This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalaz Sound Fox Sports
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Eye on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera.
He's Jagan Zawas hitting with us today is we have analyse Who's going to be
with us for a while. Good day. I'm excited to be here.
I have some questions for you students at u A. It's not like nothing's
going on over there. Yeah, no kidding. I mean we were fortunate
to get the big news of the day from yesterday, which will continue today
with the firing letting go of Dave hike Man. That was that was crazy
right at the you know, right at the end of the end of the
show. Yeah, you know, just happy to glance at my email as
I was wrapping up my computer because we were ending the show, and there
it is right at the top. And it was a as I mentioned yesterday,
was it was from the u A News department, not from sports.
So we're we're old dudes, And we've been through news cycles before. We
were in the industry where Thursdays or Fridays were those news dumps were dumb people
would hope that they wouldn't get much play. Well, we're no longer in
that era. It's news boom boom boom, and it's Internet. It's it's
getting on the news that we got it on and I don't you know,
that's what the UA was thinking. You can dump it at the end of
the day all you want. It's going to get out right away the way
it did. I mean, you know, in our case, we got
we were on with it like three or four minutes after the news reason and
Twitter was all over it, and then everybody was all over it right after
that. All the talk shows were on it. Uh, the there were
you know there emergency podcasts because of it. I saw it in the New
York Times. Yeah, it's star reaching, far reaching, so you know
it was. It was nuts and so yeah, go ahead, make you
know, do the news dump, but it's going to get out there right
my impression, and forgetting some calls or taking the calls that no buddy or
few people, if any knew anything. Do you a Michael, they have
no idea. Anybody they know, no idea was coming. It came right
as they were leaving the door, and they were like, what the heck
just happened? Yeah, like somebody hitting you inside of their head and said,
here go go. Just you know, again odd timing, because very
odd timingtball coach, And let's go with that because it is odd timing.
You if you're if you know, you're gonna let your guy go, which
I don't think he did at that time, You're gonna you're gonna gonna tell,
You're gonna tell what's the purpose of the higher? Now are you comfortable
if you're Brad br Brent Brannant, if you think about it, well,
I don't think. I don't think he's completely uncomfortable with it, because he's
got history, he knows, sure, sure, and I think there's a
respect for that. You know, the likelihood that Arizona's gonna go get somebody
with some Arizona connections, probably for high and so I think you're Brent Brandon,
You're you don't like it, Yeah, but you're probably not a good
answer, good answer, And anybody else in that building, it just comes
as a weird timing. Weird timing, right, you hired a coach five
days five days prior. Officially, he's not. Doctor Robinson is not at
the event. I was told he was ill. Confirmed that he was ill.
He was not at the Sunday Saturday game with U C. L A.
I put that in my story. That was odd to me. But
apparently he had some functions to get to. He was okay, but he
went to functions and and here we are, and here we are. Let
me say, what's the what's the have you been on campus, what's what's
the what's the vibe? Or do kids even care? People are talking about
it, for sure, about Brent Brennan, Like everyone at the football game
on Saturday was talking about it after I mean the basketball game afterwards was talking
about it. I think, no, No, I'm talking about the Heikey
the Hey final. People are talking about that too. Yeah. I think
it's just kind of came as a surprise to everybody. It's just kind of
weird. Yeah, kind of weird is exactly it. So so Jay,
you know how these things, there's always more to the story. He's not
going to be the first guy, you know, He's not the first guy
now and I say this, Uh, we've had doctor Robbins on here a
lot. He's a friend of the program. Right, But if you if
you get rid of the ad who's next, Who's next? Yeah? And
you know, and and that that's that's you know, question number one that
people have. Well, wait a minute, this this financial stuff that's going
on, This isn't all Daved bingo bingo. There's there's you know, there's
some apparently there seems to have been some mismanagement. There's some audit report coming
out. It's gonna a theoretic or that we're told is not going to look
good. But the two hundred and forty million dollary issue going on at the
University of Arizona and the Athletic farment is and and he's been have they been
transparent with that number? And you have to look regardless of if there's some
mismanagement of stuff. You know, you got to understand that Dave Heke and
and the Ethnic Partment had to deal with the COVID thing. I mean that
was tens of millions of dollars that you know that were impacted there just by
not having you know, games and stuff. Well, the perfect storm hit.
Yeah, the perfect storm hit at this time where you needed a coach
that you could well. The money issue for the coach was not there because
let's say they come up with five point five six million, you think Jed's
gonna stay? No, exactly exactly and gifts If he does stay, how
many years will he stay? One? Look, I I you know the
whole all the all the people it's saying that this had something to do with
the contract. No, I'm not buying that. Don for a second,
me too. Jed Fish was leaving. Yes, he was going somewhere,
and you know, and now you know, in the aftermath, we're finding
out he was talking to some other he looked into some other jobs. And
you're confident in that, right, right, confident he was going somewhere.
He did his three years, which is fine his average. Now he was
talking, he was talking the game that that it upset people that he was
the things he was saying, and then he took this job. But if
he hadn't said those things and left after three years, you know, when
when he had done what he just did, and his his marketability was as
high as he could possibly be, as high as they might ever get.
Why wouldn't you take a job? Yeah, we have, no question,
no question. Same thing that his his predecester at Washington did when he went
to Alabama, right, took more money and went to a bigger program.
Right, So no fault there he did. He did leave one of the
things in that tweet that we saw from whomever about mcmurtray. Are you looking
because it sounds different? Yeah, it does sound getting the level of sound
that I would be. Would we do sound differently? Yeah? But he
talked about boosters losing boosters. I haven't exactly. I haven't seen anybody not
on the same page for years. The Stevens group have not been around.
I think it's a Stephens group who were upset with the Miller situation. But
but that was three or four years ago. And what did dave he do
there? What did he do wrong? There? Is Miller uh well,
other than other than being the ad while Sean Miller was doing well and and
and it's not like it's not like they're not together because they come as a
package deal. We know that. And and with all due respect, doctor
Robinson, Miller was his guy. He's I'm gonna die over him, or
I can't remember the quote over my dead body, and he'd let him go.
Eventually three two or three years later he had to let him go.
Yeah, So I you know, I don't know if we'll ever know exactly
why the decision was made, if somebody will come out and say it,
or if it'll be in some sort of I don't know if there'll be any
litigation coming out of this. Right. You know, they're gonna, I
mean, the way it was worded, right, they're gonna probably negotiate some
sort of a settlement of Dave's contract. Sure, I don't know when his
contract went through, but I think they all want to leave on friendly terms.
Dave doesn't want to burn bridges and leave, sure, you know,
because he you know, he as as h I think it was Mike Andrea
said, you know, uh, you know, Dave, he still got
you know, he's got he got time left to you know, keep doing
doing this job. And he's good at what he does, and he'll body
do it something somewhat differently, very likable guy. I think, I think,
let me say this, I don't know if it'll go. I'm gonna
think politics had something to be involved. It always is, yeah, whether
it's coming from the border regents who meet soon this week, or even above
the bard of regents where it and I don't know as a student, how
does this look? And I'll ask you too, because you're you're alone,
how does it look for the school? The school, not so much the
athletic department. I think all of this looks horrible for the school. I
mean, the two hundred and forty million dollars budget oversight, and then they're
putting a lot of blame off on the athletic department. When the athletic department
had to go through all of that with Sean Miller and COVID and now they're
making all these cuts. I just don't think it looks good at all.
I agree. I think I think the school it's going to be a tough
hire, you know, for you know what athletic director who's in a good
job is going to want to come and get in the middle of all this.
And maybe there are some you know, and maybe there's some athletic you
know, athletic directors sitting athletic directors who have Arizona ties who might want to
come back and say, Okay, I'll come back and try and fix this
thing. But they're also going to want some guaranteed sure and stuff like that.
Let me be the a D. And plus you know what, you
know, look, Robbins is on the hot seat. Let's just say it.
He is on the hot seat. The faculty union wants him fires,
He's gotten boats of no confidence from the faculty Senate. He's been here going
on seven years. It's kind of like it's a long time. Your time
is it's getting that time? How long is Robin's going to be here?
Well, that's what's why I said, this isn't going to be the first
guy. Well, you know, and I was thinking about this on the
way and could we see Mike and Andrea sit as the interim athletic orders sitting
in this position as the interim AD pending a new president. The realistically that's
the case. If I were an A D, I'd want the president to
hire me, right, rather than the new guy, because then then what
right, Because you know it is when you have a bought new boss coming,
I'm not his guy. First hand experience with that, first hand experience
with that. And if you remember, Dave lasted seven years and Robbins was
not his guy, right, It was the woman right, and we were
yeah, you know, yeah, I mean he was here not long after
though, because because Robbins is going on seven years yeah being here. He
got here in twenty seventeen. So I you know, there's so much you
know to your point, and at least it's it just looks chaotic and the
last least and the last thing people in those positions, whether you're a president
or an ad or a coach, the last thing you want is chaos.
There's a lot of adults in the room. They're really screwing this up.
They're finding ways. It looks very chaotic. And I don't really see what
David did wrong. He had a great hire with Tommy Lloyd chip Ale and
he's the athletic department is thriving right now. I don't really see what he's
done wrong to get in this position. We've talked about that a lot,
Jay that this looked or starting to look like the nineties with the programs were
really becoming elite, the U of A, this block A was coming back
visibly and otherwise respected and boom yeah and boom yeah it's uh yeah, that's
good. So yeah, anyways, well we'll talk to somebody a couple of
people today who might be able to give us some insights to, you know,
some of the stuff that goes on behind the scenes. We uh,
we reached out to Amberta Lopez, who you might have seen it was very
visible last week. He did a there was a presentation where you know,
he and his wife donated nine million dollars to the UH to a program at
the College of Business. In the aftermath of that, he was interviewed by
Channel four I'm excuse you, Chount thirteen, and he went off a little
bit on Jed Fish, just said that he felt betrayed and a whole number
of things. So but he also, you know, he was very visible
with the with with the football players at the basketball games last week, and
so there was kind of a thought of, you know, he seems to
have gotten very involved in what's going on in the athletic department right now.
I've known from Berta for a really long time. I've done a number of
business stories on him in Bustus on magazine. So I reached out to him
and uh, you know, he said, he said he'd come on,
He's gonna come on. He doesn't want to look behind anymore. So we
will have that. Well, we're telling everybody right now, we're not going
to go into the things he said about Jed Fish. That's between him and
Jet. He's he's you know, he said, and he said, he
said, I've said Lenny probably more than I probably should have, which is
fine. We want to talk to him about you know, you're you're you
know, you're the what we would call him, mega booster. You're obviously
involved at the highest level with a lot of money. Tell us what you
can tell us about how these things work. Yeah, and we'll ask him
about because because that just happened yesterday, you know, uh, you know,
yeah, it did just have So, you know, does this chaos
bother you somebody who's putting a lot of money into this athletic program. Right,
there's that, and then Frank Bush, Right, he's busy. You
wouldn't think this. I ran into him at the game on Saturday, hadn't
seen him in a while. He's busy trying to advocate for the the minor
sports of the Olympic sports, because what about me? Right, what about
me? I know the n C double A has requested his input to it.
I think he's spoken to a few people at the n C Double A
level, saying, well, what about the smaller sports because those could be
gone right well with all that's going on and talking about paying athletes and stuff
like that. The what's that risk is not football, it's not men's basketball.
What's at risk is everything else at those two programs at each school.
And that's what he's been talking about. And we talked about that with the
with the track group and the and the swimming group too, remember yeah so
so well yeah, so we'll get Dave frank Bush's the thoughts on that stuff
as it relates to you know, nil and all the other things that are
going on with and except the four seventeen. That's the fourth sing so we
have when Berte Lope is going to come in after the break here, we'll
pick his brain a little bit, just on you know, from his vantage
point our things looking at the u of A and is it a good thing
or a bad thing or do you just let her play out and sit on
the side for it of Berta Lope is coming right up, stick around.
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and Jag and Salez they have their eye on the ball on Tucson Sports Stage
yet Fox Sports fourteen fifty streaming live. I mean iHeartRadio. Wap Hey,
welcome back to my on the ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm
Steve, He's Jay. We have analyst with us today now we're just waiting
for but they're open. Yeah, we had a hard time reaching it.
He's got to call out. So we're looking forward to this as everybody else
is. I know, I've got a few people listening. Yep, Okay,
we'll see what's up with this and once he gives a quick call.
A lot of things going on. Obviously we're gonna travel again one time.
But I'm not surprised. When did you do anything last night with your programs?
An least because you're at the UA Student TV. Did you our first
Our first show is going to be on Monday. Oh okay, Monday on
u ATV, and then the sports show will be on Wednesday. We'll be
having daily dos going Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Yeah, so busy for
you guys, right, it's good to get busy. It's exciting. No
better, no better experience than this in the real world. Yeah, if
you're you know you're involved. Being general manager running it is a lot because
I have like thirty reporters that I manage, and it's good tell them what
you do on the I'm the general manager of UATV three, which is the
school student run TV station entirely student run all student reporters, production teams,
sports reporters, everything like that. I always see Steve at the basketball games.
Yeah, we like to report on basketball. Yeah, I'm always there.
I'm getting old. In fact, you've talked about Saturday's game, which
was a strange one, by the strangest game you've seen so far. Yeah.
I was in the student section, not on the floor filming, so
that was fun. What the hell are you guys thinking in the student section?
What do you guys doing that? I mean I heard a lot of
people saying that they just they didn't want it, they didn't have the passion
that like, they just weren't playing well in the first half. UCLA has
a good defense, but I mean I didn't really see why Arizona shouldn't be
ahead the entire time. I mean, it's always going to be a good
game with U of A and U c l A, but that I wasn't
expected to be that good of a game. But you My point is,
you guys are always getting in trouble. Thursday against USC with the booing and
the Broni, which was kind of sad every time he touched the ball.
I don't know, I honestly don't know. I mean, I just because
he's Lebron James's son, he's were playing against him. You were not involved
with that because you were I was reporting. But then the next day Saturday,
some kids giving the UCLA grief coming up the coming into the Yeah.
I don't support any of that. I mean they're just trying to do their
job, yeah best they can. You're talking about ucle players, Yeah yeah,
and trying to get in and get out safely. Yeah. Yeah,
it was. I was in that area. I saw everything that happened.
It was not not prey. I think it's okay for us to be supporting
Arizona much as we can, but we don't need to take it out on
the other team. Right. The BROWNI stuff I thought was ridiculous. Yeah,
I mean he's it's like that was like his fifth game back or something
from cardiac or rest. Like give him a break, right, right,
right? Right? Okay, Well, we still tried to reach out to
Umberto. Well, we'll let's talk here with with so many things going on,
I know you're gonna have breaking news right with for us at four o'clock
and all the things going on, a lot of stuff going on as well.
Every shot to him to see if maybe we can just go at the
next segment of three forty Okay, so we can have a full segment.
Okay, we could, We can do whatever if he calls now, if
not, we'll let's get back to the because that's obviously the big news.
Yeah. And you know, I mean a lot of the a lot of
the feedback and comments I'm getting is that Arizona just looks really bad, right,
no question. I mean you talked about seeing it in the Times.
It's everywhere, It's everywhere, and we got ESPN trying to figure it out,
and and the McMurphy tweet, and I'm sure the goodman stuff. Let's
go. He is not without his faults, right, but he's done a
great job as far as we know. But but there and look, and
I mean, I've heard over the last two or three years, you know,
different people saying, you know, he's just not doing anything for me.
Let's get somebody else, you like, Now, do you a bad
enough job to get fired? What are you gonna do? I agree,
I agree, So I don't know. But you know, there's as much
as we like Dave, and he's been friendly and he's a good he seems
like a really good guy. He was accommodating to us. Yeah, there's
there's some people out there who are not unhappy with the fact that there's gonna
be an a athletic director. Sure. Sure, but again it's a position
like the others, like the president that you said, there's a certain much
I mean, Jim Jim Love and good left. There were some people who
were ready for him to go. Sure, and he and you know,
he was, you know, as as committed and did a great job as
anybody else. So when I was writing a story you broke the news,
I got on the computer and wrote it for all sports to sound right away,
I'm thinking, so what happened to the woman who created this kind of
two hundred? She's still she's still on staff, right, So how how
did that happen? How does that happen? Yeah, and now now you
got I'll say it. I think he's been scapegoated a little, not a
little, maybe a lot, man maybe quite a bit. Yeah, maybe
quite a bit, you know, And that that's one of the other things
that I've heard more than anything, is that that Robbins is doing this to
save his job. Look, and I'm gonna say, I like Robins.
Yeah, I like him a lot. We've talked to him a lot.
I met him when he first got here. He's done a lot of great
things for the u of A. He's been great as relates to you know,
connecting the u A to businesses, a lot of the economic development work
he's been involved in. There's a lot of new partnerships that are between business
and the community and the u of A because of him, and because he's
been so involved. He's smart. He's one of the smartest people, if
not the smartest person I've ever met. He loves sports. He was a
junior college athlete, is a quarterback. Well, and maybe that may be
part of the problem, part of the gray area that he loves sports.
So I love all those things. But you know, over time things start
happening that kind of chip away and all this stuff. You know, there
was the murder of the of the College of Science, where people were not
which people are really unhappy with. Howeers on hand, they wanted him to
resign, right, they wanted him to resign. There there's the relationship he
has with the faculty is not very good. You know, they feel like,
you know, the faculty is not getting their due as it relates to
salaries and benefits and just you know, the things that should come with being
a professor at the U of A. While you've got all these high paid
you know, uh staffers at the A a half a million dollar a year
CFO who still has her job, those kinds of things have been eating away
at that. I think a lot of this too comes from that faculty,
right, very vocal, right, very very opinionated in what's going on.
For the reasons you said, what about us? Isn't that what we're here?
That's that? It is that and that are we the ones? We
the ones? You know, even the hiring of of the hiring of Kevin
Sumlin and then of Jed Fish, those were kind of put it put it
uh at uh at Robin's door, at Robin's doorstep, you know something that
you know, someone was Look, nobody was unhappy when they hurt Kevin.
So we all thought he was the guy. So we will say that,
right, but you know, jet uh Robin's had a relationship with Kevin Smlin.
You know the whole thing of Jedfish or Brent Brennan. It turned out
that Jetfish was a good hire but people feel like like Robbie Robbins, you
know, shoved jetfish down down Dave Hekey's throat, and Dave Hecky might take
exception to that characterization of it. But you know, just you know,
Robins has been very very very visible on on the athletic side, and you
know, as they say, he may have worn out as welcome finally after
this amount of time, and it may just be time for him to,
you know, to just say, Okay, you know my time here,
I've done what the best I could. I've done. I think I've done
some good things. You know, It's time for me to hit the road.
And we wanted the next thing. Yeah right, No, he may
I have no choice, Well he might not. Should not have a choice
with someone Sometimes it's not your decision, but you know, but it's Steve.
I do know that, you know, at least the locals, the
locals who are on the border regions. Okay, if not highly of him,
maybe not maybe in the not so recent past, but before that,
okay, not very highly of him again because of what he's done locally for
business in the community. Totally get that. However, however, what have
you done for me lately, exact, you're as good as your last haircut,
right, and the haircut doesn't look too good, right? And and
the border regions, you know, they have a duty of reprisibility to make
sure that these are these universities run and function sure, you know, did
the benefit of everybody. One of the things is, you know they came
up with this plan to to figure it out, right, to get to
recoup the money? What was the was there a plan probably timeline for this
to eventually become even I you know, I never looked at it. I
don't see what is it? You know, well, is you twenty five
percent more of your tickets? Yeah? Well, yeah, you know,
I mean yeah, I mean that's kind of what we were told. But
you know, according to Dave, he said, there is a you know,
we've got a plan. We've got a plan. How long would that
I got a car? How much is it going to take to pay that
thing? We're talking about an eighty million dollar deficit that includes a fifty some
million dollar loan that's going to take a while. That's not like buying a
house. That's not like buy a house. I don't know, I don't
know what. In addition, to coming up with money to pay coaches,
not from the insight, but for the from the big booster strength. That's
why I'm hoping Bert Lopez still that gives us a call, because we'd love
to, Yeah, love to, you know, we we got to.
He's got to make this show this first hour of the show. You promised
that, so, but I don't you know, it's and you know,
the thing that you're hear from the media is that this is all chaos,
very chaos, very very and because it's chaotic, it doesn't look good.
And it's not because it draws away from they just it draws away from a
lot of things. I mean, Steve, think of how everybody felt about
the athletic department at the end of December. Fantastic After that, fantastic things.
Things couldn't be a whole lot better. Sure, and the next thing,
you know, there goes jet fish out the window. Now, Dave,
you know, you know, yes, the the financial thing has been
hanging over everybody since for months now. So if you're jetfish, you're jet
fish. We see, guys, this is why I left. It was
too chaotic over it maybe no, no, no, no, no,
no, I'm not saying that that's where he left. I'm saying, that's
just another thing on my side. If if Jetfish tries to sell anything other
than I went for the money and I wanted to be in the big ten
and the higher profiles. I wanted to be in the big ten, and
I left for the money. No question in Arizona could not give me either
of those things. If he says anything other than that, yeah, no,
No, that's the truth, and that's the that's the just realistic thing,
right that he should say. Yeah, just say it, just like
those guys you know for Live Golf. I got a whole hell of a
lot of money on so I'm gone. See you don't try and say that
you're here until I'm not. I'm here until him not exactly. I mean,
that's that's nuts. To let me. We have three minutes yere before
we go to the next break. Okay, So I've been here thirty five
years, you've been here all your life. In the Tony Mason stuff,
How big was that? How big was that? It was a It was
a big deal because partly because you know, the Star made it a big
deal because they wanted to close their prize because of all that that happened,
there was a feeling, you know, there's only just gotten into the Pac
ten. You kind of felt like, Okay, we're in the big time
now, and now we're getting our faces get good. Then they go on
probation, which was really essentially a three year probation that they were on because
they couldn't go to bowl games after the eighty three and eighty four season,
but they couldn't be on TV for the eighty four and the eighty five seasons,
so it stretched from eighty three to eighty five, and so it was
a big deal. And again, just like right now, that eighty three
team was thought to be possibly the best team in Arizona football history, and
it started out like that until until they were ranked third or fourth in Sports
Illustrated going into the season. You know, Ricky Hondley, Lamont Honley,
Randy Robbins, Tom Tunnegle, all these guys that were on on that team.
They got off to a great start and then they tied a game with
Cal Blew a twenty six point. They died a game with Cal, and
then the season went south after them. Okay, so that's when they sped
through that whole season they weren't going to a bowl game anyway. They could
have gone undefeated and they weren't going to bowl. Okay, So there's that.
And then in my time, I'm sure there's been some incidents before that.
There was some swimming probations. Then lut gets in trouble. This is
late into my time with lut Uh, late two thousands whatever, he gets
in trouble with the nc DOUAA. Right, some things had happened. That
was a it was a blip compared to this started. It was a big
deal at the time. Eventually he retired for you know, for goods after
that, and then came the Sean Miller Shawn Miller stuff. It's not equal
equal to this, but it's a big deal. It's a big thing.
I think. I think that Seawn Miller stuff was bigger because it lasted longer
five years, right, and because it was involving the basketball program. The
football program wasn't what the basketball program is. So the fact that it put
a it put a cloud over the basketball program for that amount of time,
you know, when with no resolution profile program, and you know, and
to me, that was bigger than the probation in the in late nineties early
early Yeah, that was late seventies, early eighties that came and went.
You know, they figured it out, they got the penalties, they went
through the penalties, and they moved on. Yeah. Well eventually the coach
was going to go in basketball, and then we moved on to the football.
Tony Mason got fired over all of that, you know, Yeah,
and now he turned out for Arizona. Then you had Larry Smith and then
everything changed and Larry got you know, got the football program through the probation.
Okay, so we're gonna take a break. We're gonna try to reach
out again. We find him Berto, of course, and the talk the
next ten to fifteen minutes. Now we'll give we'll get my callin. Think
we can. We can find him. Cool kind of miss that up thunder.
All right, this is not how you do it. All right,
we'll be right back. We'll take our Break's here, we EDLM. Burtle
loves on the line. Stick around. 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 Loudolsen era in my new book, Lessons from Lout.
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 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. Come hi, this is formal
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This is Eye on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jacob Salez on Fox Sports
fourteen fifty. Hey, welcome back to Why on the Ball here on Fox
Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera, He's Jakinsaws. Now on the phone.
We have whom Berto Lopez, UA athletics booster. How are you,
Alberto the most popular man in the city. I don't don't want to be
popular that way anyway, I'm here. Well, people are thank you,
People are thankful for you. Go ahead to Somberto. You know, we
wanted to get you on just you know, with so much going on around
the athletic department and you know, coaching changes now an athletic director of change,
we wanted to get you know here from a you know, a booster
who's involved, you know, knows the people that are going on over there.
You donate a lot of money. You know, we we know you
had some stuff to say last week about jetfish. We don't want to talk
about that at all. You know, you said what you said, and
let's move on. We're all trying to kind of look forward. So what
I wanted to do, what we wanted to talk to you about is,
you know, we're you know, the things that you do for the athletic
department, there's a reason you do it. You know, you're you're you've
been a successful businessman here in town. You know, you've been very generous
with your money. You know, the nine million dollars UH funding of the
program at the at the Ler School and those kinds of things. But you
become very visible with your athletic department over the last few weeks. What what
what's in Berton Lopez's mind in terms of why you're doing some of the things
that you're doing. You know, I got involved with the athletic department back
in nineteen eighty two when I first came to two Son and Loddols and I
met Loudols and I think the first of the second day when he came to
town, and we became good friends. I've been supporting the athletic department for
a lot of years. I can't recall what year was, but Ludolfs and
I were the court chairman for a fundraiser for the athletic department. The athletic
department is very important for me, especially football, because football generates all the
revenues for all the other sports. The other sports are all supported by the
income, the the net income that the football program makes. Basketball very much
place it pays for itself because money, the money that the the men's basketball
team makes is used to subsidize the women's basketball. Uh. And there's other
there's I think a total about nineteen programs that depend on football. And if
we don't have a successful football team and uh in a full stadium, uh,
the other programs are going to suffer. So one of my goals is
to make sure that we keep all those other programs alive. I want the
next AD that comes it takes over. I like them to be able to
get those coaches. I'm sorry, you try to say something. No,
you're good, You're good, okay. Uh. The next AD that comes
in, I like to see an AD that also helps on the on the
fundraising to make sure that because right now, the total all the programs,
the athletic programs are have a big definit we need to cover that DestinE and
the only way you're going to be able to do that is by continuing to
raise more funds and I also getting the coaches on the other sports to help
out in the fundraising and don't rely on the income that the football team is
going to be the football department is going to be making. So that's my
interest. I want to make sure that all these other programs continue to exist
because otherwise they're going to have to be cuts in different programs that don't generate
any income at all. So that's my interest. I love the university.
I graduated in nineteen sixty nine. I owe a lot of a lot to
the university for my success and constable it is paid back time and I've been
doing that for a lot of years. So I'm sure you you know the
news of some shocking news last night. What are your thoughts on Hiky being
let go? Well, you know, I love Hickey, He's a good
man and I respect him. I was very very sorry to see him go.
Uh, but there's got to be reasons behind it. So I can't.
I don't know what why Bobby decided to make that move, but there's
got to be some reasons behind it. So but I, as far as
I'm concerned, Bob and David is a good friend, somebody that supported I
spoke to him at Troy thirty last night and told him if they're sitting there
and do please count on me. So he's a good man and I'm very
sorry to see him go. So does this again as somebody who's got,
you know, a large investment into the program at the u A. You
know, Steve and I were talking about how just things are so chaotic right
now, you know, the with the with the change in the football coach,
you know, now this with Dave Hey, You've got all this this
financial situation. It's just seems like a lot of chaos. Is that unsettling
to you? Do you worry about whether your investment is being used correctly or
that things are happening the way they should be happening. I mean, we're
how do you feel about all this stuff that's going on? Well, you
know, it's very it's been very very stressful. Uh and uh, but
you know, I'm hopeful that we can put it together. I spoke to
Mike and Draft today when we had a few minutes to chat, and I
think it's going to be hitting in the right direction. So h yeah.
The financial problems probably started to got compounded with the the pandemic that we had
here a couple of years ago, and that created a big problem because none
of these departments were bringing any money. It's uh, there was a drain
of a lot of money. And there's a lot of a lot of money
that is owned to the university right now and I don't know how it can
be paid back. Hopefully with the keeping the players that we did keep,
with a new coach that came in, we're going to have fill up the
stadium, generate more income, be able to support all the other all the
other sports, and hopefully one point be able to pay back the money.
So we're advanced by the university to the athletic department, and Bobby Robbins did
what he had to do in making the advances because otherwise there would have to
bring a lot of cuts and a lot of probably every department would have put
him to have been cut. And so he made a decision that he wanted
to keep all the sports in place, and so I am here to help
in whatever way I can. Then you know what I'm not only do I
give my own money, but I help wherever I can to tell my friends
to step up and contribute. And we've done very well this past year with
the nil and other functions that we've been trying to support. I don't I
can't guess the second guest Bobby's decision. I'll be getting together with him.
I did speak to him, but we didn't have the time to get into
all the details as to what happened there. So that's it. And I
virtual you have a lot of friends, we all know that, and you
have a lot of people with money. So how have you tried to convince
him to help dig into the pockets to help the kids earn some nil?
Well, you know some of the fact. I had lunch when I came
back from Phoenix. First thing I did is I sat down with Team MECU.
He signed the contract and he did the right thing. Guy say,
if you would have moved, he would have been starting all over again.
And I say, your value, your value could have gone down staying here
at the university. You're going to be playing one more year. You want
to make sure that you have a winning season, uh and not starting a
new program where you wouldn't have to teammates that you've been playing with for three
for the last couple of years. So he made the right decision. He
didn't he got a lot less money and il money that he's been offered.
But as I told him, you know, you got to look at this
as the long run. You could have gotten a lot of money today,
but you got to look at the long run because you have a potential of
making a lot of money if you make the right decision. And he did,
and I'm very happy with him, and Noah and Manu also, so
they all make the right choice and we got the right coach. I like
the coach. I think this coach is going to be here for us as
long as I'm going to say, as long as we're winning. Because you
started losing that you've got a problem. But I think, uh, coach
Brennant is here to stay. His wife graduated from the University chose A pi
Fi. His brother graduated from the u A also he played football. Uh,
So the the coach Brennant also, as you know, he was an
assistant coach Undertomy, so he beleeves Arizona. So he's going to be here
for as long as we want him. So, and I'm very very hopeful
that he'll have a winning season this coming this coming year, hopefully we can
be a contender for the Big Twelve and if things went well, perhaps even
good to the national national playoffs. So so let me ask you Bert,
because you mentioned a second no that you know you got that McMillan signed a
contract here the other players as well. Can you give us the nuts and
bolts of how that works? Who are these players signing contracts with? Did?
Are is it through the collective and then money's being or do you have
some sort of providing you through the collective and then and see in me?
Instead of going through a collective, I had an agreement with with tam mac
that I would take care of him. Uh for him to say, but
nowhere close what he was offered before. Uh, So I instead of going
through collective, I decided to do it myself directly. That way. Also,
we didn't have to pay the fees, so we need to pay the
collective one hundred percent to the money. Uh it was given to them,
right, So you sign you sign a contract and they have to provide some
servers or something like that, exactly, exactly exactly, so he's uh,
he'll be providing services for the contract or the amount of money that I agree
to pay him. It's a good catch, it's a good uh. Uh.
You know, I'm very impressed with all three of them. They're they're
good human beings, great uh, great athletes, and great people. I
uh, you know, I can't say enough about them, right, so
Berta, You've been behind the scenes a lot, You've been involved for a
long time. We all know that we've known you for a long time.
Jay and I behind the scenes helping University of Arizona. Your name has never
really come up. But now in the last few days you're everywhere. Are
you comfortable with that? And do you think that booming there? It was
very stressful for me, very very stressful. And I never stress. I've
got a business that pretty pretty good, sizable business and doesn't stress me.
This stressed me to know end right. Uh. Yeah, it was the
news that broke out yesterday. But you know that campounds that I've been feeling
in That's reason we need to move forward. And I got to put this
behind and look for the best. But you know what, there's needs.
There needs to be more people like you if this place is going to survive.
Well there are there are. You know, I became public because of
my efforts of what I said, Yeah, you were trying to keep the
players, but there's a lot of people that are they contributors help out the
program, but they're not known to the public. I happen to be well,
you know the fact that I'm involved everywhere, I think it's a little
more public. The Center of Opportunities, which is funded by the AGS Love
the Seminally Foundation, which is one hundred percent funded by my family. There's
no outside money that comes into the foundation. The UH, the recent naming
of the HSOP busin School of Analytics UH and everything that. You know.
Every every quarter the h S flop the center of the Foundation. We give
several hundred thousand also grants every month, so you know the name is out
there. The HSL Stuffed the Bus event where we had a go and collecting
forty thousand pounds, we ended up with sixty one thousand pounds and probably the
reason for that was because we were able to get a couple of the players
from the basketball team, including Tommy Lloyd, and then of course we had
t Mac and Noah who were signing pictures for a couple of hours and that
was pretty exciting. So people when they heard that were here, they started
coming in and bringing food and dropping checks off and we ended up with sixty
months sixty one thousand pounds of So the name is very it's everywhere. We
had the HSL Festival this week, which we've been funding for the last ten
years and agree to continue for another five years. And you know, the
HSL name is all over the place, so I guess that become very prominent.
And that's it's my initials well as somebody who's who who you know was
born here and grew up here. I I you can tell you how much
I know this community appreciate the stuff that you do and that you continue to
do, and you know, and Beta, we could talk about this for
hours with with the stuff that goes on, but we do appreciate the time
you gave us today. And look, I'm just going to say as a
as a fan, we appreciate what you're doing. Just keep doing it and
bring all your friends well. Thank you, Thank you very much. I
appreciate it. I appreciate your supportant and understanding what I went through and what
I did was for the best interest of the program. All right, bertill
thanks a bunch. I appreciate you well, thank you so much, and
have a good day you too. Thank you. Bertell Lopus. Let's let's
go back this listen. He requested that we know he don't be spoken enough
about about Jet. He don't want to go there again. He so he
agreed to kind of come on the show and talk about that. There's so
much more that I want to ask him about Sure being a booster, right,
you know, the question I wanted to ask and then he you know,
we got into some stuff was how much more are you being asked for
Sure compared to what you were already doing? And where's that money coming from?
And is everybody else doing that? That's a question, you know,
we need to you know, we need to get asked. May mean Frank
Bush has an answer, Well, he's you know, he knows the people.
Yeah, okay, So but I thought that was very interesting and again,
well you don't if you don't know Bert Lopez, it's because you don't
know that you know him everywhere. Well, the interesting thing to me,
and part of that was the contract he's getting into with A Yeah, I
mean he's got a direct contract with t MAC and you know, I don't
know if it's with the other guys as well. Again, another question I
wanted to I wanted to get in but you know, who's got contracts with
the other guys or how you know, how are the other guys getting funded
as well? Okay, well, interested a lot of good stuff, but
all right, we got a lot more to cover. I know, I
appreciated him still doing that stuff, and atleast it's gonna take a shot at
some breaking news here at the top of the hour. There's lots of stuff
breaking, so stick around to that, and then we'll talk some more about
the Dave Dave Hekey stuff, but also Frank Bush coming up at about three.
Stick around. Don't believe it is well. Don't believe it is well.