This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jagan zale Sound Fox Sports
fourteen fifteen powered by Nova Insurance Services. It's sure your most Prized Possessions,
kt z R, TWU SA and iHeartRadio Statia. Hey, good afternoon,
everybody. Welcome to Eye on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty.
I'm Steve Riverta, He's Jagan Zawas got our guy Henry in today. Welcome
to Monday. I'm not sure if you hear the chimes, but we do.
Do you hear the chimes? Oh? Yeah, that's weird again.
Yeah, I'm not sure why. Yeah right, yeah, church is in
service. If you do hear it. It's the gospel of Jay and Steve.
I don't know what that is. I don't either. It goes away
after well, yeah, oh it's weird. Okay, Okay, that's fine.
Hey it's Monday, man, it's Monday. We have a decent show
for you. I say that with pool confidence. It's a really good show
though, I mean, you know, we got who do we have?
Oh? I forgot to write him down Schmid at four seventeen, Jeff Hammers.
We're gonna try and keep him from cussing in the air. Yeah.
Yeah. And then we have a friend of mine for a long time friend
of mine, mister Dan right really from the Washington Beat for Sports Illustrated.
Yep, uh, he mistook me for another Steve Ever on a Twitter feedback
two weeks ago. I had to clarify who I was and he saw,
Yeah, that's right. So he'll be on talking about all things jet fish
and how life is up there in Seattle. Yeah, you know, yeah,
we'll just see and the Pac twelve you got to see what the expectations
are for you know, really all the Pack twelve schools going over to the
Big ten because you know, you don't hear much from r c LA because
they have been very good, you know us. He thinks it's going to
be good. Oregon thinks and they've got a chance to win the league Washington,
you know, with the new coach and and uh and what you know,
some expectations might be there. Yeah, so that'd be fun. Good
dude, sarcastic dude. So he'll fit right in. Oh boy, perfect.
I already like him, dude, I already like it's a good dude.
I haven't seen him in a while, so that'll be fun weekend stuff.
I know you guys bet on the w n B A. You can't
believe this, but a lot of people I talked to on Saturday or bet
on that game for whatever reason. I said, what been on a w
n B A USA game? I'm thinking, what twenty two? What are
you watching again? I once I knew somebody who wants bet on women's Olympic
hockey. Well that's what people have bet on just about anything. But they're
watching it. I mean, yeah, packed house, so it's sixteen and
changed, right. A friend of mine, friend of mine went through the
game. She said it was packed, and it was sold out and it
was fun. Pit Bulls thirsty entertainment. Oh that that's why. Okay,
they were making fun of pit Bull all morning on Dan Patrick? Well,
why that he did the game? Seen him a concert? It just it
just it's just say, didn't makes sense just saying that he's not he sold
out? Well, yeah, I guess you know. Have you seen him
in concert? No, it's the most fantastic conser I've ever seen. Yeah,
it's it's like Colly crap Is aerobics with hot chicks. Then you'd have
been offended. And then at then this morning because they were making fun of
him and that he's not he's not an A list anymore, you kid,
which you do not know because they do not know. I do not know.
I you know, I like I look. I like some of his
stuff. You know, we've had some of his stuff is out out music
here in our on our show before. They wouldn't let him do that anymore.
So no, I've you know, there's a few of his songs that
I like, but I look, I I probably wouldn't ever go to a
concert he is. I don't dislike him. He's gonna have another one in
September October. I'm going to that. I don't dislike him. I just
he's just there for Meffy was having a concert in Christina. Aguilera was showing
up because you do that song with him. I'm in right, but I
get it, Yeah, I get it. Okay, So so okay.
So that was this weekend. A lot of baseball obviously returned again, So
that was fun. Uh and uh, NBA would not NBA just trades And
did you see that Homer the show? Hey, yesday four hundred thousands people,
four hundred and seventy three, and it was not even the hardest hitting
ball yesterday. Yeah, I was somebody else hitd like almost five hundred.
I was watching the game and I was like, oh my god, you
know I mean he I mean basically, I mean he hit it underneath the
roof, but it basically went out of the park because it took one bounce
and went out into the outfield plaza beyond the beyond the outside of the stadium.
This is the only thing I got from that home run because after the
game, ESPN talked to him, you know, within the shortporter, right.
But but every time he must know English, because you knew what the
question was. Every time he was shaking this right and then going English,
I heard I've heard him speak a little bit okay, So he was nodding,
and every time the question was being asked, like he understood. They
still went to the interpreter and went back and forth. But it was like,
dude, I don't need you. I can say I think I think
he's not comfortable. That makes sense. I think he's not comfortable yet speaking
like I understand a lot of Spanish. I understand more Spanish than I can
speak. I was just going to go there with you and me. Our
Spanglish is not good enough to go. Yeah, I understand, Like like
we have. We have a house keeper who comes to the house. She's
an American citizen and the whole bit in her I've talked to her husband and
he speaks English like you and I. Well, we only speak Spanish to
her, right and and but we know she speaks English, but we just
speak Spanish to her. And it's great for her. Yeah, and its
yeah, it's easier for her and it helps us, you know. And
uh and my grandson he's you know, there's you know, my my,
my, my son and his wife. They're speaking a lot of Spanish for
him very you know, smart, and he's pretty funny. But now any
anything can happen. Again. I don't know if I've told this story,
but every once in a while, my mom and dad, who were you
know, native uh Spanish people they spoke Spanish before they spoke English, would
say, okay, that's it, we're only speaking Spanish in the house.
That would last like an hour before we were speaking English. Probably you know,
when I was elementary school. Oh yeah, yeah, which which uh
yeah, So on a scale of one to ten another we're not even talking
sports. Can we really do anymore? Uh, you're Spanish, how would
you say speaking it? I'm about a six? Okay, I'm about a
five? What about this understanding it? I'm more like in the seven or
eight. Yeah, I'm in the either nine. Yeah yeah, yeah,
you know, so yeah, yeah, you can't get anything past me.
But I couldn't get to tell you, oh you know, I'd have to
stutter and blah blah blah and words and it sounds like yeah, you know,
I mean I you know, when I was at the Star, I
was on a project, you know, covering Mexico for a couple of months,
and then I got in this business venture that I was going to Central
America a number of times, and I you don't get my way in and
out and you know, and do things and you know, not have any
issues with it. And actually during that period of time, my Spanish got
pretty darn good. But then it's like it's like a skill. It's like
you don't go to the batting cage every day, so you don't get as
well questioned. No question. My kids suffer from that same feet yeah as
well. The whitest Spanish and it's in our in our family, right,
I've got three older brothers. You started the top, and my brother rick
is is fluent through anybody. And then as degrade, you go, that's
just how it is. That's just that was. I get it. I
get it. Okay, cool, So I was just a thought. But
anyway, that was a massive homer. You know, if you saw the
reaction of the Dodgers and the dugout, it's like they had never seen anything
like that before. And I think there have been three balls hit out of
doctors stay. Willie Stargell did it first, Jim I think Mike Piazza did
it, and Jim Carlo Stanton did it. Stanton was the most recent.
Is he even playing anymore? Stanton? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
but he's he playing? Oh is he playing? And he's been heard
a couple of months right right here. I don't think he's playing when he
knew the Yeah, but that was I mean, the thing is again,
oh, Tany's homer's sounded different than everybody else. There ere another guys who
hit. They'll hit a ball four hundred and seventy feet, it still won't
sound like show Hay sounds. And I don't know if it's the type of
bat he's using or what it just sounds different. And when he gets when
you know he's gotten it. Yeah, you see just by looking at him.
I mean he hit a line drive over shortstop on Saturday, just over.
I mean the guy almost got it right, just and it skidded to
the to the wall. And it's so fast. I mean they had no
chance to cut it off. And just the ground ball into the eye.
I mean once it hit the ground, it was rolling in the o and
they could not catch up with it. That's how hard he hit. That's
funny because because I used to play on field and I went to go see
the Giants when Barry Bonds was on there ten years ago to a Rusty team
show, and I say, if I were to play shortstop, I poop
my pants every time he's up one on the balls that get hit hard,
oh yeah, like hard. Yeah. Either you have no time to react
to you about book that you're just ready right and and they make in credit.
You know the shortstops in the major leagues, Well all the fielder is
the Major League their third basement. Some of the balls over they get out
of it. It's crazy, but but you know, showy, it was
just an unbelievable shot. And the Dodgers. The Dodgers swept the Red Sox.
They're they're back in business. They're they're they're gonna they're gonna go off
and win this thing by a lot. Okay, sure, you're mean the
Yankees are you? You're not a Yankee. God, they're on a tail
spin. That's huge. Oh you did so, you're ten for thirty one,
ten and twenty one. I think it is last thirty games, last
thirty one game. I think I got a fired uh boon. No,
maybe after the season, but they want to do it. They wouldn't do
it mid season. I mean, they're not doing that bad right overall,
they're still doing good. Yeah for a team that started so well the stretch.
Well, it's kind of like the Astros in reverse. Yeah, yeah,
Astros are horrible early and now they're doing well again. Now they're bad.
Yeah, sorry to save Jay say that's fine. Okay, Hey,
hey, remember if you guys want to call five, two, o four,
one, six, seventy four or forty, well we'll hear from you
again. We have Dan Riley from the Washington Sports Illustrated and then and then
our guy Hammershmid Jeff Hammersmith, Yeah, you know, I'm trying to remember
he Well, you don't have to. We'll have to go back to the
media guy to see how many Big Twelve venues he played. I know,
I can think of what Texas Tech right late at Texas Tech and Oklahoma's not
in the Big twelve anymore, so but just you know, probably not.
Well we covered him back then, so we would know, or we would
know. Let's say, Oklahoma, they played Texas Tech. That's about it.
Well, that was the and they played Texas Tech here. That was
a couple of years that I covered that James Gray in eighty eight, right
eighty and Jammel Holloway and they and also in eighty eight. But then they
played different Oklahoma team here in eighty nine that they beat. I don't I
think that's it Jay, that I can remember. Yeah, yeah, okay,
well we'll figure it out. I try to get some people that a
coach or two that had been in the Big twelve they just didn't want to
be part of it. Yeah, because you know, what are they going
to say, it's been so long. Yeah, we're gonna have an interesting
conversation tomorrow. I'm looking forward to this. He's been on our show,
but he was kind of he had just retired Dan Guerrero, the former uc
L A athletic director. He's now working for a search firm. Uh that
that helps uh uh for coaching hires n c w A coaching hires. So
I think we'll try and get some insight on some of that stuff. I
mean, one of the questions I want to ask is how and he's been
on the He's been on both sides of it now right as a as an
athletic director hiring a guy. Now he's representing guys who are trying to get
hired, you know. Just I'd love to get his thoughts and hear his
thoughts on how funny it is to them when they see rumors well flying around.
I don't think I'm gonna ask him because I think it's a silly question
to ask him specifically. But to your point, uh, I think I
think the rumors are one thing. Uh, But why spend let's say two
hundred thousand on these guys when you know who You're going to google them?
Yeah, you can google it and you already know the guys. What exactly
do they find out for for administrators that they can't find out for themselves.
Or is it just that they just don't want to do the work right right
and we should ask him that. That's very strange though, because you you're
the A D right and you you know the ins and outs. You know
people. Why pay this guy? You're like paying the chauffeur to get you
to this place when your guard's perfectly fine that the resume and make a few
phone calls and then bring him in. I remember when uh oh uh said
Dempsey was the go to guy, who do who do you go to?
Set said, He'll tell you, He'll tell you search for, search for
because he knew everybody and trusted everybody. And then but it's an interesting business
because a lot of people do it, right, I still do it.
That's the thing about it. I'm surprised they still do it because, honestly,
if you were a code who wouldn't you know and and who you know?
You can call this guy to know this guy? Do you know this
guy? Okay, it's like you're hiring people. Well, there there must
I can only assume, and there must be some sort of vetting aspect to
it. To the vetting process that we either we don't know, we don't
know what it is, or it's it's too difficult for an athletic department to
put resources into that, so they just go pay somebody to I'll give you
one. Do you think they veted someone? Well, if they did,
they did a damn crappy ass job, because if they would have come to
me, I would have told him what I'm hearing. Well, everybody,
a lot of people were here right right, right, So how could you
How could you let that slip? I don't know. Did they did?
They do a certain remember, remember, but but he was the hot name
without the vetting, before you knew anything about him. He was the guy
and everybody was happy when they hired him. I know I was sure,
and you know to to that point too. So if I was happy they
hired him until I saw what they got also to to Stoops, I mean,
he was the hot guy at the time, the top assistant coach of
the one of the best things. He was Stoops, you did you just
didn't know, right, You just thought, Okay, here's a guy who's
been a defensive coordinator and one of the top programs in the country. Great
name for a long time, great coaching, chop right, great football and
the whole bit. What else did you need to know? You just what
you weren't going to ever find out, no matter how much evading you did,
was how good is he as a head coach? You just didn't know
you had. And that's a big difference if you've never been in that spot,
right exactly? Okay, let's go well, get ahold of Dan and
then talk a lot about the PAC twelve Washington and whatever, just whatever else
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and Jagen Saliz they have their eye on the ball on Tucson's sports stage yet.
Fox Sports fourteen fifty streaming live. I'm the iHeartRadio. Wapp Hey,
welcome back to Why the Ball here at Fox Sports fourteen fifty on Steve Rivera.
He's Jickensauce. Now we have Dan really long time PAC twelve guy now
with sports illustrating in Washington. How are you, Dad? I am good.
Good to hear from you, guys. Good to hear from you too.
Tell you Steve Rivera's are not the same. I'm the best one out
there. Dan. Just for your f YI, I told Jay the story.
You thought I was somebody else. In a tweet about Jedfish, That
is true. I did, I did think that was you, but glad
I found you however it happened. Yes, yes, same here. How's
life with the Fish up in Washington? Oh? I don't know. It's
probably not as amazing as it was the last two years with the new Alabama
football coach, but it'll it'll probably work. So, yeah, were you
surprised because we didn't talk to you when it all happened when this came down
at the beginning with Fish? Was I surprised that he came north? Yeah?
Yeah, I think the Big ten is and the SEC are big attractions
to every college football coach out there right now, and it almost doesn't matter
what city you live in. If you can get into those leagues, you're
gonna have the most money and the most TV coverage and probably the best players.
So what about what about the leaving? How much of a surprise was
that to everybody? Well? I was. I was kind of surprised because
he's a conservative guy, and uh, you know, but you don't turn
down Alabama or you know, unless you're at Georgia. I mean right there,
there's just not too many reasons to turn down a place where you're going
to have the best resources to be successful. And and the Boor is really
impressive. I mean not too many people still know about him, but he's
as good as it is in running a practice. And and you know,
he beat Oregon three times and it was all on a coaching job because Oregon
probably had better players at least part of the time and better facilities and and
uh, you know, the Boor went in and beat him three times.
So he's he's the real deal. Okay, yeah, make sense, that
makes sense. Uh So here you are, Are you gonna miss the Pac
twelve? Yeah? Yeah, I'm gonna miss coming down to Tucson. I
came last year and I thought this might be the last time I ever come
down here, at least for you know, football game and right, and
you know, I went to California and Stanford and I thought the same thing
I last year and the year before, and so yeah, I miss it.
I'm not too thrilled about flying back east four times, you know,
to go to Rutgers in Indiana. I'm going to go to Iowa and Penn
State for sure. I'm debating the other ones because I don't know if I
want to get caught in the middle of the country. It's longer than I
should be others. Well, let me ask you because you know, I
mean, this has been a while since we known that we were going to
get to this with you know, all these teams you know, going all
over all over the place. So what's the what's the temperature in the room
now about the moved to the Big ten? Kind of like everybody's shocked when
it happened. It happened. People are disappointed at the Big Pac twelve going
away, But now we're here, you know, football seasons a month away.
You know, what's what's the mood like about all this now that it's
here, What are people thinking about going to the Big ten? Do they
want to be in the Big ten? That kind of thing. By that,
I'm talking like, you know, fans and that kind of stuff.
Well, you know, having with all of us having been in the Pac
twelve, I'm going to say this pretty pretty uh straight up. Is Oregon
and Washington have two of the biggest headed fan bases you can run into.
And it happened for Washington when they won with Don James, they all of
a sudden the fan base got kind of out of control and Oregon is just
like that now. I mean, everything's unrealistic. Every recruit is the greatest
guy that ever came, and and and so these fan bases, both in
Eugene and Seattle, you know, would probably expect nothing but the best and
going to the Big Ten rather than being left behind with less money, less
TV and all of that. So they're they're they're up for it. I
don't know how many people will travel to all these games, because you know,
it's so easy to go down to Tucson on a NonStop and down to
Berkeley and Los Angeles and now here. If you want to go to Iowa,
you flying to probably fly in to Chicago and drive two hundred miles.
I did that last year to go to Michigan State. I flew in Chicago
and drove to East Lansing. And you know, you go to Penn State,
you get flying at Pittsburgh and or Philadelphia and you travel one hundred and
fifty one hundred and eighty miles by car to get there. You know,
it's funny because I let me get in here on this. I spoke to
Perry what's he covers Washington for the Seattle Paper. Oh god, yeah,
Perry. Yeah, Percy, Percy Allen. I talked to him. I
talked to him at the Big twelve turn at the Pac Tuff Tournament. He
said that, he said, people have no idea. You know, they're
talking about the travel, but they have no idea. Said, you don't
fly into any of this in any of the Big twelve cities. I mean
there's a couple that you do, Like you said, most of them,
you fly somewhere then drive another you know, two three hours to get there.
And that's what people are underestimating about the travel, whereas in the Pac
twelve you flew into the city and you hopped on a bus and went to
your hotel and you were there. Yeah. Yeah, it's just it's gonna
be a hardship, but you know, it's the way of the world,
and it's gonna be that way until they have one big conference and split it
up by you know, geography region again. That way somebody like Washington and
Arizona be reunited again. I don't know how long it'll take him to come
to their senses to do that, though. Yeah. Let me ask you
just about last year, what kind of ride was it for you? I
know, it's you're not a fan. You're like me. You just straight
ahead and do the job. But there's a lot of work to be done
on a potential national title team. Well, you know, I am so
old. I covered the nineteen ninety one Washington National championship team, and the
similarities I saw were the players were outstanding as far as talking to them,
they were you know, when you have a great team, the guys are
usually pretty confident and pretty agreeable and like a Lil Madoonsa is, you know,
just a classic character. They love him in Chicago because he just sits
there and has a lot to say, and you know, it's kind of
fun to listen to him. So I saw similarities in that manner where you
know, the job got a little easier because they were winning. He didn't
write about losses. The players were nicer because they weren't upset about performance.
And the Boor is, you know, like a really a laid back guy.
And I'll tell you the previous coach to him, Jimmy Lake, to
this day probably still doesn't know my name. And Calin de Boorr knew every
single one of us guys were that covered his football team. And we come
up and just out of the blue talk to you during practice. So it
was a a pretty positive experience, you know for everyone involved. Yeah,
no, that's great to hear because it's because the access to the kids that's
getting shut off everywhere. True. Yeah, it's not up there apparently,
or is it now? With Jed Well, I don't know about shut off,
but you know I used to be able to go out to every single
practice, watch it, and then request one or two or three guys after
practice and sit with them for unlimited amount of times. Now you don't watch
practice. They'll bring somebody to you at their selection and you know, it'll
be twenty guys talking to one and it'll be very quick. So it's you
know, definitely. We used to call it the Big ten mentality where they
shut everything off and gave you just barely any kind of access at all.
And now you know, Washington and most of the other schools out west probably
subscribe to that. We're one of them. We do that all the time.
Yeah, that's exactly how they did it. Pull pull one or two
guys after practice and you get you know, you get a question in.
So that's where it goes. So what are the thoughts I mean intern,
I mean, he's done another probably pretty good job of recruiting, didn't pull
as many Arizona guys as as he wanted to. What are your thoughts on
them heading into the season. Where do they fit in the big ten?
Do you think? Well, the three polls came out today and hey,
they're out of ninth or tenth, so that's middle of the pack borderline,
you know, top level, versus being in the in the second nine.
So that's probably about right, because you know, you lose twenty two out
of twenty out of twenty two starters, so I mean, you've got to
be realistic about that, right. You know, they do have a lot
of starters from other places, meaning you know, a bunch from Arizona and
you know some others. Guy from Oklahoma's coming in that started until he blew
in the A and and But the bottom line of this football team will be
how the offensive line comes to together. Because when we ended spring training spring
football, I should say, it was looking pretty tupid. You know,
it's mostly freshman and red short freshman with one sophomore at right tackle and two
guys injured. And they went into the portal and took three guys, and
I'm not sure how good any of them are because they weren't big deals that
you know, their their previous schools. So it all depends on what kind
of offensive line they have or else they're just going to be a break even
football team. And so what do you make of Jed himself? He's pretty
slick. Yeah, yeah, he's he's got it down. I mean,
you know, we had a we had a running back at kicked off the
football team, and that's all anybody wanted to talk to him about. And
he had an opening line, opening segment that he gave on how players were
looking pretty good, and finally somebody interrupted him and said, hey, he
just had this guy get arrested and thrown off the football team. That's what
we want to talk about. And you know, it was something that pretty
much happened during the Deboor era, but the guy was still on the team
here with with Fish and now he's definitely no longer anywhere near the University of
Washington. But yeah, Jetfish does things his own way, and it's kind
of probably reminds me a little bit of why he's got such a lengthy NFL
background. It's kind of polished and and you know, but he seems agreeable.
Yeah that makes sense. You think you're gonna like covering the Big ten?
Oh, well, we'll see. I mean, you know, I'm
I'm I'm getting to the end of this road, and I decided to do
at least this next year and goes to a couple of Big ten cities.
I've been to some before, but I thought I'd see how that plays out,
and then all of a sudden, the basketball team might be a lot
better than it was, because it was pretty bad under Mike Hopkins. You
know, it just wasn't interesting and wasn't competitive. You know, I watched
some player zone up here and we're up by ten ers at twelve points,
and you know, they got out coached and lost by twenty or something.
So basketball could be a lot better, and I might want to watch,
you know, see how this team plays out. Yeah. I think you're
a little older than me, but you've been covering this a long time.
What paper were you at the times of the Intelligence. I was at the
Seattle Post Intelligencer for twenty nine years, and my newspaper career ended at the
Atlanta Journal Constitution once the PI closed. That's your twenty two thousand and nine.
So when did you come back. I remember you going to Atlanta.
I came back in twenty twelve. I spent about two and a half years
down there, and I to be honest with you, I had one of
the coolest jobs I've ever had. I worked for Boeing and they flew me
all over the world to cover whatever Boweing does. And I went to places
like China, India and Saudi ra A as a writer And never would have
done that if I hadn't got into aerospace for a while. Yeah, very
very nice, very cool. We're talking to Dan Rayley from Covers, the
Washington Beat for Sports Illustrated. So, I mean you mentioned a second a
little bit ago that you think that it's all going to go back to some
regional structure, and I know that that's what a lot of people are hoping
for. I know we are out here what god, I mean, how
this could take a while and yeah, and in what form? And you
know how do you you know who calls the shots on that? Well?
I think money is going to call the shots on that because things are getting
so expensive with now having to buy players and pay you know, coaches salaries,
that are way over the top, at least in Seattle. You know
what debor was offered and what jed Fish got. But they're going to come
to a point where you're going to have to take the seventy seventy five schools
that can afford all of this and call themselves FBI schools and bunch them together.
And the only way to do that and make it work economically is a
bunch of them by you know geographics. Don't let them play like don't let
Arizona play Northern Arizona and Washington play Eastern Washington. They got to all play
big time games, games that are worthy of maybe big platforms on TV,
Like you know, Washington's going to play Tennessee in a couple of years.
They should play only games like that at a conference besides the Big Ten conference
schedule. And then you know, all of these teams have to get to
play in the top bowl of games and in the playoffs, and maybe the
playoffs even expand one more time. That's how I see it, because you
know, your basketball continues to expand and bring everybody in and makes a lot
of money. We had talked to a few people like you talking about the
PAC twelve, the good old days. Any great memories maybe one or two
in your time. Well, yeah, I I I really when I was
a kid, I really enjoyed the Sunny six Killer era. I mean it
was it was like a movie and and you know, Sonny six Killer and
all the guys were just like really hipsters, and they put a lot of
points on the board and washed the football. Until that point had been only
run, you know, run the football and play real conservative, big ten
type football. But all of a sudden, this uh native American quarterback from
Oregon comes in and just turns the town on its ear. And there's songs
made about him, and he's on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and you
know, that was just really an exciting era. And I still see Sonny
all the time, wow around town. And he was in a movie.
He was in the longest yard of the longest yard, which was he which
was I kept the google of now, yeah he was in the longest yard,
not the google of Yeah he was. I was a little disappointed that
you didn't say meeting me was part of the hut wh Yeah, no,
I just I just had some really good moments, and you know, like
and I even away from the games, like I got on a I got
on a rebel car bus in Los Angeles once and the only guy. There
were two of us on the bus, and we talked the whole way from
the parking lot to the terminal and it was noodhleson. And when I was
in college, I hitchhike down to Los Angeles. I got out of summer
school and a friend of line and I hitchacked down to Los Angeles. And
we're going to stay in a frat house with somebody who went to high school
with and he wasn't there. We got mixed up on the dates, so
we put our sleeping bags down on a running track behind Pauly Pavilion and Johnny
Wood and woke us up the next morning and asked if we could go to
breakfast with him. Sure, coach, but those are my memories that's different
from ours. Did you know that you were working as a reporter at the
time or did he already know you were? Yeah, we were coming from
probably back to end media day, or that he knew my face for sure.
Yeah, okay, that's cool, very cool. Well, Dad,
appreciate your time. We'll probably get ahold of you down the road at some
point. Anythank for Steve Rivera, the real one. Thank you, Dad,
I appreciate it. Right, good, cool, let's go it,
come back. I think some of his thoughts are like, you're talking about
money's gonna talk, right, I think it's gonna happen. Yeah, how
long? What happened? Well, we still be doing okay, All right,
stick around, we are back. If you're an Arizona Man's basketball fan,
you know it's been successful for nearly forty years. Now take a look
back at the Ludelsen era. In my new book, Lessons from Loot,
it was a labor of love through the eyes of twenty five former players,
coaches and friends to give insight to the coach and the man who led them,
competed against them, and inspired them. Twenty five chapters for his twenty
five years as Arizona's beloved coach. Lessons from Lut is an in site to
how he built the program into a national powerhouse. What one email me at
Steve Rivera ninety five at gmail dot com. Hi, this is formal.
While get leman huntly with Arizona Health. Imagine how home GM can change your
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I mean iHeart Radio. While this is I on the Ball with Steve
Rivera and Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports fourteen fifteen and welcome back to Eying the
Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera, He's Ziggensaus.
We have Henry with us today. We have fifteen minutes slew today this first
hour, and then we've got a second hour hammerschmid in the four fifteen hour.
Good stuff. They're very thoughtful, very smart, dude. You can
get kind of toes. Have been doing this for a while, dude,
yeah, wait, way longer, yeah than me. I agree. I
agree with you guys. There's gonna be a West, Midwest, right central.
However they break it up right right, you know, in northeast or
oh, just like the Midwest of South? Who the West is going to
be slim? Jay, Well, because it's already it's the PAC twelve was
already slim. Anyway, those who qualifying for this, who else could you
bring in in the west? And how far do you go? Well,
it's going to depend on who who the Midwest and the South decide they want
to keep, right, because remember there was a time that Oklahoma and Texas
almost send it up in the PAC twelve right right right? Would they want
to be in the West? Maybe they want maybe if they're going to get
the same amount of money, Maybe it's a twenty five, twenty five,
twenty five, yeah, oh, you know, twenty five and twenty five,
another, twenty five another or something like that, other than twenty twenty
twenty right, twenty you know, maybe maybe it's three instead of four.
Right, So then you know, and you can do what however you want
to do your playoff and stuff like that. I mean, you don't have
to have it doesn't it doesn't have to be four leagues. I mean,
one hundred years ago, the NFL had you know, an east of Central
and a west, and so did the and so did a Major League Baseball
and all those other You can do it that way, you know, it's
just a matter of how how you're going to structure your playoff, right,
Yeah, but what teams come in, you know, deserves own state and
I mean Oregon State and one State are not part of this group, right,
but should they be? Yeah? Because they should, right right?
So, but they're not now yeah, And and then you know, all
of a sudden, Oregon and Washington are back in USC U c l A
back Yeah, but then you have the PAC twelve of the PEC twelve,
Okay, and then who else? Right, That's what I'm saying you're gonna
have to you maybe get some of those teams, like maybe some of the
Texas teams, right, you know, like maybe the Western kind most you
know Texas teams, the you know s m U, T, c u
UH, Texas Tech, Baylor, be Kansas, you know, maybe Kansas
and you know some of those like that. Again, it depends on how
the thing winds up getting structured and do they want to come into that league
rather than stay in this other league. Yeah, I mean, you know,
I'd have to go through the conferences right now and say, okay,
these these are the seventy five whatever it is FBS schools. I actually I
think I think it's fifty or sixty. Maybe it's what it is in the
fourth conferences, because there's what there's eighteen in the Big in the Big ten,
there's sixteen in the in the in the it's thirty four, there's three
twelve, there's sixteen in the in the eight in the se fifty six fifty
two. So then and then there's what fourteen in the in the ACC sixty
five sixty success, so it's seventy. Yeah, so let's say you're doing
them, you know, twenty one or twenty two or whatever in each league.
In each division you have a west of Central in the East, and
then you know, yeah twenty four West, mid West and Midwest and and
south right, and then now you're pulling. Now you can pull teams from
some of those teams from Texas as you said, maybe Nebraska, right,
Iowa. You know, some of those teams can fall although those are classic
Midwest teams, but you know they're sort of the western most of the Midwest
teams. Yeah, it'll be interesting. Let's not worry about that now,
because we have other things to worry about. The football starts here in about
a week, a week from tomorrow, Wednesday, from Wednesday practice first practice,
or we're not gonna be here Thursday Friday, We're not. Then I'm
out back home for my family thing. And and you're gonna be taking Dick
to take because we're not. We're gonna be busy once. Yeah, we
got work. I've got work to do. I gotta get some work out
of the way to target work. Yeah, So Steve is gonna be out,
So we're gonna have Thursday and Friday no show, right, no show,
and then we'll I'll be back Tuesday. You'll be here Monday, and
then we have football pretty much all the time. Way football all the time.
It's on. We're gonna have a session with with Brennan, Brent uh
Brent Brennan next Tuesday. There'll be a press conference and a media lunch with
him, so we'll report from that. Those are the good old day Spener.
We used to do that all the time. We told me every week,
man, every week, brownie is up in the from the student union,
some Hawaiian food. Again, it was a buffet. They fed us.
We all got fatly, that's what. That's what. They had the
money and they can do whatever they want until they said we better kill The
thing is at that time point they felt like they needed the media, they
needed to coverage, so they fed us. Now it's they get covered from
wherever they wanted. They provide their own coverage so they don't have to feed
us anymore. Is there still food in the press box for football? Yeah,
it's it's pretty generic, but it's it's it's food. Chicken wings or
chicken tenders, hot dogs, brownies. Yeah, yeah, it's not what
you know. We're media, don't You're not gonna complain? Yeah, I
mean remember that I mean, it was always cold cuts at basketball, remember
it was the cold cut. Yeah. Things Now we get sodas, we
don't get soda good sodas. Yeah, but you know, our thing is
like cops and like donuts and media food, media food, they like free
food. Whatever it is, what it is, that's the that's the main
ingredient now. So yeah, yeah, So anyways, we're you know,
we're we're gonna get We're gonna you know, keep gearing up, try again,
try and bring in some big twelve media people in toil. We start
here to kind of talk about, uh, we've had two rate Kansas State
and Kansas State and Kansas yeah, and then we had well and then we
had Brian Hall from from Colorado. Right, so we've been trying to get
a guy from Utah, but we've had respond Michelle too well Michelle. Yeah,
we have Michelle Garner for me. It's you. So we're getting there.
We'll get there. So we'll get up there. But you don't want
to reach out talking to talk to Texas Tech and Baylor mainly the people are
on Arizona schedule this year, right, both in football mainly, but then
we'll get to basketball as well. But it's uh, it's happening, Steve.
We're here. It should be fun, should be fair here, this
this thing is happening. Then also makes a good point which we kind of
argue. You you're going to Penn State, you fly here, drive there,
you go into Ames, you go to join here if you light here.
I did that when I went to Kansas a couple of times for basketball.
You flew somewhere and you drove. That's why the Manhattan thank Kansas State.
I drove by there and you think, God, it's cold and it's
ugly, dry stretch. I'm sure that people feel the same thing when they
flight in the Phoenix comes. Yeah. Well, and some of the places
have their own airports, like I remember, you know, Champagne, Illinois
has an airport, but at that time they didn't have jetways. And he
got there and we planed and we were there in December and froze, you
know, getting from off the plane, you know, across the tarmac and
into the into the thing. I probably improved by that. Texas Tech,
I remember flying directly into Texas Tech as I recall, right, but you
know some of those Waco, does Waco have an airport, Yeah? It
does okay, so you know, but but you know, personality, as
I said, the writer for the Seattle Paper, you know, when I
talked to him about you know, I asked him the same quality are you
gonna enjoy, you know, you know, going to the Big ten?
He said, I'm gonna hate the travel, he said, because I'm from
there, and I just know that none of those places, not none of
those he said, a lot of those places don't have their own airports.
It's a pain to get in and out of places over there. So we'll
see what what he comes up with, what everybody comes up with there should
it's good. You wonder how much people are gonna continue to talk about it,
right, how much of a factor it's going to be, maybe even
how much of a betting factor it's going to be, right, Yeah,
if if if you've got Oregon going to Penn State and I say it's a
it's a noon game Penn State time, which is basically nine am Oregon time.
I remember, I remember when we went to Wisconsin for that game that
Arizona played at Wisconsin and it was it was it was a noon game there,
which was you know, nine am, two some on time, and
it looked like they were sleepwalking through that damn game. Right. Yeah,
I remember that, yeah, very much, so, very much. So
again, if you want to call five two O four one six seventy four
forty tell us you missed us. I need an ego boost here. I
missed you paid for I did. Yeah, it was another storm. You
got to hit us yesterday, did you at least it got it got it
rained really hard. I don't know that we didn't get any damage or it
rained hard and it got windy. Yeah, yeah, yeah I heard that
because I'm I'm just I'm a I believe in God. I'm a religious guy,
but I'm not crazy religious from praying please don't get my house again.
They were still working on it, so that happening. Yeah. No,
I went and played at Swilo. Uh yesterday morning, had a nine thirty
tea time. It was actually it wasn't horribly hot. It was breezy.
You'd never hear the mornings or good morning. It was okay. I didn't
come home kind of all spent like I normally do. I'm actually was taking
a week off. I wasn't gonna play and my son was playing in a
foursome. And then they needed somebody bailed out at the last minute and they
needed another player. So I played shot my usual and had fun. Good
uh, good weekend. It's we're getting closer to a lot of different things.
School starts here in a month already. Yeah, so so you know
who need you know, who need to get on Rachel Webb, the psychologists
front, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, just see okay, yeah,
some of the things that you know, she's always good on the show.
Yeah, so we'll get well, we'll talk to her, right any you
know what suggestions from listeners? Who do you want to hear? Right?
Who do you want to hear from? Look, we players are were limited.
I mean, uh, Dan just talked about Jet's doing the same thing
up there in terms of you know, talking to players. They pull one
aside at the end of a practice and that's who you get to. The
good old is when we did it, When we did that, go get
whatever you want. Yeah, who you need, Steve, go ahead and
ask them blah blah blah. Yeah. Now we're at the whims of the
whims of them. They they decide, they decide who you get here.
You didn't even play. But here's the question, what did you think about
this guy ready for one hundred fifty Yeah, yeah, no, no,
no, that's fine, that'd be great. Let's see if we can get
Sean Elliott back again. He'll be here in a month for the camp and
and you know some of the guys okay to preview the camp, but don't
you here again. Some suggestions from you guys. You know, you know,
the guys that we covered in the past, we might have better connections
with than trying to get it. You know, we like we got Jane
Bradley last week, but you know it's kind of hard. Those guys have
busy schedules and and you know, you got to see if they're available.
So we'll see. But you know, I saw the I know we're gonna
talk about the Summer League first and second team and all that stuff. Okay,
I'll leave that. I'll just say, you know, there's one of
the guys didn't make it, but but there during a game to yeah,
so we'll sorry, Oh the game. There's a game tonight. Thought championship,
No championship game. Okay, here's breaking news to Yeah, it is
breaking news to me. I thought it was done over the weekend. It
kind of was, But did you have one more game. Okay, all
right, actually watch that. Yeah, I think that's stead of being watchable.
But there's a Dodger game on tonight, Dodgers and the Giants. Oh
that's let should be a nice series. I heard a lot of things yesterday
about it. Yeah, definitely. Oh okay, here's the thing. Here's
the thing, and this is really breaking news thing, but Apple TV has
announced that they're going to cut back on how much they're doing on TV.
That they're not they're just not getting the viewership. Partly, I think is
because of the availability of this person that that reported on this said that that
Apple tv generates less views in a month than Netflix does in the day.
Well that's where the packs just going to say the thing. Maybe one maybe
by not getting that, it's really hurt them, right that they're kind of
like, we can't even get sports on our on our you know, on
our platform, So now we're we just got to cut back altogether or that
or people like our age, my age, your age just don't want to
watch on that platform. Yeah, I mean I get it, I can
abscribe to it stuff like that. Well, my you know, my wife
has a bunch of stuff that she watches a bunch of their their Their programming
is great, it's really good. They had ted Lasso one that my mom
my, mom my wife watches, The Marvelous missus masl All. I'm watching
Presumed Innocent, which was a movie now they've made it into a series and
I've started watching that. So there's some stuff, but it's it is hard
to get to like in our in our bedroom on our bedroom TV, you
have to have a box. We have a box, or you can you
can chrome cast it. But on smart TVs, the app is on there,
so it's like as easy as get as it is to get to Netflix
or some of the others. But Yeah, says they're they're cutting back.
They're going to do less TV uh, less programming for their stuff because they're
they're getting killed. So that be interesting interesting to think what would have happened
had they gotten the PAC twelve. Would that have boosted their profile or it
had not had How long could they have how they could have paid the paid
the contract? Right, I'm I'm reluctant to say that they would have lasted
and then and then what you're gonna scramble see what kind of deal we get
ourselves into We've got to get out of this. Yeah, and we should
have done this or done that. Every's gonna land it on its feet.
There's no question. They're in a better spot, more stable, for sure,
more stable. It's gonna be fun. It's a new thing. When
we miss the back twell, we talked about this. Of course we will.
But we move on, right, Yeah, we move on. I'm
ready to move on. Okay, start the season and we'll move on from
this segment. Yeah, I'm back with Henry. All right. Henry's gonna
have some breaking news, all kinds of a lot of basketball to talk about,
So Henry be doing that and then just some general stuff out there.
So stick around for all that and we'll be back in at four fifteen.
Right at four fifteen, it'll be Jeff Hammersmith, So come on back