This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports
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R two, SAG and iHeartRadio Station. Hey, good afternoon, everybody.
Welcome to I on the Ball Hero Fox Watch fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera,
you're Jagan's also got Henry in today. Today is Wednesday. It is
Wednesday, Wednesday, another hot day out there. But besides of earth and
should be nice, put together a decent show for you, A good show
maybe, in fact, I think so. Well, we'll see if we
could pull this off. We're gonna talk about Jerry West, right right,
Jerry West, the legend. The logo passed away this morning or maybe last
night, but the news got out this morning. Two legends in the last
couple of three weeks. Yeah, you know, it's funny because you know,
I've all, I mean, I've said many times I've didn't grow up
a huge NB fan. You know, I was a college basketball fan but
really didn't follow the NBA. But you know, when a guy like Jerry
West goes, you know, it's it's beyond basketball, right, we're talking
about a legend, not just in basketball, but in in sports, in
American sports. I haven't seen TV. I've been at in my other office,
and I'm sure they're doing some nice tributes to him, kind of like
you know when people like like Walton and right and then these guys go,
I mean, you know, Hall of Famers, beloved, beloved the players.
Yeah. Well, you know, he was a frequent guest on The
Dan Patrick Show, and Dan Patrick lost it a couple of times. I
mean, right during the show. First of all, the news came out
while they were on the air, so you know, he was talking and
then he he he saw the news and so immediately went into it and he
choked up there quite a bit. And then there was one they played a
clip. There was a clip from with the tenth an of Verse Street of
The Dan Patrick Show. Jerry West came in with a cake that made it
made to look like the Dan Patrick logo. So they played that. At
the end of that, Dan Patrick choked up for like a minute, couldn't
say anything. They just they just kept the camera on him. You tell,
he was cheering up in the whole bit, and it took a while
for him to gather himself, and you know a number of times, you
know, he had to kind of pause for a second and regather himself so
you could tell him and a lot to him, right right right. I
remember him a couple of times. We're gonna have Mark Wicker from the retired
now from the Orange Canon Register, one of the great columnists in the West
Coast. We'll see what he says about it. I think he probably covered
him a time or two when the Lakers in the West. Yeah, if
you've done anything with sports in southern California, whether you were a coach,
a player, a member of the news media, you know, Jerry West
was a part of whatever you did because he was such a such a figure
again, you know, not just as a as an NBA guy, but
you know just in you know, sports in general in that in that region.
Yeah, And I saw him a few times at the NBA games that
covered back in the day. He and Larry Bird and guys like that.
And we're gonna have Corey Williams at the four o'clock hour. And I'm sure
Corey ran into him too in his media exploits here. But he was one
of those dudes that kind of like Loot too many. Here you go and
you see him and you think, can I go up to him? You
know, one of those dudes that larger than life and stately and very very
is very approachable, but you don't know if you're good or not. One
of those guys that walks in the room and he changes the room, right,
No, Jerry West walks in the room. You know that Jerry West
just walked in the room. I did that with him, doctor j.
You know, guys that you grew up watching him because you don't believe that
they're real. You know, I'm sure like kids today with Lebron or whoever,
like Michael Jordan stuff. No, and you know, and and and
again it's it's you know, it's our age that we're starting to see,
you know, people like that from from our time. Uh, they're they're
you know, they're aging. You know, we're losing them, you know,
and guys like that you mentioned doctor j Uh. You know, at
a PAC twoff tournament two or three years ago, and maybe even longer ago
than that, my son and I, you know, we were both working
and we're walking in the hallway and coming the other way. Here comes doctor
J and I'm like, this is doctor j This is that guy. Almost
like if Michael Jordan was walking down down the hallway and we stopped him,
got a picture with him. But then I looked him and said, he's
old. Yeah, just a couple of years. Yeah, yeah, you
know he's gotten old. And he's one of those guys that you know,
uh you know he he he How much stronger is a guy like that can
be around? But you know, when a guy like Jerry West goes,
it's there aren't there aren't a lot of people in his stratosphere, uh,
in any sport, right, When when somebody like that goes, it's kind
of like a huge deal and you start to start to realize how I'm mortal.
Everybody is, you know, with a guy like that, you know,
he's just one of those guys. And I think I said this on
a on a on a text to to some friends. I said, he's
one of those legends that you thought would never die, right, he might
always be around, right, No, you're exactly right there. They're bigger
than life. Uh, mountain men, kind of mountain men, uh,
like the Waltons. Even though he was he was slowed by I think lout
you know you think that, Yeah, if you lived in Tucson, you
thought Lout would always be here. I mean, we could talk about people
like that all the time. God, there's so many. But you know
what I mean when you're talking about guys like you know, you know in
my okay for me, right, then one that I know has got to
be coming up in the next several years, Sandy Kofax, Right, except
that guy looks better than I do, so I you know, every time
you see him, he still looks great. But you know, Sandy Kofax
is a guy that you know, you know, he takes me back to
my youth. He's he's sort of my Jerry West because he still continues to
be around baseball. He's around the Dodgers. You know, during spring training
you see you know, he's at games and he worked with the Dodgers.
You see him all the time. Sandy Colfax is a guy that at some
point I don't know, but Steve he quit playing baseball in nineteen sixty six.
Yeah, right, so fifty years ago. It's funny you bring that
up. Almost sixty years ago. Mine would be Johnny Bench, Yeah,
Johnny Bench, and you know Joe Morgan's already passed, right, and Pete
Rose and those guys, so they have to be in their seventieslady seventies,
mid seventies. Well, Sandy Colfax was a rookie in nineteen fifty five.
I'm looking up. I'm looking up to see how olday he's eighty eight years
old? Right, eighty eight? Yeah, I bet you can still get
a fastball pass me and Jerry West. It was eighty six or eighty six,
eighty six, so you know, but there's you know, those guys
that and again, you know, yes, do I remember Jerry West as
a player. Of course I do, because how could you not if you
were any kind of a sports fan. But I wasn't like a huge Lakers
fan or anything like that. But yet Jerry West was still a big part
of my growing up when it came to basketball. Again. The logo,
right, he was the logo. And you think of all that, and
you go, you know, you realize how mortal, you know, we
all are, and and and you know these guys are starting to go,
you know, yeah, no, no, of course I know a lot
of them have already gone. We could we could go through a long list
of English sport that you know, guys that were just like icons and us
growing up as kids. And that would be in the slate sixties seventies that
I can remember, right, And when we were kids, right, we
were collecting, right, we were collecting cards and things, you know,
or we were we were painting our helmets or football helmets, you know,
like I had a football hamlet with Johnny United number nineteen on it, and
you know, as a little kid, and stuff like that. And and
these are guys that that whatever impact they had, they had some kind of
an impact on us growing up. And and you know when a guy like
that goes, you go, all right, you know who are some of
the other guys like that? Yeah? Right, So we'll talk a lot
about him and basketball with Mark and you know, just about today's the state
of the world with n I L and things like that. He's been retired
for a couple of years now covered southern Arizona, Southern California, us c
U C l A with some some big events in column and then again Corey
Williams on the other side talking about his summer camp and talking more about basketball.
We wanted to talk about basketball yesterday. Uh, Now, I forget
what we were talking about before. We wanted oh because of because of the
college, of the Hurley coming back, and just what the landscape of college
basketball. It's kind of just it's just what it is. Is. It
was just a big wave and it hit and nothing happened, and nothing happened
right back where we were. Now they're same J. J. Redick is
going to be the coach. Yeah, right, so did you ever he
wouldn't have anything about Dallas, the Dallas episodes when Bobby went to sleep and
he was it was all a dream. Last ten days have been a dreaming
college basketball. Nothing happened, right, Yeah, there was all this activity
and then we ended up in the same place that we were, right interesting
stuff like that. So now you know, and and I don't know,
I mean, I'd love to hear what Corey Williams has to say about you
know what if he left, how does that? What are we left with
it now that he didn't? You know? Are we are we in the
same place? Is you know, is dan her you know, is Yukon
the favorite again? Or does somebody else look like they've got guys because like
you know, like everybody else, you know, he's had to go get
some more guys. You don't get some more players, you know, he
lost some guys to the draft and whatnot. So you wonder, Okay,
how good is Connecticut going to be next year? And are they the prohibited
favorite like we all think that. Yeah, I don't know if they will
be. I think Alabama has picked on something. There's gonna be so many
good teams next year again, you know, and then we'll in March we'll
see the same same games. Right, So okay, I mean there were
a bunch last year, right, I remember in the middle we thought how
many teams can win this thing? Right? There was one those one of
and are especially after the first two months. Uh then you see and then
you see obviously Purdue. They go to Purdue and get beaten and then produced
pretty good as they were Yukon of course, uh Bama played well. I
mean, all the same all the same teams eventually find their way. North
Carolina was not the North Carolina the previous year. And you know all the
blue bloods you say blue bloods, all the blue bloods did you on in
there? Don't take it out of context. Don't take me out of context.
Just the laundry list. That's all the way. I don't know,
Steve, win me another title there from one day ago they got from who
that from more? Uh fan plus one thousand plus one, so ten to
one if you want to get them at ten to one, because you'll never
get that again, do it now, Jay ten bucks, you get your
one hundred and ten. All right? I just found my I just found
my picture of Julia serving you did okay? Cool the twenty eighteen that at
tournament. And then my brother sent me he got a picture with him the
year before his played at CAL. I think I don't remember. I don't
think I think his kid played at Cal. Okay. But but it's old
man, Yeah, it's old right there. Yeah yeah, and still could
probably do a little thing of the back, So you guess he can still
done back back. I don't know how to be twenty years ago or so.
Mike, Grandma and I did a story on him at the teams of
the TCC, I guess making an appearance and you sat down with him and
he was just such an intelligent, well spoken guy, not like I am
right now. But do you think I'm talking to my to doctor j Yeah,
you know him and that guy and Rod Carew was kind of special to
me. And guys, yeah, guys that used to say that, you
know, yeah, that's another name, you know, and so you know,
I mean these again, we're you know, we're aging, so obviously
they're aging, right right. No, no, No, there was something
that popped in my feed today somebody who was like thirty two and I'm thinking
he's thirty two and I'm holy crap. When I was covering the team,
he was like twelve. Yeah, I mean, it was like, holy
moly, where's the time go? Honestly, where does it go? No?
It does? It goes fast? And then again, I mean like,
look, the last time I saw Jerry West probably would have been on
Dan Patrick's show. Yeah, I thought that guy's you know, he still
looks young. He's gonna be around for a while, and and uh,
you know, and didn't say what he died. I haven't seen I haven't
looked it up and seen that. I mean, I didn't even heard that
he was posted death or anything like that. Nobody's really talking about that stuff
anymore. You just hear that they passed. It's like oja, when he
passed, no one knew what he had and then he just died, and
then you realize he has he had cancer. That's the same as a Bill.
We knew that he was ill, but none of what he was what
he was I did not know he was ill, Oh Bill, Yeah,
Oh you didn't know. I just thought he went dark because he hated what
was going on with the with the league, with the PAC twelve. So
I you know, I I get I should have known, right, but
I just didn't put it together. I guess what I'm saying. By the
way, we're gonna try to get the rucks, you know, the next
day or so, right, Yeah, I gotta get it. Reached out
to him, don't I. Yeah, the hill work to do. I
keep forgetting. I'm busy, Jet, I'm busy. So you're old and
you're forgetting. Okay, I'm old and I'm forgetting. But yeah, so
anyway, it's again just one of just one of those guys, one of
those guys that and I don't know who the other ones are, right,
they don't come to mind. I mentioned Sandy goofex. But you know guys
that just uh, you know, we're a big part of of you know,
of what we did as kids. Well, I think I think the
dude he ran for office and they part of Garvey Holds Garby Steve Garvey,
so that's way older. That's why. Yeah, he's way younger than Yeah,
I mean Steve Garvey was playing base baseball into the sixty seventy. Can
he run for office in San Diego? I think there's yeah, a big
turn. Well, it's kind of like Pete Rose to me and Peter Rose
to me was my like fan of Steve Garby is much older than me.
He's seventy. Yeah, he's got me by ten years. All over ten
years. Pete Rose is about the same age, all that all that era
to me. But you know, for some when Pete Rose, uh,
you know, leaves, he'll be one of those guys, yeah, right
for for better or worse. Why he's famous and all that stuff. But
he's one of those legendary baseball guy that has been a part of baseball,
you know, good and bad. You know. For Jerry West was sixty
years right, he got he got into the NBA in the sixties. You
know, Pete Rose the same thing. You know, he's you know in
the sixties and as I mentioned, you know, Sandy Kofax started playing Major
League Baseball in the fifties. You know another guy that probably you followed back
in the day was Lee Trevino. Oh yeah, you know golfing one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know Lee Trevino because he's you know,
my dad and Lee were like doppelgangers. Oh well yeah, yeah, yea
yeah. Let's go. We gotta go, right, So you take our
breakword and come back. We're going to talk to Mark Wicker, Southern California
Newsgroup and Orange County Register, a columnist former. I guess you're saying retired,
Yeah, but I'm sure we just get his thoughts on you know,
Jerry West and his presence in Southern California. So stick around. The window
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at. This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jacobzalez on Fox
Sports fourteen fifteen. Hey, welcome back to Eying the bout here on Fox
Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Vera. You're Jiggins, Austin Nonofolia. Mark.
We get from the Orange califormia of the Orange kind of register. Now
retired, still writing though, Mark, How are you good? Pee?
How you doing fine? Thank you? I'm assuming having been in southern California
for a long time, Mark that you ran into Jerry West of time or
two. Yes, I did doctor him on the phone a lot in recent
years, and yeah, he was it's hard to believe, you know,
that he's not going to be around, even though he's eighty six, and
you know he was. I've not seen him lately, but he was always
looked. He was always a picture of health and looked great. I was
shocked to see that he had passed away this morning. You know, Mark,
we were talking about him. He's one of those guys and there's few
of them, right that, whatever sport you're a fan of, you still
know him. You know who he was, who he is, and you've
known him for a really long time. And there's not a lot of guys
like that, right who cross you know, who cross everything? And they
did it for a long time. And he's sixty years really, you know,
being connected to basketball, I can't think of anybody else that comes to
mind today. I know there are guys, but just one of those guys
in that, especially you being in southern California, he had to have such
a presence. Yeah, any time he came to a college game, the
scout, or any time he was in public, everybody kind of gravitated toward
him and always Yeah, they point at him, and there's very west.
It must be a big kid, it must be a big deal for him
to be here. And he was always that way. He wasn't really that
visible around the Lakers when he was running the show, because he basically liked
to stay in the background, but you know, he was behind the scenes.
You could talk to him and he would give you a lot of especially
off the record. He was very direct in his opinions and very opinionated.
And his judge of talent, I mean, as a judge of talent,
I'm not sure anybody's been any better. I mean, I don't know how
many people thought Kobe Bryant coming out of high school was going to be one
of the all time great NBA players, But Jerry always did and he was
rewarded for that, so you know, I mean, it's the lessons that
he taught others. I mean, I don't know how many people could duplicate
what he'd done, but he definitely was a person that people gravitated toward and
wanted to find out things from. In the end, he was no longer
with the Lakers, Right, didn't he jump ship to another the Tlippers?
Right? The Clippers, and I think he took some heat for that,
obviously, but it kind of shows the state of the Lakers right now.
Well, he went to the Warriors, he was there for a while during
their their years and was an advisor to uh Bob Myers and to the ownership
there, and then he was with the Clippers and advised their their front office
and Steve Baumber as well. Uh Lately, I don't think he was really
that connected to to the Clippers or anything else. Apparently is apparently he was
having some help challenge in the last few months, which I wasn't aware of.
But yeah, he uh you know, But I think at at heart
he was always a Laker. When the Lakers were doing well, he was
he was not happy even though he wasn't working for them anymore. And of
course when Mitch Kupchak was there, they were still very close. So uh
he you know, I don't think he played for a team as long as
he did and have as much to do with the Lakers as he did without
with without being part of their team. In your mind, do you remember
actually watching him play, watching play on TV and noticing him as being that
good. This is one of the things that I hope people get the impression
from all these tributes and obituaries that you're going to read and hear the next
two days, is that dis for a player he was, I mean to
score that many points. He never had an opportunity to shoot a three pointer
in the pros or in college. He was a great rebounder. He was
a great assist man. He led the league in assists one year. He
was a tremendous defensive player, and he was taller than he was ever given
credit for. He was listed at being sixty three, but as he said
later, I was actually sixty four and a half. And he was had
long arms and was a tremendous defensive player. He liked the block shots.
They didn't keep block shots most of the career. That most of the time
that he played, he was just an all round player. He was at
his best year in the playoffs. In nineteen seventy one. They played a
series against the Baltimore Bullets, which was actually a Western Conference final and eligend
Baylor was hurt and Jerry West average forty six points a game in those games,
and the Lakers win the series, which is still a record for a
series, and he was unstoppable. I mean, he was the MVP in
nineteen sixty nine of the Finals, even though the Lakers didn't win. So
all of that sets in. You know, you hear a lot of people
talk about who the best player is. People talk about how there's never been
a back court like Luca Donsige and Kyrie Irving. I think we really lose
sight of the guys who played before, like Oscar Robertson and Jerry West and
Rick Berry and even before that, George Mike and and does. I mean,
it would be nice if people really realized just how special he was.
I don't think you can compile a list of the ten best NBA players of
all time without putting him in. How did this North Carolina kid you end
up in LA and who was able to do what you did? Well,
it's kind of a long time I ended up. I was I was hired
in Dallas for a year and a half in the late seventies by a guy
who had worked in Charlotte before. He was editor in Dallas, and he
hired me, and then then I got a job in Philadelphia. After that,
I was there for eight years, and then I came out to Darrenge
County in nineteen eighty seven. But I was really intrigued with southern California by
the trips that we had made. I was there for the Olympics in eighty
four, and really for the first time, really it got a chance to
see what the area was like over a sustained period of time, and you
know, I started thinking that it would be a nice place to go if
I ever had the opportunity. And then it came along in nineteen eighty seven,
and it's a long way from home, but it's you know, it's
a nice place to be. So the reason I was going there, and
I thought it was way before because I gotten Tucson at that same time.
Do you remember the first time you spoke to Jerry Weston And you've met and
been done on all these things too, So I'm sure he wasn't until a
dating but it must have been cool. Probably shortly after I came out here.
You know, he was hanging around the Laker you know, he would
be at a certain Laker practices and game not often, and I would.
I'm sure I talked to him at some point during eighty seven eighty eight,
somewhere in there that was during when showtime was just coming to an end,
and you know, and then periodically, but he wasn't really that visible,
you know, he was you know, he didn't really like to be at
the games, especially the finals games, because he would be so been out
of shape over whether they would win or not. Sometimes they would just leave
the arena and drive around without the radio on while the game was going on.
And he was very intense and that way, and so he and he
didn't really want any of the acclaim when they did win. I don't ever
remember him being part of a celebration or anything. Although I do remember after
the Lakers were swept one time by San Antonio that he was in the hallway
and he talked quite a while about where the team was and all that.
So he really wasn't he was very good in one on one conversations that he
really didn't, you know, go out and quote unquote meet the press very
often. Yeah, I mean, that's it. And that was the thing.
I mean that that that that's almost white. People were so intrigued by
him, right because he wasn't trying to grab the spotlight. He he was
seeming like I let Steve and I have been telling the last couple of days
about you know, guys were just regular guys but in big positions, and
and it seemed like he just didn't I mean not that he wasn't, not
that he was uncomfortable with it, but just that he preferred to just kind
of be a regular guy and be in the background and that kind of thing.
Yeah, he didn't want he didn't want that much credit for what was
going on. And you you had a lot of people like the Bus family
and all of that were happy to be in that situation. Plus you had
players who were very charismatic and his George being one of the open So you
know, I just don't think he was that outgoing as far as that goes.
But uh uh, I think everybody. I think everybody was curious about
him because they wanted to figure out how he had such a such good feel
for identifying talent and for drafting players. You remember the one year in nineteen
eighty two he drafted James Worthy number one, and there was a lot of
controversy out here and then about you know, you should have taken to but
Dominique Wilkins, you should have taken Isaiah Thomas, you should have done this,
you should have done that, and he stood by that and I think
was justified. You know, from the championships that they won. He was
able to look at a player, it would taken only a few minutes to
figure out whether a player was really the real thing or not, and whether
you could win with him, you know, I mean, he had a
real good sense of what players had ability and what players you could really win
with. Yeah, no question. We hadn't talked to you about mister Bill
Walton too, did I don't know if you wrote a tribute, but I'm
sure you talked to him numerous times too. Yeah. I wrote something on
my I have a substack newsletter called The Morning After that all of you people
out there are invited to watch and subscribe to because it's free. But anyway,
thanks for thanks for letting me get that. Yeah. He died on
Memorial Day, which is not that long ago, and I was thinking this
morning. I mean, it's just hard to believe that he was. He's
gone too, because he had cancer. But I don't think he made that
very public either. And you know, he'd added seventy one and you know,
which not that old when you're around as long as I've been so he
Yeah, that was a shock too, because for a different reason because you
know, we all knew Bill Walk we all got to kick out of him
and knew what kind of an attitude he had. He was so joyful,
and he loved life so much, and he loved basketball so much and went
through so much. I mean, his life was full of pain and disappointment
and really to the point where he contemplated, you know, suicide and things
like that because he was a bad shape. But you know, I both
those guys are are going to leave a hole, and it's it's it's really
hard to imagine both of them leaving in such a short period of time.
Well, and again, there are those guys that you know, you know
us who as we were growing up, those are the guys that you know,
we followed, we collected their football cards or baseball cards or basketball cards
or whatever. And then you know, we're finding out that you know,
they're they're human, right. Uh. You know, I made the comment
that Jerry West was one of those guys who you thought would always be around
because he was such a legend and that you know, this would never happen,
and it does, and it does, and it will. And there's
more guys like that, you know, getting to that age right now.
Yeah, both those guys are you know, have a lot in common in
terms of they really didn't hide their personalities very much. Toman Walton was right
out there with the things he liked to do and and you know once and
of course that all changed when he when he got out of his stutter and
was able to speak clearly, his personality change and we all got to know
him a lot better than we did before. Uh and and I remember John
Wood' said he's not sure that was good or not, but you know,
and uh yeah, Jerry West is the same way. He was very candid
about the fact that he had depressions sometimes, he had anxieties, he had
moments of doubt and all those things, and he had it. He had
a tough time growing up too. So you know, it's these are the
two guys that that were religions and what they did, but they also weren't
afraid to show you their human side. So you're still writing, but let's
talk real quick about the state of college athletics right now. I'm sure five
years ago you never thought this would happen. What's point on l I never
did, and I don't, you know, it's it's it's sad, but
I guess it's inevitable. You know, all these years we said that the
college players should get paid, and uh, you know, it's kind of
like Vandora's box. You know, you didn't really know what the consequences of
that would be. Like, you know, it's kind of like be careful
what you wished for. But I think that at some point, and you
know, we're going through a very difficult period right now, I think at
some point, all the kind all the you know, the teams that should
be playing in the so called big leagues will be playing in the big leagues,
and hopefully they'll be split into divisions that will kind of resemble the PAC
twelve we used to have in the other conferences, and it'll be almost like
the way it used to be. But I'm really hopeful that at some point
they can put some parameters on the portal when you can go, how many
people can go, and all those things. And also probably a salary cap
is coming down to fight too, And I don't know how easily that's going
to be the enforced but you know, I think that we have a very
unsettled time, but I think at some point down the road it will be
rectified, and we might not like what it looks like, but at least
I think that the thing that the thing that I was most concerned about over
the years and most critical about, is that, you know, college players
were being asked to do twice as many things as orgular students, and even
though they were getting scholarships, they really deserved a piece of the pie.
And they're going to get a piece of the now, and they're getting it,
and I think overall that that will be known as a good thing.
Yeah. Complete, Well, Mark, we appreciate your time. Thanks,
Thanks a bunch. Okay, I appreciate it. Good luck. Thank you.
Mark Wicker, formerly the Orange County Register Stike. I thought he would
have been here, been there before that, because that's when I met him,
you know, in the eighty seven eighty seven, eighty eight time frame,
when I was in sports. He was already like a big deal to
me. You know, Oh he's at the Orange Country Register. That's one
of the you know, and at that time that sports section was considered really
the best one in southern California, you know better than you know people better
than the La Times and though so it was kind of like, that's Mark
Wicker. He's a big dude. Yeah, but he had just got there
right right, there had been a few places. Yeah, good old boy,
he's a good boy. Yeah, he's a great guy. Yeah,
I've been a great friendly guy. Again one of those guys from me as
some scrubby little Tucson sports writer. You know, he gave me the time
of day. I was appreciated that. Yeah, good dude. Okay,
let's go and come back and then we'll talk. Baby, take some calls,
right five, two zero, four, one, six, seventy four,
forty if you want to give us a call. If you're an Arizona
men's basketball fan, you know it's been successful for nearly forty years. Now.
Take a look back at the Ludolsen era. In my new book,
Lessons from Loot, it was a labor of love through the eyes of twenty
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five chapters for his twenty five years as Arizona's beloved coach. Lessons from Lut
is an insight to how he built the program into a national powerhouse. Want
one Email me at Steve dot RIVERA ninety five at gmail dot com. Hi,
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four nine two zero seven four eight, or visit us at picture rocks cool
dot com breaking down all the exes. And oh, it's Steve Lavera and
Jayden Sammis. This is I Am a book on Fox Sports fourteenth. Hey,
welcome back to Whying the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm
Steve, He's Jay Henry with us today. We have fifteen minutes. If
you'd like to call us, please do five two o four one six seventy
four forty. If you have a Jerry West memory, that'd be great.
If you met him at some point, that'd be cool. Yeah, give
us give his quick call. Yeah, good, tomorrk Quicker get some background
in his time there, yeh good stuff. Yeah yeah, and again he
mentioned he's got a substack newsletter that he does, so if you ever be
you familiar with that, yeah, I am. I know a couple of
people who who uh you know blogs or yeah, put stuff up on there
and a lot of different stuff, uh, you know, just people putting
their thoughts up there. And if you know somebody and you want to,
yeah, it's like having a conversation with him, right, they just talk
about whatever's on their mind, and it's some of that stuff is very cool.
Okay again five two four, one sixty four forty uh, and we'll
take your call obviously. Uh. And then we have Corey Williams on the
other side with more basketball things going on today. His camp has started and
we'll talk about that. And maybe I think he may have met him a
time or two when he was in college. Actually, well when he was
being scouted back at the Desert Classic back in the mid nineties. That's how
I remember seeing Jerry West. Okay, what else, anything else? What
do you got? Well? I was just I was just reaching out to
yov about this graphics that went up about a total attendance leader in the Pact
twelve, and I just got confirmation that In fact, the jov did lead
in total attendance. Is that who it was? And they say, according
to Matt, it's a third straight year. So you'd kind of when you
add them all up, right, basketball, because first of all, Aerzone
had a decent year attendance wise in football. But you know, yeah,
Washington you got you know, they have some of these large stadiums. Oregon
State fills up at stadium. But you know when you got basketball and you're
getting wards from one thousand, five hundred, you know every game you're getting
seven or eight thousand in basketball. I think they lead in baseball attendance as
well, softball as well. It's always full. So when you add up
all those all those sports and get that kind of attendance for the long haul,
yeah, I guess it makes sense. And here's the kicker. It
could get better, much better because football could take it another run consistently.
Uh ten seven thousand, ten thousand, how much you think could not to
fill because that real estic is not gonna fill up. But no, I
mean they they they should be able to average in the high forties at I
think it's a little over fifty. Now they change some of the seeding especially
if they win some games, big games, you can get forty six.
You're in Tucson, Arizona, and you can get you get high forties.
You have aage forty seven. I feel like forty seven is a magic number
because forty six is still kind of mid forties. Forty seven is kind of
high forties. Right. It's like when you turn twenty six, you're still
in your mid twenties. You turn twenty seven, you're pushing thirty. Right.
It's a similar kind of thing like aty year. Oh I know,
but yeah, I mean, you know, football can get up there where
they're you know, getting in the into the high forties. Then an occasional,
you know, in a big game, they'll get you know, fifty
or whatever. Yeah, And if they do that on top of the attendance
that they're getting at the other sports, because they are really they lead in
in basketball attendants both men's and women's. They lead in baseball attendance, and
I think they lead in softball attendance. And that's that's you know, when
you add all those things up, it does make sense that that that that
Arizona's got that because you know, Washington probably averages what six seven thousand in
basketball, even though they've got seventy thousand set football stadium. You know,
even if they fill that up, if you've got twenty dates of basketball and
you're getting eight thousand a game, whereas Arizona's got twenty dates and then getting
fourteen thousand a game, you know that that's where you make it up,
right, right, No, that's good. That's a nice little price there.
Yeah. So I don't think they get anything for it, but that's
good. You know what it's it's what it's bragging rights. But it also
you know, it helps with stuff. You know, if you're trying to
recruit a baseball player, dude, we get you know, people come to
watch our games, right and they get beer. Yeah. If you don't
and if you didn't already know that, well you probably already knew that,
Yeah, because you've shut up to a March matter, you know, to
a red Blue game r whatever. Yeah. Well, I mean when you
think about the Red Blue game, right that sells out every year and you're
a recruit that comes to that game, you go, holy hell, you
know, right, So it's it's one of those things that that that helps
a lot. Yeah, So why are you transferring because I'm stupid. I
want to get some played there. Yeah, well I get yeah, I
don't get to play. Yeah. You know, well that's one of the
questions I wanted to ask Bran Brandon yesterday. And you know, we obviously
try to pack a lot in there, but you know, you got to
wonder. I know coaches don't like the transfer port for the most part,
right, they hate having to go re recruiting players, But you also wonder
how many coaches kind of are maybe in the middle of that, because while
on the one hand they're losing players, how many of those players that are
leaving or players that they kind of want them to leave? Oh, right,
question? And now they get to turn over a scholarship or a spot
on the roster that they recruited, a player that didn't turn out to be
the player that thought they were going to be, and he gives them an
opportunity to go fill that hole. So it's not always all bad. No,
no, no, no, you're exactly right. We've seen coaches do
that, not force them out. But you know, if you want to
go, you know where to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no,
you could mention the people who left. Let's just maybe play hypothetical.
Uh, Philippe, who I thought was going to be a fantastic star this
year, was not. He didn't have an opportunity, or he wasn't good
enough or whatever. So you can say, Okay, you might be better
off somewhere else, and then I go get a guy that I think can
help me. He's proven right and can do the job right, right,
right, So there's got to be you know well, and then come in
between the other one. Moroscus. Moroscus, Yeah, another guy who you
think fantastic potential, we've seen it, but wasn't good enough on the defensive
end. There was a reason he wasn't on the core correct, correct,
especially when you know they were really having trouble shooting the ball right because he
could shoot it, because he could shoot right, and he did shoot it.
It was a running joke at at our table that if Moroscus touches the
ball, it's going out, it's going up right, Yeah, And do
you think that's not a bad thing? No, because he could get shots.
But but again, but he had to do other stuff with the October
the stadium tilted way. You had no problems getting on the offensive. I
had hard time going back the other way. But you know, but you
do you wonder again, in general, I can see why they don't like
it because they do lose good players, right. You know, there were
some guys that were in Arizona that are not Washington that I know Brand Brandon
would have loved to have, particularly you know, the running back and a
couple of guys. But on the flip side, there may have been some
guys that left that Brent Branton said, God, you know, okay,
this is an opportunity for us to get a better player spot. And you
also want your guys, your guys that you think that would fit in with
your your mentality, your structure, your your and it talks about culture.
Everyone has culture. It just depends what that culture is. You want your
guys, and you want people who like you say all the time, if
you don't want to be here, didn't you know where the door is,
don't be here? Yeah, then don't be here, right, So I
don't know. I I in fact, we're gonna I'm gonna have to be
sure. I asked him that at the first press conference, we get him
in and let me see because one of our listeners, uh, mister Bill
send me something. He said, Hi, you're on the air, and
ye on the ball. Hey, Jay and Steve, how you doing.
Howard looks a little down, sounds a little down. Hell yeah, I
got I got some sort of a cold or something. What's going on?
And I don't get sick. Oh anyway, I'll just away in on Jerry
West to one story. He was the early sixties or sixty five. I
told you I went to a funeral, right. That was my uncle,
Jim. He's five years younger than Jerry West. He played him one on
one in the mid sixties and Jim, I don't know if you let him
about. My uncle was pretty good basketball. I don't know the real first
end story, but he won one game out of the three. There you
go. Yeah, the bragging rights, right well, yeah, and I
actually saw him. It might have been righty before Steve came. When Penny
Hardaway we played Memphis, Penny Hardaway up at you know you were here in
Phoenix, yeah and Phoenix right yeah. Yeah. And Jerry West is a
scout then you know who he was with. He was with dun Levy Senior.
Yeah. Yeah, those are the good old days. Yeah, those
are the good days. Well, you know what I mean. He popped
in here a few times, right, they were looking at they were looking
at guys. And you again, you noticed him when you walked in the
building. You just did. There's Jerry West right, hey, and I
looked it up. Pete Roses eighty three, you know that right? That
was quick? Man? He really seven six years older than Steve's guy,
Johnny Bench and my guy, Knowen Ryan, whoa, whoa. Yeah,
we'll get an old Howard. How old are you? Howard? Well,
how old are you? Howard? I'm see I always think of my I'm
right between you and Jay. Then you just turned fifty nine, Steve sixty
sixty sixteen. Yeah, oh yeah, well, yeah, I know.
I'm two years older than you and Jay and I turned our birthdays in August,
right, coming out? Man? Anyway, Wait, what's the lifetime
ban? When you die? Is Pete Rose gonna be put in the Hall
of Fame? That's a good question. I don't know. Probably not,
I bet not, Yeah, because Joe Jackson needs to get in there before
him, because he batted good in the World Series. You had a third
education, Howard, Go get that cold kidding out. Okay, we'll see
you guys like, thanks for calling. How did you recognize his voice?
I didn't know it was it because because it's tone, it's his towerstone.
He's like, I was gonna think, oh, we got a new call.
By the way, who are we going with this? Before he called?
Uh? Oh, the Bill said something to me earlier. Uh,
And he said, have we talked about this? Did you see the articles
out quoting on three analysts that Arizona ranked nineteenth in the transfer portal and Washington
was not ranked at all? Wow? Oh, so, for whatever that's
worth, we know, right, because you know, show up in there
they turn into the kid that we always talking about, the defensive end number
one, Lewis Holmes, who all these accolades and then you can't play.
I remember why. I remember the first time I saw him, and it
was before and I saw him and I saw him in person? Right,
is your airport got here? You want to talk about the poster child for
an airport and airport guy And I'm like, damn, just Arizona never has
that guy on his team. He sort of the Justin Flow thing that you
know, And I'm like, holy hell. And then yeah, and then
he didn't turn out to be a good player. Yeah, yeah, Chris
was just ruled up. Yeah, I didn't think why why would he play?
I mean, honestly, he's gonna give him another rest or another day
or two. Yeah, then they don't need the game. They parbaty losing
will. The Mavericks are pretty pretty solid favorites for the game tonight. They're
giving three. They're giving three, but their money line is minus one forty
eight. It's almost tempting to go take the late. The Celtics at plus
one twenty four. Oh no, no, you know what I call that?
You want to call that not because I want you to win. That's
called dead money. Becau Dallas is gonna win tonight, you think so?
Oh yeah, okay, yeah yeah, keep your five bucks in your over
under two fourteen and a half. Oh, I don't know what. I
took the under. I took the last game and I hit it. It
was nice. Don't keep It's a that's a coin flip always right, because
you just you just flip a goin says half of you're gonna be right,
half you're gonna be wrong. And I don't know, but I feel like
I've got I'm not like that. It like I do something on the game.
Have you been with us two three months? Only a month? How
many interest do you think he's happen? Right? But it's better you don't
say anything, Andy, just saying, just saying, But now you know,
you know again I'm interested in the you know, in the finals.
I watched a little of the Stanley Cup game the other night. You know,
I don't watch I don't either, but the urgency that these guys play
with in the finals is spectacular. Watching these guys just go at it,
uh, giving it everything that they have when you know, after a long
season where sometimes they clearly don't, and you see how you see how they
play with the sense of urgency with it their so called hair on fire.
Yeah, it's it's fun to watch. No, I'm not gonna go sit
down at the next game, turn it on and watch the whole game.
But I was sitting there doing some work and I was, you know,
looking for something to put on in the background, and the game was on,
and it was late in the game and it was a close game,
and I and I watched it and it was very cool. Okay, we're
about a minute left with this segment. We can't take any more. Calls,
but thank you her for calling in giving this your Jerry Jerry West.
We're gonna breaking news here at the top of the hour. We've got Corey
Williams who's gonna join us and see if he's got some thoughts on both on
Jerry West and then just college basketball in general. He's a college basketball analyst
for ESPN. What does you think of the Hurley situation? But Bill Plashki
was on Dan Patrick this morning. He shredded the Lakers for for the for
letting her to get away or for not being able to hire her. I'm
just saying that this, yeah, and but just saying that if you're the
Lakers, this is a disaster for you that he goes it's the Lakers.
How do you how do how do you as the Lakers? Not How does
a guy like Hurley say no to you? How bad are you run?
Let's also say this because pass from l A or he's in LA, he's
been there forever. Everybody only probably thinks that, you know, they're the
shiny object. And how could you dare turn us down? Yeah? Well
then okay, dared turn us down and this is what we are. Maybe
so, but the way he put he said, Look, he said,
Dan Hurley came to La, took a look around, took a look look
around the organization, and said no thanks and left. That's how I say
when I go dancing, you want to dance with me? How can you
dare turn me down? Because she observed the situation is that you were wearing
man. But he shud, I'd love to. I didn't. I haven't
read his column, but I'm sure it's a I'm sure it's the killer.
All right, Okay, let's take a break. We're going to come back
Henry with a breaking news, and then we'll have Corey Wood stick around.