This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jagan Zalaz on Fox Sports
fourteen fifty powered by Nova Insurance Services and Sure Your Most Prized Possessions, kat
z R two SAD and iHeartRadio Station. Hey, good afternoon, everybody.
Welcome to Eye on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve
Rivera. He's risen from the dead or from the bed. Jagan z ownce.
I'm here, Steve Bareley, but I'm here. I hope you are
you still in bed? Suld you rise from the bed. No, I'm
at my desk. I'm at my computer. I don't feel great about it,
but I'm here enough strength to get out of bed. Good, good,
good, And our guy was under control. We had a little scary
moment, but we're good. We're good. No one needs to know what
happened. But hey, welcome to where you go Adam where to help us
pull it together? Yeah? Gotcha? Welcome back, Jay. If you
faint, I'll call nine one one. Yeah, well you'll hear something like
you'll hear the microphone followers. Okay, well, welcome back. Here's a
Friday show. We have a pretty good show. We've been trying to get
Ray Wells on for a while, so he agreed to come on. He's
obviously with the with the collective, go ahead and explain. Yes, uh,
the the Desert Takeover collective that basically puts puts funds together for the football
team. It's a it's a collective that you know, we're we I guess
we believe and is involved in as much a whole bunch of things as it
relates to, you know, getting players some some ni L money, uh,
conceivably to give players an understanding of what's available to them if they decide
to come to Arizona or in most cases stay at Arizona. So that's that's
his job. He's a former player at Arizona, played in the Mike Stoops
era. You know, really smart guy. I'm interested to see just how
much things ramped up this year with n i L and you know, Jed
Fish leaving and how much work they had to do and what kind of what
they had to do. So it'll be an interesting conversation, right, Okay,
maybe you just can clarify some stuff with the international players, just just
randomly and the football team doesn't have any but we'll talk about you know,
in the in general form about the basketball, right, yeah, okay,
And then in the second hour, Javio Morales is gonna a step away from
a signing a sunny Sunnyside and talk to us about the high school playoffs.
There's a lot of stuff going on right now with school ends. A lot
of teams from southern Arizona are in the playoffs, so get caught up in
that. Yeah, so there's a yeah, a lot going on. The
softball and baseball playoffs are pretty deep. I think most of them are to
the quarterfinals by now, so we'll just see what all's going on. You've
also got track, I think this time of the year, so we'll just
see what what what's happening out there for the state championships, right, okay,
okay, well you've missed. What have you missed? Well? You
know, Okay, here's here's the thing. Because I was talking to Analys
today, texting her because she's headed to LA and wanted a couple of phone
numbers. Another reason why I don't like sports. Why I shouldn't say that
I'm I'm not a big fan, but I'm a fan. I just don't
have teams a fan not a fan of a team. Patrick Beverley, Oh
man, you know, Steve, these guys, I don't you know,
the the the entitlement that they have that they feel like any they can do
anything, and that's what that is, Like no, I can do whatever
I want and nobody can stop me. Kind of kind of guy. Now.
I know he came back and apologized today, which is fine, but
you know, want to treat a reporter like that, to treat a female
reporter like that, and then to treat a long time, well respected female
reporter like you don't follow my podcast, So I'm not going to answer your
questions. I think he should be kicked out of the league. I really
do. On top of throwing the ball at the at the fan, kick
him out of the league and say, okay, now, who are you
right? No, exactly, You're the second person that hears say that publicly.
I'm not wanting if they kick him out of the league, and even
for one year, his career is over because he'll be older, right,
and do you really want him? I've even heard you had a podcast that's
who cares? Right? One more? One more guy who I would never
want on any team, whether it's a basketball team, a public relations team,
a Tilly wings team, anything. I would never want. I would
never want to be around that guy, because that guys just a miserable person
making hundreds of millions of dollars and is figuring out a way to not be
happy. Well, here's the funny thing about it. The worst thing that
happened that night was not about the ESPN reporter. It was him engaged with
the throw the ball, not blind the balls, to throw the ball at
the fence twice. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. All those things add
up to me to, like you said, a one year suspension, which
basically means you're out of the league and then and then go off and let's
see what you do with the rest of your life. Patrick Beverley, I
really, Steve, When When when when people who have caught every break in
life to be in the position that he's in and then you do that with
it. I feel like it should be taken away from him, I really
do. They're not going to kick him out of the I mean it'll be
suspension. He'll get a suspension, Yeah, maybe a couple of games.
Steven doesn't I don't know. Okay, let's say he's suspended. Let's say
he gets a game suspension, so what so what what is that to him?
It's nothing to do. You think the jah Morant situation was worse than
what happened last night with Beverly because he only got twenty five. I don't
see Beverly what. He didn't engage with fans, right, he was more
self inflicted. Pardon pardon the expression. Yeah, so he was self inflicted.
This guy engaged with fans not once but twice, and then he laid
it on the ESPN. ESPN already said he's not going to be on any
any of our shows anymore. He's just done. So there's that with the
ESPN. Now with the fan, though, you start engaging and it wasn't
malice in the Palace or anything like that. It was it was dumb with
some rum or whatever. It was just Steve. It's it's in the neighborhood
though, because he essentially assaulted a fan in the seats. Yeah, not
once but twice, two different ones, Yes, two different ones. So
we'll see what happens with him. But there you go. Will you understand
me more when I see I'm not a fan of this or that it's because
of these dudes who make it not enjoy on me. Yeah, yeah,
you know, and and I mean, I don't know. The NBA has
got to be pulling its hair out over over something again. Okay, so
what somebody said, you better go apologize right now or you're gonna lose millions
of dollars. So we apologize. I don't believe he meant the apology.
I'll never believe he meant the apology. I'll never believe that he did it
on his own, you know, and that really bothers me. Yeah,
you guys who do that, you should, Yeah, you should. So
we'll see what happens with them. I didn't want to start the show that
way, but I just had the top of my head. So, you
know, here we go again with some guys that you know, malcontents paid
in the bucks. But Steve don't. If we don't say things, if
people don't say things, if there's no if there's tolerance for this, then
it continues to happen. And it does continue to happen even though guys do
get punished, and so it seems to me the punishments are never enough.
Yeah, so we'll see what happens it's gonna take a week or two before
they sort this whole thing out. So here we go. Well, here
we are at the beginning of the show. It's a Friday. Like we
said, a lot of stuff going on baseball tonight. We talked about that
yesterday, and so what's what's going on in your world, your thoughts?
Well, tennis is going on right now, the Arizona men's tennis and the
NCUBA tournament. They got the doubles point, which is a very big deal
because they play three doubles matches and whoever wins two of them gets one point
on the way to trying to get four. So they got they got the
double spoints. And I win three singles matches to win to win this first
round match against Boise State. Yeah, okay, In fact, I just
got a text. You're gonna be with us all day, right, but
you're gonna be on the phone. You have to tell people you're not in
studio. Jonathan Peerlman just texting me if he can come on maybe about three
forty to talk about his big start of this weekend. Won't take that long,
so I'll say yes, absolutely, Yeah, yeah, we can get
him on the phone. Yeah. What else was there to Jonathan? Yeah,
I know, And there's been a lot of changes at the FC,
a lot of changes, So we'll talk to you. He needs to promote
this weekend's event. There's a lot of stuff going on in this town.
I know that the before made the fourth be with you down at tp FC
Tucson. A big fight tomorrow with Canelo and and uh and and de la
Hoya. That would be a great fight, would it be? Uh?
Yes? Have you seen some of that Sugar Skulls are the sugar Skulls are
home with this weekend? We hardly mentioned them. Wow? Wow. So
there's a lot of things going on in tu soon. Graduation ends this week.
You know. An unfortunate thing today and I don't want to say this
from breaking news. One of our guests we just had on was let go
a Channel four. Yes. Yeah, And the thing about it is we
know a lot of those people there. Yeah, yeah, with Ryan Reynoldson,
right, Matt Reynoldson, Matt Reynoldson, our friend Miles Standers from you
know, worked with for years at the paper. Lapito Morio is quote unquote
retiring. And then a guy named al mazeke back about a few issues ago.
kVA. They I think last year was their seventy fifth anniversary, so
biz Tucson. We did a story on them, you know, going through
seventy five years. And Al Mazeka, who's one of the backroom guys right
but started way back in the seventies. I interviewed him and he's one of
the people laid off. So just you know, a getting people, you
know, a good group of people that got you know that. It's just
one of those unfortunate things that happen. It's all over the place, right
and again at k AWAY. I also wanted to say I posted somewe I
mean Matt Reynoldson just got there in October. I know, I know young
dude who's pretty good at what he does, and now he is no longer.
I wanted to say, I don't know if you saw my post today
on my Facebook page about yesterday it was our four year anniversary. I did,
I did. Sorry, I missed it. What's our four year like
paper? You could brobb me, you could beat me a piece of paper.
I'm really sorry I missed it. I missed it, but it did.
I didn't feel good yesterday. I brought brought I brought cake. We
all ate it, so no worry about it. Don't worry about it,
okay. But a lot of good stuff going on. Obviously we're still here
after all these years. We hope to continue. Obviously it's going to be
a dry summer. I was already ready for the dry summer. So okay,
the fourth anniversary is supposed to be fruit flowers or appliances, So fruitt
me a toaster or something I do good. I did bring in pineapple today,
so sorry, okay, I'll remember that fifty. We'll have to worry
about number five now. But okay, what else? What else is going
on in town? All this the events are going on, football, just
watching, just watching the stuff. You know, we keep watching the transfer
portal pile up with people. Now there's an a s U receiver who's looking
at Arizona. Elijah Badger. Uh uh saw something from Justin Spears that Kevin
Green is visiting Washington, Washington today, So uh, Jed Fish trying to
snatch one out of here at the last minute. But if you know,
when if aj Green leaves and Elijah Badger comes, you're you're breaking even pretty
much. Maybe you're doing even better. I don't know, because Badger was
a SU's best receiver last year. Yeah, so we'll see what happens with
all that, uh and uh and more. Maybe I think the window closed,
right, the window closed. Now they just got yeah not yeah,
you can't get into the portal now, you're you know you can you you
can go somewhere, but you're not in the portal, right, okay.
And you saw that, you saw that the u A as making their rounds.
Now they went to Phoenix yesterday. I think it was for the caravan
or van tour. I think there's an event here on Tuesday, right,
and then they go to Yuma and they go somewhere else. I think I'm
not too sure where, maybe flag stuff to go show who they are,
make an appearance. Yeah, so I was I was flat on my back
and didn't get get to hear. But did did you get some nice tips
for the Kentucky I did? D was fantastic, D yesterday, D was
fantastic and and I gotta, I gotta, you better listen to D's picks
by Doug. You know her dad, So of course Dad's gonna come in
and say, I think I liked a couple over picks. I think the
Oaks just went off. I think the Oaks went off, so I wanted
to see how that went. I didn't make a bet on it, so
we'll see. And it's gonna be wet. And it's wet. It rained
today, yeah, rain tomorrow. Yeah yeah. I flipped the channel earlier
today and I saw that it was pretty muddy. So we'll see what it
looks like tomorrow. Okay, yeah, so and we didn't I what's your
name never returned my call, Richard, so I might ask to still get
his his sheet to see what happened. What do you yeah, yeah,
okay, yeah, we have about a minute and a half. Yeah,
So anyways, like I said, just uh, you know, just kind
of paying as much attention to stuff, you know, watching the playoffs over
and over again. You know, I'm just watching a lot of baseball over
here. It's been awful to be sick this last few days. Yeah yeah,
okay, those starts. Stop eating those bad burritos. You know,
it's I wish it's all it was. I've had a lot of ramen and
crackers and Ritchie sentence. So it sounds like your student, I mean,
uh, Adam here is like saying, God, I wish I had that
to you now that okay, Hey, let's take a break. It's about
forty five seconds left and then we'll get a hold of mister ray wells.
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your free evaluation today. Steve Rivera and Jacon Salaz they have their eye on
the ball on Tucson Sports. Stay hif Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. Hey,
welcome back to Whying the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. I'm Steve
Rivera. He's Jacon Zewas. Now we have way wells from the Desert Takeover
Collective. How are you, Ray, I'm doing well. How are you
guys doing today? We're doing well. Jay is remote, so his questions
might be delayed. But Ray, I'm wondering. You're always busy, right,
You're trying to get money, You're trying to get this people to join
in. Is it more busy now given that people are jumping ship and coming
back and coming in at this time? You know what? It? Really?
I think that's just the nature of college football in general now that it's
turned into year round recruiting in some ways, and so while coaches are recruiting,
collectives are constantly trying to find new and innovative ways to to really find
like an il deals for players and also just to be able to meet and
talk with donors and try and find new sources of revenue. So so right,
you know, Ray, I'm I'm remote, so I'm calling from I'm
in from home. But anyways, was it was this year though? It
seemed to us like there was a lot more chaos this year, if mainly
partly for Arizona because of the coaching change and that kind of thing. Did
you find yourselves, you know, even busier doing stuff because you know,
trying to make sure that players knew what was available to them and that kind
of thing. Did it seem more chaotic this year than maybe the last couple
of years. Absolutely? I think you hit on the head with with Jeff
Fish leaving to go to Washington. What that did was it actually allowed players
at thirty window where they could transfer. So typically during the school year there
are two transfer windows, one in December and then one in the spring.
We just actually closed the spring transfer portal. It's fifteen days in April,
but there's an extra stipulation in that if your coach needs and goes from the
school, players have the option to have a thirty day window. So where
most schools only have to deal with two transfer windows, Arizona unfortunately had to
deal with three. But I think there was some good that came out of
that one. We had awesome young men that chose to stay and make two
sonam at the University of Arizona their home and have a chance to build a
legacy here. You had tons of players, whether it was was Gun or
Maldonado and Trading Sukes, Noah t mac all these guys they bonded together and
the band of brothers that they stay here and want to build them in,
especially University of Arizona. But we also saw a huge wave of support from
the Arizona in the Tucson community in terms of financial support for the program.
I think that was those two things were huge for us this year. So
it helps us to really navigate a lot of the chaos and calm it down.
And I have to say for me, you know, I've been a
part of the collective for a little over a year now. We actually have
an awesome advisory board that has done that. It steps up huge. That
membership has grown in the last five six months. Where there used to be
maybe one or two dollars that were heavily involved with it, now we're in
a situation where we have they're more like ten to twelve. There are a
dozen members there that are actively working to help the collective. Well, you
know, Ray, I'm an older guy, both of us are. I
really don't like the nil I know you can't avoid it. Anymore. But
I'm all for the guys getting money. I'm fine with that. I'm curious
if and you don't have to give me then example or the I'm not asking
for that. But if Steve Rivera was a pretty good play, are coming
in from somewhere and I said, ray, Okay, guys, I think
I'm pretty good. This is what I deserve. Quarter of a million,
half a million, blah blah blah. Do they have that much power to
say this is what I want? Well, I will say this, I
don't know if power is the best way to put it. There are some
players that are out there that have that amount of leverage. It's no different
than it always has been. A five star quarterback that could be a program
changer, a star receiver, defensive back, tackle, whatever it is.
There are gonna be those special and those rare players that, yeah, the
leverage is there because you know they can make an immediate impact in your program
and they can be a serious game changer for you. So those players,
Yes, I think what has gotten a little a little out of whack is
that you have players. We have a rating system, right, there's five
star, four or three all the way down to the you know two a
one star, And what's happened now with nil is you have uh, guys
that typically we're just happy to have a roster spot saying hey, I'm a
three star, I'm becoming and work my way up and do my deal.
I think you now have like two star players saying well, I want thirty
forty grand to come play for your school, And it's like, well,
no, you know, the market, the market kind of dictate what you
get, and you know, depending on where you are on that scale,
you know, between a one star and a five star determines your value and
your leverage and so but if you're a five star quarterback that has the potential
to be a Hypman Trophy winner, you have a little more leverage. Okay,
So, having having said that, when when when does the line cross
where an athlete who's looking for some nil money goes from getting it from the
collective to going directly with somebody like Humberto Lopez, who we had on our
show and who told us that he's he's got a relationship with tam Ac,
has a contract with him tact. You know, he's paying team Act to
do certain things. Where does that where does that take place? And how
does that take place? And do you work with boosters like Umberto and others
who might be providing or have resources for the players. How does that all
work together? So that's that actually is the the that's actually the genesis of
what NIL should be. There should be individuals student athletes that are working with
businesses and companies to use their name, image and likeness to promote that business
while also being compensated for it. So what we do in that different situations
and literally I just had it's funny you mentioned that player. We had some
contract stuff out that on Berto Lopez was helping us with and what we do
is just help to make sure all the tea's across and all the eyes are
dotted, that we're in compliance with everything, to make sure that that everyone's
doing what they need to do to make sure these players don't have any issues
in terms of rule breaking. So that's kind of are involved there. We've
had some other deals where companies, local business owners have wanted to do deals
and the players can do direct deals. We have things do as selective and
we kind of help out to make sure we manage the process for them to
make sure, like I said, everything is done properly. But in I
l in its truest rare. His truest form should be players making deals kind
of one on with a local business to be able to market that particular business
and to be able to be compensated for it. The good. But let
let me let's go, Steve. Let Steve, let me let me real
quick. Let me give you an example. Let's say you got a player
who thinks he's worth X and he comes to you and you say, we
can only give you this and it's not what he's looking for. Do you
help him find somebody that might get him X? Or do you try and
hook him up with somebody? You know, That's what I'm trying to get
at. How does it work? How do they get that relationship with somebody
who might be able to do a little more than maybe the collective can do.
That's I think those are just rare and unique situations, Okay, And
it depends. It really just depends on the player. I think. You
know, if it's like I said, if it's someone that's impactful, then
yeah, there might be someone that can that's an additional a phone call it
needs to be made, or we can say, hey, does anyone have
a deal that would be able to accommodate this. But that all I think
what's happened now with the NCAA and then the recent rules about whether or not
because in the past, and I just say this up until let's say,
two months ago, in the last two months, with all the things that
happened with NCAAA, the state of Tennessee, State of Virginia still in the
NCAA and basically getting an injunction pass where collectives can now offer potential recruits deals
and things of that nature. We really haven't gotten into a lot of that,
so it's like, here's the deal, you can take it or leave
it. But that was kind of our space to what we did. So
now we're in a situation where we can kind of expand that a little bit
more, but we're still very cautious about that because you want to have players
that want to be here, because they want to come to University Arizona,
they want to be good football players, they want to be developed, they
want to be a part of something special. You don't want someone that's tasing
dollars and if that's your only goal is to come here and get money.
We actually have to be a little bit cautious because you may decide, hey,
I don't want to be here because they're not paying me enough, and
then not transfer and so you know, it's a balancing act and it's not
I wouldn't say that this dicey, but it's definitely getting harder to find the
genuine article and those students that are like, hey, I just want a
little bit of money now, but I want to play football the money now.
That's very tough. I mean, that's tough. It's funny to me
give you this example. So about about three weeks ago or a month ago,
I saw one of my colleagues in the college Basketbaorld tweets something saying that
the portal is going to be jumping pretty soon because one the final payment on
nil deals are coming in. So Joe Blow gets paid March fifteenth or whatever,
and then then that's his last payment and then he jumps. How sad
is that? How sad is that? You know what? It's really sad.
But again, some of these these hulawsuits against the NCAA are actually helping
with that, because there was I mean, I'll give you the best example
that was out there that happened recently was the young man, the offensive lineman
who transferred from the University of Alabama to Iowa, was there for like a
month or two, got a nice little pay day, and then chance back
to Alabama. So the original rule for the NCAAAA was that you could not
you couldn't have language and contract in il contracts that that specified that a student
ap was tied to a suit of students enrollment. So for example, you
know, we had a contract that says, hey, you'd have to be
a member of the University of Arizona. We go to school at University of
Arizona and be a part of football team in order to be able to have
this deal be balid. Well, the NCAA put the kibosh on that and
said, no, you can't do that because that's basically the essentially pay for
play. Well, in response to that, there were some lawsuits saying,
well, you have student athletes. The NCAA allowed student athletes to transfer whenever
they want it. So you have kids that are going to two different schools
and getting nil deals and getting paid, which it wasn't right for the collective
or this student athlete legitimately was paid based on where they were. That rule
has subsequently been removed, so now collectives have the ability to say no,
you know what, you're not here anymore if we can determine your contract.
Now there's a little more nuanced in the language and the contract. But now
we have a situation where collectives or will have a little bit more protection for
student athletes to just take money and run. I think you've got job security
for a long time, you know what I mean. But it happens.
And what's sad about it is is that a lot of collectives. Now there
were some collectic that we're doing year long contract but because of the way the
transfer portal works now they've had to break up their contracts, which is what
we do. So our contracts are pretty much scheduled. There's two different contracts
in the year, and it's around the transfer portal. So any compensation that
a student athlete earned from GES a takeover, theybel that's completed whatever work is
required and that time frame. So they are do their compensation, but we
make sure we have some safeguards in places that we're not paying someone who has
the potential to walk out of the door with a large checks. Jay,
let me ask one another quick question, and I hope you can answer this.
Ray. Let's say, and I'll use Bollows as an example. Okay,
he's an international guy. He worked for an ac company or whatever.
I'm not sure how that works. Now he leaves, how is that international
thing taking care of? We get conflicting reports of how it actually works because
you're not supposed to work if you're an international player. So that's international players.
It is a little bit of a tricky deal. And so I'm not
familiar with with Lumar's contract and how it all worked out, so I don't
want to speak too much on it. I would just say for our for
our football players that are our international players, you have you can't We basically
adhere to that they can't work because they're not US citizens and there's a clause
to how we work in our contract. So we basically have passive income for
them, where they're literally strictly getting paid for their likeness and their image,
which keeps us in compliance. But we don't have to really worry about it.
I mean, Blumars. Like I said, I don't know all the
ins and outs of it, so I don't want to speak to it.
I just know how we do it for our international players. I think right
now we have two and maybe picking up a third. Well, okay,
Jay, you have another one or I have another one. I think,
yeah, go ahead. And I just and I just lost that thought.
I think it was in basketball football. No, it'll come to me,
though, It'll come to me old on. No, right, here we
go, here, we go so many times. And you've been doing this
for more than a year now. And everybody, let's say Steve Rivera again,
jumps played for Arizona, love, loved it here, got paid,
you know, maybe fifty thousand or whatever, but didn't play that much.
He jumps to he jumps to Colorado or whatever, and and everyone the first
thing that everyone says, well, he's going to get the bag. Now.
Sometimes it's not about the bag. Do you see that happening when it's
not about the bag? Absolutely, I think there's there are situations that it's
still college football, right. And then why the transfer portal originally started was
you had you had athletes that were you know, you're you go to a
school, but hey, now you're fourth on a depth chart and you want
an opportunity to play, and that opportunity may be presented itself for another university,
so that helps. And I think that's still the case. You know,
good players that go into the portal are going to command. Like I
said, we talked about leverage earlier, there's still gonna be that leverage for
really, you know, all American are all confidence players, but there are
a lot of There are a lot of young men that aren't looking for a
pay, They're looking for an opportunity to play and just get on the field.
And so you know, those are the ones. I can give you
a great example of that that recently happened. Now he's had since left,
but uh, you know last year an example of that for us was the
defensive tackle Good Lord, knock that nigg of his name. I'm contagious,
It's contagious. We forget stuff all the time. Oh my goodness, what
is my man's name? To be transferred here? Because he was bold and
deep, start will an opportunity to play you know, more downs, Bill
Bill Norton, Okay, Bill, because he wanted to play, he you
know, be an every down player, which he wasn't at the University of
Georgia. And it really and I can say this, you know, in
all honesty for him, that young man was was a pleasure to work with
and he was grateful for anything that he any type of complication that came his
way, But it was really about the opportunity. And I think even with
him transferring, he I think he's ten transferred on to UT often. He's
gone back to one following our former deacon, the coordinator, Giant Ant,
and I think, you know, it's just the new coaching staff wasn't necessarily
a fit for him. But it wasn't about the money. Yeah, they're
probably going to offer him something, but for him, I know that kid
personally, it's not about the money. With him, it's literally about football
and the opportunity. Yeah, okay, well yeah, you know U is
it crazy? Did you know what you were getting into? Yeah? Because
because it's evolved, I mean just just in the last year. I would
say this when I started. Just in the last year, the NCAA has
made a couple of rule changes. One with then you know the unlimited transfer
rule. Kids just transfer as many times as they want. That makes things
very difficult, and it also makes it different goo for coaches because you are
in a constant battle to recruit basically inside your own four walls. It's not
just going out and finding kids. And you know, whether it's in a
transfer portal or doing high school recruiting, you have to be on top of
it every single day within your own building, which you take me for the
collectives, we have to be on our toes because there might be somebody that's
trying to stick their toe in the water to leave, which we have to
be be fully aware of that. Like I said, it's the safeguard not
setting up some opportunity for a young man that's going to leave. So well
that's that, go ahead, stave no, no, go ahead, you
go well, well that's the thing, right, is that it's changed.
It changes so much almost on a daily basis. You know, one day
we're hearing, well it's this, and then you're no, it's not really
that, it's this. And how that's got to be the hardest thing of
all is that not knowing from day to day what you're dealing with. You
know what, there was a stretch there, We had a stretch out I
want to say January February where there were like a ton of memost flying around
and things happening. But it's still but what are we do from our company
from a Blueprints four standpoint, it's like, hey, we're going to stay
steady on the path that we know to be tried and true, and you
know, all those things are going to happen, and we'll adjust when we
need to and we make kind of micro adjustments as we go along. But
our focus is like, hey, we know this what we do, we
know what works, and we're going to say steady on that. We'll make
the adjustments as necessary. But I think if you have a solid plan in
place, no matter what's going on around you, you still focus on your
process and that helps kind of keep you. It keeps you stable and always
moving in a positive direction if you're constantly changing with the wind every time it
blows. And this business is going to take you everywhere and you're gonna end
up nowhere. And so for us, we kind of like what we do
across I think Blueprint now we have like twenty seven properties throughout all the Power
fives or Color four four and a half or whatever we're calling it these days,
because you know, the Pac twelve is pretty much done. But yeah,
it's there's a lot of happening, but this but the basis of what
nil is has not changed, and I think we as long as you say
we stay true to that, we're going to be okay. Well, Ray,
we love this segment with you because we find out a lot of new
things, old things. Appreciate get on the road. We got to get
out of here too, have a be safe, have fun. Yeah,
you know what I just want to before I go, I want to say
I'm actually hit up to Phoenix for my moil service for heap Ray through Wildcat
who recently passed away. So we're actually going to celebrate his life tonight.
There's probably going to be one hundred couple hundred wildcats and attendance, and just
want to give a shout out eastcast Ray and his family. There will always
be in our prayers and guys, we definitely lost a good wildcat and the
true guy. Yes, so I'm definitely headed up to that one, but
I definitely wanted to give a shout out and just say, you know,
prayer for his family, Thank you, Thank you. Ray, got Buman's
happening now, appreciate that. We'll talk more on the other side. We're
running late, but what a great segment here. If you're an Arizona men's
basketball fan, you know it's been successful for nearly forty years. Now take
a look back at the Ludolsen era. In my new book, Lessons from
Loot, it was a labor of love through the eyes of twenty 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 Loot is an insight
to how he built the program into a national powerhouse. What one email me
at Steve dot RIVERA ninety five at gmail dot com. Hi, this is
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four eight or Picture Rockschooling dot com, Jicks Fox Coming Tucson. It's Centurion
time. May the fourth be with you the Great Death Star Infiltration Celebration Join
us on May fourth at Tucson Convention Center. The annual Centurions event is featuring
Smash mouth. Hey, now, yeah, and I'll stop. Joined us
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Proceeds benefit TMC for Children, Courtney's Courage, Candlelighters, Childhood Cancer Foundation,
and Assistance League. Get your tickets and sponsorships online at the Centurions dot
com. That's the Centurions dot com. Steve Rivera and Jake and Salez.
They have their Eye on the ball on Tucson Sports Big Chef Fox Sports fourteen
fifty streaming live. I'm the iHeartRadio. Wapp Hey, welcome back to I
on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve. He's Jay.
You've got to Adam with us today. Got about ten minutes. We
gotta like to call. I really like talking to Ray because you find out
more and more of what's going on and just how things work. I'll tell
you what for the for the chaos that it looks like from here right from
where we sit, yeah, it looks really every all the nil stuff looks
really chaotic. It doesn't seem that chaotic to hear him talk about it.
Right. They're just going They they stay up on the rules, they pay
attention to what's going on? And then they just do the work and you
gotta you gotta give a lot of credit for that. I was gonna wait
for our next time to ask you this question because we were running late.
But okay, your your dad, I'm a dad. I'm sure raise a
dad too. So you have a deep pocket, or even have a medium
pocket. Your kids want to go to Disneyland and you only have a thousand
dollars budget, but you have four kids, your wife and you. You
only have so much money, right, so you have to say, well,
Jimmy, we can't go unless someone else doesn't go or whatever. So
at some point in the budget unless the reason it's a revolving budget, who
knows that? What about it just going empty at some point because you have
so many kids asking for money, money, you know what I'm saying.
Where let's say you're but you have four million, or you have four million,
and you have one hundred people on the roster, and you have important
people you want to get and some important people you want to keep. That
only goes so far. Yeah, I mean, because even if even if
you have your own means, even if you've got money, right, you
still want money, you know, if you're good. Well, you know,
let's say, okay, okay, let's say let's say your Charlie Woods,
right, you're going to college. Your dad's got all the money in
the world. You still want a college scholarship, and you still want some
nil for what you bring in value to the university that you're playing for.
Let's say he goes to Stanford like his dad, Right, he's gonna want
to say, he's gonna he's gonna say, well, I'm not, you
know, you're getting something from me, So I'm not, I mean for
free, even though my dad's got all the money on the planet. Right,
So then you got to tell the other kid who doesn't it was like
happy to have a Stafford scholarship. Well, we got to give Charlie,
Charlie Woods some money, but we can't give you any even though Charlie Woods,
you know, has plenty of money to to, you know, to
go with. Unless that kid says, you know what, I'm good,
I don't need it, give it to somebody else for the good of the
team. How often you're gonna run into that, right? Well, actually
I saw that happen just recently somewhere last week where where kids were making so
much money that they said, never mind, I don't need the money.
I'm good because I'm making a lot of money here. I don't need a
scholarship because I'm making enough money here. I can't remember, I'd have to
google it. I'm sure it's very rare jay like you said, but you
know it's not the norm. That's certainly not the sure. No, No,
it's it's it's a weird deal on it. And I couldn't throw any
numbers out like what Baala was supposedly getting. I mean, because that money
just seems absurd to me, just so much for one dude, one guy.
In order to find out how much he's getting, you have to find
out who's getting it from, and then they have to want to tell you,
right. Well, the funny thing about it, last week I saw
the commercial that he's on it's a AC company, and he was still on
the on the old commercial, and I said, that's weird. He's gone
and we all know he's gone, and they still run the commercial. I
guess. Just last night I saw the same same TV show or whatever it
was, and he was no longer and they said, well, the big
guy's gone. Now you have to get to do what we do. So
they've taken him off the commercial. Yeah yeah, yeah, Well, well
we've seen where commercials run after a shout an event, run after the event
just forget to unplug it because they're laying off people at the TV station or
whatever. Right, that was a cheap shot, sorry, which is not
myself unbelievable. Yeah yeah, okay, yeah, but it's it's a it's
a fascinating thing. You know. I can't I can't decide if I would
want to be involved in that or not which part because be it to say,
work with Ray Wells and working in a in a collective, you know,
I don't know. I mean it's like I don't know. I guess
I would have a hard time to go fund raising. Give me your hard
earned money so I can give it to this kid. Oh yeah yeah,
no, no sales. It's it's a difficult and then and then that's your
pitch, and that's your pitch. I mean, it's one thing when you're
asking for money to build a building or something like that. You know,
here you can put your name on this building if you throw in X amount.
But well, we need this quarterback really bad, so I would like
to see if you can maybe give us a million or so. You really
love Arizona, right, you graduated in eighty two, right, you want
to see them win? Right, You don't exactly, So it's it's got
to be I don't know, you would be unerving to me. But I've
never been. I've never been an asked for money kind of guy, even
though I've worked on a million boards and things like that in the past.
And but see when you're raising money for that, you're raising money for a
good cost Say it's a good costs. You know, here's many for kids
or whatever. When you're saying I got to give this kid some money so
that he can, you know, take his girl out on a date,
reistically, it's not about that. It's some days keeping here, keeping it
here, right right, right? You know he needs a really nice car,
so it would love for you to give us some money so he can
do that, right Or since uh, you have cars in that lot over
there, couldn't you just sign given Yeah? Yeah, By the way,
there's insurance to be paid, so get ahold of an insuranceation. Yeah,
exactly, exactly. I don't know, man, I don't know. But
it's a crazy it's the craziness of all this. And again again it all
goes back to the fact that they let it get away from him. They
didn't make any rules that were that could be supported by the law. Right,
And now it's it's just this this chaos out there, and that's I
keep calling it that because that's what it is. It's total chaos, right,
right, And the cass is now going to get curtailed until at least
another while some more can the courts finish it. I guess I saw an
article that you know this this this lawsuit where where the athletes are trying to
get back pay. Right, it's supposedly in the billions of dollars. You've
heard about this lawsuit. No, no, no, I don't know how
far back. Oh yeah, there's this lawsuit out there where you've got somebody
sooning and saying they want back pay for all these athletes and it's in the
billions. And I guess I read something today that said that that if that
were to come to fruition, that the NC double A would have to cough
up the billions of dollars for that because the schools don't have it. Sure,
but that they say the NC Double A does have it, you know,
with all the money they bring in from you know, the NCAA basketball
tournament and whatnot. But yeah, no, Steve, there's a there's a
lawsuit out there demanding back pay for these athletes. How they would determine who
gets what and how much I don't know, but a lot that A lot
of people think they're gonna win. Wow, it sounds like they could because
they were. They're winning well as you would get you in and at least
would say they have winning everything. They have momentum inies. You don't know.
They're about to They're about to run rule the n C Double A,
Yeah they really are. N C Double A will cease to exist after a
little while. But you know what I was thinking to over the last few
days, obviously with the with the protest going on a campus uh in Columbia
u CLA, blah blah blah, and they're talking about the schools having to
pay for security and clean up and all that. Arizona has to deal with
that too. Right, here's a school that's already indebted to a lot of
things. Here's some more piling on. There's more stuff that you didn't expect.
Right, that wasn't in the budget. That was not in the budget.
No, no, they don't. I don't think they put protest expenses
in the budget. JR. Ce Junior. This is why we cannot go
to Disneyland, go to the like. It's like you're yeah, you wreck
the car and I did not put the I did not put the deductible in
the bank. So that swimming pool, we have a crosses the public swimming
pool. That's where we're going to the summer. So here we are.
Okay, So we got about two minutes. We can't take any calls.
It's too late now. And we have a lot of breaking news, right
because I know that mister pro guy here will talk about things that. Yeah,
we got some NBA playoffs stuff coming, don't we We have some playoffs,
We have some u A stuff involved in the NBA, A lot of
things going on football. How How about I don't know if this is going
to be breaking, but how about TJ McConnell last night? Oh he was
fantastic, really good. He went off. Yeah, he went off.
In fact, somebody who knows I follow him, you know the former guys.
He says, wow, he TJ is pretty goodness as well. He's
probably the second best guard since Biby if not, Yeah, he's the best
guard since Baby Baby. Yeah. Yeah, I would say he's the best
point guards and Didny it's certainly the one that did most for the team.
Now you look at him and you think, yeah, well, you know,
from a talent standpoint and all that, but in terms of the way
the team was run by the point guard, sure, yeah, well,
I don't know how you believed or what you believed. When Sean, when
he was coming out of school, when TJ was coming, he says,
Oh, he's just gonna make the team. He's gonna make a team,
and we're all like, I know, he's got to support his guy.
He's going to be and we're thinking, there's no way. And almost ten
years later, he's he's still going at a high level. He is.
He's one of the best, very high level. Yeah, I would say,
I would say he's one of the best backup guards in the league.
I mean, if you talk about Phoenix, they could have absolutely used the
guy like him. And don't you think if you want a point guard,
that's the kind of point guard you want. Yeah, do it all plays
hard, great defense, makes other people better, right yeah yeah, Okay,
Jay, we got about forty five seconds. We'll take the break and
then come BacT with breaking news and then have your I will be here next hour