Streaming live. Honey, iHeart radio. Wow. This is I on the
Ball with Steve Rivera and Jacobzalez on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Welcome back to
invol on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Your host for the day, Jacob zalas
my partner. Steve Vera is out today. How do you have? Juan
here? And one is larger in charge now with breaking news. This is
I on the Ball, Breaking News on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. A right,
Happy Friday to everyone out there. It's a happy Friday, man,
Friday. I'm so happy. This is Friday, sir. We love Friday.
It's got the day off tomorrow from work too. Here you go,
man, perfect weekend. This doesn't work. Is this work? This isn't
work. It's fun. What's work? Is fun? Yeah? Okay?
All right, well, happy early Father's Day as well to all the fathers
out there. But starting with a game happening tonight, tip off around probably
like five forty five, Game four of the NBA Finals. Celtics looking for
the sweep. Yes, the Dallas Mavericks looking for their eighteenth championship. But
have you looked up when it was the last sweep? You know, last
time the NBA Finals were a sweep. Okay, let's yeah, I'd love
to know that again. I hate sweeps. Uh, you know, when
you get to the when you get to the World Series or you know,
in the NBA Finals or whatever, you want them to last because they're fun.
You know, there's nothing better than the game seven of a of a
final series like that Game seven Stanley Cup Final is the best. Yeah,
because those guys they're gonna, they're gonna, they're gonna, they're they're gonna,
they'll they'll they'll die for it, right and they and they play like
that for for an entire for an entire hockey match. So I I'm just
I'm bummed that that we're sitting on sweeps for both these both of these finals.
Yeah, and like you said, Ath finals, the other one being
the Stanley Cup Final. Last night, the Panthers beat the Oilers four to
three, take a three nothing lead, looking to close it out. Leave
on Sunday yep, yep. So again, bummer, you know, I
I watch the Stanley Cup Final. I don't watch hockey all year long.
Yeah, seriously, I mean if it, I mean, if a channel
is on and there's a game on and I turn on my TV and it's
on ESPN or whatever whatever network run and there's a game on. I don't
even sit there and watch it. Then I don't watch hockey. But when
they get to the finals, I'll put it on. I had it on
the other night. Yeah you know, I mean you said earlier Game sevens
even just for the fans, it's a different feeling. It is a totally
different thing. And who knows, maybe we can get it turned around,
get to a Game seven for both of those. But we'll see what happens.
In the Spring Football League to have their championship this Sunday, Oh yeah,
two o'clock on Fox, the Birmingham Stallions going up against the San Antonio
BrahMos. All right, it's Wade Phillips first coaching for the first time in
the championship game. Wow, oh god? And man, you know,
he looked like somebody's grandpa when he was coaching back then, didn't he.
I mean, he was just an old guy out there. Good for him,
Good for him. Hopefully he can pull it out. But I'm not
gonna liability for the Stallions. You know. Uh. Former former Arizona linebackers
Scoop Great was on that team. Therenzel Burns is on there now, so
gotta gotta support the Wildcat anyway, for sure. Very cool, all right,
he said, two o'clock on Sunday, two o'clock Sunday Fox. All
right, sounds good. In some Arizona volleyball news, they got there.
They just signed a middle blocker, k Roby. I'm sorry if I mispronounce
the name coming in from Florida State. Oh, okay, transfer, yeah,
transfer, okay, should be should be a good addition to the team.
All Right. I watched them last year. They were competitive in every
game, but they have the greatest Yeah. It was her first I believe
her first year there. So all the luck to them come come fall yep.
All right, good, good, good get Arizona softball also got to
commit from former Iowa State pitcher Sayah Swain. Okay, we know they need
pitching, Yeah, I mean that was the missing ingredient this last year,
you know, I mean they had a nice season, you know, got
to a got to a super regional, but you knew the pitching was was
dicey. And the dicing has showed up when they when they got swept by
Oklahoma State badly, Right, so you know, any pitching out I think
would be welcome for Caitlin though. Yeah, anytime you can get any commit
to come to your school and against any help, you know, and it
gets to this point of well, you know that you know that player wasn't
all that great. Well, when somebody's transferred from somewhere else, they've already
got a season two, maybe sometimes three or four under their belt. They're
veterans as opposed to a high school player, you know, trying to make
that leap. They've made the leap, right, And so you know,
if if a if a U have a coach, a pitching coach or or
you know, the head coach, Kaitlin or somebody looks at this player and
says, okay, that player can help us, I'm sure that they'll take
that player. And you know, I mean they're going to recruit high schools,
but those kids have to make a jump, you know, to be
good. And and you get somebody that's in there, got the experience,
understand the level of play. You usually, you know, when they go
get a player like that, they're generally pretty good. Yeah. So yeah,
hopefully that's a good addition for the softball team. The Phil Phil Steel
magazine came down with all their All American teams. Okay that uh Tetsuro McMillan
was named to the first team All American and some other Wildcats got some nods
with the Big twelve. Okay, yeah, Jacob Manu to Carrio Davis I
think was thirteen. So yeah, good recognition for those guys. It is,
you know what and when Arizona guys start getting mentioned on preseason All America
teams, you can that you see how much has changed in the last five
years, right, you know those guys, uh you know, and and
Team Mac. He's gonna he's it's probably the first of many. I'm thinking
he's gonna be on a lot of preseason All America teams, whether it's first,
second team or whatever. No offel Fate, I've seen him raided anywhere
from the third to the eighth best returning quarterback. I'm like, Arizona's never
had that guy. I know we had, you know, you had Khalil
Tate. He was on the cover of Sports Illustrate and stuff like that,
and you know that blew up in our faces, you know, in the
first game. But you know when you see when you see a guy like
Noahlafida being mentioned among those you know up there in those in that space,
you go, okay, you know, maybe we got something, so it'll
be fun to see what happens. Yeah, I think it's also just interesting
for people that don't know who they say that name Arizona. Arizona's good again
a quarterback. And then even further from that, you see a guy playing
quarterback for that school my height, you know, yeah, yeah, so
exactly good for those guys, you know. Getting back to uh, the
quarterbacks. I don't know if you saw. I think it was last week
Jayden DeLaura he got you got let go by uh. I don't know if
it was a USFL team. I think it was actually was it? Okay?
Yeah, so he was toiling in there, hadn't didn't play in any
games, but you know, his man, you want to talk about a
career that just kind of fell apart, right, unfortunate least, and you're
throwing the injury, you know, I mean again, he was as good
as he was going to be. You know, he was struggling. How
good would he have been? Would he have generated any attention? But the
fact that you know, he got hurt and that was sort of the end
of it for him. That's a that's a tough go. It's a tough
go. In some NBA news, former Phoenix Sun's guard Camera Paign did get
arrested in Scottsdale for refusing to id to himself and false given a false report
to an officer. I don't mean to laugh when somebody has misery, but
you know, some of this stuff is so I don't know what happened.
But when they say you wouldn't identify yourself and that's why you got arrested,
to me, that's just dumb. Yeah, it's just dumb. Right.
The cops pull you over for whatever you're doing, they say, show me
your driver's license, and you say no, and my name is you know,
Joe Schmoe. How easy is it for you and not have to go
to jail? Exactly? You know, he just identifies himself. He's five
minutes more down the road, right, He's gone, yeah, exactly.
But you know, and again I leaned towards the cops. I had two
brothers who were cops. I lean towards him. I say, mostly,
if you do what the cops say, you're going to be okay. Now
we know that there's situations where that's not quite true, and those situations do
happen, and that's too bad because in one of those situations happen. Now
people think they happen all the time. But for the most part, if
you listen to what a cop says when they're asking you to do something,
because they have the authority to tell you to do that, and if you
do it, you're mostly going to be okay. You know when you see
these videos all the time of people who you know, they get pulled over
and they don't want to they don't want to give up their license and registration,
they don't want to They say that you're not allowed to touch me.
Yes you are if if you're not going to comply, and then they go
to jail and I'm like, you didn't have to go to jail. Well,
my daughter's in the back. Well you guess what we're now we got
to take care of your daughter because we got to take you to jail because
you didn't do what you're supposed to do. Just drive me crazy, all
right, Sorry, didn't mean to. I mean, you got to lean
on the side of safety, right right, But don't mean to rant.
Sorry, The last bit of news, a little bit of funny news.
The Kansas City City Chiefs Super Bowl champions got their rings yesterday, and what
the fans did notice is that there was a typo. The Miami Dolphins were,
in fact, not the seventh seed. They were the sixth seed.
And that was the only the only thing wrong besides I mean, you know,
being a Broncos fans winning the Super Bowl. But you know, besides
the fact that it was the Chiefs ring. Yeah, uh, you know,
a little typo here and there. You know, he's God, who
do you Does somebody lose their job over that? Does somebody have to run
laps over that? Does somebody get demoted because of that? Are the consequences
to that? Right? I mean that that would that would be what I
would wonder. But how hard is it? I mean, there's only like
four things that you're putting on the ring, right, You're putting Kansas City
Chiefs, You're putting Super Bowl Champions, You're putting what super Bowl it is?
And then the inscription on the inside. That's just crazy. Oh well
that's it, you know, Yeah, when you when you have three other
rings, you know, yeah, try not to complain. But well,
li put it that way. This way, you can't do you can't do
something like that in my family and not just catch grief for it the rest
of your life, I mean for life, for life. You're you know,
you're going to be a dinner and somebody's gonna bring it up. Yeah
ten years later. Yeah, you can't do that. And you just wonder
who you know who missed that? And I got missed at the start,
right because you can't expect the people who made the ring or who actually you
know, constructed the ring to somebody said this is what you need to put
on the ring and got that wrong there and that's where it got wrong.
Oh man, Oh well, what are you gonna do? I just imagine
that that person sitting at dinner having a good Friday, and then all of
a sudden, you here, Hey, remember when you you messed up the
chief. Yeah, really, I'm leaving. I'm leaving. Thank you for
the dinner appreciation, exactly. Good night, too funny, too funny?
All right, you got that. Okay, one more thing that came up,
I mean literally during the break. Major League Baseball umpire Pat Hoburg was
disciplined before the start of the season for violating MLB's gambling rules. He is
appealing the decision. The statement by the by the league just said that there
was a violation. They said, while MLB's investigation did not find any evidence
that games worked by mister Hoberg were compromised or manipulated in any way, mL
BE determined that discipline was warranted. He hasn't worked any games this year,
and he's been he's been pretty good on thirty seven year old guy. He
worked the twenty twenty two World Series. Uh, he's been, you know,
well, regarded as an umpire, but he hasn't umpired this year.
It's umpires the covered by the same same rule that players are under in terms
of gambling. Said, anyone found to have gambled on a baseball game they
are directly tied to, which is any baseball game in connection with which the
better has a duty to perform. As the rules formally put, it is
to be banned permanently from the game. They didn't say he bet on any
games that he had anything to do with, but but there was you know,
he did violate. I'm guessing you bet on something that they're not supposed
to, whatever it is, So they're not saying yet until I'm maybe down
the road we'll find out. But yeah, major League Baseball umpire now being
being disciplined over this stuff. That's kind of starting to happen all the time.
Yeah, it seems like it. I mean, I don't bet a
lot, so I just I don't when I hear stuff like that, I'm
just like, well, you're choices, you know the rules, you know
what the rules are, and you broke the rules. You're just not very
smart now at it. When you know, when we were doing NC double
A tournaments, if you remember, Rick Neuheisel got fired from Washington because he
had he was in a NC double A pool. To me, that was
dumb, right, that was dumb. But now with with what's going on
with gambling and all the you know, on all the banding and stuff.
You know, you got to set some rules and people got to follow the
rules. Even follow the rules, you suffer the consequences. No problem with
that, no problem that as they should. As they should. Again,
another thing just came up. Zach Edy was invited to be at the at
the NBA Draft and he's politely declined, which probably is a good you know,
he might not go in the top ten. And then if you're that
guy sitting there and you know you're Aaron Rodgers and you're looking around, it's
probably a good call for him to see. I mean, that also just
seems on brand for him. I'm sure he wants to be with this family.
Yeah, yeah, he said. He said he's going to watch the
draft with his teammates, coaches, and family at Purdue, so he will
not be sitting in the green room waiting for his numb for the name to
get called. Excuse me, Okay, that's it. We're for the segment
job on Breaking News. We're going to have a doctor Don Porter, the
former Arizona athletics team physician, recently retired, now a member of the u
of A Sports Hall of Fame. We'll try and get some stories out of
him. We'll see what we can we can come up with. Doc's a
great guy. Looking forward to having him, So stick around for Doc Porter
in about five minutes. We'll be right back. The Window Depot is more
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evaluation today. Breaking down all the exes at all. It's Steve Rivera and
Jacin Salvins. This is I on the Park on Fox Sports fourteenth. Welcome
back to the ball here on Fox Sports fourteenth fifty. I'm your host,
Jacob Zalas my my usual partner, Steve VERI is that today, Oh we
lost it. Hang up and try to call him again. We're gonna get
Doc. We had Doc Porter what happened there? But the call got cut
off and uh so we're trying to get him back on the phone. So
stand by Doc is the I call him Doc. We've all we've always called
him Doc. He's Don Porter, former the former team physician for Yo A.
Let's h okay, Uh well, uh I'm just give me a second
here. I know this isn't great, raty, but I've gotta I have
to text him now because, uh, for some reason, the the call
got uh got craw Thanks. Oh okay, let's try that. Hi.
Is that you Doc? Oh? Sorry about that? We lost you.
I know, I'm not sure what happened there. I'm not either. Yeah,
this is yeah. You sound much better, so appreciate that. So
uh uh this is doctor Don Porter. I I get to call you doc
because I've always called you Doc, right but uh, yeah, Don Porter?
The Uh how long ago did you retire? Don Doc? It would
be July, just two years. Longtime a team physician for you have a
you have a athletics Uh. I told I'm sorry, I told the story
yesterday about that party at your house. I hope that was okay. Uh
where you where? You blew up your stereo? But that couldn't help it
because I thought it was a fun story. But I do appreciate you joining
us today. I hope you don't hang up on me for that, but
we you know, congratulations, you're in the in the ares on a sports
Hall of Fame. What'd you think when you heard about that? Yeah,
well, first of all, thanks for having me on the show. It's
it's really a great honor. You know, between eight years going to the
school here, three years or excuse me, two degrees and then you know,
thirty two thirty three years working at tea position. It's been forty years.
So yeah, it's just it's really nice to be acknowledged for that.
Oh I think we lost him again. Oh my gosh. Oh no,
Uh that's show what's going on over there. Well, we'll try to get
him a call back. You just yeah, god, this is this isn't
great. But what are you going to do? Hopefully he'll call back in
a in a in a second, but uh yeah, I mean here you
go, here, here he comes. Hey doctor, all right, you
have no clue why that's happened. I don't need but you know what our
listeners are are. They're laughing at me, So that's all right, we're
good. We're good. Well we've been laughing at you for years. You
have been, you know you have been, and and rightly so. But
you're talking about you know, you said like forty years at forty years at
the uv A, I mean that's you were a young man when all that
started. Now you know you're not so young, but you had a great
career. Tell me this, you know, you become a doctor. You
decided to go into medicine. When did being a doctor for sports and athletics
become a path for you? And and and why? Well, it's it's
interesting because it's somewhat serendipitous. I I went to medical school here, graduated
in seventy nine, and then I went away, did my residency in Kansas,
and then came back here in eighty two. Worked for about seven years
for a local HMO here. And I've always been athletically inclined. I mean,
some people would say putting my name in athletics in the same sentence shouldn't
be allowed, but yeah, I was at I played high school basketball here
in town, and I was offered a walk on spot here when Fritz Snowden
was the coach. So I've always I've always liked basketball. I've always liked
sports in general. So one of my medical school professors was was my predecessor
at the university, and when he got retired, they reached out to me
and said, hey, what you know, are you interested in doing this?
I thought, are you kidding me? I've been going to you a
event since nineteen sixty three when we moved here. So it just was just
a natural marriage with medicine and going into sports, and it's been it's been
great. What was the kind of the most intriguing thing about that? Because
you know, you're you're on the inside of something that you know, we
don't see, right. We we see the we see the guys on the
field. Yes, we see them get hurt. We see you know,
you know, you know, even lately with you know, the way media
is becoming, we see athletes going through their rehab and all the things they
go through. But you know, you're right there when those things happen,
and you're you're handling this and and you're trying to take care of these these
athletes. What's the most intriguing thing about that that maybe we don't we as
fans don't realize or don't know. Well, first thing you need to know
is, as you said, they go through a lot. The amount of
preparations that these athletes undergo is incredible, especially when they first come in.
They come in, they have workouts in the morning, they have school after
workouts, they have practice, and they have meals and they have study hall.
So these these kids are going they're coming in for workouts at six o'clock
in the morning. They're not getting home until eight or nine at night.
And then they still had their academic requirements as well, so they do a
lot of things to prepare for these games. Everyone sees their competitions, but
they don't know all the things that they go through, you know, in
preparation for that. The other thing, there's a echo, so if I
sound like I'm dis joining it because I'm hearing some feedback. But anyway,
I was always fortunate to have some great athletic trainers working with me. You
know. Sue Heilman was the first one I worked with. She was,
as I recall, or I think she may have been one of the first,
if not the first woman athletic trainer or you know, for football.
And then I had Randy Cohen for a number of years, and then all
the assistants that worked for both of them, So we had an incredible athletic
training staff. So they do a lot of the heavy lifting for the physicians,
and oftentimes they tea think is up for us, so it makes our
job a lot easier. Where's the where's the divide? And we're talking to
Don doctor Don porter Uh, the retired team physician for you of athletics now
in THEIRS and a sports Hall of Fame, don where is the dividing line
between what a trainer handles and what a doctor handles? You know, what
what what? What's your role up to the point that then they get you
know, something that belongs is in the trainer's line of work. Well,
the athletic trainers are the first They're kind of where the rubber meets the road.
They're the first line of the healthcare that's they're oftentimes their entry into the
healthcare system, whether they're injured in a practice or a competition, or if
they're sick, or even if they're having some mental problems. You know,
some of these kids are you know, they're away from home for the first
time, and a lot of the athletic trainers are there. I've gotten another
call and to get rid of this. A lot of the uh the first
entrance into the system with the athletic trainers. So the athletic trainers will often
do a lot of the initial triage and then if there's something that they feel
like they want help with or another opinion on, then they'll get in touch
with us and then we take over from there. So and how much of
the work that you get as a physician is it. I mean, you
know, I sit here and think it's all related injuries and things like that.
But you know, athletes get sick, they need they need you know,
a doctor or something like that. But you know, where what what's
your what is your involvement with the with the athletes, you know, besides
illnesses and injuries, is there anything else? Well, there's and in the
illnesses, there's also mental health things that are going on as well. That's
one of the biggest things I noticed over the years is that the explosion of
mental health services that a lot of these athletes need. You as I said
before, there a lot of them are here on their own for the first
time in their life. This can be very overwhelming with the academic with the
athletic obligations that they have, so that puts a lot of pressure on them.
So we see that as well. Yeah, has there has you know,
over the years, has there been a change in how athletes, you
know, handle this type of thing? You know, in some cases,
an injury can cost a multimillion dollar career, right their career can be over
those kinds of things. How much you know, how much pressure does that
put on on you know, the medical staff to take care of these these
athletes, to make sure that you know, there's a lot at stake besides
playing in the next game or finishing the season or or whatever. You've got
parents who are probably saying, what are you doing for my kid? How
do you deal with that? Yeah? A lot of what are you doing
for my kid? What are you doing to my kid? As you can
imagine, there's a number of competing agendas. You have a coach, yeah,
the athlete, yeah, the parents, you may have their handlers and
everyone's are all those people are stakeholders in the careers of these kids. So
you have to keep in mind that my responsibility, even though I have to
take everyone's feelings into consideration, my athlete is the obligation is with the athlete,
and that's why I'm going to take care of first. Obviously I'm going
to interact with all those other people, but the athlete is what we have
to concentrate on. Has it changed a lot in the last few years,
particularly when you're here, like we're hearing today, there's a basketball player at
Kansas State who might be getting two million dollars a year. Has that had
any kind of impact on how things are done with NIL? I came in
on the tail end of that, so I don't have a lot of experience
with that. Certainly. I talk to my colleagues still, and you know,
it's the landscape of college athletics, as you know, is just totally
changing right now with NIL, transfer, portal, all those things. So,
yeah, those things certainly affect how bath we'd experiences college. But for
us, we always have to keep in mind is the health of the athlete,
physical health, mental health. Those are things that we had to concentrate
on and let the other things well where they may. Right we're talking to
doctor Don porter A, retired a team physician for Arizona now in the Sports
Hall of Fame. What was the most fun about this job or was there
something that was that was the most fun? I mean, I like to
you know doctors. You know, you see a doctor, whoen you don't
feel great? So I don't know how much fun you can have, But
what was the most most fun for you in doing this job? Yeah?
Well, one of the odd things about it is, unfortunately I know most
of these kids, I know proportional the how many times I saw them,
so you know, if they're really have a lot of illnesses and whatnot going,
I know that I tend to know them better than some of the other
people. Well, I was talking to this was years ago, Laura Ianello,
who recently went to Texas back when she was a student athlete. I
was meeting with some of the women's golf recruits, and so I started talking
to her and telling her, these are the things that we have available.
We've got a pharmacy in our clinic, this, that and the other,
and said, doctor Porter, I'm actually a golfer hero already. I'm not
a recruit. This is a recruit over here because I've never seen her in
my office everything. So yeah. So, but it's as far as the
fun things go, there's so many of them. People see me, and
they see me at you know, on the sidelines for football or basketball.
I'm with the basketball team at the final four or something. They say,
oh god, that must be a fun job, and it is. But
you know, they don't see a lot of the other thing to the three
o'clock in the morning phone calls when one of the athletes is committed, you
know, considering suicide or you know, some of the other things. So
there's there is a lot of work involved, but the travel was was great.
You know. Justin Kolkowski, who is the men's basketball athletic trainer,
every time we went to Bahamas or Maui or something, he said, Doc,
you're going you know, So those those were fun. Earlier in my
career when I used to play a lot of basketball with some of the assistant
coaches, I'd played with some of the athletes as well, some of the
football players and some of the other players. We'd go over to bear Down
and play in a little league over there. And when I was old,
younger, I had a you know, a few skills, not many obviously,
but you know, especially with that crew of people, it kind of
gave me a little bit of street cred because I actually saw me out there,
you know, boxing them out and getting boxed out and that kind of
thing. So feel fun to be able to compete with some of the athletes.
And you mentioned it that you mentioned at the start of the interview.
You you you were offered a chance to walk on with a fred Snowden team.
You were good, right, Well, I'd liked playing. I liked
play, but I mean that's that's fascinating to me. I mean, I
I mean, look, I you know, I never I guess I never
saw you played basketball or anything like that. And I guess I should have
thought, you know, you you're your tall guy, right, I guess
you should have thought you might be, you know, good athlete. But
man, you know to I mean, look, no nobody ever asked me
to walk on it, right, you know, fight five foot, fire
foot guy with zero hops. But yeah, that happened. Fun. I
mean, what tell me a little bit about that. I mean, what
was that experience, you know, when you got asked and then what happened.
Yeah. The thing is is that I didn't take basketball up until I
didn't play at all in junior and I didn't play freshman year. I started
playing my sophomore year, and of course I was like at the end of
the bench. And by my senior year in high school, you know,
I was starting and and I was like second team All City and honorable mentioned
all State. But you know, the thing is is that there's not much
market for sixty three for man in college. So I think they wanted me
to walk on because, yeah, I could be a little practice spodder.
But I think they mainly wanted me for my g p A. Yeah,
I was going to say, because we hear that that's the that's the number
one priority for walk Ons, right, you got to you got to bring
up the g p A. That's yeah exactly, that's fascinating. Well,
Doc, look, you know, I hope we get to continue seeing you
around. I you know remember you from I know you were there a long
time because you were there back when I was covering sports thirty years. Oh
yeah, yeah, so you know I love seeing you around, Michaale.
I hope we get to see you some more. I hope you're enjoying your
retirement. Are you really retired or are you still out doing stuff? So
I'm retired. I'm retired, but I'm using air quotes right now because I
still do some stuff throughout my entire career. I worked over the Campus Health
Center, and so I still do some things over at Campus Health and I'm
still kind of in the bullpen for athletics if they need for me to cover
some athletic events or anything like that. So I'm not whole entirely retired,
but I just use the word semi exactly. Okay, Well, hopefully hopefully
it's hee around. Doc. Thank you, thanks for joining us. This
was a lot of fun. And I'll see around mckaale or airs on the
stadium or somewhere like that. Sounds good. Good talking to you, Jason.
How did my guy Adam for me? I will do that. I
will absolutely do that. Thanks abunch, talk you later. Okay, likewise,
okay, doctor don porter former or I guess what he said, semi
retired then I retired team physician for Aarzone Athletics. If you've never met him,
you see the guy walking around McHale, stop and say hi. He'll
say hi to you. He's a great guy. I love being around that
guy, and really somebody who represented Arizona really well. So let's take our
last break. We're going to come back. Wrap it up. Five to
zero, four one, six, seventy four, forty. If you want
to give us a call, we'll be around until the top of the hours.
Stick around. 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 Loudolsen
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the iHeartRadio app. This is I on the Ball with Steve Rovera and Jay
Gonzalez on Fox Sports fourteen to fifteen. Welcome back toime ball here in Fox
Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Jacobs, always your host. My buddy Steve Rivera
is out today, but I do have one here a man in the board
and helping me along. Man Nice time today. One appreciate it. I
appreciate it. You know, we just had a doctor, Don porter on
for a retired a physician at the team. Physician at the OVA got into
the Arizona Sports Hall of Fame this week. You know, he mentioned the
mental health piece of this, right and how big and how big of an
issue that's become. We've talked to the you know, the athletic department has
a sports psychologist in the whole bit, so you know, it's something that
they really had to pay a lot of attention to. And you you think
back, I think thirty years ago when I was, you know, covering
sports, it is kind of like, okay, you know, you get
hurt, you know, you go see the doc, you go see the
trainer. But he didn't think about all the other things that you know that
were you know, that came along with that. And I bring this up
because I you know, one of the things that sticks in my mind from
the time that I was covering basketball. There was the nineteen eighty six eighty
seven season, or maybe it was eighty seven eighty eight season, and maybe
it was a final fourth season, but there's a player, Brian David.
He was the IOWA Iowall Player of the Year, got recruited by Ludolsen to
come here, and he blew out his knee in the Red and Blue game,
right, So he's they're coming up on the season, it's going to
be a great season, blows out his knee, and I remember when it
happened. He was like he was just yelling on the court. He was
crying. He was upset, and I think he was I asked him about
it. I think he was more upset than he was in pain, right,
because he knew at that time, you you hurt your knee like that,
you were out for the year and you might be never played basketball again.
I do know he came back and I think he played a season or
two. But I sat with him, you know what it was the eighty
seven eight eight season, because I sat with him. Excuse me, oh
sorry, I sat with him on the team bus one time on the drive
from I don't remember where it was, and I asked him about, you
know, when they were going Arizona's going back to play IOWA that season,
and it was a game that was arranged for him, right, because you
got your the IOWA Player of the Year, and they that's how they used
to offer that to to players like that, that say you come here,
we'll get a game in your you know, in your hometown or wherever.
Yeah, and I remember he was more upset about the fact that, you
know, he knew what the injury meant, not that he was in such
pain. And that's what these doctors deal with, right you have Doc Port
who had to deal with the injury but also had to deal with the mental
aspect of it back then. There's a lot more attention paid to it now,
but you know, you still had to do all that. And I
can't even imagine what that would be like for you know, telling an eighteen
year old kid you're out for the year, you're far away from home.
Good luck. Yeah, No, it's definitely it's it's a hard issue to
try to cover just being a team physician, I mean whatever. What it
reminded me of was, uh, I think a couple of years ago and
a couple of years ago, but Zach Camilla, that was shocking, yeah,
to everyone, because he was going to be the star center, starting
center, He was a team captain, he was a leader. Now that
tragic news came out, right, and you just you wonder what happened,
and then the ripple effect of that, right, how it affects the others.
You know, one that comes to mind to me a lot is the
quarterback from Washington State, right, And you know they talked about how he
he you know, he came, he came in, he came into the
game against Arizona, played really well, but they got beat And then after
the fact you hear that that had a lot to do with how he felt
about himself and how he ended up doing what he when he did when he
committed suicide, that it started a downturn for him, losing that game.
And I'm like, it was a football game, but yet you don't know
what's going on in athletes minds. But you know what I read was that,
you know, losing that game, playing as well as he did,
and losing that game, he kind of put it all on himself, like
I didn't do enough, and he started he had this heavy weight that ultimately
led to him a committing suicide. Let's take this call. Hey, you're
on the arr and I and the ball. Hey, what's going on?
How you guess doing the day? We're good? How are you pretty good?
I've been a while since I've been able to contact you guys. Well,
I appreciate you calling. What's on your mind today? Oh? I
just wanted to let Jay know that was a great interview with doctor dun Porter.
I knew him that guy ever since high school. Yeah, he's a
yeah, he's a couple of years older than me, and he's pretty he's
pretty modest. But he played out at Ringcon High School and he was a
tremendous rebalcon. So well he was a tremendous doctor too. But yeah,
well look if Fred Snowden said, hey, you know, think about coming
and coming and playing with us for whatever reason. You know, you got
to be pretty good at something, right. Oh yeah, he's a goodball
player, but I think he had his heart into academic to medicine. And
another thing I said about him, his father worked for the city Parks and
Recreation and he was like a father to all of us. Oh yeah,
okay, all right, very good. Yeah, yeah, good guy.
So I saw going up at the TAP twelve tournament up in Las Vegas and
he looked great. So glad I was able to get into you guys.
Have a good day. Well, you do appreciate your calling always. Thank
you. Very much. Yeah, have a great day you too, you
know. I mean, look, Doc's been has been around here for so
long. I'm sure there's a lot of people out there. One happy to
see him getting in the Hall of Fame too, had some experience with him,
whether socially through the u of A, through medicine or whatever. So
you know, Doc was just one of those guys that I sort of behind
the scenes, right but visible because of the job that he had and how
important his job was, you know, to you know, to athletics.
Good guys appreciate the call on that. But you know, getting back to
you know what we were talking about, you know what's happening, and I
don't know, maybe it's always been there, you know, the whole mental
health aspect of this, and it's just not coming to light because more media,
more social media and all that kind of stuff. But these guys,
man, you know, you think the responsibility that somebody like a Doc Porter
has or the trainers, right, guys, he said, the trainers are
sort of the first place that they they see, you know, the justin
Kokowski's and back in my day, a guy named Steve Condon who was the
trainer here for basketball you know, he was a trainer, you know,
handling Shawn Elliott. Right, you're the trainer. You got the responsibility to
make sure that Shawn Elliott isn't doing anything or you're that nobody's doing anything that
jeopardizes what Shawn Elliott's got going for him, Steve Kerr, those guys,
And that's kind of tremendous responsibility. And you know, when I said how
much fun did you have? It almost a suddenly like he had a little
tough time coming up with what part of it was fun? Right? I'm
sure you know, going to the games and the travel and all those things
was fun. But when you think of the responsibility to hell, responsibility to
put on on a person to handle all that stuff. Yeah, I mean
obviously all all medical people sign up for it, but it's a heavy weight
to have a person's well being in your right, right, It's it's all
credit to them. Yeah. So yeah, I you know, I don't
know if she's listening. I told her to listen to my radios tri I
have. I got a new doctor. Met her on Monday, and uh,
you know, and she's very young, she's you know, but and
it struck me how young she was even told her it struck me how young
she was. Up she wasn't offended by that, but the point being that
I look at her right at this pretty young age, and any doctor that's
very young, you go, you've taken on a tremendous responsibility. You know
when when my my kids were little, you know, our pediatrician, you
know, he he was a young guy, and and it's like, I'm
putting their lives in your hands, and you know, I'm putting my life
in your hands. And you think of you know, when when they were
talking about how much money doctors make and all that kind of stuff. But
you know, doctor, you know, doctor Robbins has been on our show,
and you know, we had him on our show, you know,
and we're talking about the pressure of being, uh, you know, a
university president. And he said, no, the pressure, you know,
my the pressure that I feel is when I'm holding somebody's heart in my hands,
you know, because he's a heart surgeon. He said, that's pressure,
not what I'm doing, you know, you know, running a university.
The pressure, you know, somebody's life in my hands. And you
think about that, you go, holy crap, you know, I mean,
I never ever thought of being a doctor, but only because I wasn't
ever good at science, So me too, Yeah, I couldn't do the
science or the math. The amount of young people that end up signing up
in those medical medical fields, you know, when they first get into college,
they meet that decision. They're signing up for the next decade of their
life, right, and that burden for the rest of their life, right,
and they have you have to be a special person to be able to
do that. Right. You have to be able to go home at night,
put your head on the pillow and be okay with it, with what
you're doing. I know it's getting kind of deep in this stuff, and
uh, you know, but I feel like it's a conversation that, you
know, sometimes needs to be had to understand what people like Doc Porter,
whether they're a team doctor or a heart surgeon like like doctor Robbins, or
a general practice you know, a family doctor or whatever that that I went
to on Monday, and the responsibility that those people have, it's just kind
of nuts. Not to say the same thing, but to put it in
a little bit more of a different lens. You know, head coaches have
a somewhat similar responsibility. You know, they're they're trusted with the group of
guys of players, trusted, they're trusted by the parents to coach them up,
make them young, good young adults or even good young athletes. So
yeah, it's a lot of burden, it is. It is a lot
of burden. The right people are built for that jobs, right, right,
all right, So well, anyways, okay, I don't I don't
want to in the in the weekend on that. I have a funny,
funny thing that came up. I saw this as I was watching the end
of the of the US Open. But uh, Francis Francesco Molinari, who
people golf fans might remember when he was the guy who was leading the Masters
the time that that Tiger Woods won it back in How long ago was that
twenty nineteen? I think what, yeah, twenty nineteen, he was leading
the Masters, he played bad down the stretch, Tiger passed him, wins
the Masters. So that's Francesco Mollinari. Today. He's on the eighteenth hole.
The cut line is five over, he's seven over all, right,
in order to make the cut at the US Open, he's got to get
a hole in one on the eighteenth hole and he did it. Wow,
he hit a hole in one on eighteen or well it was his eighteenth hole.
I don't think it was the I think he might have been playing the
back nineth first or whatever. But he got a hold in one on the
last hole to make the cut. I mean that you'll even however he finishes
in the US Open. I mean he's playing for the weekend. But however
he finishes, he will probably I could he will probably consider that the greatest
shot he's ever hit and that he'll ever hit. Yeah, I mean why
would you you know, you got you know what you got to do.
It's a long shot, right, and you go out and do it.
I mean if there was ever a walk off in golf, right, yeah,
that's it, right, because you know you don't have walk up.
Well maybe you do if you make a putt to win the match or whatever,
but or to you to win a tournament, but to be able to
stick around for the US Open. He's a really good player, you know,
just it's been a tough course for everybody. Hold in one on on
his last hole to make the cut by one, that's that's so cool.
Start the weekend. Yeah, thanks to my brother for for passing that on
again reminded me of that one because I was watching it when it happened,
and I thought it was a highlight, and then I realized it wasn't because
he was in the group of Sergio Garcia, who gave him a big hug,
and I had just seen Sergio hit So I realized that happened right as
I was watching it, which is pretty cool. Which is pretty cool,
and that's very fun. All right, Hey, you know what I We'll
see if Steve will be back on Monday. Well, we will kind of,
you know, kind of wrap get things going again on Monday, you
know, going forward. You know we're talking, you know, the next
seasons are coming up, right, We got pat We got Big twelve football
to start talking about. Phil Steele put out his all Big twelve team.
He's got a couple of Arizona guys on it. He had no Fafita third
team Big twelve. So who were the two quarterbacks in the Big twelve that
he's got above them? I don't know who those who those would be.
I would think maybe the US. I got a transfer kJ Jefferson from Arkansas,
Okay. I would think maybe just because he's from the sec maybe,
yeah, but I mean I'm sure maybe should Sanders might, you know what,
but I don't. I don't think he would be. I'm sorry,
you know, And it's not because you know, I don't like Dion Sanders
and stuff like that. If Shador Sanders is not a better quarterback than no
fl fate to playing and simple right now. He's a good player, good
athlete, and he may be he may have more of an NFL future because
of his size and you know, his athletic ability and stuff like that.
But if you want to talk to me about who's a better college quarterback,
no Fafate has got it all over him. Yeah, and that's the way
it should be. Yeah, I mean, he turned the Arizona season around
right here, right would have done what we done. They're going for they're
ahead for six and six, seven and five season. Yeah, they get
ten wins. So yeah, no, anyways, all right, hey Wan,
thanks a whole bunch for being here. Appreciate that you're stepping in with
Steve out. We'll see if Steve will be back on Monday. In the
meantime, everybody have a great weekend. I'll be watching us open. All
the dads out there, who listen to us. Happy Father's Day. If
you get a chance, you'll spend it with your kids. Have a great
time. I'm going golfing tomorrow and then I'm laying down and watching the US
Open on Sunday. So thanks everybody for being here all week, Thanks to
all our guests, and we will see you on Monday.