This is I On the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalis on Fox Sports
fourteen fifteen powered by Nova Insurance Services Ensure your most Prized Possessions. Kat z
R two SAD at iHeart Radio Station. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to
On the Ball, you know, Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve, He's
Jay. Welcome to Thursday. Almost done of the week. We're getting there.
Lots of things going on. NBA Draft tonight. Yeah, will you
get drafted? Um? You know, I think I'm a late second rounder,
but you know I didn't do well at the combine. My uh my
vertical was a little thin, like two and a half inches, a little
two looking quarter Hu Nickel, you gets you can stick a thin phone book
underneath like you're probably in the omg Lee. I'm you know, I'm I'm
going I'm going more for a golf scholarship. Yeah, we'll give golf a
tour card. I would go go pick it on the tour. Will get
Smith from Pimo to help you out. I'm gonna get back in the saddle
this week. Uh, Steve, I'm gonna go play against my better judgment.
I'm gonna play tu Son nat Arizona National um, which is that's not
a good course to play when you're not playing well. No, it's right
around which is pretty much which is pretty much all the time, not to
so Nation Arizona Nat. Okay wait that's na. Yeah, well that's out
my way. Yeah yeah, okay, okay, toad, you I don't
know my golf courses. Yeah. Hey, A good show today, A
good show today. Put together something nice you worked your butt off with.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We got Amanda Beard, uh, new assistant
coach at Arizona National champion Olympic medalists, Um, come back to Arizona to
be a be a coach under Aggie Bush. So we thought we would give
her a call and see what she's up to. And she said, I'll
take your call. So she's gonna super Actually she's gonna call us technically,
but we're gonna talk to her at three fifteen just uh, you know,
I find out you know, why she wanted to go back here. Um,
she's such a great story. Yeah story. Yeah, I've never really
met her. I was in I was in Greece when she was in the
Olympics and doing some stuff, obviously doing working for the Olympics. A good
story then good story now yeah, just just a lot of things. If
she's done, yeah, yeah, somebody's been all over the place, right,
Well, so she'll be she'll be on it. You know when when
I when I read when I reached out to the u A to get her
on the show, I said, Oh, she's been on our show before,
and then I realized, no, she has. I think we've had
too many swimmers. Yeah. Um, yeah, so anyway, so we'll
have we'll have her on at three fifteen. Then at four fifteen, UM,
we reached out to uh, you know with all the stuff that happened
with San Diego State this last week, UM, where they told, uh,
they told the Mountain West look, we're thinking about leaving, but we
don't want you to, you know, kick us in the butt, um
and the Mountain weston, No, we're gonna kick in the butt. Just
find out what's going on San Diego States. We'll get h Kirk Kenny,
who was the beat right or covering San Diego State football for the San Diego
Union Tribune to our friend, Ryan Finley is not the sports editor, so
right, Brian turned us on to the Kurt and he's going to join us,
and we were exchanging some stuff about what we're here, what we're each
hearing. So we'll talk about that when he comes on, and it'll be
in the second hour our guests at about four fifteen four twenty. Yeah,
okay, looking forward to both of these interviews, two very different ones.
So that's good. A lot of probably breaking news too. Did you see
the baseball game with U with LSU and week for us last night? I
was busy watching the Dodgers and the Angels. Yeah, very good game.
So we have another game here at five during the same time. The draft
is going to be right, so a lot of sports things going on.
Was throwing last night. Oh that was a great game too, so I
watched it was the Dodgers beat the Angels for the second night in row two.
Nothing. Um uh, Freddy Freeman took show. Hey deep on Uh
yeah him. He had an opposite field, all kind of an opposite sort
it was. It was the left center but a little old Freddy's a left
handed hitter. Show. He was throwing gas but the Angels couldn't get him
any runs. So the Dodgers won the two zip so uh and they it
was one of those games where they just pitched their bullpen. Right, it
was all bullpen guys come on through one or two any forgers and they threw
a shut out. Yeah, it was highly unusual for their bullpen. I
was gonna say, um, let me pretend you're a show hey, and
you can speak your mind right and not say the politically correct stuff. Right,
you enjoy playing for the Angels? He probably does, because no,
no, no, no, I'm asking you as you Yeah, no,
I yeah, I think are you gonna tell me? I'm gonna tell you.
I like being in southern California? Okay, Well do you like playing
for the Angels? I think the Angels are a pretty good organization. I
just wish you'd get some better players around me. Um And maybe maybe that's
my um my bias towards the fact that Artie Moreno's from Tucson, and I
feel like I don't want to step on his neck. Oh he's not listening.
Wouldn't you think that he would be? It's funny I was watching with
some people. Wouldn't you just think he's tired of all this? Well,
well he's gonna be. You know. There does come a time he said,
I want to win, and so all the all the scuttle now is
that you know, I mean, the Dodgers are kind of considered the odds
on favor too. I know him, did you see that? The manager?
Your managers just say, you know, once she's nice, it wouldn't
be nice to see him in a Dodger uniform. And he couldn't really say
anything. Every every manager would love to see him in in the uniform.
Well not only I mean, you can't say that anyway. That's ten.
That's why. That's why if you wanted to, that's why went that way.
You know. The feeling is that, you know, they're just nobody's
posted odds to this or anything like that, or if they have, I
haven't seen it. But the running uh, the running theme is that the
Dodgers are gonna have the best shot at him and he'll get over half a
billion dollar contract man the uh And I don't know what the attendance is all
the time every time he plays out wherever, he plays his shirts on your
cell out or whatever. But the Dodgers would go bunkers with yeah yeah,
oh yeah. But but you know they're gonna have to get something up if
they want to get him too, or no, he's a free agent,
right, I don't know. I don't know if he's a free agent or
not. But he can he's a restricted free agent. You know, they
can trade him or whatever. But in any regard, the feeling is that
after this year, Um, you know, he'll be leaving the Angels and
going somewhere else, right, whether it's the Dodgers, the Giants, and
then you see Port try feel bad for he's such a good guy. Yet
you know, just can't see him, do you know? You may you
know now they're they're now they're pretty good this year. I mean they're in
playoff contentions this Yeah, they've been winning more than a bunch of games.
That row. The Dodgers happen to beat him U back back to back games
Tues. Anyways, So we're here in mid June, still some time before
we get loaded with UA football and U A basketball stuff. Oh, there's
always u A basketball stuff. We talked about the new schedule, Belmont and
all that whole stuff. Um had a dion she you know, she she
Um We had her on what's Thursday, Tuesday, and then they released the
schedule yesterday with it. She could have told us the breaking news we had
she didn't. Yeah, but you know that's not her shattering years. They're
gonna play a game in Phoenix. It'll be a part of a part of
the of an event where both as U men's and women's teams and Arizona's men's
and women's teams will be playing throughout the day up there at Footprints Center where
the Suns play. You know, look, if if she just wants to
give us the big ones, like I'm having a baby stuff like that,
Um, you know, well we'll settle for that. Although she made it
clear that that's not happening again. Right, she just kind of said that
the parts aren't working anymore. She was funny, Yeah, that hurt her
daughters. What, she's three years old now, the one from the one
that was born. Yeah, because because those our first year right, and
we're three years into this, so that she's got to be close to getting
closer to three years old. So anybody want to call please do five two
o four one, six seventy four forty, Uh, give us a call,
give us your thoughts. We're just kind of free rolling right now.
Uh. And then you have breaking unisersal stuff. You saw some NBA trade
from NBA. Another NBA trade, another big one involving a guy that we
talked about earlier this week. You know, I don't know that we should
necessarily save this for breaking news, but we saw that this thing with the
submarine is over with, right, that's you know, highly unfortunate. Um.
You know, there's a lot of people expressing a lot of different opinions.
In the end, you gotta feel sorry for without question, I gotta
feel sorry kid. We spoke yesterday about whether we would do it or we
went or anything like anything like that. And and if you you know,
I wouldn't do it. I was too scary for me. But for people
with their own opinions, people died on this enough. Yeah, yeah,
you know. Um, and I guess you know, if I'm a parent
and I wanted to do that, okay, so I'll go do it.
Who's yeah, who's well, it's your life, Yeah, it's your life.
And the kid wants to come with his father or who's whatever it was
nineteen the dadcher said no, you can't come. Yeah, I'll say that.
You don't, Jay, you don't. When you take a drive in
your car to get across town to your house. You don't know what's gonna
happen. Of course you don't know. You know this country, you don't
know that this thing was shady from the styh. Yeah. Well and if
you haven't heard the news, um, the the there's a they've determined that
that the sub basically imploded. They found debris, they found verified pieces of
the submarine. Um, so they know it has that has happened. They
wouldn't did they go down there? They got they reached that level of well,
yeah, there was a remote that went down there and found pieces of
it. And I think they're starting to find pieces you know, floating and
things. So so they know because that's to twelve thousand, five hundred feet
down, that's yeah, you know that's what U two and a half miles
down, you know, um and they you know, you don't know,
did did it implode? An hour of forty five minutes in when they lost
contact? Was that when it happened? Is that when things started to happen
And it happened after that? You know? Where they down there all this
time thinking they might get rescued and nobody really knows yet, but I'm sure
they'll try and try and find that out, but in the end to five
people who perished in this thing. One of the saddest stories ever. You've
been following this, I hadn't except for just you know, curiosity, had
something like this been done. But was this the first voyage? And that
I don't know, I because if it's done other voyages, I don't think
it's gone down to the Titanic. Okay, okay, because there was I
did read something. There was a CBS reporter who went in this. Uh,
I didn't read it so far as to find out how far did this
guy go. I'm sure if they had gone down to the Titanic to see
it, that would have made news. So this is the first time we've
heard of it, you know, when it got locked. So I don't
I don't. I'll just say I don't know. But what we do know
is that this was a you know, this was a sort of a I
don't want to call it rick it it was just somebody kind of built this
in their backyard. But well it's I'm sure that when I won't compare this
but back in the eighty six or you remember where you were when those when
the rocket exploded to yeah, I was a kid I was in the Challenger.
I was in college, and you're thinking, oh, that's going to
change the way I was. I was in the Star newsroom and when when
it happened, and uh, I was, you know, working in the
middle of the day, and our our managing editor comes running out of his
office and he has the Challenger exploded, and all the TVs went on to
the watch it. Nobody was watching the lonch right, we had stopped watching.
It was only in the morning. It was in the morning finish,
Yeah, yeah, it was it was mid morning. Yeah. And he
came running out and said the Challenger exploded, and all the TVs went onto
that. And then then the next thing, you know, everybody's just gathering.
Yeah. And then back then, we didn't a back eighty six.
Come on, we didn't have any internet stuff. We didn't know and there
was no breaking news radio stuff. He had to be on your computer on
the ap wire to see. But you know, uh, and I don't
know how if he was, if he was watching it and then came out
of turn on all the TVs or what. But he came running out of
his office and yelled across the new the Challenger exploders everybody stood up and turned
all the TVs that were in the US room onto the onto the news of
that. So that's that's where I was. I remember that like it was
yesterday, walking to the dorm in college. So okay, I was already
a working guy. You're old, dude, Man, you're old eighty six,
six or twenty six. I was already writing sports. Thanks Steve.
I'll depress you more with the other time frames. But you know, again,
another one of those things that people talk about, um but really sad
um. You know, you don't wish things that well, there's a few
people I wish things like that. I communicate whatever guys. She calls in
and he sends me the stuff. I'm thinking, God, you must be
related to Jay's just so depressing, depressing. You know, he was listening
because I know he's listening. Who you are. I was bad. I'm
sorry. I'm sorry to everybody that bird you know. Well, yeah,
you know, I mean, yeah, I'll take you know, I'll take
a couple of shots for that. But there's only a few. But these
guys, you know, I don't know these guys, you know, And
I feel, I feel, I feel the worst for the nineteen year old
kid. Right, he had a very short life. Um yeah, maybe
he got all excited about doing this with his dad. Um you know what.
Yeah, you just don't know. It's like going first voyage on a
water in a balloon. Have you been on one? No, that's another
one those I would never go. I probably would, but not don't go
more than twelve feet. Yeah, that's another one of those things I would
never do. When I was at when I was at TEP, we had
a hot air balloon that got into our power line. Have been I have
been in the household. That's kind of like since cool, but you know,
when you're going for work, you gotta go. Yeah, I had
Both of those were for work. One time at t EP, we had
we had been flooded. We're having a flood and so I had to get
on getting on a helicopter with some guys and we had to go what they
would call by the lines right the you know that that power line that goes
right through the middle of the Rito Wash Rito River and what we had to
go make sure that those things. And I'm like, why do I have
to be there for that? Well, you need to film it. I'm
like those guys can film it. So I went on that and then with
uh, with the city manager, we just did a tour. We just
did a lap around the city just to see where, you know, development
was was and stuff like that. And I thought that was pretty cool.
And I got air sick at airsick, I looked easy both. When I
was an intern at the start in eighty four, Uh, they took me
to the pre to the the coursewoard. It was not a Lappaloma. No
the Lappaloma. No, not Lapaloma? What's one on twenty second Street?
Twenty second East stars stars when they were gonna do that, and I think
that was kind of coolest. I'm an intern. What they're gonna tell No,
I can't go. I'm gonna go there. There's a scene. There's
a scene in a movie called and Justice for All. Have you seen this?
Um? The guy uh uh uh Jack Jack Jack something. I can't
think. It was him and Appacina out in a helicopter and he says,
I like to fly out a little bit a little past halfway on my fuel
and then try to make it back. And they don't quite make it back.
They just they just land in the air. Oh, so they make
it. They made it, but they all the way back. Yeah,
not all the way back. They land in some water right right before the
airport. The skylight. I don't want to do. My biggest risk is
going under a four to five favorite. Yeah, all right, here we
go. We're gonna come back. Amanda Bear is gonna join us, so
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the work in for you. Steve Rivera and Jacob Samms they have there.
I Am a Ball on Tucson sports station Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I welcome
back to I Am the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve
Rivera. You're Jacon's Austin. Now on the phone, we have Amanda Beard
from Arizona Swimming, longtime swimmer and now current coach. Amanda, How you
doing? I'm great? How are you guys, we're doing well. Great
to have you on the show. We're talking quick off the year. We
welcome back. But you've had a fantastic career. Now you're going to be
a big time coach. I can't even describe to you guys, the excitement
level that I'm having the get the opportunity to work with these athletes. I
mean, it just I that's where my passion is and my love and so
now I get to like be at the place that I fell in love with
my swimming. It's just, yeah, I'm overwhelmed. So when you're when
you're looking into this job and they were talking to you about it, obviously
you know, you know you're a legend here at Arizona with all the Olympics
that you've been in and that you participated in, and your national teams and
all that kind of stuff. But what do you think sold them on bringing
you back, aside from the fact that you're really danging good at swimming.
I think this is the work that I've done with other athletes. I do
a lot of technical strokes technique work with high school and college aged athletes up
in Washington State, UM I did a lot of work with UCLA when I
was training out there at the end of my career. So just that and
a lot of long conversations with the coaching staff because I think what's really important
too is that you have someone that believes in you. Of a in the
swimmers, they you know, I bleed red and blue, I'm a wildcat
like that's so having that kind of passion on your full deck, it really
translates into your athletes as well and helps keep them motivated and driven and hopefully
get some really great performances. It's It's funny. Jay is pretty tired of
me asking the question of all the coaches you have on every coach and every
very good coach has a secret sauce to them, either it's caring for the
kids or whatever. What do you think yours is and what has it been
to this point? Yeah? You know, what I found with the age
group that you're working with is they want to be heard, you know,
so I always want to stick around like before and after practices and be available.
I think the best thing for me when I was an athlete there is
I felt Frank Bush was my coach. I felt like he was a father
figure to me. You know, I could go to him for anything,
and then when I was in the pool working for them, I just had
so much respect for him. So having that relationship with a coach and athlete
like that is huge. And I currently I own a facility up in Washington
State. I have forty late teenage early twenty employees at work for me.
So I'm used to being around that age group and I love it. And
I think they just need to know that you are there for them through thick
or thin. It's funny you say that. Let me let me make a
quick comparison, because you were here when Luke was here, and some of
the guys that I know are fairly well played hard for Loot because the one
thing they didn't want to do is disappoint Loot. Was it this and and
Steve Kerr and those types of guys were they played for each other because they
didn't want to disappoint each other? Was that the case during those great times
at you you didn't want to disappoint Frank and the rest of the guys because
there were all Americans too. Yeah. No, I mean I'm in the
pool staring up at Frank Bush and I just had I mean I expected him
beyond so it didn't matter if it was a swim meet or just like a
set that we were doing in practice, just anything. I was like,
if he thinks that I can do it, I can do it, and
I just, um, yeah, I didn't. I absolutely did not want
to disappoint him. I wanted to work really hard for him. And I
think that's a cool thing if you can build up those relationships with your athletes.
So when you when you were looking around, I mean, was it
when you decided you wanted to be a college coach or did you decide you
want to be a college coach before this opening came up? Or did this
opening come up he said, okay, I want to do that, you
know which came first. So U it kind of all fell together at the
same time, except for I was really itching to get back to Tuthon.
So you know, Washington State doesn't have a lot of funny days, so
we kind of we were while I love it up here, I'm ready for
a little bit more sunshine, so we actually have we're looking at relocating back
to Chusan And then I started to have these conversations, um with Augie Bush,
and um, the reality of that he needed uh someone that could really
help his breaststrokers. And I was like, I'm your girl, Augie.
I promise you. I will come in and I will work my butt off
for these athletes. I just I just have so much respect for that program
and that university that just get me on the pool deck, and I will
I will work hard for them. Yeah. Yeah, well of course.
So so when you're when you're thinking about this now, I mean like,
are you on the job yet or when when do you When do you actually
start the job? I won't be there till early August, so um,
we move. We actually will be moving down the end of July and I'll
start. I'll start my job early August. Okay, well, what's the
first thing you're going to do when you get here? Oh? Just I
don't know. Soak it all in. I'll go to EGS and get there.
I'm just excited for all of it. You do want to have an
endorsement already? R You wanted to say easy, because I know you wanted
to say so, Okay, they want to give me a free little smoothie
or an easy terry sider one in the fall is hell? If you have
to buy a beer in this town with your name. That's wrong. So
let me ask you. I mean, the you know, college athletics has
changed a lot, and you know, we we had we had Erica Barnes
on a couple of days ago and talking about how, you know, the
the you know, outside of football and basketball, those sports are now starting
to come along in terms of how they're being affected by NIL, transfer portal,
you know, all these things that are going on. Um, are
you pay how much of that is in your thoughts as you're thinking about the
job that you're going to have in front of you coming up in August?
Yeah, I mean I did some work with pepper Dyne a couple of months
ago just talk about the NIL and just the effect that has on athletes and
disco just all of that. It's very complex, it's um it's a it
is a whole new world for the athletes that are coming into their college careers
and beyond. So UM, I personally, I hope to just I like
to be a sponge, absorb as much information as possible as I can about
everything and make sure that I can help guide any young athletes in the right
direction. And also I think transparency is just very important. So just being
able to have those honest relationships and conversations. Especially, Yeah, it is.
It's a completely different world since I was competing. Let me ask you
a dumb question and bear with me. So we know that Michael Jordan was
Michael Jordan, and Magic Johnson and Magick Johnson and guys like that who are
great players but had a difficult time being coaches because they expect the best because
they were the best. How how are you going to handle that because you
were pretty darned good and the people you're coaching aren't a man to be heard?
You know what, I think? Not everyone's cut out to be a
coach because you got to put your ego aside, and you you what I
did as an athlete doesn't really exist now, you know. So what I'm
trying to do is take anything that I've absorbed, anything all the different I've
I've had the honor of working for some of the greatest coaches in swimming.
So I'm taking everything that I've learned along the way and hoping to be able
to guide these athletes. And if you come into it and you have this
ego like, well, I'm the best, you have to do it my
way or the highway. It just doesn't fly that way you want to.
You want to put yourself aside and all of your athletes are first. They
are number one and um and you've got to make time for them no matter
what and kind of drop everything if they need to. So how many stories
do you think you're going to have to tell about all the Olympics you went
to? Uh? You know, is that way to help motivate players or
swimmers? Is it a way to just give them something to shoot for?
I mean, how will you handle all that, all of that, because
you know a lot of these swimmers come with those ideas in their mind.
Yeah. I think the way that I've always kind of been with my athletic
career, I keep it quite person like private. I guess I don't just
openly talk about it unless someone wants to talk about it, unless they want
to hear anything, and they want stories and they have questions, and I
will be an open book, but I don't just kind of volunteer that information
upon people, because not everybody wants to sit down and hear the story of
my life. So, but some people will find it interesting and some people
will want to put that book down. Let me tell you something. You
did have a fascinating book a decade ago, and how did that go?
And why did you you? Kind of it was great stuff on you?
Why did you want to do that? Well? So at that time,
I was doing a lot of clinics, working with a lot of young athletes,
and I'd walk away from all of my interactions with them honestly feeling like
I was kind of lying to them because I was just giving them all the
good information. Here's all the great highlights, there's my sizzle reel. And
I didn't. I just didn't. It didn't sit well with me. So
I decided that with the help of my friend who as a writer, to
to kind of put it all out there, just be very honest, because
I wanted young young athletes to understand that the road and the past to being
successful is not clear and it can be very bumpy and rocky, and I
wanted to have that more honest relationship with the with the athletes I was working
with. And did you feel like that was that was? It was good
for your cathartic did you know? Did you make it for you feel better
about yourself? I mean, how did that? How did that all wind
up? For you. Well, you definitely feel like you're you're opening your
your like diary for everybody. So it's a little uh intimidating. But I
also feel like it was like, okay, well that was that was my
life, and I put it out there and now it's over here on my
bookshelf. I can tap into it when I need to. But I'm I'm
ready to continue moving upward and onward. Yeah, so what is the thing
you think you're most looking forward to as a coach? I mean, what
do you what when when when you put your head on the pillow tonight,
you know, what are you thinking about in terms of I can't wait for
this? I? Well, so I really geek out on like getting really
technical with strokes. So I i will put my head on the pillow and
I'll run through different drills that I will would do with them and just different
techniques and how I would want to talk to it. And that's that is
really what excites me. So let me let me tell you something. We
have about three minutes. Stuff. You're talking to two dudes who never had
a sizzle wheat wheel. We never had, so that's very impressive. But
let me tell you about let me say, let's assume that we could run.
Jay and I can run, but and I used to run, how
do you would you make us faster if you if you just run, you
know, how do people get faster? And in the pool, if you're
a swimmer and you're pretty good, but you have your limits everything in the
Peter principle, you're as good as you're gonna get. How do you make
people get better? Yeah, well, I don't think that you're as good
as you're going to get. Like, I think there's a whole different,
different level that people just don't know how to tap into. So not only
are doing work in the pool, And I mean you used to swim laughs
Like I can swim laughs up and down. My competitors swimming laughs up and
down? But what am I going to do to get the edge over them?
And that usually comes to like my mental stability and how I approach everything.
I'm hyper uberly competitive. I love to get into like that mindset of
kind of all my little secrets of how I like approach my races, approach
my practices, all of those little kind of challenges and goal setting and stuff
like that. So, um, I just I think there's a lot of
athletes out there that think that they're working hard and don't understand that they have
a whole nother gear of working hard that they haven't figured out yet. That
makes sense because coaches find that extra gear, right, that's what we're supposed
to do. Yeah. Absolutely, that's what all my coaches did for me.
Yeah, makes sense. Okay, makes sense, very good. Okay,
Well, Amanda, we appreciate the time. We know this was a
you know, sort of a last minute thing to get you on, but
you know, just uh, you know, welcome home. As we said,
you know, we're looking forward to it, to seeing you here.
I appreciate you guys having me on, and I'm beyond excited to get back
to Jule. We're gonna use this interview as our beginning of our scizzle wheel.
Well, if that means I gotta run, I'm not running, love
it. I love it all right, Amanda, thanks a whole boy,
have a great day. Absolutely, you guys do. It's funny, Jay,
It's funny because you know, I had a son who you put highlights
on that thing, and you see the you see the YouTube things when the
kids are trying to be recruited, you don't see them messing up on those
things. Yeah, kids are all high lights. Sure, I did for
my daughter. So you have all these things. Oh he could play,
he could play, he could dunk, but can he do anything else?
Yeah? No, absolutely, you know I did one of those for my
daughter as a recruiting Yeah, pitching a softball, pitching and and and soft
on stuff. And you know when she the curveball that didn't break, didn't
make it, didn't make it. On to the day lord of the ball.
You know the ball that she threw outside. It was all the strikes
that were right over the middle of So this is what you can do.
I won't tell you what she can or how many times it took us to
get that shot. All right, let's go take our break where and come
back. Well, we'd love to take your calls. Five two, zero,
four, one, six, seventy four, forty anything you have on
your mind, We're ready to talk about it. We'll be right back if
you're neighbors one a man's basketball fan. You know, it's been successful for
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dot Net. Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez they have their Eye on the Ball
on two Sons Sports Stage chef Fox Sports fourteen fifty streaming live. I mean
I heard Radio Am Hey, welcome back to O on the ball here on
spot quurteen fifty. I'm Steve, he's Jay. We have about fifteen thirteen
minutes. You want to give us a quick call five two old, four
one six seven four four zero for let's snow, what's up for you guys?
You know that was a swimming legend, not just the u of aase
Well, yeah, yeah, I put that on question. Amanda Beard was
in four Olympics. Yeah, four olymp choose fourteen years old and fourteen years
old for the first one. I mean that is like, that is crazy
stuff for something like that to a have come out of the u of A
and then b want to come back to the u of A and come here
and try and you know, work her magic. Yeah, in the program
this I don't know if this is an equal. It's not like Miles Simon
coming back to coach. It's more like Steve Kerr coming back to couch.
Even more so, right, I mean yeah, I mean even more so.
I mean as as accomplished a swimmer or an athlete as the UFA has
ever had. Yeah, you know, it really is. And so to
have her and they've had total oh yeah, and to get her back,
you know, that's that's quite a cool. Froggy Bush. We're gonna have
to talk to him. We know, we never had him about how he
feels about about all of that. I mean, he's got to feel pretty
dang good to be able to pull the trigger and get Amanda Beard to come
here. Yeah, but that's that was one of the if you want to
talk about blue blood, blue blood program, that was. That was one
that was during that time. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, a bunch of
Olympians and now it's champions, world champions, record holders and all that kind
of stuff. If there's one thing that I've learned, and I think I've
said this on the show with you Jay in doing this and the sports writing,
was the coaching matters. Coaching matters. You could have a good group.
And we've seen it in group. If you're co which doesn't drive with
your good group, it means not a nothing, um. But if you
have a good like the Frank I'm using Frank Bushes, a guy who's kind
of like just like a dude who cares about his kids, great philosophy,
is not a yeller, I don't think so, just a normal temper,
and then he creates these crazy Olympians. Yeah. Yeah, And there were
a whole bud of coaching matters it does you know, you know, they
got to motivate, They got to be technical, right, they have have
to have the technical aspect of it, the motivational aspect of it. But
then as as we've said, the carrying piece of it. Yeah, right,
that so many coaches, that's that seems to be the one that's missing.
More often the coaches, well turn out you think are good coaches,
but are not. Well did we talk about this before too, maybe early
in the year. Steve Kerry, Steve Kerry, he hadn't coached, he
hadn't done anything along those lines of media whatever, um and people would say
to me, well, look at the people he has on the team.
Ever, do you ever data hunt woman? He ever? Did you have
five dudes who think they're the best, You think you're gonna get along?
Right? You know how difficult that is? Again and again, Mark Jackson
could not mold those guys into a championship team. Steve Kerr went in their
same guys championship right, and so what was the difference. The difference was
you know the coach not to bad mouth Park Jackson, No, No,
he just wasn't able to get the most out of those guys like Kurt was
able to do the minute he wantd Come on, what did he have much?
Remember when they hired. When he got hired, people are like,
who's this dude? Who's this dude? What the hell are you doing?
Now? He's widely considered one of the best coaches in the in the NBA,
had nothing right, and he had a team on the brink of another
title. No. One hundred percent and again and you know, closer to
home, Tommy Lloyd, right, he's gotten He got so much more out
of Sean Miller's players than Sean Miller did. And and so you know there's
something, as you say, the secret sauce, right, everybody he has
to have one. Yeah, and everyone has a different action. Everyone has
there's a different difference. It's a different thing. And it may be the
same thing, but just a little different. Yeah, a little tweak because
you know, it's like I said, if you can't run, if you're
fast, but you need to get past that fast. This isn't like hitting.
If you're a good hitter, you practice at it right. Yeah,
you just don't show up with a bat and you hit right. No,
you gotta practice at it right. And with swimming, I don't get it
because I don't swim. But how how you become a better swimmer with technique
or special movement? I don't Yeah, yeah, all that stuff. No,
you know, all the sports have that. You know, when you
think about a gymnast, right, how does she go from a nine nine
or a nine to eighty five to a ninety nine, which is a big
deal, right right right? You know, uh, five one hundreds of
a point is a difference between you go, you gotta find that. I
gotta go get that somewhere. You know, gymnasts or you know, I
see gymnast gymnastics similar to to a swimming when it comes out. You know,
golfers, you know, you see golfers talking about, well I had
this little tweak. You know, I wasn't you know, I wasn't bringing
my shoulder back at the right angle or you know whatever it might be.
You know, like I mean, you see that. You go play golf
and you know, to me, when I play, I go walk up,
I hit the ball right, But these guys walk up and the ball
it's got to be in a certain spot. You know, the club has
got to be you know, everything's got to be just so, and they
can consistently do that, and that's why they're a good golfers. And that's
why I can hit a great shot and I can hit the same shot five
minutes later and it's terrible. Correct. Well, a lot of these guys
have coaches too, and the coaches sec they see, they see, you
know, like I'm fascinated. They'll show side by side video of a guy
of a play or a female player swinging a club and they'll say, look
at the difference between you know, the one on the and the one on
the right. And I'll look at him and I'll go, what is it
looks the same to me? Right? It all looks the same to me.
Right, Watch that stuff, and I think, I try to do
that. There's nothing like that just today. And I'm always looking for tips.
Right. So Phil mickles Is showed up on my on my on my
Facebook feed with a chipping lesson, right, And I watched the chipping lesson
as a while back and it worked for about three rounds and then I forgot
everything. So he came back on. He comes back on and said,
okay, in my last one, I showed you this. Well, let
me add this and it's like this shoulder turned thing. And I'm like,
why didn't you tell me that the first time? Because I'm all screwed up
even then. People, it's all practice, like shooting free throws. Yeah,
what do you do? You shoot ree throws and you shoot more free
throws and you keep shooting free throws. Yeah. Um? And how many
times have we seen this were players have left points on the table because they
don't free throws. Yeah, no, I watched that. I told you
the other day. I watched the second half of the UCLA Arizona Packs Attention
a new Marbalo went up there. I mean, he made some free throws,
but he missed his man as he made and that made it a really
close well you know who, it was pretty good at the Coloco who didn't
remember he was absolutely horrible, and all of a sudden he got really good
at really good at yeah. Absolutely no. Yeah, those little things,
you know, And that's what I think that. You know, when when
Aggie Bush decided he's hiring a Manda Beard, he thought, you know,
we just need somebody who can come in here and as she said, you
know, help everybody take a little step forward, whether it's in the breaststroker,
whatever, whatever, whichever swimmer she's gonna coach. But you know,
there's that little bit and at that level, at the college level, and
then again at the pro level, you know, that little bit is the
difference between winning and losing. Again, I take it back to golf.
You know these golfers you sit there now with all the technology. You know,
you hear you hear a a golfer talking to his caddy about where he
wants to hit it, and he's talking about hitting it into a like one
square yards. Well, you need to hit it there, not there,
you know, you know, you need to hit it left about ten feet
of that. I'm like, I'm just trying to get it there. I'm
just trying to hit it hit in that neighborhood. And these guys, that's
how precise they are. Let's also remember they make millions of dollars. I
know, but but but the precision that that that they you know that you
know what they're doing, the difference between making the ten foot part and not
making the ten foot Sure, sure you know what they're doing right now.
They're taking that ten foot put right You're here on the radio and you're gonna
talk about golf on Saturday. But that's what they do, right, every
right, every day every day when you see these guys, they'll finish eighteen
holes and then they go straight to the practice rage because you know there was
some shot that they weren't hitting quiet right and they got to go get it
right. Well, it's like it's like this is interesting. I mean because
Steve Kerr shot. But I mentioned this all the time with Furich, how
he hits the ball. It's ugly, right, but it's his ugly right
and he knows how to hit that right. Millions you know what, I
think you should change your stroke? No, no, no, no,
I'm going with this. Well, when when you look at when you look
at how guys bad, Yeah, you look at it hitter all the different
stands and swings and where they have their hands you know, up high,
up, low, you know, laying the flat, laying it, you
know, standing it up. You know guys who stand straight up versus get
into a crouch. Yeah, why are there so many different swings? If
there's a good way to hit, why don't you the wire? Doesn't everybody
hit that way? That's what that's been one of the mysteries of baseball to
me, or a pictures wind up wire pictures wind up so different, it's
what you're comfortable with. Like Chase Davis his stance when he gets in it's
kind of strange. Yeah, very open up, very open. He crowds,
he crouches really low, he holds the back flat and then he's got
this, you know, lift his leg and big step and boom and he's
got one of the best swings. Like ever. Yeah, lefties always do
though you can hit, you know, all these leftiest Let the guy yesterday
from TCU who hit the ball under winning track and didn't make the home run.
Great swing, blah blah blah, three feet short. Yeah, you
know where. I was talking about the eggit velocity with myself who were talking
about that. He said, Dad, the egg of velocity on there was
one hundred eleven miles cur And I'm like, is that good? So he
quickly googled and says a next velocity of ninety five in Major League next of
ninety five to one hundred five miles an hour is considered great. Anybody who
gets a ball in the air ninety nine times out of ten it's a home
run. Well, this park is a monster. Yeah, and this guy
hit at one eleven and still and didn't get it out of monster and then
he didn't. I don't got too high. It's just the way it is.
The trajectory and all that stuff is no I you know again the difference
between you know, that level and then just you know, just Joe Schmo,
who's out there. You know, the preciseness of you know, you're
you're whether you're you're shot, you're jumper, or the way you throw a
football or you know, how you hit a baseball or you you know you
throw a pitch or whatever. Um, the preciseness of that, just the
smallest thing makes a big difference as to whether or not, as they said
in bull Drum, whether or not you're a two hundred hitter or you're you
know, a one extra base hit. You know, a week and you're
in the and you're in the hut and you're in Cooperstown, right, you
know, it's it's it's crazy, the preciseness of of all of that,
and especially the golfers, it just drives you crazy with and how these guys
say, well, you know, don't aim for the first flag game for
the second flag and you look in the background and there's like you know,
on your screen, there's like a half an inch apart. You go,
what different? What's the difference? Right? And that? But they know
and they know, and it's it's it's weird to me to see how they
know that, how they can do that. Okay, we got about twonute
stuff. We're gonna have some breaking news. Hopefully it's enough to a bunch
of stuff. It just not again nothing earth. There was a big trade,
uh in the NBA. Another one, so we'll talk about that one
a little bit, uh because we always do. But uh, just a
bunch of little stuff. There's a there's a really good one. I'll it's
something that I'll see you know who you're taking in this because it's pretty funny.
But there was the ruling on LSU and the I RP thing. I
don't know if you saw that. I saw that. You know. That's
one of the final ones, right, that's gonna be one of the last
ones. They think, Uh, did they do Kansas already? No?
No, Kansas I think is left if we google you can find find it.
I think that they left them alone, which was kind of strange.
I don't catch that well, but this was this was probably the most punishment.
Yeah, Dan Walkin wrote it wrote a really interesting if Dan Walkin has
been on our USA today write it wrote or an interesting column about that if
you get if you got a USA look at and go check that out,
just basically saying the I RP was just a complete waste of time, waste
of time, waste of effort, waste of money. Um, it didn't
do anything. And uh, this this LSU ruling, and I think Kansas
is the last one. I think it says it in that Colm that that
looks they're left. They they've got but based on based on what happened today
with LSU, mm hmmm, doesn't look look at nothing's gonna happen to Kansas.
So, um, you know that's that's just the way it's gonna be.
But you know, hey, that that was good for Arizona, right.
Let say, didn't get a bunch of a bunch of crappy either,
So they'll be they'll be fine. R let's gonna take our our next break.
We're gonna come back. We do have breaking news, um uh just
you know, spread of stuff. So we'll uh well we'll cover all of
that, and we'll we'll be back in just a little bit.