
native people that are Orthodox Greek Orthodox or yeah, they're Christians,
they're not allowed to be on that soccer team. Really, yep.
And we had fifteen percent of our society here is black, right,
mm hmm, Well that used to be us with baseball. Wow,
twenty twenty six in Egypt.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
That's a great exactly, let's just rewind eighty years ago.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
That's last you coach, Holy smokes. Well, Petros Papaegas Joins.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
I heard just talking about Lebron last week with SOFTI
and the end of the era in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
The end of the road.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
Yeah, the end of the road, and the.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Part that got me the part that got me was
the whole jersey retire thing, because I just thought, Okay,
you know, reserve the statues for the Jerry West and
the Kobe's and that that's fine, but like the retired jerseys,
that to me just seemed like, pardon the pun, but
a slam dunk.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
And I went up and looked at it.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
I asked my friend Claude or whatever the name of
the most recent gpt AI is, and there is not
one player that's ever played that is retired and has
seven All Nbas with a team, and eight All Stars
with a team that doesn't have their jersey retired.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
So I was like, well, this just seems like a
no brainer.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
But you think that it might not happen just because
of the relationship with the new ownership group.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Oh I don't know that could happen, because it could
have been written into his last deal.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
For all I know, I must be retired.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
It could be. I mean, would you be surprised pretty
calculated group.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Yes, that's true. That's true.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
I've spent the last three weeks trying to act like
we broke up with you. You know, it's kind of
like everybody sort of knew this was going to happen
for a year at least. They were hopeful. But it's
an interesting question because I can tell you and it's
true for every single person that showed up at the
games because their fans of Lebron James. The Lakers lost
(16:15):
two fans during the Lebron era. There's not going to
be a local push because people like Lebron. There's just
not There's not enough. He didn't have. Kobe was a
polarizing player, and he's going to have four statues when
it's all said and done out there. This isn't even
in close. And maybe that's unfair when you put it
(16:37):
like that, eight All Nbas, five hundred All Stars, whatever.
Maybe it is unfair in that regard, but it's just
everything that everybody has said about it, that you've heard
from the city. Never really felt like he was a Laker,
even though he had the uniform on, didn't do a
lot to endear himself to the city. Every single big
Lebron moment was some kind of individual. Almost everyone was
(16:59):
some kind of individual accolade or an aale loop from
his son. You know. It just it's see, the whole
thing felt even to people in this city, which is
an extremely shallow and self serving city. He seemed everything
he did seemed enormously self serving, and I just maybe
(17:19):
he gets it. Maybe that happens, Maybe it doesn't, probably
because it's written into some corporate deal that's going to
be made, or some relationship he has with Mark Walter,
the Guggenheim Group, the new owner. Maybe maybe there will
be no relationship with them. They obviously want to move
on from him and build around Luka Doncic. So either way,
(17:41):
I don't think there's going to be an outcry in
Los Angeles for it at all from the outside. If
you look at it on paper, you'd say, oh, of course,
but not on the inside.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Now, what was the reaction to Steven A's comment that
you're never gonna win with three white guys leading your team.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Rodney Pete said that too, that you know, too many
whites and all that. I mean, it's I mean, it's racist, right.
I mean I sat in a I mean I sat
in a sociology class in USC I remember, with a
bunch of my teammates. You know, it was like one
of the things you had to take and we all
sat in the back, you know, big class, like two
(18:17):
hundred three hundred people, and the teacher said black people
cannot be racist because they're a minority and an impressed minority,
and because they're an oppressed minority, they cannot be racist.
And I'm looking around at my teammates and they're kind
of nodding their heads. I was like, these are the
most racist guys I know, Like, what are you talking about?
You know, like, I get it, that's the academic stance here.
(18:41):
I mean, I'm a white running back at USC and
the nineties. What are you talking about me? I wanted
to stand up and testify, like the Blues Brothers at
the church with James Brown. I wanted to be like, hell, no, teacher,
you stupid at us. I'm sorry to I'm starting to
destroy your thesis. But I'm on the USC football team, sir,
(19:02):
and it's nineteen ninety eight maybe seven. But that being said,
I think that stephen A. Smith is Look, we all
say things. I say a lot of racial things about
I say black guys, say white guy, say Mexican guy.
And I don't. I don't think it's a big deal,
(19:22):
and I don't expect people who admonish me. I love
everybody and without Latino fans and black people, and I mean,
no one would listen to us on the radio, and
it's our most of our audience. So I don't want
to sit here and jump all over him and say
other than to just have fun and look at every
(19:43):
team and just be like, well, you know, there's another
white guy available, But that would bring it over the
top everyone, you know. I mean, it's something that we
can all.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
Have fun a quota. Man's no question about it down there.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
And when you say that, like, well you know there's
one too many, one too many black guys on your
yachting team. If you can win it yachting with that
many black guys, I mean you know that's racist, right,
You'd get admonished for that, right. So, I mean we
live in a world of gray area and nuance. But
and Steven A. Smith is deep down really what he
(20:15):
is as an entertainer. I don't take him seriously as
some kind of beacon of society. He's an entertainer. I
mean I met that guy twenty years ago and he
had a bodyguard with him, and I was like, why
does he have a bodyguard him? Right? And we were
on the sideline at USC like which is already secure, right, like,
(20:39):
why what's going on? But I thought that was kind
of funny. So that's kind of maybe always how he
Maybe that's always how he's been. He's very important, and he.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Acts like we love you, man, we were glad.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
I love you, Dick.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
We're glad. You don't take anything too seriously. It's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I try. Well, unless USC is not going to play
Notre Dame. Oh that's you, or somebody wants to hire
another air raid coach down here. That's right, look my chicken.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
Yes, you draw your line right there, and I think
that's right there. I think that's fair. Thanks, Petros will talk.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
To my stand Yes you too, Dick. Have a great day.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
You've had, Petros Papadakis.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
We'll bring Hugh back into the fold next on ninety
three point three KJR FM
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