Speaker 1: All right, let's get at dry times. Thursday afternoon, fourteen
Speaker 1: minutes past the hour of two o'clock, we are looking
Speaker 1: at a spectacular Utah April day. Outside, we're tracking towards
Speaker 1: seventy seventy two degrees. It is clear and sunny here
Speaker 1: in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. Happy Thursday to you,
Speaker 1: and as it is every single day, it's going to
Speaker 1: have you along for the riots fence check. It's beyond
Speaker 1: the Mike Porter Larsen, beyond the glass, producing and booking
Speaker 1: the program today, jam packed guest list, a lot of
Speaker 1: different topics. It's not just a beautiful day in Salt
Speaker 1: Lake City, Utah. It is a beautiful day in Augusta, Georgia,
Speaker 1: where Justin Rose is having himself a day.
Speaker 2: He leads the Masters right now.
Speaker 1: He's six under par through thirteen holes in the clubhouse.
Speaker 1: Scottie Scheffler part of is sixty eight for four under par.
Speaker 2: A lot of our really fun storylines already.
Speaker 1: The Canadian Corey Connors is also in the clubhouse with
Speaker 1: a sixty eight four under par Terrell Hatton. He's through
Speaker 1: eighteen as well, sixty nine to three under par Rory McElroy's.
Speaker 2: Three under through ten.
Speaker 1: A lot of people believe this is going to be
Speaker 1: the Scotty and the Rory show, and both those two
Speaker 1: golfers number one and number two in the world are
Speaker 1: living up to the billing.
Speaker 2: As of now.
Speaker 1: Freddy Kupples, at the age of sixty one, hold out
Speaker 1: for an eagle and he is tied for fourteenth.
Speaker 2: At one under par.
Speaker 1: Keeping an eye on, of course, our local golfer Tony Fenow.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately I'm scrolling down I don't see Tony's name yet.
Speaker 1: Tony three over seventy five today.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: I hate to say it, but that's gonna be tough
Speaker 1: to come back from.
Speaker 2: Certainly be able.
Speaker 1: To make the cut, but will he have anything to
Speaker 1: say about this come Sunday.
Speaker 2: That's tough.
Speaker 1: Mike Weir, who's from Canada, not Draper, also three over
Speaker 1: today and he's in the club basket with a seventy five.
Speaker 1: Phil Nicholson with a seventy five as well. And we'll
Speaker 1: keep you up to date on the scoreboard as the
Speaker 1: eighty ninth playing of the Master Tournament Augusta, Georgia Augusta
Speaker 1: National Golf Club is underway. After the par three yesterday
Speaker 1: really fun day. So do a little golf on the show.
Speaker 1: I'll keep you up to date on the leader board.
Speaker 1: Utah Jazz gotta win last night. I don't know why.
Speaker 1: Uh no point, but ultimately a couple of big shots
Speaker 1: and overtime from Keante George allowed the Jazz to beat
Speaker 1: the Blazers one thirty three to one twenty six. They
Speaker 1: honored the longtime PA voice of the Jazz, Dan Roberts, who,
Speaker 1: after forty six years and over twenty one hundred games,
Speaker 1: is Colina quits. His final game will be on Friday,
Speaker 1: as Oklahoma City is in town and the Jazz limping
Speaker 1: towards the finish line. Uh, you know, the lost last
Speaker 1: night or the win last night doesn't do a ton
Speaker 1: to the lottery odds. We'll walk you through those coming
Speaker 1: up in just a little bit. And I'm sure for
Speaker 1: a team that is. I think they were one and
Speaker 1: twenty in their prior twenty one games, with only three
Speaker 1: or four wins since the All Star break. Simply remembering
Speaker 1: what it's like to win a basketball game may have
Speaker 1: been good for these young players. Kyle Philipowski with thirty points,
Speaker 1: eighteen boards, five assists, three steals. That's a ridiculous stat line.
Speaker 1: He was thirteen or seventeen from the floor. So we'll
Speaker 1: do some jazz basketball, we'll do some NBA basketball in
Speaker 1: the program today. Interesting scenes in Dallas last night as
Speaker 1: Luka Doncic was in tears during the introductions as the
Speaker 1: Lakers were in Dallas to take on the MAVs.
Speaker 2: And then he had a cool.
Speaker 1: Forty five eight and six forty five points, eight board,
Speaker 1: six assists as the Lakers beat the Mavericks one twelve
Speaker 1: to ninety seven. So we'll get to some NBA storylines
Speaker 1: on the program today. The Nuggets won their first game
Speaker 1: with Dave Adelman on the sidelines and not Michael Malone,
Speaker 1: won twenty four to one sixteen. And we are high
Speaker 1: speed ahead of the playoffs. Playoff basketball, and the NBA
Speaker 1: is still great. The regular season can be certainly a
Speaker 1: little rough, and we've got some big games tonight on
Speaker 1: the Pro Basketball Slate. The Knicks are in Detroit to
Speaker 1: take on the Pistons, the Cavs will take on the Pacers,
Speaker 1: and a big one out West as the Timberwolves and
Speaker 1: the Grizzlies will do.
Speaker 2: Battle at the Grindhouse.
Speaker 1: The FedEx form in Memphis Tennessee because there are still
Speaker 1: several questions about what the seeding is going to look like,
Speaker 1: teams trying to avoid the play in and honestly, teams
Speaker 1: trying to avoid the eight spot because Oklahoma City is
Speaker 1: just that good. So some NBA basketball on the program today.
Speaker 1: Utah football about halfway through springball, a couple of practices
Speaker 1: this week. I think they've got four practices next week,
Speaker 1: and then it is the Forever twenty two game coming
Speaker 1: up on Saturday, April nineteenth. Utah Utes dot com is
Speaker 1: where you go for tickets. They new hire was made
Speaker 1: by Alex Jensen and the Utah coaching staff. We'll let
Speaker 1: you know who that is and talk about it on
Speaker 1: the show. And of course the latest with BYU throwing
Speaker 1: money all over the place to attract talent to play
Speaker 1: for their basketball team. Matt Gan fortunately was cut today
Speaker 1: Napolis Colts after a very successful stint with the Rams.
Speaker 2: He was given the richest contract.
Speaker 1: In the history of kickers via free agency, and after
Speaker 1: two years, with two years left on his deal, the
Speaker 1: Colts cut former mat Gator Day. So we are also
Speaker 1: high speed ahead of the NFL Draft and about a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks away from that, Raal salt Lake is
Speaker 1: on the road taking on Nashville on Saturday. It's six
Speaker 1: thirty Mountain time. We'll do a little RS on the
Speaker 1: program after Tommy Boger reported yesterday that RSL is in
Speaker 1: talks with a striker, European striker. So we'll do some
Speaker 1: RS on the program as well today. All right, Lock
Speaker 1: going on, Lock going on. So our first guest right
Speaker 1: out of the gates will be a good friend of
Speaker 1: the show who we haven't caught up with in quite
Speaker 1: some time, Amy Donaldson. Amy Donaldson, our friend from KSL.
Speaker 1: Then it's Dave mcminnamon, who claims he's not a celebrity reporter.
Speaker 2: You can fool me.
Speaker 1: After all the TV time Dave got last night for
Speaker 1: the Lakers MAVs game. The head coach of RSL, Pablo
Speaker 1: Mastro and he stops buying the four o'clock hour, and
Speaker 1: then the eventsive coordinator and head coach and waiting for
Speaker 1: the Utah Youth Football program, Morgan Scalley, will join us
Speaker 1: right off the top of the hour at five o'clock.
Speaker 2: Today, we're going to squeeze a little sports court with.
Speaker 1: Our friends over at Handy and Handy so a jam
Speaker 1: pack program on this Thursday afternoon as we inch closer
Speaker 1: and closer to the weekend, but this springtime weather certainly
Speaker 1: putting wind in my sales.
Speaker 2: Hopefully it's doing the same for you.
Speaker 1: Amy Donaldson, Dave McManaman, Pablo Master, Johnnie Morgan, Scalley and
Speaker 1: me Spence Check. It's all of you, the great listeners
Speaker 1: on this beautiful Thursday, and that young man Porter Larson
Speaker 1: producing the program on this Thursday afternoon. I don't know
Speaker 1: that I've ever kicked the tires with you on your
Speaker 1: pro golf consumption? Are you a major golf guy? Do
Speaker 1: you just tune in when it's close on Sundays? How
Speaker 1: much pro golf do you consume?
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely a major guy. I watched the Majors intently.
Speaker 3: If it's Masters, I was up early this morning watching
Speaker 3: guys golf. I would say historically, my pro golf coverage
Speaker 3: is like most, It's maybe not most, but it's it's
Speaker 3: lean towards specific players like Tiger Woods. I watched a
Speaker 3: lot of Senior Tour because my guy Marko Mira was
Speaker 3: on that one for a long time, so it kind
Speaker 3: of depends he's retired. Now there's no, Tiger. I haven't
Speaker 3: found myself watching golf from a week to week basis
Speaker 3: with those guys not playing but not missing majors. That's
Speaker 3: a guarantee. Not watching like the simulator golf, not watching live,
Speaker 3: not watching the rest of it. But you're if you're
Speaker 3: playing with the top players in the world and they're
Speaker 3: all playing together at the same place, I'm tuned in.
Speaker 2: All right, there you go.
Speaker 1: So we'll keep you up to date on the Master
Speaker 1: of the eighty ninth Plane of the Master's Tournament, Augusta, Georgia,
Speaker 1: where the conditions are just spectacular and should be all weekend.
Speaker 1: Long Tony feen out rough round one, we'll see if
Speaker 1: he can bounce back and at least make the cut
Speaker 1: to play the weekend. Amy Donaldson will join us livin
Speaker 1: studio today, but on a Thursday. Before we catch up
Speaker 1: with our friend Amy, courtesy of our friends at Prize Picks,
Speaker 1: it is time now for your opening tip.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the Drive with Spence check its on Utah's
Speaker 4: number one sports talk now into the studios of ESPN
Speaker 4: seven hundred to set the scene for the show. The
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Speaker 3: Those are the fun ones, man, the parlays.
Speaker 1: Even though they're dangerous, it's a lot more fun when
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Speaker 2: Yeah, but as it is, I lost one hundred. It's
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Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: We continue to await word on trying to understand exactly
Speaker 1: what Alex Jensen's Utah basketball team is going to look like,
Speaker 1: because you know, we need to understand who the player
Speaker 1: will be breaking news. You cannot analyze the basketball team
Speaker 1: if you don't know who.
Speaker 2: The players are. There you go a little peak beyond
Speaker 2: the curtain.
Speaker 1: How we do our business here, so we know only
Speaker 1: of a couple of players that are going to be
Speaker 1: on the roster, but we did find out about another
Speaker 1: hire today as Alex Jensen has hired Eric Daniels as
Speaker 1: an assistant coach for the Utah basketball program, which is
Speaker 1: Alex's third staff member. Raphael Chilius, his lead assistant, was
Speaker 1: the first hire, Wes Wilcox the GM also in place,
Speaker 1: and now Eric Daniels to the University of Utah. Eric
Speaker 1: has been an assistant coach in the state for ten years.
Speaker 1: He served under Jared Calhoun a Utah State last year.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people that I know Eric's dad,
Speaker 1: I know Donnie. I don't know Eric, but a lot
Speaker 1: of people that know Eric believe this is a good
Speaker 1: addition based off of his understanding and ties to players
Speaker 1: here in the state and maybe some players that are
Speaker 1: in the transfer portal from Utah State or web State.
Speaker 1: So Eric Salt Lake City native. As I reference his dad,
Speaker 1: Donnie Daniels, was a longtime assistant coach here and elsewhere.
Speaker 1: Sixteen years of experience to the program and a lot
Speaker 1: of work on the recruiting and the player development side,
Speaker 1: which seems to be a theme so far for Alex's staff,
Speaker 1: which you understand. Prior to his stint at Utah State,
Speaker 1: Eric spent five years as an assistant at Weber where
Speaker 1: he started under the legend himself, Randy Ray, and then
Speaker 1: he was the top assistant under Eric Duff. Prior to that,
Speaker 1: he worked with Mark Pope at Utah Valley and that
Speaker 1: was a very successful run for Mark. Of course partlaid
Speaker 1: that into the BYU job, and now he's in Lexington
Speaker 1: with one of the best jobs in college basketball coaching Kentucky.
Speaker 2: So there you go.
Speaker 1: In twenty fourteen, Eric spent a year with the Orlando
Speaker 1: Magic basketball ops staff. Began his coaching career at Southern
Speaker 1: Utah five seasons at Regis University, so he has been around.
Speaker 2: For a little bit.
Speaker 1: And of course his dad, Donnie Daniels, a legend around here.
Speaker 1: So Eric Daniels officially out of d Alex Jensen's staff.
Speaker 1: So we have Raphael Chillis, we have Wes Wilcox, we
Speaker 1: have Eric Daniels, we have Ko Dawes, we have Terrence Brown,
Speaker 1: and we're waiting to hear news about other players outed
Speaker 1: to the fold. So a lot of rumors going on
Speaker 1: right now about both Utah and BYU trying to add players.
Speaker 1: According to the reports that are out there, BYU is
Speaker 1: preparing another big time nil offer for a transfer portal
Speaker 1: guard out of Baylor.
Speaker 2: We'll talk more about that.
Speaker 1: The reports are that AJ the Bans is getting seven
Speaker 1: million bucks for five seven million dollars for five months
Speaker 1: of basketball, and you know they're trying to bring Richie
Speaker 1: Saunders back on a.
Speaker 2: Seven figure deal as well.
Speaker 1: BYU, no matter what they want to say or no
Speaker 1: matter what they're sending out on social media, is throwing
Speaker 1: money all over the place and out bidding the other
Speaker 1: highest bidders for some of the best talent in the country.
Speaker 1: The spin they're going to put on it is people
Speaker 1: just want the BYU experience. So do I for seven million,
Speaker 1: pay me seven mill all move to provo for five months.
Speaker 1: This is about money, regardless of the spin that you're
Speaker 1: hearing from folks that work for BYU. We'll get back
Speaker 1: to this up in a bit and we'll give you
Speaker 1: a master's update as well. But coming up on the
Speaker 1: other side, one of our friends who joins the show
Speaker 1: from time to time, maybe Donaldson will join us live
Speaker 1: in studio.
Speaker 2: Move over to Dave McManaman who was.
Speaker 1: On site last night as Luka Doncis was back in
Speaker 1: Dallas playing for the Los Angeles Lakers Pablo mash Jo
Speaker 1: II RSL head coach in preparation for the Nashville Nashville
Speaker 1: match coming up on Saturday. Amy Donaldson is live in studio,
Speaker 1: which hasn't happened for quite some time on this beautiful
Speaker 1: Thursday afternoon.
Speaker 2: So we have a lot to get to with our
Speaker 2: friend Amy. Amy. Happy Thursday. How are you?
Speaker 5: Thank you? I'm good. It's been so long. I don't
Speaker 5: know how to work at pair of headphones.
Speaker 1: Those headphones aren't I mean, we got other options. I'm
Speaker 1: not a big fan of those, but they were just
Speaker 1: plugged in.
Speaker 5: Hey with a child size head too. It doesn't help. So, yeah, boy,
Speaker 5: I can never wear hats. I have to wear a
Speaker 5: hat that has like a bel crew. I can't wear
Speaker 5: a trucker hat.
Speaker 2: Oh one of those. Okay, well you got to figure
Speaker 2: it out.
Speaker 5: Are you doing.
Speaker 2: I've been good, been good.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Yeah, I've just been traveling a bunch stuff about
Speaker 5: writing and podcasting and very nice back from cargo. Went
Speaker 5: to podcast evolutions and yeah, trying to figure out this.
Speaker 5: How do you make money in media business, you know,
Speaker 5: which is crazy because when I started in the nineties,
Speaker 5: the only business it was more profitable than being in
Speaker 5: media was pharmaceuticals, really, and that changed by the end
Speaker 5: of the nineties. Yes, it did drastically thanks to the Internet.
Speaker 2: Yes it did.
Speaker 5: And so what I watched in print journalism I'm now
Speaker 5: seeing in broadcast media. As you know, beloved radio loses
Speaker 5: terrestrial radio loses listeners every year they age. But yeah,
Speaker 5: it's been, so it's been. I've never worried about, like,
Speaker 5: how do you make money at this. I've just I'll
Speaker 5: go somewhere do good work and they'll hire me, right right. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it's not enough anymore.
Speaker 1: Well it's not enough in the NBA either, because good
Speaker 1: coaches are suddenly losing jobs. Altogether. It's it's pretty wild.
Speaker 1: But what what we won't do a lot of Michael
Speaker 1: Malone content today? Amy, What what has your attention as
Speaker 1: of late outside, Like are there any projects you're consuming
Speaker 1: right now or working on right now or or are
Speaker 1: you just kind of still learning the space and then
Speaker 1: deciding your next step.
Speaker 5: Oh no, I have I have a long list of
Speaker 5: I never, I never don't have a pride, So right
Speaker 5: now I'm working on a project about international students. I
Speaker 5: think we've talked about my reporting and I'm working on
Speaker 5: some stories and then eventually it will be a podcast
Speaker 5: about international students that come here to play mostly at
Speaker 5: private schools, and sort of what their experience is like
Speaker 5: and how that affects you know, local schools and local athletes,
Speaker 5: and also what it means to you know, college and
Speaker 5: the pro game. So you know, the number two pick
Speaker 5: in the w NBA draft was an international student who
Speaker 5: went to a small Christian school I believe in Tennessee.
Speaker 5: You know, it was down south somewhere, and yeah, it's
Speaker 5: really more and more. Now we have some issues like
Speaker 5: I don't know if you saw the freshman from Duke
Speaker 5: who who is here from South Sudan. He has a
Speaker 5: South Sudan passport, he has a family actually lived most
Speaker 5: of his life in Ghana, and now he's maybe gonna
Speaker 5: have to leave the country and they have to figure
Speaker 5: out that visa situation for him, because all South Sudanese
Speaker 5: people here on a visa, anyone, any visa holder or
Speaker 5: i'm sorry, passport holder from South Africa South Sudan has
Speaker 5: been told they have to leave self deport So.
Speaker 1: He's in a situation because he's going to be like
Speaker 1: a top eight pick.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so that was that was that was that was
Speaker 5: you know, I'm sure that they'll work it out. But
Speaker 5: I remember when I was doing the research on the
Speaker 5: RSL podcast, making up a moment, one of the things
Speaker 5: that I talked to like uh Kurt Schmid and and
Speaker 5: you know some of the others about it's so much
Speaker 5: of it is visa management. Who's who needs a visa,
Speaker 5: who has a pastor you know, where do they live
Speaker 5: And a lot of times when a family and we
Speaker 5: you know, look at Yannish, his family fled from his
Speaker 5: home kind of tree, Nigeria to Greece and he had
Speaker 5: a Greece path you know, passport from Greek. He's a
Speaker 5: Greek citizen, right. But there just there are these complications
Speaker 5: now that all these games are international games, and then
Speaker 5: you have world politics that impact it. I mean I
Speaker 5: saw it during the Olympics when Russia invaded Crimea in
Speaker 5: twenty fourteen. You had athletes who their home was in
Speaker 5: Crimea and it was really difficult to when those political
Speaker 5: you know, the happenings then impact whether or not players
Speaker 5: or athletes can do what they that's I think it
Speaker 5: was twenty eighteen when they began a refugee team. That
Speaker 5: was the first time they had a refugee team. Or
Speaker 5: actually I take that back, it was in Reo. Yeah,
Speaker 5: that they had a refugee team.
Speaker 2: Actually showed pretty well. They played okay if I remember correctly.
Speaker 5: So the thing that was fascinating about that was, you know,
Speaker 5: one of the they let us interview a bunch of them.
Speaker 5: I'd never seen anything like it, right, and there was
Speaker 5: I mean, I would say I would argue the last
Speaker 5: ten years we've had a massive refugee crisis in the world, right,
Speaker 5: huge millions and millions of people shifting to other places
Speaker 5: because of war, because of famine, because of really corrupt leadership, right.
Speaker 5: And so you had the IOC had these athletes who
Speaker 5: their countries either couldn't or wouldn't participate in the games,
Speaker 5: and so they created this refugee team. And it was
Speaker 5: really interesting because the politics were really anti refugee. But
Speaker 5: the IOC, which is not really what I would say
Speaker 5: is a leader, a thought leader, as my College of
Speaker 5: the Desert and News would say, they weren't really out
Speaker 5: in front of things. So they but they had these
Speaker 5: athletes and one of the women was a swimmer, and
Speaker 5: she had Carrie, like she pulled the little raft her
Speaker 5: family and a bunch of other people that they knew from,
Speaker 5: you know, their community, their town or whatever. But she
Speaker 5: had pulled them the last couple of her sister swam
Speaker 5: and pulled them the last bit into into Greece and
Speaker 5: it was Yeah, it was incredible and really just what
Speaker 5: they had been through, it was really hard to focus
Speaker 5: on sports. Yeah, Like you're like, oh, you're a swimmer,
Speaker 5: Like what's your best time, what's your favorite you know, stroke,
Speaker 5: whatever you or how do you psych yourself up for
Speaker 5: a race? Like all the normal things you might look
Speaker 5: at were they just seemed so dumb. You know. It
Speaker 5: was like the difference between you know, knowing someone's you know,
Speaker 5: real life story and knowing what their favorite food is. Yeah,
Speaker 5: that's how I feel. Sports is when we really figure
Speaker 5: out how much we how little we know about these
Speaker 5: athletes that we love or cover whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it puts a lot of things in a
Speaker 1: perspective as well. You know, when you realize what a
Speaker 1: lot of these athletes go through just to be able
Speaker 1: to compete and just to be you know, be able
Speaker 1: to be a part of it, you know. And I
Speaker 1: think the American attitude is what's the metal count? Right,
Speaker 1: Like how many golds have we won?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Why are you showing me the story about this person?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 5: The country?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 5: But you know the thing that was really interesting was
Speaker 5: how much it meant to these communities. I mean when
Speaker 5: you I mean think about the times we've had moments
Speaker 5: here right after nine to eleven or never forget that
Speaker 5: World Series after nine eleven was like not a thing
Speaker 5: you sit through every single game or whatever, but it
Speaker 5: was so galvanizing, right, And so I think that that
Speaker 5: was what I saw was you know, just this little
Speaker 5: you know, twenty year old swimmer or you know, there
Speaker 5: was a weightlifter. They're just they just did different sports, right.
Speaker 5: There was judo, and they were just giving people hope
Speaker 5: who really were just trying to get through another day.
Speaker 5: They didn't have food, they didn't have medicine, they didn't
Speaker 5: you know. It was it was especially the refugees from Syria.
Speaker 5: It was heartbreaking. I mean I really like went back
Speaker 5: to my room and was like, I think I need
Speaker 5: to revaluate my entire life predecision I've ever made, I
Speaker 5: don't know, you know, it's hard. Yeah, but then I
Speaker 5: just tried to focus on the fact that they were
Speaker 5: giving them this opportunity and I believe they still do that,
Speaker 5: and then it was just fun to be part of
Speaker 5: telling that story. And I would say I'm pretty critical
Speaker 5: of the IOC and most managing bodies, but that was
Speaker 5: one where I thought, Okay, this was this was a
Speaker 5: really beautiful thing that they did.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, the amount of corruption is impossible to ignore,
Speaker 1: and it's every year, every cycle, whether it's winter or summer,
Speaker 1: and it happened here in two thousand and two. You know,
Speaker 1: there's really no exception. It just seems like every time
Speaker 1: there is some international event, and the World Cup's the
Speaker 1: same way.
Speaker 2: But it's everything that a few months after.
Speaker 1: The fact you find out all of these really nefarious
Speaker 1: things that have gone on in the name of logging
Speaker 1: in about the games.
Speaker 5: You know, the wa to the drug testing, like you know,
Speaker 5: don't don't go after these people or don't do you
Speaker 5: know what I mean? Like that, it just seems like
Speaker 5: there's always some some scandal or some somebody's buying their
Speaker 5: way out or into something, and you're just there king
Speaker 5: like this is amazing the world's coming together. The athletes
Speaker 5: have you know, worked their whole life to get on
Speaker 5: this stage. And then you realize this stage is sort
Speaker 5: of made up of you know, bought stolen and corruption
Speaker 5: and stuff like that. But you think still like there's
Speaker 5: an there's a thread of it, there's an essen, it
Speaker 5: has an essence of something beautiful. There are so many greats.
Speaker 5: Like the first woman to win a judo medal was
Speaker 5: from the favelas in Rio, and I went to the
Speaker 5: favelas and spend some time. Yeah, my so, my cousin
Speaker 5: is married to a woman from Rio. Her mom does
Speaker 5: a bunch of works. So she said, you know, do
Speaker 5: you want to go? So one of my case all
Speaker 5: colleagues and I went, and then I went again with
Speaker 5: her on a service project. But you know, they don't
Speaker 5: have running wat. I mean, the conditions they live in
Speaker 5: are probably not as good as some of the dogs
Speaker 5: that i've I've adopted out.
Speaker 2: Well, you do take care of your dogs very well.
Speaker 5: Not me. I mean some of these like my nephew
Speaker 5: and his wife, their dogs have their own bad room,
Speaker 5: they have.
Speaker 2: Their own own bedroom.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't even it's beautiful. It's really Wow, most
Speaker 5: children would like this room. It's decorated. Yeah, and then
Speaker 5: I go to this little house where it's really like
Speaker 5: a closet size of no running water, and they're they're
Speaker 5: offering me coffee. You know, they just they're just they
Speaker 5: were just it was just and I just thought, you know, really,
Speaker 5: I think the thing that I take away from all
Speaker 5: these experiences, you know, happiness is a choice. You know,
Speaker 5: you're always going to be waiting on something.
Speaker 1: Yep, happiness, And that's you know, it's it's ironic for
Speaker 1: a lot of reasons. You bring that up because currently
Speaker 1: you know, that's a dynamic. Like I talked to my
Speaker 1: son about who's twenty three going on twenty four, and
Speaker 1: he's in the real world, and it's funny, this weird dynamic.
Speaker 1: When you're young, all you can do is think about
Speaker 1: how excited you are to finish school get in the
Speaker 1: real world. Then you get in the real world, you
Speaker 1: start working, you realize what bills are and I just
Speaker 1: had to walk them through how to do you how
Speaker 1: to do his taxes and he's like, Dad, this this
Speaker 1: adulting stuff isn't all it's cracked up to me. So
Speaker 1: day in and day out, just remembering and the stories
Speaker 1: you're sharing about you know, folks that certainly are less
Speaker 1: fortune than most of us give you perspective where every
Speaker 1: day you can't choose what you focus on.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 5: And I also think that, like it's the way you
Speaker 5: look at fortune too, right, Like, so less fortunate is
Speaker 5: definitely the way I would have seen it. But like
Speaker 5: when you interview them and you talk to them about
Speaker 5: what they're doing and why they're doing it and what
Speaker 5: they're bringing to their communities, you go, gosh, maybe they're
Speaker 5: more fortunate than me, just you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: the purpose the police they have now in their country,
Speaker 5: in their community. And I would say, like I read
Speaker 5: an article about Cooper Flag because my nephew is a
Speaker 5: jazz fan and he's obsessed. All my nephews are. He's
Speaker 5: obsessed with the draft and this is all we can
Speaker 5: discuss now, right right, we just sit through this season.
Speaker 5: We had a little mini pack because he just got
Speaker 5: station at Hill Air Force, bass in the Air Force
Speaker 5: and he's just been a jat dieheard my brother in
Speaker 5: law bought one of the old chairs from the old
Speaker 5: Delta Center.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 5: He lives in Alaska. He's a a police officer in Alaska.
Speaker 5: But yeah, so bit I read this article and I
Speaker 5: was texting. We were texting back and forth, and did
Speaker 5: you see the post game where where Cooper was just devastating?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah, And so I mean we're used to that, Like
Speaker 5: we've seen that.
Speaker 2: I've seen that was a tough way to lose too,
Speaker 2: by Yeah, oh.
Speaker 5: My gosh, So I've seen you know what, You've just
Speaker 5: seen people's heartbreak in a million different ways, right, Like
Speaker 5: watching Nicole pikes pace the first time I saw her
Speaker 5: in twenty ten when she lost out on a medal
Speaker 5: after she came back from a horrific accident where the
Speaker 5: bob slid hit her and busted her leg, like she
Speaker 5: probably shouldn't have even been doing sports again. But she
Speaker 5: came back from that, gets to the Olympics in twenty ten,
Speaker 5: and she'd already qualified when she got hit by the
Speaker 5: bob slied. That's wild and best in the world, and
Speaker 5: you know, you don't know is your window closing? Right
Speaker 5: in athletics, it's always about as much about timing as
Speaker 5: it is your talent. But then she comes back and
Speaker 5: she loses out like by a tenth of a second.
Speaker 5: It's like literally a blink of it, not yeah and so,
Speaker 5: and you just like, how do you not replay that
Speaker 5: in your mind for the rest of your life? Like
Speaker 5: am I that unlucky? Or was I lucky that I
Speaker 5: came back and I got to compete and I was fourth?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Right, So it's all this perspective thing. But I read
Speaker 5: this article about Cooper flat somebody was it was a
Speaker 5: column and opinion piece, but I liked it because it
Speaker 5: was about I hope there's somebody. We're so fixated on
Speaker 5: the next big thing, and now it's children. These are
Speaker 5: the next big Look at AJ debands, debands, who's going
Speaker 5: to BYU? It's there's always this, and now it's children.
Speaker 5: So it was nineteen and twenty year olds, now with
Speaker 5: one and done it is it is always it's a kid,
Speaker 5: and so there's no time for them. I mean, none
Speaker 5: of us do well through puberty. Okay, we all have
Speaker 5: a rough time. It is. It is really rough.
Speaker 1: It's it's rough when you're going through it, and then
Speaker 1: it's rough when you watch your children go through it
Speaker 1: because you know how they're feeling.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's rough when you like you just see
Speaker 5: that everyone doesn't have the grace that they probably deserve.
Speaker 5: And then you have this the spotlight. Like I always thought, oh,
Speaker 5: thank god I didn't grow up during you know, Instagram
Speaker 5: and all this stuff, right, But now I see these
Speaker 5: young men and women who are in high school millions
Speaker 5: of dollars at stake and they're being asked to make
Speaker 5: millions of dollars for other people, and fans are just
Speaker 5: out of control and they have access to the you know,
Speaker 5: the immediate access to everything. And this article is basically saying,
Speaker 5: I hope somebody in his life lets him be a kid,
Speaker 5: takes him back and says, you know, this is not
Speaker 5: the pinnacle of your life. It is not the thing
Speaker 5: that you should define yourself with. But you know, learn
Speaker 5: from it, grow from it like like our parents would.
Speaker 5: But it's just on such a massive stage. There's so
Speaker 5: much at stake that it you couple normal teenage there
Speaker 5: are no mo Hills with actually millions of dollars mistake. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and you have like it's a perfect storm for absolute
Speaker 5: horrific mental health problems.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I remind people, like if you watch Cooper flag play,
Speaker 1: like what a mature adult because of the way he
Speaker 1: approaches the game. Cooper reclassified and should be a senior
Speaker 1: in high school. He turned eighteen like four months ago,
Speaker 1: you know, and he is already being anointed as the
Speaker 1: next whatever it is, whether it's Utah or Charlotte or
Speaker 1: Washington or half a third of the NBA is losing
Speaker 1: on purpose to try to get this kid.
Speaker 5: And not just that, but they're debating whether or not
Speaker 5: he will be the greatest one and done or not
Speaker 5: right because he didn't win. And you know, how do
Speaker 5: you like this debate about you? And you're just out
Speaker 5: here trying to live your life.
Speaker 1: Well and at that age too, Amy, because really, in
Speaker 1: the history of pro basketball eighteen year olds coming into
Speaker 1: the league and looking like they belong, that list is
Speaker 1: one and it's Lebron.
Speaker 5: I was going to say, the only one that I
Speaker 5: thought that that's a man is Lebron.
Speaker 1: So like Garnett came into the league at eighteen and
Speaker 1: looked okay early on.
Speaker 2: I can remember Garnett's rookie year.
Speaker 1: The All Star weekend was in San Antonio and Patrick
Speaker 1: Ewingion made it. So we went and I can remember
Speaker 1: the elevator opening because everybody was excited about Garnet a
Speaker 1: big ticket. You know, this high school kid, Fairchild Academy,
Speaker 1: you know, manchild.
Speaker 2: He walked out of the elevator. I remember thinking, like,
Speaker 2: he is a baby. I mean, yes, he was six ten,
Speaker 2: but he was really skinny.
Speaker 5: I just remember, like that's what I remember. I thought.
Speaker 5: I thought the same thing, like, oh, he's so mature
Speaker 5: physically mature, right, because you watch him play and then
Speaker 5: you see him next to an NBA Yeah, veterany baby,
Speaker 5: Holy crap. I hope he doesn't get hit.
Speaker 1: So the expectation for Cooper to roll into Utah or
Speaker 1: Charlotte or Washington and suddenly change everything is something I
Speaker 1: pushed back on. It's not because I don't think he's awesome.
Speaker 6: I do.
Speaker 1: It's because I've watched eighteen year olds come into the league.
Speaker 1: It's not just can you translate the skill set to
Speaker 1: playing in the pros. It's everything else you have to
Speaker 1: deal with as a person, where suddenly an entire city
Speaker 1: is like you're we are relying on you.
Speaker 2: You're the answer to our prayers. And that's a lot
Speaker 2: to put on an eighteen year.
Speaker 5: Old one hundred percent. And it's not like it's like
Speaker 5: there's economics involved, right, you know, these people's they're living,
Speaker 5: you know you're And I remember a football coach telling
Speaker 5: me with, uh, there was a freshman and he was
Speaker 5: a super mature kid and but and a really good player.
Speaker 5: And uh. I remember saying to him, like, he's fourteen,
Speaker 5: Like these girls were like hanging out the football practice
Speaker 5: trying to like, oh, you think he wants to go
Speaker 5: to dance with me? Like normal stuff, right, but I
Speaker 5: would consider to be normal. And he's like, yeah, you
Speaker 5: want to doing that. This is a job. You're going
Speaker 5: to focus And I was like, at the age of fourteen,
Speaker 5: but you also have to be a kid and so
Speaker 5: and look, it's worse than soccer. Look at I mean
Speaker 5: I talked to Justin Glad. His life has been his job,
Speaker 5: right right, and I think he loves it. I don't
Speaker 5: think he would change a single thing about it. Sure,
Speaker 5: But like that existence is I don't even know how
Speaker 5: you really to that if you've had this other experience
Speaker 5: where you you know, played fifteen sports or you know,
Speaker 5: you just didn't know how to find yourself good at
Speaker 5: you know what I mean? Like, I look at the
Speaker 5: focus and the commitment, the level of discipline that that
Speaker 5: is required of athletes in sports now, I mean I
Speaker 5: just read an article about women's basketball. Women's basketball has
Speaker 5: never been more popular than right now, even though the
Speaker 5: viewership is down from last year in the final four
Speaker 5: or from the championship game, I would say, top to bottom,
Speaker 5: you know, every league is getting more media attention, they're
Speaker 5: getting more financial investment. Everything's just better across the board.
Speaker 5: Right But I read an article from a youth basketball
Speaker 5: website that I or a newsletter that I subscribe to.
Speaker 5: They said the participation of the best athletes in women's
Speaker 5: basketball is declining, and the reason is club sports. If
Speaker 5: you're playing, you can play club soccer at like six,
Speaker 5: You can start club volleyball at like eight, you know,
Speaker 5: and so basketball which used to be like you used
Speaker 5: to do it, volleyball in the fall, basketball in the winter,
Speaker 5: maybe track and fill or softball in the spring. Right
Speaker 5: now they I remember when they started having the tryouts
Speaker 5: for club volleyball the day after the state tournament in Utah,
Speaker 5: and I remember thinking, this is this is a mistake.
Speaker 5: This is going to mess it up because now those
Speaker 5: girls are going to choose volleyball over basketball. They're gonna
Speaker 5: have to make a choice. Oh no, no, we're going
Speaker 5: to do this because the coaches who were coaching at
Speaker 5: the time had played multiple sports. But now you have
Speaker 5: coaches who had not played multiple sports, who don't care
Speaker 5: about multiple sports, who think you have to commit. And
Speaker 5: I still hear people saying this, play a lot of sports,
Speaker 5: you know. I heard Peyton Manning say play two or
Speaker 5: three sports, and everybody's advocating for that. You don't know
Speaker 5: what the world is like in youth sports right now.
Speaker 5: If your kid is not and if I pay four
Speaker 5: or five thousand dollars for my kid to play club soccer,
Speaker 5: club volleyball, there's no way I want risking let her
Speaker 5: play for the local high school basketball team where she
Speaker 5: may or may not play where she may it hurt.
Speaker 5: I mean, the sport with the highest amount of concussions
Speaker 5: in high school. It's not football. It's girls soccer.
Speaker 2: Really, yes, I.
Speaker 5: Know, cheerleading is number two, my friend, which makes sense?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah it does.
Speaker 1: And actually soccer and I didn't know this until we
Speaker 1: brought the club here. The tremendous amount of concussions, you know,
Speaker 1: that's why you see some players wearing the head gear.
Speaker 1: That's why you see some players leaving early.
Speaker 5: Don't remember when Tuccho on the header, you know, I
Speaker 5: mean that was a vicious issues.
Speaker 2: And last week, I don't know if you saw this.
Speaker 1: I think it was Walker Zimmerman, who is a defenseman
Speaker 1: for the US men's national team. I want to say
Speaker 1: he plays for Nashville.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: He went in with his head to try to clear
Speaker 1: a ball that was crossed in via cornerkick, and the
Speaker 1: striker saw the opportunity to take a bicycle kick and
Speaker 1: he kicked Walker square in the face. And I was
Speaker 1: watching him like he's dead. Somebody check on him, like
Speaker 1: it was gnarly. So, yeah, the concussion thing in soccer
Speaker 1: is real. But it's interesting you bring up like Justin
Speaker 1: Glad in the soccer dynamic, because Justin Glad is a
Speaker 1: success story where the path between five and six years
Speaker 1: old to a pro life is riddled with bodies along
Speaker 1: the highway of kids that were forced into things by
Speaker 1: their parents. And I was looking this up because Malcolm
Speaker 1: Gladwell wrote Outliers in two thousand and eight and had
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of compelling data about ten thousand hours
Speaker 1: and how he used the Canadian hockey ecosystem as his blueprint,
Speaker 1: and I remember reading it thinking like I need to
Speaker 1: get my son into something now so he can get
Speaker 1: ten thousand hours by the time he's a junior in
Speaker 1: high school so he can play high school basketball or
Speaker 1: whatever it is. So I listened to a podcast last
Speaker 1: year and it really was compelling. It was Andras Erickson
Speaker 1: and David Burkis. It was on the ESPN platform where
Speaker 1: this ten thousand hour rule has been completely deep because
Speaker 1: of the factor that most people miss out on, and
Speaker 1: that is, yes, you need reps, and yes, if you
Speaker 1: get to ten thousand hours, and if you do something consistently,
Speaker 1: you're going to be good at it. But you're not
Speaker 1: going to get to ten thousand hours unless you enjoy
Speaker 1: the endeavor, unless you enjoy the work. So what Malcolm
Speaker 1: Gladwell left out and parents I think don't fully maybe understand,
Speaker 1: is yes, it's fine to push your children to succeed,
Speaker 1: but you need to give them opportunities to find out
Speaker 1: what they love to do, and then when they land
Speaker 1: on something, then yes, encourage them. If you have the
Speaker 1: financial means pay for club soccer, if they want to
Speaker 1: play golf, it's expensive, but you know, if they love it,
Speaker 1: and if you want to see them succeed at it,
Speaker 1: they need to spend hours doing it. But if they
Speaker 1: don't love what they're doing, they're going to burn out
Speaker 1: before they're fifteen or sixteen years old. And parents push
Speaker 1: these kids with this ten thousand hour mark in mind, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: if I can get little Johnny to ten thousand hours,
Speaker 1: maybe get a college scholarship or play it, you know,
Speaker 1: make some money via nil. But unless your child loves
Speaker 1: what they're doing, you're going to burn them out.
Speaker 5: But I would say you should not be pushing them anyway.
Speaker 5: Number one, how many people picked their career at age eight?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 2: Very few?
Speaker 5: No. I remember my kid wanted to be a spy.
Speaker 5: You know she's a therapist.
Speaker 2: Now ten thousand hours is a spy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, my youngest daughter wanted to be a singer. You know,
Speaker 5: they don't know what they want to be. You. I mean,
Speaker 5: I wanted to be an astronaut, and then I wanted
Speaker 5: to be president, and then I wanted to be the
Speaker 5: president of the Mormon Church. Do you that can work out?
Speaker 2: Do you still want to be president? Is that not
Speaker 2: at all?
Speaker 5: Not at all? But so that as I'm saying, like,
Speaker 5: you don't know, you just pick things.
Speaker 2: Steven A. Smith is apparently looking for a running mate.
Speaker 7: Amy.
Speaker 2: I think he could be great at that.
Speaker 5: I don't think I could run with Stephen A. Smith.
Speaker 5: We would be fighting more than a married couple. There's
Speaker 5: no way.
Speaker 2: But I so you wanted your career arc was astronaut.
Speaker 5: Then my dad said, you don't have to do math
Speaker 5: if you want to be an astronaut.
Speaker 1: So then you decide you want to be president. And
Speaker 1: then you wanted to be the prophet of the church.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and they were like, yeah, there's problem with that.
Speaker 5: But but the president thing was kind of the polotics
Speaker 5: thing didn't really die till college. But but I think
Speaker 5: you know, my point is, I would say, if I
Speaker 5: had something to do over again, there's two things I
Speaker 5: would do differently. One of I was never rescue my
Speaker 5: kids from painful situations. I didn't do it a lot,
Speaker 5: but I did it enough that they keep looking. It's
Speaker 5: I do dog training, as you know. And one of
Speaker 5: the things that I found is if you do a
Speaker 5: lot of obedience, the dog doesn't how to make a
Speaker 5: decision unless you tell them what to do. Interesting, and
Speaker 5: I find this is very true in life. If you
Speaker 5: give people, if you say this is the way, everything
Speaker 5: has to be and you give everyone directions, and there's
Speaker 5: so much structure that nobody knows how to make a choice.
Speaker 5: A they don't have confidence in their own decision making ability,
Speaker 5: and B they don't have resilience. What gives you resilience?
Speaker 5: What gave me resilience? A lot of failure. I didn't
Speaker 5: make a lot of things I tried out for. Do
Speaker 5: you know how terrified I was for my kids to
Speaker 5: try out for things, how much I didn't either want
Speaker 5: them to try out or I wanted to make sure
Speaker 5: they would try out for something that I knew they
Speaker 5: could make for sure. And so I think that as
Speaker 5: a parent, I really really regret that the number of
Speaker 5: times I either push them in a direction where I
Speaker 5: knew they would succeed or I discourage Let's not do
Speaker 5: club soccer. That's a lot of money. It will impact
Speaker 5: our vacations. We like to travel. And I wish I
Speaker 5: had pushed them to I had encouraged them to fail
Speaker 5: to try things that they might or probably would fail.
Speaker 5: One of my favorite athletes is Jared Campbell, who ran
Speaker 5: the Barklay's an ultrarunner, and he says he doesn't do
Speaker 5: anything professionally unless he's pretty sure he's going to fail. Interesting,
Speaker 5: And to me, that's the opposite mindset that I have
Speaker 5: always had. I didn't want to do anything and unless
Speaker 5: I was pretty sure I was going to succeed. And
Speaker 5: just interviewing him, just seeing what he's done and seeing
Speaker 5: what he's able to accomplish. He's done something nobody else
Speaker 5: has and in finishing the Barkleys Marathon four times. But
Speaker 5: he's also like just an incredible human being. Right, Because
Speaker 5: what failure does is it teaches you about limits and
Speaker 5: about your own Like you think you know what rock
Speaker 5: bottom is, you don't know until you suffer. You don't
Speaker 5: know until you fail. You don't know until you have pain, right,
Speaker 5: and if you are insulated from all of that. I mean,
Speaker 5: it's just you know, I'm working. I'm in a little
Speaker 5: story group, working on a couple of projects. And the
Speaker 5: most boring stories are the people who don't have anything,
Speaker 5: like everything is good, I'm great. The people who come
Speaker 5: in and like I just got out of prison for
Speaker 5: selling drugs and now I'm clean ten years or whatever.
Speaker 5: They're interesting that you know, how did that happen? How
Speaker 5: did you pull yourself out of that? Right's the That's
Speaker 5: the thing I would say if I was to do
Speaker 5: sports over again with my kids, I didn't push enough
Speaker 5: because I didn't want them to fail.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's very natural, to be honest with you.
Speaker 1: I think it resonates with me. It resonates with me
Speaker 1: as far as how I was when I was younger.
Speaker 1: I'd never wanted to do anything unless I was good
Speaker 1: at it, you know, because you don't want to be
Speaker 1: embarrassed or vulnerable or whatever.
Speaker 2: But we will catch a break.
Speaker 1: Amy Donaldson is Live and studio raut to you today
Speaker 1: by friends at IFA Country Stores. It is warm, spring
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Speaker 1: with Amy Donaldson live in studio coming up on the
Speaker 1: other side right here on ESPN seven hundred ninety two NFM.
Speaker 1: We are proud to be part of Utah's ESPN Radio network.
Speaker 2: You're tuned to the Drive with Spence Checkets. This is
Speaker 2: ka L North Salt Lake k x R k HD
Speaker 2: three ESPN seven hundred and ninety two to one FM.
Speaker 1: Have a day justin Rose, goodness, gracious, eight par through
Speaker 1: sixteen holes. He has four shots clear of Scottie Scheffler
Speaker 1: and Corey Conners who are in the clubhouse.
Speaker 2: At sixty eight.
Speaker 1: Rory McElroy off to a good start three hundred par
Speaker 1: through twelve Unfortunately, Tony feenou Cards is seventy five today
Speaker 1: and that is good for three over par, which is
Speaker 1: tied for sixty fifth. Tony is going to have to
Speaker 1: have a dynamite second round just to play in the
Speaker 1: weekend because Augusta National is a very unforgiving golf course.
Speaker 1: Sammy Donaldson is live in studio. We were just talking
Speaker 1: about the h the magic of owning a dog, the
Speaker 1: magic of owning a K nine, and we'll get back
Speaker 1: to the sports stuff for a moment, but our station,
Speaker 1: mascot Duke is in studio and he's been attached to
Speaker 1: my hip now for quite some time.
Speaker 2: For listeners out there.
Speaker 1: That have never experienced what it's like to own a dog,
Speaker 1: and not just any dog, but like the dog, the
Speaker 1: one that gets you.
Speaker 5: So they call him the sole dog.
Speaker 2: The soul dog. Okay, and that's who I have here.
Speaker 1: What what's it like for you, you know, as somebody
Speaker 1: who has raised dogs continues to foster dogs, when you
Speaker 1: find that that sole dog, what sort of benefits does
Speaker 1: that bring me?
Speaker 5: I mean, I think all of the dogs. I've had
Speaker 5: a lot of dogs in my life, and I have,
Speaker 5: you know, dogs for me have just they've allowed me
Speaker 5: a freedom that as a girl, when I was young
Speaker 5: and as a woman, I don't always have. You can
Speaker 5: go for a dog at night and probably feel fine
Speaker 5: about it. I can't do that. I have to have
Speaker 5: a dog. And so I remember and the first dog
Speaker 5: I had as an adult on my own, my dad
Speaker 5: had saved a dog from euthanasia in Bethel, Alaska, and
Speaker 5: I went up to visit him lived in this little
Speaker 5: apartment and the dog he lived in this two bedroom place.
Speaker 5: And you know, I said, can I have this dog,
Speaker 5: and I was living by myself in an apartment and
Speaker 5: it's the dog a lot. I could go running any
Speaker 5: time I wanted. And Shelby was a retriever. She was
Speaker 5: not going to protect me. Probably licked somebody, sure, But
Speaker 5: when you have a big dog who is a police
Speaker 5: officer and runs, you know, said, oh, I run with you.
Speaker 5: She If you run with a big dog, you don't
Speaker 5: have to worry about anybody comeing near you. So they
Speaker 5: don't know if your dog is friendly or whatever. Right,
Speaker 5: But yeah, it's just allowed me to get out. But yeah,
Speaker 5: when you find for me, the dogs are the thing
Speaker 5: I love about them is they're They're incredibly indulgent of
Speaker 5: the bad stuff. They forgive, they get over stuff. They
Speaker 5: have a sense of emotional They have an emotional intelligence
Speaker 5: that some animals don't have. That they don't that you
Speaker 5: don't have to explain things to them, you know. I
Speaker 5: remember my daughters. We hit a brought Wiler Retriever mix
Speaker 5: named Wolf, who's I just last last May. He's the best.
Speaker 5: He's the best like emotional support dog I've ever had.
Speaker 2: Soul dog.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean Lucy got me in the mountains, my healer,
Speaker 5: she was my running buddy. But Wolf is all the fosters.
Speaker 5: I didn't know I was going to foster after him
Speaker 5: because he just makes everyone feel at ease. And you
Speaker 5: know there are people like that. We just I remember
Speaker 5: my first real job in college, and I thought I
Speaker 5: was very uncomfortable. I felt very isolated. Was by far,
Speaker 5: I think it was by ten years the youngest person
Speaker 5: in the building. And I just remember meeting a guy
Speaker 5: from out in the back. I was working at a
Speaker 5: glass company and he just was such a nice, warm
Speaker 5: human being that you felt an energy of love right
Speaker 5: and he married a woman who was very similar. And
Speaker 5: so there's these people who just put other people at ease.
Speaker 5: You know, They're just people who just in your in
Speaker 5: their presence, you just feel calmer and just like, Okay,
Speaker 5: this is going to be I'm fine, I don't have
Speaker 5: to impress this person. That's the way a dog is.
Speaker 5: And yeah, I joke around all the time about my dog, Sula.
Speaker 5: She's my Rottweiller I rescued from South Severe shelter a
Speaker 5: couple of years ago. When she looks at me man
Speaker 5: talking about true love, I feel like, you know in
Speaker 5: the Princess Bride that that romance in the Princess Bride
Speaker 5: a movie. That is how I feel. Yeah, whatever you want, ma'am.
Speaker 2: It's great. Where would you send people to adopt the
Speaker 2: Humane Society or.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'd say you can go to any shelter all
Speaker 5: like right now in shelter and Rescue is ridiculously terrible
Speaker 5: situation there. In fact, I just saw there's a shelter
Speaker 5: I think I think it's in Las Vegas. It might
Speaker 5: be just over the border in Nevada. They are looking
Speaker 5: for people to help them. They're trying to remodel a
Speaker 5: building that doesn't meet code and they need like I don't.
Speaker 5: I think it was like twenty four animals to go
Speaker 5: to foster or be adopted, and there's just nowhere for
Speaker 5: I have two fosters at my house. One i've had
Speaker 5: since July, when I've had since August, two black labs.
Speaker 5: They're amazing. I can't figure out why they haven't been adopted.
Speaker 5: We had a couple of dogs from a hoarding situation
Speaker 5: that did get adopted in the last month, but cause
Speaker 5: caws dot Org. But you can go on petfinder dot
Speaker 5: Com and just put in I want a small dog,
Speaker 5: I want a big dog. I want a girl dog.
Speaker 5: I want to you know, whatever you want. We're having
Speaker 5: an event on Saturday. I'm trying to remember where it's at.
Speaker 5: It's a different one. We did one tonight. They're at
Speaker 5: the front climbing gym, cause at the front you can
Speaker 5: get information.
Speaker 2: There is that up on thirty third. Is that a
Speaker 2: climbing gyp there's.
Speaker 5: One on thirty third. No, that's not that's a that's
Speaker 5: a different one. It's on thirteenth and like third West,
Speaker 5: Like it's right, Yeah, I was going to see where
Speaker 5: our event is this weekend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Duke has this.
Speaker 1: My dog has this tendency where whenever he jumps in
Speaker 1: the car he puts his paw on my arm and
Speaker 1: then cuddles his head onto my shoulder, And it's like,
Speaker 1: I could be having the worst day those like, you know,
Speaker 1: five to ten minutes as I'm driving from my house
Speaker 1: to the studio, when he just wants to cut it.
Speaker 1: I like, it's I'm telling you. It is a game changer.
Speaker 1: So if you're had a tough time and you're looking
Speaker 1: for potentially a solution that could help, I would encourage
Speaker 1: you to adopt or go find a dog that can
Speaker 1: make a difference in your life.
Speaker 2: All right, you have from STARSL.
Speaker 1: We find ourselves in a very interesting place with this
Speaker 1: little soccer club, and you know we will hear an announcement.
Speaker 1: I think in the next couple of weeks that the
Speaker 1: Miller family has purchased a controlling stake. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: where the percentage are going to look like. Ryan Smith
Speaker 1: will be out and then the Blitzer group will maintain
Speaker 1: their portion of control, which I think is good because
Speaker 1: you want to maintain the relationship. I'm a big Dave
Speaker 1: Blitzer guy, and I think the Blitzer group, with their
Speaker 1: ties to all of the clubs they own across the
Speaker 1: landscape of soccer throughout the world, is a good thing
Speaker 1: for ourself to be a part of. I worked for
Speaker 1: the Millers for seven years, had a really, really great experience.
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of Steve Starks, and you're not
Speaker 1: going to find anybody better than Gail. I don't think
Speaker 1: Ryan ever really cared to be involved, and I think
Speaker 1: the hockey thing, combined with basketball and now whatever else
Speaker 1: he has going on, probably is more of a priority
Speaker 1: priority for him, and that's fine. I just don't think
Speaker 1: the promises that were made initially wherever you know, cashed in,
Speaker 1: wherever executed. I guess whatever you want to say. What
Speaker 1: are your thoughts on where we find ourselves? Yet again
Speaker 1: another ownership transition structure for Rails all the.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I actually thought it was a great
Speaker 5: I mean, I've had nothing but good experiences with the Millers.
Speaker 5: So let me just tell you a Larry Miller story. Okay,
Speaker 5: when I was covering the Bees, Joe Busus owned them,
Speaker 5: and the locker room was brutal. I would go after games,
Speaker 5: I had to get permission. They would yell fire in
Speaker 5: the hole. Then I would be allowed to walk in
Speaker 5: the back door and people would drop their towels. And
Speaker 5: I was at the time thirty two, thirty one or
Speaker 5: thirty two year old, you know, woman with a couple
Speaker 5: of kids, a couple of step kids. So it wasn't
Speaker 5: that I cared about the nakedness, expected to see that
Speaker 5: in locker room, not a problem. It was the deliberate
Speaker 5: attempts to harass me, to undermine me, to just let
Speaker 5: me know it wasn't welcome there. Yeah, and I talked
Speaker 5: with a few people about it. Completely separate from that,
Speaker 5: I always really hated I had different experiences at hockey.
Speaker 5: When I was covering the Grizzlies, I had to rely
Speaker 5: on Brett Prettyman from the Like Tribune to go get
Speaker 5: me people to interview and bring them into the hallway
Speaker 5: because I was not allowed in the locker room, okay,
Speaker 5: And nobody would fight that back like I would fight.
Speaker 5: I would argue. They were like, yeah, you can't go in. No,
Speaker 5: and so you know, it's it's disrespectful to our players.
Speaker 5: We don't want to do it. Whatever. When they did
Speaker 5: let me in one time to do a feature story,
Speaker 5: they kind of played a joke on me and the player.
Speaker 5: They told me to go in this room and it
Speaker 5: was a bathroom and he was using the bathroom, going
Speaker 5: number two. And it was like pretty humiliating for both
Speaker 5: of us. So when I started, it was two thousand,
Speaker 5: two thousands, so it would have been early two thousands
Speaker 5: and yeah, and so you know, but Bratt was great.
Speaker 5: But I mean, I kept saying, like, I'm relying on
Speaker 5: my competition to bring me people to interview this. This
Speaker 5: is not an ideal situation. And then in the case
Speaker 5: of baseball, the Tribune reporter could go in and hang
Speaker 5: out and he would be describing scenes when they would
Speaker 5: get a new player, he would have you know, dinners
Speaker 5: sometimes beers with the guys, like bonding with them, hear things,
Speaker 5: know things. Just had a different level of intimacy with
Speaker 5: the players that I just didn't how am I going
Speaker 5: to do that? And I remember when I started in journalism,
Speaker 5: I asked my mentor, Mike Carter, who was, you know,
Speaker 5: the best crime reporter? Everybody said he's the best ever
Speaker 5: was learn from him. He was an AP. I got
Speaker 5: hired by EP and his advice to me was, Okay,
Speaker 5: so after the shift, be where, he said, be where
Speaker 5: they are, go over to the cop shop, hang out whatever.
Speaker 5: But when their ship's end, you know, invite him over
Speaker 5: to the bar and get them and buy them a
Speaker 5: beer and get them talking and just get to know them.
Speaker 5: And I was like, I'm twenty two years old. Yeah,
Speaker 5: if I invite someone to get a beer after work,
Speaker 5: what do you think they think? Lost?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Sure?
Speaker 5: And you know that's where when you're working like male
Speaker 5: dominate things like people don't even think about it. And
Speaker 5: I remember being in a jazz game once and I
Speaker 5: think it actually Cameronnie may have been there for this,
Speaker 5: but we were I was just filling in for Jody,
Speaker 5: and everybody was like talking about where they were going
Speaker 5: to go afterwards. We're going to go get a drink.
Speaker 5: Do you want to go with or whatever? And I
Speaker 5: didn't want to go, but like, I think somebody noticed
Speaker 5: that they had invited pretty much everybody in the room
Speaker 5: but me, and I remember some one of them, and
Speaker 5: it would have been Fulk or Cameroni would have said something,
Speaker 5: and I was like, I don't want to go anyway,
Speaker 5: It's okay, but like it's it's just you're at a
Speaker 5: competitive disadvantage, right, So I asked. So I was interviewing
Speaker 5: Larry about this softball tournament that he was bringing to Utah,
Speaker 5: like World Championship Fast Pitch Softball Tournament. I was out
Speaker 5: at his office in Sandy and then we did the interview,
Speaker 5: which every time I had, like when he had the WNBA,
Speaker 5: I went over chatted with them for a minute. He
Speaker 5: invited me to sit with them every time I talked
Speaker 5: to him. Couldn't have been more accommodating, gave me way
Speaker 5: more than I ever asked for, right, And so after
Speaker 5: we finished the interview, I said, Hey, can I talk
Speaker 5: to you about something that's bothering me as a reporter
Speaker 5: covering the baseball because he had they had purchased the
Speaker 5: baseball team. And I explained it to him, and I said, personally,
Speaker 5: I think it's disrespectful to players and to journalists that
Speaker 5: we have to do this in a locker room. We're
Speaker 5: not getting good interviews. Nobody's talking to us because they're
Speaker 5: trying to get dressed and get out of there. Isn't
Speaker 5: there a way we could do this differently? There's no
Speaker 5: other business that asked you to talk to people who
Speaker 5: are not dressed, right, it just doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1: Well, ye, yes, there's no other business. We need to
Speaker 1: discuss on it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly, Well no business I would like to work in.
Speaker 6: Sure.
Speaker 5: But so he was like and he immediately solved that
Speaker 5: problem by doingreat. And I remember at first with like
Speaker 5: this room that they had, it was kind of austere
Speaker 5: and I don't know what it was originally supposed to
Speaker 5: be used for, but like didn't have good lighting. They
Speaker 5: just put a table with a table throw or it.
Speaker 5: But they figured it out right, But they decided to
Speaker 5: do this and take action and basically said, we don't
Speaker 5: want journalists in the locker room that's the team's space,
Speaker 5: and we will make them available. You tell us who
Speaker 5: you want, you know, you tell us when you need them.
Speaker 5: They gave us a little bit before time, a little
Speaker 5: bit after time, and you know, I think there were
Speaker 5: people who were a little bit upset about it at first,
Speaker 5: But for me, it was not just about leveling the
Speaker 5: playing field for journalists. It's really about like what are
Speaker 5: you there for? I mean, are you there to overhear conversation,
Speaker 5: to be involved in gossip to you know, like, how
Speaker 5: much does it matter that you can describe a scene
Speaker 5: at a locker where someone's getting dressed versus being able
Speaker 5: to have an actual conversation where they can think about
Speaker 5: what you're asking them and you can have a much
Speaker 5: more meaningful exchange. Yeah, you know, I mean, I know,
Speaker 5: if I'm half dressed, I'm not gonna be thinking about
Speaker 5: what I'm talking to San. I'm be thinking about am
Speaker 5: I covered? Is there a TV camera around? How long
Speaker 5: is this going to last? What am I obligated to do?
Speaker 5: There was just a controversy about this in golf with
Speaker 5: the after interviews trying to remember who it was, but
Speaker 5: I think it was McElroy who defended the other golfer
Speaker 5: saying that we don't have to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Oh callin MORICWI.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so, And there was this whole idea, and I've
Speaker 5: never felt like I know there are requirements for athletes
Speaker 5: to come and talk to media. I know there are
Speaker 5: like media, and without them, some athletes would never talk
Speaker 5: to us. But I think I feel I don't want
Speaker 5: to interview somebody who doesn't want to talk to me.
Speaker 5: And I know that there except other people feel differently.
Speaker 5: They're not politicians, they're athletes. They play games for money,
Speaker 5: and do I think that they should want to talk
Speaker 5: to us, Yes, But I also feel like this is
Speaker 5: more the situation where you work with someone you're comfortable with.
Speaker 5: Most people I talk to, I say, find a journalist
Speaker 5: you trust, find people you are comfortable working with, and really,
Speaker 5: you know, work on a good understanding. You help them,
Speaker 5: they can help you. I don't always. I see sometimes
Speaker 5: journalism as much more transactional. You give me what I want,
Speaker 5: and I'm going to go and do what I want
Speaker 5: with it, and I don't really care about you, like
Speaker 5: I feel like you owe me this. Anytime there's entitlement
Speaker 5: or like this feeling of being owed something I don't
Speaker 5: think it's a good energy for the exchange. But so
Speaker 5: while I do think that in principle McElroy the golfers
Speaker 5: were right, I think the journalists that are there need
Speaker 5: to rethink, like, how are we interacting with them that
Speaker 5: makes them feel like if they are not obligated to
Speaker 5: do it, Because dealing with the media, it doesn't just
Speaker 5: help you. It helps your league, it grows your sport,
Speaker 5: it helps it's there are things that are happening. You know,
Speaker 5: Tony Fanow you've mentioned him, had an exchange with a
Speaker 5: young woman, a who is a cancer survivor as a child.
Speaker 5: He's a golfer now, and you know, I can't I
Speaker 5: think it was one of my friends when a journalists
Speaker 5: who shared the video. But there's super uplifting, right, and
Speaker 5: that doesn't do much for Tony. I mean, maybe it
Speaker 5: makes Tony look good, but it also makes the game
Speaker 5: of golf look good. It also makes the tour look good.
Speaker 5: It also encourages people into the sport. There's a lot
Speaker 5: of reasons that you want good, positive interactions with media.
Speaker 5: I just think they're difficult to find. But that's a
Speaker 5: long and way got way wider than I expected. No,
Speaker 5: it's fine, Larry Miller.
Speaker 1: It's great to hear that Larry was open to finding
Speaker 1: a solution for you, you know, because I'm sure a
Speaker 1: lot of people in his position just wouldn't have been like,
Speaker 1: I don't really need to do this.
Speaker 5: For you, right, No, a lot of people. I had
Speaker 5: talked to a lot of people and they were like, well,
Speaker 5: this is how we've always done it. Yeah, And I'm like, okay,
Speaker 5: but it's not nineteen fifty, right, so can we do
Speaker 5: it differently? I mean, even things that are not problematic,
Speaker 5: Like I remember being in the jazz locker room and
Speaker 5: Paul millsapp decided he didn't want there was a we
Speaker 5: were all cuddled around somebody else. I don't remember who
Speaker 5: it was, but he decided he was annoyed that we
Speaker 5: were He couldn't get to his locker right right, so
Speaker 5: he just dropped his towel and bent over just because
Speaker 5: it's a locker room, okay. And we have a buddy
Speaker 5: Ken Kevin.
Speaker 2: Graham KG the MIDI ticket.
Speaker 5: He like hurried and got in front of me, like
Speaker 5: my honor was at stake here, and he's like, oh
Speaker 5: you know what, And he was like, Amy, you basically
Speaker 5: apologize to me, and I was like, Kevin, why are
Speaker 5: you not doing this for the other people in the room, right?
Speaker 5: Like you know what I mean? It just exacerbates a
Speaker 5: dynamic that's already puts us at a disadvantage. But also
Speaker 5: like Paul should be able to get to his locker
Speaker 5: and get dressed right, right, And I don't agree with
Speaker 5: the way he handled it.
Speaker 1: But I so I'm just curious to get your take
Speaker 1: though on this ownership transition, because I actually think, you know,
Speaker 1: Gail walks the walk. You know, a lot of people
Speaker 1: in her position talk about like Utah this and I
Speaker 1: love the community that it's like, no, you don't, dude,
Speaker 1: you're doing this for you. Okay, this is Walter White
Speaker 1: breaking back at the end, like this is about me
Speaker 1: and Gail has I don't know that there the list
Speaker 1: of people that have done more for our community than
Speaker 1: Gail Miller. She might be at the top, if there's
Speaker 1: anybody else up there, it's a very short.
Speaker 5: List, spent ecles. I mean there are some.
Speaker 1: Sure, but yeah, but Gail, to me has always been
Speaker 1: one that is front facing about wanting to do good
Speaker 1: and actually does That's been my experience with Gail Miller one.
Speaker 5: Hundred and I think they're concerned about more than just
Speaker 5: the success of a sports team. Case in point, they
Speaker 5: were involved in the tour of Utah. That's how I
Speaker 5: met Steve Miller and got to know him. When really
Speaker 5: I think there was probably one or two journalist Evehn
Speaker 5: covering they were trying to establish it, right, and I
Speaker 5: didn't know the Miller's other than Larry right. But I
Speaker 5: was really impressed with the experience they tried to give
Speaker 5: these athletes. This is a worldwide sport and we're a
Speaker 5: little tiny community, right. We have amazing scenery and you
Speaker 5: can make some really incredible courses here if you're talking
Speaker 5: racing bike or hiking or running. But I loved working
Speaker 5: with them because they weren't just about we need to
Speaker 5: make money. It was about we want this community to
Speaker 5: have this because this will open their world, this will
Speaker 5: change the way they see this sport. And yeah, it's
Speaker 5: definitely a business. Definitely want to make money, definitely show
Speaker 5: you that, right, But it's also like this life enriching thing.
Speaker 5: The reason we love sports, the reason we love entertainment, right,
Speaker 5: it makes our lives better. It made it, you know,
Speaker 5: going to work and going to bed. You know, just
Speaker 5: doing doing the things you need to do to live
Speaker 5: is a pretty pretty depressing life. Yeah, right, having joy
Speaker 5: doing things that are fun, and something about having these
Speaker 5: experiences is very You know the Millers did when they
Speaker 5: made the the finals the two years in a row
Speaker 5: against with the Bulls. They had a thing I remember
Speaker 5: talking to somebody about this. They had on the plat
Speaker 5: on the block. They put a big screen teat right
Speaker 5: outside of the delta side and they had all these
Speaker 5: chairs and they had at the time that I don't
Speaker 5: think stre vendors were much of a thing, but they
Speaker 5: The thing that was fascinating was how many of those
Speaker 5: people I went and covered that I won hung out
Speaker 5: with them. I had no interest at all in this,
Speaker 5: and I absolutely loved it. It was a blast, and I
Speaker 5: ended up doing it in Atlanta during the Olympics in
Speaker 5: two thousand and two. But what they did was they
Speaker 5: gave people who couldn't afford a ticket a way to
Speaker 5: have that finals experience. And I think they did it
Speaker 5: actually in the semis. I think they did it two
Speaker 5: rounds and it didn't cost anything and you could buy concessions,
Speaker 5: which you know, only benefits the team, right, But like
Speaker 5: it was amazing because there were people with families and
Speaker 5: they were like, I've been in a jazz fan all
Speaker 5: My guy he was in his sixties. He was like,
Speaker 5: hadn't even taken a shower after work, and he brought
Speaker 5: his kids and and he said, I remember this world
Speaker 5: kept soccer when they had a thing on the Gallovan too.
Speaker 5: These people will never be able to buy a ticket
Speaker 5: there and they but they got to have this moment.
Speaker 5: They got to be part of this community celebration of
Speaker 5: their team. And that is a thing that I think
Speaker 5: the Millers are unique, uniquely like they do that in
Speaker 5: a way that is I don't see a ton of
Speaker 5: owners doing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, for sure.
Speaker 1: All right, before I say you lose here, you reference
Speaker 1: Cooper Flag, You referenced your nephew being a big Jazz fan.
Speaker 1: And there are three two games left Friday, OKC. They
Speaker 1: honored Dan Roberts last night forty six years PA announcer
Speaker 1: Prints of a Man. Yeah, he's exiting stage left. Apparently
Speaker 1: the Jazz posted the PA job on LinkedIn, So they're
Speaker 1: just gonna.
Speaker 2: Take anybody go ahead with a search.
Speaker 1: I guess I still don't know why they're making the change,
Speaker 1: but I'm not down there anymore. First time in Jazz history,
Speaker 1: we have a team that's lost more than sixty games.
Speaker 1: And I watch every game. It's part of the job.
Speaker 1: It's also part of my entire life. Jazz basketball is
Speaker 1: intertwin twined in my entire life. And it is really hard.
Speaker 1: And you know, I have a lot of good friends
Speaker 1: that are still with the organization. And it's hard on
Speaker 1: the players. It's hard on the coaches, it's hard on
Speaker 1: the front office. It's hard on ticket sales. Fans are
Speaker 1: showing up. The TV ratings are massively down locally. When
Speaker 1: Gobaert and Mitchell and Quinn had like their best teams,
Speaker 1: the Jazz were second in the NBA and local TV
Speaker 1: ratings to the Warriors. The Warriors were one because Steph
Speaker 1: was Stephen and Durant the whole thing. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think there were only two teams that had a more
Speaker 1: precipitous drop than the Jazz have in local TV ratings.
Speaker 2: And I get it. I know what they look.
Speaker 1: They operate in a league that incentivizes losing, and as
Speaker 1: long as losing is incentivized for certain teams in certain situations,
Speaker 1: you're going to see teams do what the Jazz are doing.
Speaker 2: We're just not used to it.
Speaker 1: What do you think this has been like for jazz
Speaker 1: fans that are used to at least competent basketball.
Speaker 5: Well, I think that this is the problem with business
Speaker 5: and sports getting married because competition wise, I mean the
Speaker 5: person I feel the soriust for is will for sure,
Speaker 5: because how do you find purpose? How do you find
Speaker 5: how do you think about competition when you know your
Speaker 5: owner doesn't want you to win? Like success is trying
Speaker 5: to win, it is trying to be your best. So
Speaker 5: how do you do that? How do you honor that right?
Speaker 5: How do you have some integrity in that process if
Speaker 5: the goal is to lose and it's not a matter
Speaker 5: of like we're going to give our best and we're
Speaker 5: just you know, overmastered or whatever, like they're sitting their
Speaker 5: best players. Like it's so I feel like I feel
Speaker 5: like it's been hard on the fans. I feel like
Speaker 5: we haven't seen anything like this. I mean, this is,
Speaker 5: as someone pointed out, if you lived in another city,
Speaker 5: this would be like, so what you know it matters
Speaker 5: to us because this is a community where this idea
Speaker 5: of not trying your best is also just no one's
Speaker 5: going to admit to that. Not okay, right, So I
Speaker 5: think those are the things I've thought it. I think
Speaker 5: I mentioned this to someone. I think it's fascinating. I
Speaker 5: would love to talk to him honestly about, well, how
Speaker 5: do you have integrity in this coaching process and trying
Speaker 5: to get guys to give you something good or great
Speaker 5: or develop or have long term goals about who they
Speaker 5: want to be in this league, about how you're going
Speaker 5: to evolve this team when the entire season. I think
Speaker 5: the real issue to me, the root of the problem
Speaker 5: is the league, and they should not have They shouldn't
Speaker 5: They should change this system. As you said, it incentivizes losing.
Speaker 5: And it's not just incentivizedes losing, it's ruining the game.
Speaker 5: You're you're hurting your own product by making sure that
Speaker 5: in certain certain markets that the players are the best.
Speaker 5: Players are not going to be on floor. So you're
Speaker 5: not getting your best every game from everybody, right, and
Speaker 5: you're not even getting you have you have someone like
Speaker 5: Jordan Clarkson who's had this crappy year right because of
Speaker 5: what's happening with the team, and that when you're talking
Speaker 5: about athletic athletes and maybe injuries and and like again
Speaker 5: this idea of timing and windows, right, I just feel
Speaker 5: like the league should adjust the way they think about
Speaker 5: the draft and reimagine it because you're they are hurting
Speaker 5: their own league. And eventually this will be when you
Speaker 5: get to a point where you the haves and the
Speaker 5: have nots are further apart. You could get to a
Speaker 5: situation where half your teams are trying to dump, trying
Speaker 5: to try and.
Speaker 1: That is where we're at, Amy, I mean, we're pretty
Speaker 1: close stretch there are. If I am kind, I say
Speaker 1: six teams are doing this. If I'm honest, I'm telling
Speaker 1: you ten because of injuries to what Mayama and embiid
Speaker 1: phillies in the mix and Antonio's in the mix. To
Speaker 1: your point, it's fixing the draft structure, eliminating any incentivized
Speaker 1: for losing. And you know what would secure all of
Speaker 1: this is promotion, relegation.
Speaker 5: It'll I ever love it, Oh my gosh, that would
Speaker 5: be amazing. Undred percent on board with that. I think
Speaker 5: it is. It makes everything exciting, It makes everything matter,
Speaker 5: I mean, and to me, that's competition. It is the
Speaker 5: beauty sports is that everything matters. Did you slough. Did
Speaker 5: you not go to practice, did you show up late?
Speaker 5: Did you do lesson you were asked to do? Every
Speaker 5: little thing should matter right, every little extra you do
Speaker 5: should benefit you. And when you were trying to work
Speaker 5: in a place where excellence is not rewarded, I don't.
Speaker 5: I just think that's a bad recipe.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you you know.
Speaker 1: My father has a role on the board of Burnley FC,
Speaker 1: a soccer club in England, and they're about to, hopefully
Speaker 1: I think it's next week, play a match where if
Speaker 1: they win, they're going to be promoted again. But they've
Speaker 1: been promoted and relegated for three straight years and it
Speaker 1: is the most intense viewing experience I've ever had in
Speaker 1: my entire life. For a little old soccer club that's
Speaker 1: not at the top of the Premiership table trying to
Speaker 1: fight to stay in it, and the days where they've
Speaker 1: lost to be relegated back down to the second Division
Speaker 1: or whatever they call it, the people that are involved
Speaker 1: with the club are devastated. And then the next year
Speaker 1: enough success to be promoted once again. And when they're
Speaker 1: able to grab promotion, it is promotion just to be
Speaker 1: able to play with the other teams not win the league, No,
Speaker 1: but I think what.
Speaker 5: It does is it makes everything meaningful. And I think
Speaker 5: that I mean when BYU was independent. One of my
Speaker 5: concerns when they first went independent was if you don't
Speaker 5: have a league title, that's one layer of success that
Speaker 5: you've taken away from. Sure, so if you don't win
Speaker 5: every game and make it to the playoffs, right, and
Speaker 5: expanding the playoffs gives you levels of success. And so
Speaker 5: there's lots of ways to have that moment you're talking about,
Speaker 5: where the community can galvanize, where everybody can be inspired,
Speaker 5: where people can give everything they've got to this community
Speaker 5: that we're all trying to be a part of.
Speaker 1: Amy, I've taken up too much of your time. Where
Speaker 1: would you tell our listeners to go find whatever it
Speaker 1: is you're working on right now?
Speaker 5: You could listen to There is a new episode of
Speaker 5: The Letter from season one. It's called The Hearing. You
Speaker 5: can go to The letterpodcast dot com. I heard from
Speaker 5: somebody the other day about one of the bonus episodes.
Speaker 5: One was about your dad, it was from a businessman,
Speaker 5: oh okay, and one was about the world according to Pablo,
Speaker 5: So actually, there's really great stuff in the Bonus episodes
Speaker 5: two from Making of.
Speaker 2: A Moment Listen every minute of it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I would say you could do any of
Speaker 5: the apps, the Spotify, the Apple, the all of the above.
Speaker 1: So there's too much tray was all that's it been
Speaker 1: Making to the moment. Hey, great to see you, my
Speaker 1: friend guys much. Amy stops by today courtesy of our
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Speaker 1: your law, no matter its size or shape. Their four
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Speaker 1: yard this season, visit them online at IFA dot co op,
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Speaker 1: IFA Country Stores helping to grow the things you love.
Speaker 4: We're back on the Drive with ESPN's Dave mcmannimon joining
Speaker 4: us for today's NBA Daily Assist.
Speaker 1: Have the day, justin Rose, you just missed a birdie
Speaker 1: putt on eighteen, and I think he'll tap in for
Speaker 1: part here for a four stroke lead over Scottie Scheffler.
Speaker 2: Oh, no bogey.
Speaker 1: He dropped one three stroke lead over Scottie Scheffler. Justin
Speaker 1: Rose cards a sixty five. Roy McElroy is four under
Speaker 1: through fourteen. Our next guest apparently not a golf guy,
Speaker 1: Dave mcminnimon Thursday Afternoon.
Speaker 2: You're not a fan of the game of golf. I
Speaker 2: was unaware of that.
Speaker 8: I wouldn't put it that way that I'm not a
Speaker 8: fan of it. I think is a cool sport and
Speaker 8: I can get caught up in the drama of a
Speaker 8: great tournament on a Sunday if I'm not working, but
Speaker 8: I just don't follow it regularly. Do you actually good
Speaker 8: Justin Rose being in first place? I went to the
Speaker 8: twenty thirteen US Open in the Philly suburbs at Marrying
Speaker 8: with my dad, and he won it that year, so
Speaker 8: I do have some a bit of a point for him.
Speaker 8: I love Tiger when I was a kid, but it's
Speaker 8: been a while since Tiger's been kind of been that guy.
Speaker 2: You ever play? Do you like to get out and swing?
Speaker 8: I played about once a year It's one of those
Speaker 8: things where I have a bunch of friends as I
Speaker 8: get a little longer in the tooth, that that's their
Speaker 8: main form of physical exercise slash recreation. And like, I'm
Speaker 8: still trying to hang on to my pickup hoops game,
Speaker 8: so if I get free time, I'm doing that rather
Speaker 8: than going to the golf course.
Speaker 1: How often are we talking pick up hoops? Davic Minman,
Speaker 1: what's the consistency.
Speaker 8: Level I play? If I'm home in LA I play
Speaker 8: Saturday morning, Tuesday night, and then usually one other weekday
Speaker 8: floating morning, So like three times.
Speaker 1: A week I'm picturing Dave Mcamendimon on the beach, maybe
Speaker 1: somewhere down in Santa Monica shirt lists right.
Speaker 2: Outdoor basketball? Is that what we're talking about here?
Speaker 4: Ever?
Speaker 8: No, No, I gave up outdoor basketball about ten years ago.
Speaker 8: It's so bad on your need. So I got a
Speaker 8: couple of nice little indoor setups. It's all all organized pickups.
Speaker 8: So it's it's guys that I've known for for a
Speaker 8: decade plus. Guys played high school ball, some played college ball.
Speaker 8: So it's guys who know how to play. But you're
Speaker 8: also like you know one another, You're not getting into
Speaker 8: random fights. You're not trying to get anybody injured. You're
Speaker 8: able to you know, shower and not have a you know,
Speaker 8: black black eye or bloody nose when you go to
Speaker 8: work an hour after the pickup game.
Speaker 2: You play with any of your ESPN cohorts.
Speaker 8: I have played with them in the past. There's not
Speaker 8: too many on on our staff currently that regularly played.
Speaker 8: McMahon plays a little bit, and he's got a nice
Speaker 8: little low post game and a decent catch and shoot jumper.
Speaker 8: But I think that's the only guy on our current
Speaker 8: staff that I played with. Chris Hanes plays a bunch
Speaker 8: that I've played with him over the years. We've played.
Speaker 8: We put together a pick up game Overall Star in
Speaker 8: San Francisco. But yeah, it's there's fewer and fewer unfortunately
Speaker 8: around the league. I feel like, of the guys who
Speaker 8: covered the NBA that play regularly.
Speaker 1: You can't get timmy good time Bontemps out there. He's
Speaker 1: like a good six team.
Speaker 8: Bon TEMs will play every once in a while. Bosteps played.
Speaker 8: We've put together a pickup game in the morning my
Speaker 8: wedding and Bontep's played in it. And actually I'll give
Speaker 8: him credit. He blocks at my jump shots, Bruce, let
Speaker 8: you go a little bit in the game. But Bonteps
Speaker 8: could play. He stays in shape, but he's more of
Speaker 8: like he's an obsessive pelotoner.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, all right, very interesting, All right, moving on, Dave.
Speaker 1: I don't imagine during your pickup games you are introduced
Speaker 1: and then you start crying and drop a forty five
Speaker 1: point you know, jam on your old team. You were
Speaker 1: on the scene, you were prominently featured on television, as
Speaker 1: was our guy Tim McMahon. I got to know what
Speaker 1: that was like because there are so many times in
Speaker 1: a lot of sports where we anticipate the gravity of
Speaker 1: a moment and wonder whether or not an athlete or
Speaker 1: a coach or whatever is going to step up and
Speaker 1: meet that moment.
Speaker 2: And man, did he meet that moment?
Speaker 1: And certainly the Lakers are remotivated to help Luca get
Speaker 1: his and they get the win. And what was a really,
Speaker 1: really unique special night. What was it like to be
Speaker 1: there on the scene.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 8: I don't want to be too like Fu Fu poetic here,
Speaker 8: but part of the reason why I wanted to do
Speaker 8: this job was to be able to explore the human
Speaker 8: condition and marvel at what people are capable of accomplishing
Speaker 8: in extreme conditions. And so walking away from the arena
Speaker 8: last night, you're just shaking your head and you're just
Speaker 8: blown away by how Luca Dottris was able to compartmentalize
Speaker 8: fully feel the moment of the pregame introduction where the
Speaker 8: Mavericks honored with about a three minute highlight video and
Speaker 8: the crowd starts channing his name and let that wash
Speaker 8: over him and be vulnerable enough and quite frankly, man
Speaker 8: enough to cry in front of twenty thousand people and
Speaker 8: rather than you know, feel like he has to be
Speaker 8: John Wayne about it and then put the switch. You know,
Speaker 8: he was a little shaky for the first two minutes
Speaker 8: in the game. He had a bad pass underneath the
Speaker 8: basket behind his back that was the turnover, and he
Speaker 8: had his first shocky miss, But really from the moment
Speaker 8: he hit a three right in front of the Lakers
Speaker 8: bench with about you know, maybe eight minutes ago in
Speaker 8: the first quarter till the end of the game, he
Speaker 8: was a killer and it was just an incredible night
Speaker 8: to watch. And then walking into the postgame locker room
Speaker 8: for the Lakers afterwards, talking to Austin Rees and he's like, man,
Speaker 8: I didn't want to look at Luke on the bench
Speaker 8: pregame because I thought if I looked at him crying,
Speaker 8: I'm going to start crying.
Speaker 6: I felt.
Speaker 8: He talked to Lebron, and Lebron is like, this is
Speaker 8: going to be a night that I remember, not for
Speaker 8: the rest of my career, but for the rest of
Speaker 8: my life. And he was just happy to be a
Speaker 8: part of it. And JJ Reddick, you know, having the
Speaker 8: sense of the moment to have a separate sub for
Speaker 8: Luca at the very end of the game with the
Speaker 8: mid thirty four to go, so he gets another ovation
Speaker 8: from the crowd. It was. It's one of those great nights.
Speaker 8: There's been two nights since regular season games, I should
Speaker 8: say since I started covering the NBA back in two
Speaker 8: thousand and five that I've regretted that I wasn't able
Speaker 8: to cover. One was December second, twenty ten, when Lebron
Speaker 8: had his first game back in Cleveland as a member
Speaker 8: of the Heat and I was coming to Lakers back then,
Speaker 8: it wasn't necessarily had an opportunity to do that. And
Speaker 8: then it was Kobe's last regular season game with the Lakers,
Speaker 8: and if I pushed for that, I probably could have
Speaker 8: covered The Cavs had a meaningless end of their regular
Speaker 8: season that year, they had already lot up there seating
Speaker 8: in the Eastern Conference playoffs, and I had covered Kobe
Speaker 8: for six years, so I probably kind of pushed for
Speaker 8: that one. I wish I did because obviously had the
Speaker 8: sixty point send off. This is the only game that
Speaker 8: I would put anywhere close to the realm of what
Speaker 8: those two games became and lucas there's all the cred
Speaker 8: in the world.
Speaker 1: I actually was covering Kobe's last game because I was
Speaker 1: doing pre aff and posts for the team that he
Speaker 1: played against, the Utah Jazz, and I remember watching that
Speaker 1: game and breaking it down afterwards. It was quite a night,
Speaker 1: But I wanted to kick the tires, Dave, since you
Speaker 1: were there with the reaction of Dallas Mavericks fans, because
Speaker 1: on TV you could hear the fire Nico stuff and
Speaker 1: then Luca would hit a three, and it felt like
Speaker 1: all the Laker fans in attendance were superjuiced about that.
Speaker 1: But it also felt like most of the Mavericks fans,
Speaker 1: from what I could tell on television, were pulling for
Speaker 1: Luca to.
Speaker 2: Have a good night.
Speaker 1: How many Mavericks fans were cheering for the maps, Like,
Speaker 1: what was it like to be what was the fan reaction?
Speaker 8: Yeah, but you know they have those like artificial energy
Speaker 8: prompts on the jumbo tron sometimes during I'm out or
Speaker 8: noise meter, they had zero effect on the crowd. And
Speaker 8: they were several times throughout the game where I was
Speaker 8: sitting next to Dan Wiki of the La Times, who
Speaker 8: covers the Lakers as well, and we're like, oh wow, look,
Speaker 8: it's like no one's responding to that. So I think
Speaker 8: the general interest of mass fans last night was to
Speaker 8: cheer Luca and then when there was breaks in the
Speaker 8: action have the fire Nico chant and the fire Deco chant.
Speaker 8: It started just when Lakers shot free throws, and by
Speaker 8: the end of the game is when the Mavericks were
Speaker 8: shooting free throws as well. That said, you know, I
Speaker 8: thought that it didn't cross the line. Of course, it
Speaker 8: had to be uncomfortable for Nico Harrison, who stood a
Speaker 8: tunnel kind of in between the Lakers bench and the
Speaker 8: Mavericks bench. He was mostly out of sight, but if
Speaker 8: you knew where to look, you could see him. But
Speaker 8: the Dallas fans really like poured their support for Luca.
Speaker 8: You saw so many families wearing you know, different versions
Speaker 8: of Mads Luca jerseys that of course they've been purchased
Speaker 8: over his six and a half year career. There the
Speaker 8: Luca Luca chant right that followed right after the tribute
Speaker 8: video that played like echoed throughout the arena gave me
Speaker 8: goosebumps when I heard it. There was a little bit
Speaker 8: of an MVP chant for Luca at one point, and
Speaker 8: in the first quarter whenever he touched the ball, it
Speaker 8: was just pure agulation cheers, which was cool. I mean,
Speaker 8: the guys, if you love watching basketball, it's hard to
Speaker 8: you know, put him in any category other than like
Speaker 8: a master of the game of basketball. It's a modern
Speaker 8: Larry Bird with you know, with the European twist. I
Speaker 8: guess holf fitting he scores forty last night, the bucket
Speaker 8: that he gets it on is a ridiculous reverse, you know,
Speaker 8: showing the type of commandy as of the game unlike
Speaker 8: few have ever had. And yeah, it was a big
Speaker 8: night Phil Lakers as well. They clinched the playoff spot.
Speaker 8: They're not going to be in the play in tournament
Speaker 8: and they have two games left to get the number
Speaker 8: three seed in the West, and if they get that,
Speaker 8: you're talking about a week's rest. You're on the opposite
Speaker 8: side of the bracket as okay, see, and you could
Speaker 8: really do some damage this postseason.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I do want to get there before I
Speaker 1: set you loose. And you know, this is going to
Speaker 1: be a little bit of a loose parallel, But I
Speaker 1: am a sports talk radio host in Salt Lake City,
Speaker 1: and so oftentimes I try to consume NBA games and
Speaker 1: storylines and related to certain things that have happened here.
Speaker 1: And you know, with the Lucas stuff, you hear a
Speaker 1: lot of like, nobody trades away a twenty five year
Speaker 1: old generational talent. And I'm not saying Donovan Mitchell's Luka
Speaker 1: Doncic right, I'm not, But the Jazz did that. The
Speaker 1: Jazz traded Donovan, you know, really at the beginning of
Speaker 1: his prime, and certainly two different situations.
Speaker 2: So the parallel is a little loose.
Speaker 1: But when I saw Luca in tears during the pregame introduction,
Speaker 1: if I'm a Mavericks fan, it makes me even more
Speaker 1: upset because it reaffirms the reporting of you and others
Speaker 1: that he very much did not want this to happen. Now, look,
Speaker 1: he's a Laker, he's in Los Angeles. He's going to
Speaker 1: be just fine. He'll acquamate and he'll be a legend
Speaker 1: in a place where all these guys want to live
Speaker 1: and play. I get all that, But when Donovan Mitchell
Speaker 1: came back to saw Lake with the Calves, there was
Speaker 1: no there were no tears, there was no emotion like
Speaker 1: when he left. It was kind of like, yeah, I'm out,
Speaker 1: and I'm thrilled that I'm no longer there anymore. And
Speaker 1: if you're a jazz fan and you see a generational
Speaker 1: talent like Luca crying during the pregame introductions, if you're
Speaker 1: a Mavericks, just makes you even more upset because it's like, dude,
Speaker 1: he wanted Dallas, he wanted to be here, and he's
Speaker 1: one of the best players in the world. And you know,
Speaker 1: from a jazz perspective, it's like, if Donovan was outwardly
Speaker 1: upset about that move and he clearly wanted to be
Speaker 1: back here, I think it would have changed the way
Speaker 1: a lot of jazz fans view him, viewed him then
Speaker 1: and view him now, And just from simply this is
Speaker 1: a really loose I'm gonna land the plane. But just
Speaker 1: simply from like a fan paradigm fan perspective, the fact
Speaker 1: that you just saw that that generational dude is so
Speaker 1: upset that he was traded away from your team, it
Speaker 1: probably makes the vitriol towards the Dallas front office even
Speaker 1: more intense.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense at all?
Speaker 8: It does, because it's gonna be hard to figure out
Speaker 8: how that faucet gets turned off. Basketball fans, like MAVs fans,
Speaker 8: are basketball fans, so they're going to continue to see
Speaker 8: Luca's success with the Lakers. And I'm not saying that
Speaker 8: the collection of talent that the Mavericks have right now
Speaker 8: is a bad one. If Kyrie Irving can come back,
Speaker 8: you know, let's say play half the season next year,
Speaker 8: the second half of the season, and they can stay
Speaker 8: healthy with the rest of their core, they will be
Speaker 8: a significant team in the Western Conference, but they won't
Speaker 8: be favored over the Lakers. And even if they win
Speaker 8: a championship with that group sometime over the next couple
Speaker 8: of seasons, I just don't know if we'll feel as
Speaker 8: good as had they won with Luca Dudgets and you know,
Speaker 8: that when I came back, I covered the Lakers for
Speaker 8: six years and covered the Cavs for four, and now
Speaker 8: I've been covering the Lakers for seven on this currency.
Speaker 8: Then when I came back to LA there was a
Speaker 8: faction of Laker fans who kind of didn't want Lebron
Speaker 8: to be on the team because they wanted to see
Speaker 8: the group led by Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram and
Speaker 8: Julius Randall figure it out together and follow that story
Speaker 8: all the way through because it was kind of the
Speaker 8: quote unquote homegrown talent. It's going to be a different
Speaker 8: feeling for this this MAPS group if they can, in
Speaker 8: fact even do it. I mean, that's a monumental test
Speaker 8: to begin with, so I don't see it changing. Obviously,
Speaker 8: Nico Harrison has had the support of Patrick Dumont, the
Speaker 8: new ownership group, or the trade wouldn't have gotten done.
Speaker 8: So I don't necessarily think his job is in jeopardy.
Speaker 8: But the job's not gonna be fun. I mean he
Speaker 8: still has to, you know, be a citizen of the
Speaker 8: city of Dallas, and you know he has a family there,
Speaker 8: and you know, you go out to dinner and go
Speaker 8: to shows and et cetera, et cetera, like it's going
Speaker 8: to be uncomfortable experience for him kind of no matter
Speaker 8: what happens with the Mavericks going forward.
Speaker 2: All Right, David, I know you got to run, so
Speaker 2: I'll just ask you one more question.
Speaker 1: I'm old enough to remember when you were good at
Speaker 1: your job, typically you kept it, and if you're an
Speaker 1: NBA coach, I guess that's not the deal. A lot
Speaker 1: of reporting, good reporting from both you guys at ESPN
Speaker 1: and then the folks at the athletic about what was
Speaker 1: going on behind the scenes in Denver that led them,
Speaker 1: the Crockey family to move on from both Calvin Booth
Speaker 1: and Michael Malone, who, after a decade a very successful
Speaker 1: basketball including a championship, has been shown the door.
Speaker 2: Look, I don't fully understand it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you can provide some context, but what's your
Speaker 1: reaction to this story.
Speaker 8: I was not surprising. I'm certainly surprised by the timing.
Speaker 8: I was not surprised to hear Michael Malone being let go.
Speaker 8: I'd heard some things throughout the year, and then of
Speaker 8: course you see the way the league has trended that
Speaker 8: the head coach is good for them I'm glad they
Speaker 8: get paid really well, because that's kind of the only
Speaker 8: part of their existence that's guaranteed that they're going to
Speaker 8: get a really good salary, and everything else is you
Speaker 8: are the automatic scapegoat. It's much harder to trade or
Speaker 8: change the roster than it is the coach. And of
Speaker 8: course the general manager wants to always have a way
Speaker 8: to not make it their fault. Right rising part to
Speaker 8: me was Calvin Booth, and of course Booth's reputation after
Speaker 8: building the championship team of a couple of years ago,
Speaker 8: took a bit of a hit of not being able
Speaker 8: to retain guys like Bruce Brown and Jeff Green and
Speaker 8: contagious Caldwell Pope and you know, obviously Christian Brown's role
Speaker 8: has improved in that time. But other than that, you know,
Speaker 8: what are they added? They added Russell Westbrook, Like, come on,
Speaker 8: so clearly he had not had the best couple of seasons.
Speaker 8: But I figured it would have gone to go the
Speaker 8: way that we've seen in other organizations. You get rid
Speaker 8: of the coach, the general manager has a little bit
Speaker 8: more time here. But listen, it's a bold move. I
Speaker 8: don't like it, just by the fact that they'd already
Speaker 8: qualified for a playoff position. To me, like, it's bad business.
Speaker 8: It's just it's not treating people like humans. You let
Speaker 8: the coach then coach the team in the playoffs for
Speaker 8: the playoffs lootion that he'd already qualified for. That's what
Speaker 8: I would do. But they're going to get a look
Speaker 8: at David Adelman here. And you know, the front office
Speaker 8: part will be very interesting because the Krokey ownership group
Speaker 8: is not known for really being willing to open up
Speaker 8: the purse string and spend at the level of some
Speaker 8: of the other teams that are pernial contenders. Will they
Speaker 8: do that here, spend a lot of money to get
Speaker 8: you know, one of the top executives on the market,
Speaker 8: or you know, do they try to do it on
Speaker 8: the cheap? You know, there's a reason why I'm besides
Speaker 8: Jerry's in Toronto, and there's a reason why Tim Connelly
Speaker 8: is in Minnesota because Denver didn't pay them either. And
Speaker 8: so a very interesting situation. And of course we all
Speaker 8: are wondering about the potential fallout of will Nikola Jokich
Speaker 8: want to finish his career there or will he be
Speaker 8: the next superstarter? Decide that I'm better off finishing my
Speaker 8: career somewhere else.
Speaker 1: All right, my friend, Well, I appreciate the time, have
Speaker 1: a great weekend ahead.
Speaker 2: And we'll chat to day, Yes, sir, Thanks y.
Speaker 1: Dave mcmanamhon covers the NBA for ESPN. He's on Twitter
Speaker 1: at mc ten is where you find him. Dave stops
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Speaker 2: A little bit of breaking news.
Speaker 1: On a Thursday, Jeff Goodman is reporting that Rob Wright
Speaker 1: has signed with BYU Baylor transfer who is a point
Speaker 1: guard as Dallen Hall is not his way to Virginia
Speaker 1: and Diego Demon is on his way to the NBA.
Speaker 1: Rob Wright recently signed a contract for more than one
Speaker 1: million dollars to stay at Baylor, but according to Jeff Goodman,
Speaker 1: b YU is paying rob Wright three million dollars to
Speaker 1: pay to play college basketball down in provo aj Debantsy
Speaker 1: getting seven rob Wright getting three ten million dollars for
Speaker 1: two players that will probably be there for one year
Speaker 1: for BYU basketball. All Right, Rsel is back in action,
Speaker 1: coming up on Saturday against Nashville. Pablo mash Johnny Head
Speaker 1: coach ray Al salt Lake. Thursday afternoon, Pablo, Happy Thursday man,
Speaker 1: how are you doing?
Speaker 7: Happy Thursday? Spent's doing great? Just on the way home
Speaker 7: from a day's work.
Speaker 2: That a guy.
Speaker 1: That a guy, all right, most important thing? Your pick
Speaker 1: to win the Masters?
Speaker 7: I got Seveler.
Speaker 2: Okay, come on, you know what I'm taking Scott ye off?
Speaker 6: Well, okay, well then I have.
Speaker 7: Who's who's my I picked four guys and Hoblin's not
Speaker 7: cutting it. Who else do I have?
Speaker 2: You can have Scotty, you can have Scotty, Pablo.
Speaker 1: It's just it feels like this is another situation where
Speaker 1: he's trending up he wanted a year ago, and look,
Speaker 1: I just think he is when he is playing top shelf.
Speaker 1: He's just the guy that everyone else has to beat.
Speaker 1: So if you want to take Scotty, I'll let you
Speaker 1: take Scotty.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 7: What I've been surprised too, is like, you know, like
Speaker 7: justin Johnson, it wasn't too long ago where he was
Speaker 7: in the same boat as as Scheffler is currently at
Speaker 7: right where there was in a tournament. He wasn't top three,
Speaker 7: top four, So I'm a bit shocked, and I wonder
Speaker 7: if it's the migration to the Lift Tour that's affected
Speaker 7: his game, because he was one of my top dogs
Speaker 7: back in the day.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when DJ went to Live, that was the first
Speaker 1: one that hurt, and then they got Brooks which also
Speaker 1: hurt as well. But yeah, the Live guys right now,
Speaker 1: I guess Terrell hadn't played pretty well.
Speaker 2: But it's interesting. I wonder if there's a.
Speaker 1: Soccer equivalent of a golfer like Scotty Scheffler, who when
Speaker 1: he is on his game, you just know that you've
Speaker 1: got to deal with that guy. Is there a soccer
Speaker 1: equivalent like throughout your career whatever, like one dude that
Speaker 1: played for a team where you knew that you were
Speaker 1: gonna have to deal with him when you showed.
Speaker 2: Up to play.
Speaker 7: Well, I guess the one guy would be messy, right,
Speaker 7: And I think he did it last night again. Yeah,
Speaker 7: you know this team they had, they conceded in an
Speaker 7: early goal and in Miami had a beat, had to
Speaker 7: score three unanswered goals, and they did it and he
Speaker 7: scored two of them. So he's one of the guys
Speaker 7: when when he's on his game. I mean again, I've
Speaker 7: seen teams try to man mark him, try to double
Speaker 7: team him. It just doesn't matter. I mean, this guy,
Speaker 7: when he's on he is unstoppable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no doubt, no doubt.
Speaker 1: I'm always fascinated as to what makes one of those
Speaker 1: dudes click and makes them one of those guys. And
Speaker 1: Scotty's year last year was very reminiscent of Tiger back
Speaker 1: in the day.
Speaker 2: I know, I'm not supposed to say that how much
Speaker 2: pro golf.
Speaker 1: I know you're very busy with your job, but how
Speaker 1: much professional golf do you consume?
Speaker 5: Are you?
Speaker 7: Guy?
Speaker 2: The les watch these major tournaments, Yeah.
Speaker 7: The majors I really enjoy. I just I just don't
Speaker 7: have the bandwidth or the time to be able to
Speaker 7: consume too much of it. But before, I mean a
Speaker 7: couple of years ago, I was I was watching ho
Speaker 7: hump tournaments, you know, the Sanderson Farms tournament and really
Speaker 7: get into it. And I think it was it coincided
Speaker 7: with my golf game being pretty good about I don't know,
Speaker 7: eight or nine years ago, where it's slowly tricking off,
Speaker 7: you know, trickling off. But this last week and have
Speaker 7: the opportunity to go to Arizona for a couple of
Speaker 7: days and and shot at seventy nine. So I feel
Speaker 7: like I'm getting back into the swing of things.
Speaker 2: We got to get out, man, we got to get out.
Speaker 1: I know you're busy, but we got to get out
Speaker 1: at some point out that the weather's warm. Absolutely, let's
Speaker 1: do it, all right, my guy, I hate to start here,
Speaker 1: but we have to. Kurt joined us this week, so
Speaker 1: you are in good company for me to ask you
Speaker 1: the question about when reinforcements could potentially be on the way.
Speaker 2: What these reinforcements look like? What have you been told? Man?
Speaker 2: What's the timeframe we're looking at now?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 7: So I think, uh, there's there's there's one particular player
Speaker 7: that's that's relatively close, and there's just some we we
Speaker 7: just gotta you know, again, it takes two to tango, right,
Speaker 7: So he's he's he's got to come a little ways.
Speaker 7: We've got to come a little ways. But but I
Speaker 7: think it might it might manifest itself sooner than later.
Speaker 7: And that's fingers crossed that that works out. And then
Speaker 7: we have a couple other guys that we've looked at.
Speaker 7: One of them is is Top Top. The other guy
Speaker 7: is kind of in his in his nascent stages of
Speaker 7: his career, but but again, a really good player. And
Speaker 7: I think, you know, we've talked about this internally, is
Speaker 7: that experience for our front group, you know, in particular
Speaker 7: for guys like you know, dominic and and Diego Luna
Speaker 7: would be really really important for their growth. Again, it
Speaker 7: have them not carrying such a load. And obviously Luna
Speaker 7: wouldn't consider a younger player anymore because he's breaking through,
Speaker 7: but really just having a little bit more experience and
Speaker 7: would really bring a lot of confidence to the team.
Speaker 7: So that's really an area that we're focusing on when
Speaker 7: we're selecting these players. And experience doesn't necessarily mean age,
Speaker 7: it just means years playing professionally. And a lot of
Speaker 7: the guys in Europe, you know, to start with their sixteen,
Speaker 7: so they have quite a few years of experiences under
Speaker 7: their belt.
Speaker 1: Two weeks as of yesterday for this primary transfer window
Speaker 1: to close. What have you been told and what can
Speaker 1: you share about how many signings you guys are hoping
Speaker 1: to get across the line prior to April twenty third.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you know, we've talked about one or two, and
Speaker 7: the way it's looking is is definitely one and then
Speaker 7: kind of keeping the powder dry to see what it
Speaker 7: looks like for the summertime. And as we've talked about
Speaker 7: in the past, you know, the summer it's a really
Speaker 7: difficult win though for us. It leaves you with essentially
Speaker 7: nine games left if you bring someone from abroad given
Speaker 7: the paperwork. So you know, at this point, Spence, you know,
Speaker 7: having one guy at this point in the season, I
Speaker 7: think we'll put us in a good way, and then
Speaker 7: you know, it gives us options heading into the summer window.
Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna ask you about this because it
Speaker 1: has been reported and it is public knowledge that one
Speaker 1: of the players that you guys are talking to is
Speaker 1: a Slovakian international forward, Robert Bosnik. I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: that's that's the that's the name that I'm reading off
Speaker 1: this report from Tom Bogert. Can you confirm or deny
Speaker 1: whether or not this is the player that could potentially
Speaker 1: be on the way.
Speaker 7: I would say that he's he's he's on the list.
Speaker 7: You got to keep it suspenseful, Spence, And it's just
Speaker 7: like hohum news.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 7: So he's he's one of one of the three guys
Speaker 7: that we've we've penciled in and I've had dialogue with.
Speaker 7: But but again, no guarantees that the things are going
Speaker 7: to line up with him.
Speaker 1: Sure, and I do appreciate the flair for the dramatic
Speaker 1: I just want you to have more talent at your disposal.
Speaker 2: Aint.
Speaker 7: I appreciate it, Spence. No, you're absolutely right again. I
Speaker 7: And for me, it's not so much about it. It's
Speaker 7: it's not about me. It's not about me, it's about
Speaker 7: what a player of this magnitude would do to the group,
Speaker 7: and a belief in the group. And you know, when
Speaker 7: you look up front, you see a guy that's like
Speaker 7: he's been here, he's done that, he's played at a
Speaker 7: great level and all those it's it's you wouldn't think
Speaker 7: of it like that, but like again, it'd be like,
Speaker 7: you know when when the Lakers picked up Luca recently
Speaker 7: and and now you're like the fifth guy on the team,
Speaker 7: but now you have Lebron and you have this guy,
Speaker 7: and it's like you believe more than you've ever believed,
Speaker 7: even though you know what I'm saying. So it's like
Speaker 7: it has that type of magnetism to a team. And
Speaker 7: for me, it's all about belief. And when you have
Speaker 7: big you know, when we have good experience, big players
Speaker 7: on those front lines, you can concede a goal and
Speaker 7: it doesn't waver your belief. In fact, you're now pushing
Speaker 7: forward with the understanding that you are going to get
Speaker 7: another goal back.
Speaker 1: Help us understand the process here, and we'll just use
Speaker 1: this striker as the hypothetical example. Okay, as you pointed out,
Speaker 1: we're not sure if it's going to be him. We're
Speaker 1: not sure if it's going to be somebody else, but whoever,
Speaker 1: it is number nine, Okay, And again the transfer window
Speaker 1: closes in two weeks. But look, even if you get
Speaker 1: him on the ground tomorrow, he's not starting against Nashville.
Speaker 1: So what's the process? What's realistic to expect for RSL
Speaker 1: fans chopping at the bit for a signing to get
Speaker 1: done and then to land and then get acclimated. When
Speaker 1: is it reasonable to expect to see him in your
Speaker 1: lineup and actually playing well?
Speaker 7: Yeah? Well, the playing well piece is is there's a
Speaker 7: lot of variables, but the one good thing is that
Speaker 7: you know typically there's there's gonna it's it's a minimum
Speaker 7: of a month when he when when he signs, right,
Speaker 7: So whenever he signs, you can give yourself exactly a
Speaker 7: month and hopefully in the next ten days after he signs,
Speaker 7: he's on the ground in Salt Lake, So that affords
Speaker 7: him another twenty days of training with the team, acclimating
Speaker 7: to the team, acclimating to the uh, to the weather, altitude,
Speaker 7: those type of things. And so typically it's a month
Speaker 7: from when the players signed from abroad that he's able
Speaker 7: to participate so again not not ideal from from our perspective,
Speaker 7: but that's just the reality of it. And and that's
Speaker 7: why I keep telling you, like from my from from
Speaker 7: my chair, that you've got to put all your attention
Speaker 7: on the players that are currently in the clubhouse. And
Speaker 7: and you cannot, you cannot be caught looking and ahead
Speaker 7: because you know those times, you know that's that's four
Speaker 7: games and and those four games are critical. So but
Speaker 7: but it's typically a month.
Speaker 1: So in the theme, in the spirit of focusing on
Speaker 1: the players that you have at your disposal, do you
Speaker 1: feel good about where your group is at right now? Uh,
Speaker 1: in order to be able to add the right piece
Speaker 1: and then boom, here we go. I mean, I I
Speaker 1: still believe you have holes, and I still believe that
Speaker 1: you need talent editions. But do you have the other
Speaker 1: pieces in place that if the other right piece falls
Speaker 1: into place, you're confident about what you can do?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 7: No, I think you know again, when I when I
Speaker 7: look at our group, and I and and I look
Speaker 7: at our last game, right and and you know, we
Speaker 7: we played a LA Galaxy side that was missing a
Speaker 7: couple of important pieces. But but again we played the
Speaker 7: team that was in front of us, and and I
Speaker 7: think in particular the first half, the way we attacked
Speaker 7: the game and the way we you know, created a
Speaker 7: lot of really great opportunities, and then we scored two goals. So,
Speaker 7: like you know, I think it's it's early days in
Speaker 7: the season, and oftentimes when you're not getting the results,
Speaker 7: you're you're, you know, you're you're obviously extremely disappointed. But
Speaker 7: there's a lot of things that are happening in those
Speaker 7: games that were going back to the to the video
Speaker 7: room and we're assessing as a group and we're talking about, okay,
Speaker 7: so if we don't have this player, then Diego and
Speaker 7: Diego you've got to get in the box. And typically
Speaker 7: there are two players that like to hang out at
Speaker 7: the top of the box because it's less crowded. They
Speaker 7: both have good shots. But in this particular game against
Speaker 7: La Diego, Luna was in prime real estate, and you know,
Speaker 7: one of them he took really well as well executed
Speaker 7: to play. The other one was a good cross, but
Speaker 7: the but the defender took a bad touch. Which is
Speaker 7: why we want numbers in the box because there's so
Speaker 7: many there's so many things that that can happen when
Speaker 7: the ball is in dangerous areas. But if you don't
Speaker 7: have any players in those areas, well, then you know
Speaker 7: you're not going to score the goals, so you know,
Speaker 7: and and so looking at Diego and Diego in particular
Speaker 7: and their positioning in the attacking part of the field
Speaker 7: has improved game over game and the same thing happened
Speaker 7: in Houston when they were in good spots. But it's
Speaker 7: it's almost a habit that we have to break. So
Speaker 7: to answer your question, if we you know, we bring
Speaker 7: in a nine that that is that is a guy
Speaker 7: that can score goals, well, now we in this time
Speaker 7: that we haven't had them, we've we've worked on the
Speaker 7: players that we do have to not only score goals,
Speaker 7: but to also now have three players that teams have
Speaker 7: to worry about as opposed to the one. So you know,
Speaker 7: I think, and not to mention the confidence piece and
Speaker 7: all the different you know, intangibles that this player will
Speaker 7: bring to our group, I think will be in a
Speaker 7: good way.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you about Diogo. You know,
Speaker 1: he has the breakaway and you just have to put
Speaker 1: it on frame right, you got to make the keeper
Speaker 1: make a save.
Speaker 2: And so that was a tough moment.
Speaker 1: But I've got to say, like for his ability just
Speaker 1: to put that.
Speaker 2: You know, I know you're a huge dead last guy.
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding, he's not, but you know, the memory
Speaker 1: of a goldfish just to move on right away. And
Speaker 1: then he's the one that went back and won the
Speaker 1: ball that provided Diego's first goal. So it's kind of
Speaker 1: a two tiered thing here, you know, the breakaway opportunity
Speaker 1: at least make and make a say. But I would
Speaker 1: imagine you were very pleased with the way he responded
Speaker 1: after that miss.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's a great point. You know, it's not easy
Speaker 7: when you know, finding the net is so difficult because
Speaker 7: it is the hardest thing to do in the game.
Speaker 7: And there are so many aspects of Diego's game that
Speaker 7: have improved drastically from last year. And you know, his
Speaker 7: leadership in the locker room has been great, and so
Speaker 7: there's so many different things, and I think that that
Speaker 7: one the aspect that you're talking about, the mentality piece.
Speaker 7: It's really easy to hang your head and and and
Speaker 7: not fight for the team when you feel like you've
Speaker 7: let the team down. It's it's it's it's it's a
Speaker 7: really interesting place to be but I think he showed
Speaker 7: a lot of resolve, a lot of grit, a lot
Speaker 7: of perseverance in that action to give the team an
Speaker 7: opportunity to score a goal even though it wasn't him.
Speaker 7: So he's doing a great job. You know, he's been
Speaker 7: he's been a catalyst in the games where we've been
Speaker 7: uh successful, And so you know, we need Diego to
Speaker 7: be either contributing from a goal going perspective or if not,
Speaker 7: from a leadership perspective, which is putting putting the team first.
Speaker 7: And he did that on that play and.
Speaker 2: Then of course probably buried the lead.
Speaker 1: But Diego with the brace, and you know, it's this
Speaker 1: two tiered thing now with the way the club approaches
Speaker 1: development and how many really talented players have been, you know,
Speaker 1: sold for a premium where I just get nervous that
Speaker 1: I'm going to wake up to an alert that you
Speaker 1: guys have moved on from Diego. But Kurt actually yesterday
Speaker 1: and it was a little bit of a sigh of
Speaker 1: relief because, yes, Pablo, I begrudgingly accepted the ethos of
Speaker 1: this club. Where as Jason put it on the show
Speaker 1: two weeks ago, we do not write checks for ten
Speaker 1: million dollars for players. We develop players, and then we
Speaker 1: sell them for ten million. Okay, all right, that's the deal.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not gonna say him on board. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna say I understand, and I just don't want to
Speaker 1: see him moved on. So as he continues to evolve,
Speaker 1: are there any anxious moments for you where it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: don't score every game, man, we need you here for
Speaker 1: a while. Of course, you want him to do what
Speaker 1: he's doing, and he's just so good. I mean, what
Speaker 1: is that like as a coach where you know you
Speaker 1: want your players to succeed and do well, but there's
Speaker 1: also this underline like is he playing too well for
Speaker 1: us to hold on to him?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 7: No, that's a great question, and the coaches kind of
Speaker 7: threw that around. You know that we might lose Diego
Speaker 7: in the summer. You know again, I think from my chair,
Speaker 7: Spence is the reason why coaches is to share experiences
Speaker 7: with with the next generation of players, and hopefully they
Speaker 7: have an opportunity to experience playing for a national team
Speaker 7: in a World Cup and winning an MLS Cup and
Speaker 7: and all the trials and tribulations that come with that.
Speaker 7: And I think that's that gives me the greatest joy,
Speaker 7: you know. And you know, sitting down with Diego last
Speaker 7: week and just talking through some things like you know,
Speaker 7: nonverbals of body language and and getting the right spots
Speaker 7: and and and and all these little things, and then
Speaker 7: seeing him go out and perform. Now, it wasn't because
Speaker 7: of the video session, but it's it's the commitment that
Speaker 7: we and we have a wonderful coaching staff that spends
Speaker 7: countless time with all these players and they're getting the
Speaker 7: best individual video sessions and work and and just a
Speaker 7: lot of love, you know, And and these coaches do
Speaker 7: a fantastic job at coaching staff. And and so when
Speaker 7: when there are moments like this where players like come
Speaker 7: to the club and no one really knew who he was.
Speaker 7: He was a great young player but played in the USL,
Speaker 7: and then you're over a year he's having this you know,
Speaker 7: increase in play and now he's with the national team.
Speaker 7: I mean, it's it's for me, It's why I do it.
Speaker 7: And so if Diego were to, you know, get an
Speaker 7: opportunity to go abroad and it makes sense for the
Speaker 7: club and it makes sense for Diego, well then I
Speaker 7: think that's what our job is, right is to help
Speaker 7: the next generation of players, us generation of players.
Speaker 8: Achieve their dreams.
Speaker 7: And and so while it would be really tough to
Speaker 7: replace a player like him, you know, you go on
Speaker 7: celebrating these players careers. You know, I'm watching you know,
Speaker 7: Andres Gomez from Afar and seeing how he's settling it.
Speaker 7: And it's been difficult for him initially, but that's all
Speaker 7: a part of it. And so while it would be
Speaker 7: tough in the short term losing a player like Diego Luna,
Speaker 7: who's doing everything for the team in possession, out of
Speaker 7: possession in the clubhouse, you know, in in the media,
Speaker 7: he is the face of our of our team, And
Speaker 7: when you lose a player like that, obviously there's gonna
Speaker 7: be you know, there's gonna be a big boy to fill.
Speaker 7: But but the other part is is that, you know,
Speaker 7: I feel like we've accomplished what we've wanted to do,
Speaker 7: which is helping players reach the next level of their game.
Speaker 1: And I suppose the Andres and the Fidel transactions lead
Speaker 1: to proof of concept, right, So what what sort of
Speaker 1: what sort of access into conversations or doors do success
Speaker 1: stories like that give you that maybe you didn't have prior.
Speaker 7: To so that against Ben, Sorry I lost you.
Speaker 1: So the success stories, the proof of concept where you
Speaker 1: guys have now shown that you can identify young talent,
Speaker 1: develop them and move them on for a premium. What
Speaker 1: sort of doors does that open for you to have
Speaker 1: conversations with other players?
Speaker 7: Yeah, you know that was It's really a great question
Speaker 7: because when we were recruiting Dom one of the things
Speaker 7: that his agent said was, you guys have done it,
Speaker 7: and you guys are playing younger players, you know, so
Speaker 7: I think, you know, the league's gone from you know,
Speaker 7: bringing these these older players. You know, initially it was
Speaker 7: only older players at the end of their careers in
Speaker 7: Europe that would come over h to MLS for a payday.
Speaker 7: And now we're a league that really wants to, you know,
Speaker 7: try to sell younger players and have this be the
Speaker 7: grounds in which they they they grow their craft. And
Speaker 7: Dom's you know, Dominic Marsouk's agent said, listen, the reason
Speaker 7: why I'm pushing Dom to come to MLS is because
Speaker 7: you guys are doing it right. You guys sold andres,
Speaker 7: you guys play younger players. You obviously have a really
Speaker 7: good infrastructure within the club. You have a coaching staff
Speaker 7: that cares about the players, and so we feel it's
Speaker 7: best that he goes goes to the MLS versus going
Speaker 7: to you know, a place in Europe that's going to
Speaker 7: just they have to win as we do, but a
Speaker 7: little bit different where you know, he might not be
Speaker 7: seeing seen as much playing time or have the same opportunity.
Speaker 7: So it's it's it's you know, the proof is in
Speaker 7: the pudding, right and if you're not, if you're just
Speaker 7: saying it and not doing it, you're you're probably not
Speaker 7: going to get the type of young talent that's going
Speaker 7: to help our team win today, right. And we feel
Speaker 7: like dom Is is a player that is, you know,
Speaker 7: breaking into the Polish national team. You know, he's coming
Speaker 7: into form and and he's an important player for us,
Speaker 7: albeit that he's a young player. So you know, the
Speaker 7: more the more we're able to show proof of concept,
Speaker 7: the likelihood is we continue to get very very good
Speaker 7: players that might not have the experience yet.
Speaker 1: So two ways to look at because you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of the attention, and understandably so, has just been
Speaker 1: lack of attacking prowess and not being bringing in replacements
Speaker 1: for the majority of the goals and assists that you
Speaker 1: guys decided to jettison. But when you look at your
Speaker 1: goals allowed, Pablo, you guys have allowed eleven.
Speaker 2: Okay, so two ways to look at this.
Speaker 1: You allowed seven of those goals in two games, right,
Speaker 1: and so outside of San Diego and San Jose, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the defense has been pretty stout, but the
Speaker 1: number is eleven. Are we ignoring an issue you guys
Speaker 1: have or do you feel like it really was those
Speaker 1: two games that kind of is inflating the goals allowed?
Speaker 7: No, I think it was. It was definitely those two
Speaker 7: games because again, I think defensively we've been a pretty
Speaker 7: good team, and I think those two games got away
Speaker 7: from us. And and that's why I go to you know,
Speaker 7: when you look up front and you're like, man, where's
Speaker 7: where's the tip of the spear? How are we going
Speaker 7: to get back into this game? And those those for
Speaker 7: the most part, those were early days and and I
Speaker 7: feel like, you know, well, I'll just say the last
Speaker 7: game in particular, we were we were real stout defensively,
Speaker 7: and it's obviously been an area that again we haven't
Speaker 7: been pleased with that. Spence, I think you're spot on it.
Speaker 7: It's not there's I mean, it's eleven goals, so it's
Speaker 7: it's not good enough. But but I think we did
Speaker 7: a great job against La minimizing they didn't have a
Speaker 7: shot inside our box and so real, you know, for me,
Speaker 7: it's again it's it's Jay Glad and the pivots doing
Speaker 7: a great job of organizing our defense, you know, learning
Speaker 7: from our previous games. And again we're not going to
Speaker 7: get a shot out every game, but we've placed a
Speaker 7: high premium on defending really really well as a team.
Speaker 7: And again, the defending starts at the front, right, So
Speaker 7: if our guys up front, and the last game, it
Speaker 7: was Luna and Ari doing a great job of making
Speaker 7: it difficult for them and making it predictable for the
Speaker 7: guys behind behind them to make plays. And so when
Speaker 7: I look at that stat, it's not just the back line,
Speaker 7: it's it's you know, it's it's the whole group. So
Speaker 7: you know, hopefully we continue on the same vein heading
Speaker 7: into Nashville.
Speaker 1: All right, before we say you lose, let's talk about
Speaker 1: Nashville out of the East. You haven't played him since
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. How healthy are you? What sort of
Speaker 1: challenges do they pose what do you have to do
Speaker 1: to come home with a result?
Speaker 7: Yeah, no, I think we're we're relatively healthy. We have
Speaker 7: a couple of question marks as far as defenders are concerned,
Speaker 7: but hopefully we get one back tomorrow. And then as
Speaker 7: far as Nashville, you know, I think they they brought
Speaker 7: a new coach last year. They're they're they're they're a
Speaker 7: bit you know. They they want to play, they want
Speaker 7: to build out of the back. But really the the
Speaker 7: meat and potatoes of the team are their two attackers.
Speaker 7: So they have Surge, which is a big, tall six
Speaker 7: foot four nine who's got great hold up play. He
Speaker 7: runs well, but more importantly he's got a nine for
Speaker 7: the goal. And then they have Honey Mouktar, who's I
Speaker 7: think the MVP in twenty two or twenty three, and
Speaker 7: you know this guy has got you know, he plays
Speaker 7: underneath Surge, And so the tandem up front is really
Speaker 7: the two guys that we have to stop. And so
Speaker 7: I think if we do a good job against those
Speaker 7: two guys and create as many quality chances as we
Speaker 7: did it again in La, we put ourselves in a
Speaker 7: great position to come away with a great result.
Speaker 2: Have you looked at the forecast. Since I do this
Speaker 2: to you every week.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's gonna be a little bit chilly. I think
Speaker 7: the highs sixty, so game time should be in the fifties,
Speaker 7: which is for the players. It's a dream. As long
Speaker 7: as there's no rain, We're in a great way.
Speaker 1: Fair enough, all right, buddy, appreciate it, Safe travels, Go
Speaker 1: get a result, man, we'll chat soon.
Speaker 7: Thanks, Ben, appreciate it, Bud.
Speaker 1: Bablo Mastoetti, head coach of RSL Nashville is the opponent
Speaker 1: coming up Saturday six thirty.
Speaker 2: Is where you can see that.
Speaker 1: It's on mL excuse me, it's on Apple TV, because
Speaker 1: you know that's how you have to do it these
Speaker 1: days to watch MLS soccer, So appreciate Pablo's time. A
Speaker 1: lot of reports out there about potential players on the way,
Speaker 1: and we'll see if any of these get across the
Speaker 1: dotted line prior to that April twenty third date where
Speaker 1: the primary transfer window closes. In spring football, rolling along
Speaker 1: up on the hill about halfway down. A couple more
Speaker 1: practices this week than we got four next week. In
Speaker 1: the forever twenty two game. The defensive coordinator of the
Speaker 1: utes and the head coach in waiting and my good
Speaker 1: friend for a number of years, Morgan Scalley on a
Speaker 1: beautiful Thursday. Morgan, happy Thursday.
Speaker 2: How are you buddy?
Speaker 6: Doing well? Brother? Doing well? It's springball. The weather's great.
Speaker 6: I'm hoping it stays that way for the next six
Speaker 6: to seven practices that we have left. But fired up
Speaker 6: for this new crew coming in.
Speaker 1: Love it, love it all right. Let's start with the
Speaker 1: most important thing. Who is your pick to win the Masters?
Speaker 1: And who is your dark horse?
Speaker 6: Man? The pick to win the Masters would probably be Chefer.
Speaker 6: I don't know. I you can go against him and
Speaker 6: then man dark horse. The way that things are going, Man,
Speaker 6: give me more cowa, Okay, I haven't done anything in
Speaker 6: a minute, all.
Speaker 2: Right, No, I like it. I like it.
Speaker 1: I know that you have an affinity for golf. But
Speaker 1: as we were discussing off air, you'll have plenty of
Speaker 1: time to golf when you're not doing this job, and
Speaker 1: certainly when you're not doing your next job, so you'll
Speaker 1: get there. But in the meantime, you've got a lot
Speaker 1: going on. So let's just get a look. You know
Speaker 1: spring football. Obviously, you know doing this as long as
Speaker 1: I have, and you with your eighteenth year with the program,
Speaker 1: opportunity to get the new group on campus, opportunity to
Speaker 1: start learning new personalities, opportunities to start helping these young
Speaker 1: men understand what you ask for them. So let's go
Speaker 1: to the start of springball the boxes that you want checked,
Speaker 1: and let's fast forward to where we're at today and
Speaker 1: how how's the progress going?
Speaker 6: Morgan, Well, springball is. Ever since the mid year signing
Speaker 6: date was instituted, you see more and more of new
Speaker 6: faces that in the transfer portal coming in Springball. Used
Speaker 6: to be fall camp that you wait to see what
Speaker 6: you really had. Now it's really spring football. Guys are
Speaker 6: coming in midyear. You're transfer por guys your high school
Speaker 6: seniors that are graduating early. So really it's the new
Speaker 6: faces that you're trying to get adjusted to the culture,
Speaker 6: to the scheme. The things that we wanted to work
Speaker 6: on this spring that we didn't feel we did a
Speaker 6: good enough job of is stopping the run and creating takeaways.
Speaker 6: I say, midway through, we're seeing what we want to see.
Speaker 6: It can always be better, But you know, in the
Speaker 6: drill work that we've been doing, in the crossover drills
Speaker 6: that we've been doing, strong emphasis on stout run defense,
Speaker 6: you know, getting those defensive tackles up to par and
Speaker 6: then creating takeaways, which I believe we've done a pretty
Speaker 6: good job of that.
Speaker 1: So I do want to follow up with how the
Speaker 1: calendar has changed and how your job has changed as
Speaker 1: a result of where we find ourselves in the world
Speaker 1: of college football. I look the topic of the transfer portal,
Speaker 1: it gets a little bit tired because it's been around
Speaker 1: long enough by now Morgan to just have it be
Speaker 1: a reality. And I call it free agency. And then
Speaker 1: there's the nil portion, the collective and all of these things. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we had coach went on the show just
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago. Regardless of how many support
Speaker 1: staff you guys bring in, your individual individual jobs are
Speaker 1: going to change and evolve. How has your job been
Speaker 1: affected by the changes in college football?
Speaker 6: I would say the biggest difference is, I mean, it's
Speaker 6: it's it is about relationships, but people want to know
Speaker 6: the financial part of coming to your program, what you're
Speaker 6: going to be able to do for them financially. Makes
Speaker 6: it harder to main attain sustained culture. But you know
Speaker 6: that just makes it more of a priority for us
Speaker 6: to in recruiting, recruiting the guys that fit our culture. Yes,
Speaker 6: we are going to need money, and our donors have
Speaker 6: done a great job and we'll continue to do a
Speaker 6: great job. But ultimately, know, recruiting used to be all
Speaker 6: about the relationships, and now there's that financial piece that
Speaker 6: no matter how much the recruit may love you, love
Speaker 6: what you do, love love your scheme. Sometimes if it's
Speaker 6: just about the money, you're not going to end up
Speaker 6: getting that kid, no matter how great the relationship. Is
Speaker 6: so a little bit different than in that aspect. But
Speaker 6: we've still got kids that love the culture, love that
Speaker 6: we what we do. We're financially being able to take
Speaker 6: care of them. You know, it's the front office really
Speaker 6: now that has to take care of all those other things.
Speaker 6: You know, we're we're as coaches talking about, you know,
Speaker 6: how do we win games? And now you're hiring people
Speaker 6: and you're putting people in positions to deal with the
Speaker 6: professional side of things.
Speaker 1: Sharif shaw last year some interesting comments he gave to
Speaker 1: the Solid Yourbune And you know, I don't recall the
Speaker 1: exact figure, but I believe Sharif said, as you're calling recruits,
Speaker 1: if you don't offer something like fifty k right out
Speaker 1: of the gates. You can't even get them on campus.
Speaker 1: I mean, is that where we're at? Are there a
Speaker 1: lot of because you and Sharif and the staff. I mean,
Speaker 1: once upon a time maybe the recruiting was a little
Speaker 1: bit more regional, but now you guys have a footprint
Speaker 1: that spreads across the country. Are there really situations more
Speaker 1: than that you run into with a recruit out of
Speaker 1: state where you want to get them on the phone
Speaker 1: or get them on campus, and if you don't have
Speaker 1: something offer right up front, you can't even talk to them.
Speaker 1: Is that a real thing?
Speaker 6: Well, it's economics, it's supply and demand. That's who you're
Speaker 6: talking to. Am I talking to a transfer portal deligneman
Speaker 6: that's looking for just a spot to be someone that's
Speaker 6: trying to prove themselves. There was a lower division school
Speaker 6: that thinks that they're better than than that, a starter
Speaker 6: from another program that wants to be a part of
Speaker 6: a winning program. Everything is dependent upon their situation and
Speaker 6: supply and demand. And you know, is this a heist
Speaker 6: kid that you know maybe isn't a highly recruited kid
Speaker 6: versus your five star kid that's got every offer out there.
Speaker 6: Everything really is is situational, and you've got to be
Speaker 6: really good at understanding that. So this game, this you know,
Speaker 6: college football has changed quite a bit over the past
Speaker 6: few years.
Speaker 1: It has and you know it will continue to change
Speaker 1: and evolve. And we're hoping to get more information over
Speaker 1: the next couple of weeks. And we're actually getting some
Speaker 1: more information Morgan about the details of the house versus
Speaker 1: the NCAA settlements. And then come June, you guys, as
Speaker 1: a athletic department at the you and I use the
Speaker 1: football program, we'll have twenty million dollars to allocate. Are
Speaker 1: any of these things on your radar? I mean because
Speaker 1: for me covering the sport and covering the U, I
Speaker 1: think the house versus NCAA segment will actually bring some
Speaker 1: clarity so people like you and people like coach Wit
Speaker 1: and even people like Mark Harland don't have to guess
Speaker 1: how to do this anymore. Are these benchmarks that we
Speaker 1: look at people to cover the sport, something that you're
Speaker 1: dialed into and maybe looking forward to to get more
Speaker 1: clarity and more guidelines in place.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think you have to be dialed into it.
Speaker 6: I mean it's our profession, it's what we do. And
Speaker 6: and you know, ultimately people want guard rails, they want rules,
Speaker 6: they want a level playing field, and right now that's
Speaker 6: not necessarily the case. So hopefully here in the in
Speaker 6: the next few weeks months, uh, we're going to get
Speaker 6: a lot more clarity and hopefully a level playing field.
Speaker 6: And you're always going to have schools that try and uh,
Speaker 6: you know, walk that line, and there were there was
Speaker 6: cheating before them. Still there's still cheating going on now
Speaker 6: and we'll continue to go on. But hopefully what this
Speaker 6: does is it's it levels the playing field.
Speaker 1: So let's move off of this and talk about some
Speaker 1: actual football. And you know, last year, Morgan, of course,
Speaker 1: everybody both locally and nationally picked you guys to if
Speaker 1: not win the Big Twelve. You were one of the
Speaker 1: top two or three picks. You were the Vegas favorite,
Speaker 1: you were the media preseason favorite. And I would imagine,
Speaker 1: no matter what you tried to do with your group,
Speaker 1: you cannot insulate them from information because we all have
Speaker 1: these computers in our hands that give us all the
Speaker 1: info twenty four to seven. So there's no way to
Speaker 1: protect your team from the knowledge that we all thought
Speaker 1: you guys were going to win the thing. I wonder
Speaker 1: if you feel like that extra added pressure or start
Speaker 1: the year had anything to do with the way that
Speaker 1: everything went. Of course, I always bring up last year
Speaker 1: with the context of a tremendous amount of injuries and
Speaker 1: health issues. But the pressure that you guys faced from
Speaker 1: the outside looking in, where we all thought you were
Speaker 1: going to win the Big twelve and go to the CFP,
Speaker 1: how did that affect the way last year went.
Speaker 6: I don't think it affected it all that that much.
Speaker 6: You know, we've got good kids that understand and it's
Speaker 6: all about what you do on the field, and you know,
Speaker 6: you can point to a number of different things. Bottom
Speaker 6: line is, turn on the film and what did the
Speaker 6: behavior say? You know, defense, from a defensive perspective, we
Speaker 6: missed too many tackles, We didn't create enough takeaways. We
Speaker 6: did some really good things on defense, But there's some
Speaker 6: things that we that we did that contributed maybe that
Speaker 6: five and seven season, right, And so what what did
Speaker 6: the film say? How can we improve? How can we
Speaker 6: get better on the offensive side? Obviously that's what they're
Speaker 6: working on and what coach Wit has worked to fix
Speaker 6: on the offensive side of the ball. Preseason talk. That's
Speaker 6: I mean, it is, it's what makes the game great.
Speaker 6: You get fans and they want to know about projections
Speaker 6: and where's everyone ranked. At the end of the day.
Speaker 6: No one ever puts a preseason ranking on their resume.
Speaker 6: It didn't you know, these preseason awards, no one does.
Speaker 6: You don't see that on anyone's resume. It's what you
Speaker 6: do during the season. It's the behavior that matters. And
Speaker 6: you know, unfortunately we had some things that you know,
Speaker 6: we didn't do well enough, and you know, staying healthy
Speaker 6: is one of them too. That in order to have
Speaker 6: a great season, you got to stay healthy. That's that's
Speaker 6: just a part of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, for sure, and that's always something that we
Speaker 1: bring up in context in the past couple of years.
Speaker 1: But I asked you that to dovetail into this, which
Speaker 1: is this year, you guys will not be picked to
Speaker 1: when the Big twelve. This year, chances are you're going
Speaker 1: to be picked like mid conference and most of the
Speaker 1: way too early preseason polls. I have no idea how
Speaker 1: they know how to do this because it is April
Speaker 1: and you don't play until August. But is having that
Speaker 1: pressure removed from the equations, something that you think could
Speaker 1: benefit you guys year two in the Big twelve.
Speaker 6: Well, I don't know. I hope. So my my our
Speaker 6: main focus, And honestly, I don't mean to dismiss that
Speaker 6: because you know kids will look at that, what are
Speaker 6: we picked to do? And you can use that as
Speaker 6: motivation that at times people don't believe in you. But
Speaker 6: when the ball's kicked off, it's all about are you
Speaker 6: playing the way we need you to play, Are you
Speaker 6: playing with great fundamentals and technique or you know, it's
Speaker 6: no amount of anger, no amount of of preseason hype,
Speaker 6: whatever it is is going to have a factor on you.
Speaker 6: Peddling the right way, breaking and driving the right way.
Speaker 6: That's that's what we do in practice, That's what we
Speaker 6: train for. So it's behavior that wins championships. It's teams
Speaker 6: that win championships, not talk for sure.
Speaker 2: For sure.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, when it comes to spring football, you know, we
Speaker 1: replay all the sound. It's nice to say with Kyle,
Speaker 1: it's nice to say with you, But occasionally coach will
Speaker 1: say something that kind of catches my attention in a
Speaker 1: different way than a spring football typical coach speak interview
Speaker 1: would go and Morgan. At least three, if not more times,
Speaker 1: I've heard Kyle say there's more positive energy in the
Speaker 1: building during spring than there has been in a long time.
Speaker 1: And I'm not trying to run anybody down. And the
Speaker 1: past is the past, and you guys have moved on.
Speaker 1: But you know, you know Kyle, he doesn't pull any punches.
Speaker 1: He's gonna let you know how it is. So when
Speaker 1: he says publicly multiple times, there's more positive energy in
Speaker 1: our building right now than there has been a long time,
Speaker 1: how does that land with you?
Speaker 2: What do you what do you think he's referring to.
Speaker 6: He's probably referring to market ottawaya yelling and screaming and
Speaker 6: singing all day that that enough in the office is
Speaker 6: enough energy. No, I mean, to be perfectly honest with you.
Speaker 6: This offensive staff they do, they've they've got a lot
Speaker 6: of energy the way they coach, the way they teach,
Speaker 6: and you know, Jason's done a great job really bringing
Speaker 6: everyone together and helping them understand what he's looking for
Speaker 6: and establishing their culture on that side of the ball.
Speaker 6: And it's been it's been fun, you know, not only
Speaker 6: obviously if you ever come to practice, you're always going
Speaker 6: to hear the defensive coaches yelling and screaming, and now
Speaker 6: you hear it from all angles and it's you know,
Speaker 6: it's very lively and guys are having fun. It's just
Speaker 6: it's a fun environment to be a part of. And
Speaker 6: that's what Coach WIT's talking about.
Speaker 1: I know this is not your silo, but we've had
Speaker 1: Jason and Coach went on. Jason back and Coach went on,
Speaker 1: and I've asked them both just just because of what
Speaker 1: we've been through over the past few years, is Devin
Speaker 1: the guy?
Speaker 2: Is Devin the starting quarterback?
Speaker 1: And they both said yes, if we went and went
Speaker 1: to play tomorrow, he's the guy. And Cameron Rising should
Speaker 1: always be remembered as an absolute legend for what he
Speaker 1: did for you guys at quarterback. But what sort of
Speaker 1: dynamic or relief, if at all, does it bring that
Speaker 1: you guys know who the quarterback is going into the
Speaker 1: season and there's no ambiguity about how that's going to
Speaker 1: play out.
Speaker 6: Webally just gives him him confidence. I mean, he should
Speaker 6: have confidence. It's it's his offense, you know, It's that
Speaker 6: he's been comfortable with the past couple of seasons. So
Speaker 6: Devin is a guy that's very competitive. He's got he's
Speaker 6: got great character, very football savvy, high football intelligence, and
Speaker 6: you know, I just love going against and Cam was
Speaker 6: the same way, going up against quarterbacks that are just competitive.
Speaker 6: They hate to lose. They're going to get their guys
Speaker 6: right where they need to be. And Devin is that
Speaker 6: guy and excited for his continued development and what he
Speaker 6: has in store for the season.
Speaker 1: You're losing some very talented defensive lineman as you know.
Speaker 1: Of course, Keno Town of Austa is now playing for
Speaker 1: Brigham Young and Junior Tifuna is trying his hand a
Speaker 1: pro football. Those are big losses. Morgan, what's the contingency plan?
Speaker 1: How are you guys looking up front?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I am elited I should say about what we
Speaker 6: have a defensive tackle and I think that's probably going
Speaker 6: to come as a surprise to a lot of people.
Speaker 6: But the guys that we brought in, the things that
Speaker 6: Luther Ellis is doing, you know, with the d tackles
Speaker 6: that we have with Jonah lay As, a kid that's
Speaker 6: been in the program that has just struggled to gain
Speaker 6: the weight and he's now weighing what we need him
Speaker 6: to weigh. He's quick, he's athletic, he's long levered. Dallas Bakalah,
Speaker 6: he is a freshman who was so productive and now
Speaker 6: you add another season and the spring ball where he's
Speaker 6: gaining a little bit more confidence and a little bit
Speaker 6: more power and strength. He looks fantastic.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 6: You look at Aliki vi Ma. He's a returning one
Speaker 6: of our returning starters that played started last year for
Speaker 6: us during times and you know he's taken on a
Speaker 6: leadership role and is doing great with it. Carson Kfusi
Speaker 6: is a is a freshman that we absolutely love. He's
Speaker 6: probably the pleasant surprise of spring football right now. Is
Speaker 6: this incoming freshman from Skyline High School is just tearing
Speaker 6: it up. Add to that, Sony mutuap Waca from Bishop
Speaker 6: Gorman is looking really good. We've got a couple walk
Speaker 6: ons and the two incoming freshmen. This is going to
Speaker 6: be a very stout defensive tackle group and I could
Speaker 6: not be more excited.
Speaker 1: All Right, buddy, before I say you lose, I've always
Speaker 1: described you as a combination of a guy that really
Speaker 1: loves to have a good time, but it's also deathly
Speaker 1: serious about anything he's involved in. And that goes back
Speaker 1: to when you were like eighteen years old. Is a
Speaker 1: running back in Highland High School? You know, kind of
Speaker 1: a goof when you want to have a good time,
Speaker 1: but when it comes to the task at hand. A
Speaker 1: very serious, serious person. But I've noticed Morgan from outside
Speaker 1: looking in whenever I hear you interviewed or whenever I
Speaker 1: kind of have a chance to be around you a
Speaker 1: little bit, this kind of maturation period where emotion has
Speaker 1: been replaced by pragmatism. And I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: a result of a lot of things that you've been through.
Speaker 1: You guys are coming off a hard season. Life is hard.
Speaker 1: It's not linear, it's not a straight line. But before
Speaker 1: I set you lose for our Youte football fan listeners,
Speaker 1: how have you grown and changed in the eighteen years
Speaker 1: you've been in Utah?
Speaker 6: Oh man, that could be a podcast in of itself.
Speaker 2: I want all of it. You go for a while, you.
Speaker 6: Know more from the losses than you do from the wins.
Speaker 6: And that's not just on the you know, the win
Speaker 6: loss record, that's just adversity that you face throughout your time,
Speaker 6: throughout your life, Trials that you have, stuff that you
Speaker 6: go through with your players, and I think what I've
Speaker 6: learned most is just empathy. People go through tough times,
Speaker 6: hard things, and you can be resilient and you can
Speaker 6: come back stronger, and you can be more understanding of
Speaker 6: other people's struggles and be there for others, lift others.
Speaker 6: And instead of why me, you know, why did this
Speaker 6: happen to me? Why did this happen for me? And
Speaker 6: what am I supposed to learn from it? And how
Speaker 6: can I be better? So I would just say that
Speaker 6: definitely have learned a ton from adversity and tough times
Speaker 6: that I faced, and learned from really good people, really
Speaker 6: good mentors, and have had an unbelievable staff to love
Speaker 6: and support me as I love and support them.
Speaker 2: All Right, my friend, Well, I always appreciate the time.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 1: I'm pulling for you over here in my space. If
Speaker 1: I can ever do anything, please let me know and
Speaker 1: enjoy the rest of spring ball.
Speaker 6: Okay, Spencer stud take care.
Speaker 1: Brother Morgan Scally, defensive coordinator, University of Utah head coach
Speaker 1: in waiting a couple of more practices this week. We've
Speaker 1: got four next week and it's time for the Forever
Speaker 1: twenty two game on Saturday, April nineteenth. Go to you
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Speaker 1: them out online at Cortland Roofing dot com. Day one
Speaker 1: of the Masters, Augusta, Georgia at the Augusta National Golf
Speaker 1: Club where conditions just looked to be pristine. Feature Justin
Speaker 1: Rose going low sixty five, seven hundred par.
Speaker 2: He is your leader.
Speaker 1: Corey Connor, Scottie Scheffler and Ludwig Oberg all card at
Speaker 1: sixty eight's they are right behind, well three shots behind.
Speaker 2: They're in second place.
Speaker 1: Great day for Justin Rose, Terrell Hatton, Bryceon Deschambeau three
Speaker 1: hundred par and then Aaron Raye, Harris English, Jason dayan
Speaker 1: Ox shape of Tea at two under.
Speaker 2: Tony Fedau our local guy of course we're always cheering for.
Speaker 1: Tony is going to need a massive Day two to
Speaker 1: play the weekend. He is at three over par and
Speaker 1: with Justin Rose setting the standard at seven under. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure where the cut line is going to be,
Speaker 1: but Tony's gonna have to have a good day tomorrow,
Speaker 1: as will Wyndham Clark, as Will Phil Mickelson, Mike we Or,
Speaker 1: Sam Burns, Brooke Keepka, Patrick Cantley, Dustin Johnson, Maxhomme, a
Speaker 1: lot of really good golfers struggling Day one of the Masters.
Speaker 2: So there you go.
Speaker 1: Final home game of the season for the Utah Hockey
Speaker 1: Club tonight, Nashville is in town and following the game,
Speaker 1: the Utah Hockey Club will announce their postseason award winners,
Speaker 1: including MVP and other awards. So if you have not
Speaker 1: seen a hockey game, it's a really fun experience. And
Speaker 1: the final home game of the season will be tonight
Speaker 1: for the Utah Hockey Club. After a very i would
Speaker 1: say successful year one here in Salt Lake on a
Speaker 1: number of different levels, they're not going to make the postseason.
Speaker 1: The wildcard is out of reach. They have officially been eliminated.
Speaker 1: But a fun chase and a really really exciting young
Speaker 1: team with a very very bright future. A big one
Speaker 1: tonight in the NBA, and we're going to have it
Speaker 1: for you. Probably the biggest game, not probably the biggest
Speaker 1: game on the slate for pro basketball tonight is going
Speaker 1: to be the Timberwolves and the Grizzlies from the Grindhouse.
Speaker 1: The FedEx form in Memphis, Tennessee, and as of right now,
Speaker 1: the Western Conference continues to be stacked up. The Minnesota
Speaker 1: Timberwolves are one game behind Memphis for the sixth spot.
Speaker 1: Now that's important because if you get a top six spot,
Speaker 1: you avoid the play in and you don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about going home early. Golden State has kind of
Speaker 1: come back down to earth. They're the only team between
Speaker 1: Memphis and Minnesota. They are a half game behind Memphis
Speaker 1: and a half game head of the Timberwolves. All right,
Speaker 1: in case you missed it, the rumor became official now.
Speaker 1: Jeff Goodman, one of the best college basketball media members
Speaker 1: Riders covered the game forever, is reporting that Rob Wright,
Speaker 1: who signed a one million dollar nil contract to stay
Speaker 1: at broke that contract and is going to BYU where.
Speaker 1: According to Jeff Goodman, bringing Me Young his Pain, Rob
Speaker 1: Wright three million dollars to play basketball and profo. You
Speaker 1: add that to Ajdbantsa, who the reports are seven million dollars. Now,
Speaker 1: the hard part about breaking these stories down or covering
Speaker 1: them or talking about them is we don't know for sure.
Speaker 1: Just those are the reports for people to cover college basketball.
Speaker 1: That de Bants is getting seven mil, Rob Wright's getting
Speaker 1: three mil. That is ten million dollars from BYU for
Speaker 1: two players to play for them, one certainly for one year.
Speaker 2: We'll see what rob Right ends up doing.
Speaker 1: The other report is they've offered Richie Saunders a seven
Speaker 1: figure contract to stay at BYU. And I just have
Speaker 1: to wonder how Kalani is digesting this, and now the
Speaker 1: football team is digesting this based off of the reporting
Speaker 1: from the Salid Tribune of the football team's NIL initiative
Speaker 1: is being cut prior to the start of last season
Speaker 1: because of a rough year one of the Big twelve.
Speaker 1: So a lot of BYU and I'm using air quotes
Speaker 1: media members they work for BYU, they're really not media members.
Speaker 1: So a lot of BYU employees, a lot of BYU
Speaker 1: apologists have taken a social media today to try to
Speaker 1: spread some sort of narrative that this is not about money,
Speaker 1: it's about the BYU experience. Just stop it, okay, just
Speaker 1: be honest about what it is. This is the game now.
Speaker 1: You should be proud that your institution is in a
Speaker 1: place where you can essentially buy the best players out there,
Speaker 1: because if you can't do that, you're not gonna be
Speaker 1: able to win. We just saw the four number one
Speaker 1: seeds advanced to the final four, and that's going to
Speaker 1: be how it is moving forward. The chasm between the
Speaker 1: haves and the have nots in college football and college basketball,
Speaker 1: it's can get to continue to grow. So instead of
Speaker 1: this hand ringing and this wailing of gnashing of teeth
Speaker 1: where BYU people are taking a social media to try
Speaker 1: to get in front of the story, just stop it.
Speaker 1: Call it what it is. This is not Rob Wright
Speaker 1: wanting more swig in his life. This is not aj
Speaker 1: Debantsa wanting more muss or excuse me, wanting what do
Speaker 1: they call the rock the BYU student section. This is
Speaker 1: about BYU writing massive checks for talent. And honestly, I've
Speaker 1: talked about this for years. I said, like the day
Speaker 1: after NIL became legal and NIL became a reality. So
Speaker 1: if you're a BYU fan, this is what you've been
Speaker 1: waiting for. Because if BYU wants to get into the
Speaker 1: game and money is the issue. Money is no issue
Speaker 1: for that school. Money is no issue for that religion,
Speaker 1: Money is no issue for that culture. It's just a
Speaker 1: matter of whether or not they want to get involved,
Speaker 1: and they're getting involved in a very aggressive way. And
Speaker 1: Kevin Young's gonna have a really, really good team next year.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it means for Alex Jensen and
Speaker 1: the University of Utah, but there was a piece of
Speaker 1: Utah Basketball news today that Eric Daniels has been hired
Speaker 1: as an assistant coach for the youth, so he will
Speaker 1: join Raphael Chilius as the lead assistant, and then Wes
Speaker 1: Wilcox is the general manager of Alex.
Speaker 2: As the head coach.
Speaker 1: But only two players as of now signed a play
Speaker 1: for the youth, so a lot of work to do
Speaker 1: to fill out that roster.
Speaker 2: Porter. I wonder how you digest.
Speaker 1: This with BYU people, folks that work for the school
Speaker 1: trying to get in the way of this story, like, Hey,
Speaker 1: it's about the BYU experience. It's about the way we
Speaker 1: know it's not it's about you writing checks and that's
Speaker 1: the name of the game.
Speaker 2: Now, there's nothing wrong with it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's it's interesting to see folks try
Speaker 3: to try to spin that because I don't get why, right.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's a cultural thing. Maybe you don't want that
Speaker 3: that perception. But I've seen it a lot during the tournament,
Speaker 3: like people trying to say that that if you're looking
Speaker 3: for a team that does it the right way, like
Speaker 3: college basketball used to be look at BYU right because
Speaker 3: they've got a bunch of kids on their Sweet sixteen
Speaker 3: team that were recruited there, that you know, played there
Speaker 3: for three four years and then made their way up. Okay,
Speaker 3: that's not how college basketball is anymore. It's not how
Speaker 3: you want to be anymore. If there are cultural aspects
Speaker 3: that you want to put first and foremost of your program, cool,
Speaker 3: that's fine. But that's not why the kid from Baylor
Speaker 3: who had a million dollar offer on the table is
Speaker 3: coming here. It's not why the number two recruit in
Speaker 3: the country who was paid already to come play here
Speaker 3: in prep ball, It's not why he's going to Provo.
Speaker 3: It is an entirety, entirely different reason altogether. So for you,
Speaker 3: for you know what you said, why you know, why
Speaker 3: are you trying to put on that narrative when it
Speaker 3: doesn't matter. This is this is the reality of college sports. Now,
Speaker 3: you should want and you should be happy that your
Speaker 3: program or let's just say people around your program, because
Speaker 3: we don't know exactly what's going on behind the scenes
Speaker 3: until until.
Speaker 2: Those guardrails are put up.
Speaker 3: This is what you want them to be doing, and
Speaker 3: you should be happy that they are doing so. Uh,
Speaker 3: money is is the driver in college sports? TV money,
Speaker 3: booster money, and and then after that maybe you know
Speaker 3: ticket rip money, all all of the above. But uh, yeah,
Speaker 3: there's no there's no getting around what what is driving
Speaker 3: decisions and what is driving rosters in today's age of
Speaker 3: college sports and especially college basketball. B Why you striking hot?
Speaker 3: And uh you should be stoked about that if you're
Speaker 3: a if you're a Cougar fan, not trying to like backpedal,
Speaker 3: do do something else. It's it's uh unnecessary to me.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't really understand it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's a weird thing. It's a weird dynamic.
Speaker 1: I don't really understand. You wouldn't be anything other than
Speaker 1: thrilled that you have the bankroll to be among the
Speaker 1: highest bidders and spenders in college athletics. That's how you're
Speaker 1: gonna get good players. It's how you're gonna win games.
Speaker 1: It's how you're gonna win championships. Ultimately, it's how you're
Speaker 1: gonna compete. And it's the only way to do it now.
Speaker 1: And I know a lot of people don't love it,
Speaker 1: but you can hate it all you want. It's where
Speaker 1: we're at. So fun Day one at Augusta, Georgia. Will
Speaker 1: be all over the Masters tournament coming up tomorrow and
Speaker 1: of course through the weekends. Utah Hockey Club and Action.
Speaker 1: Tonight we have a big NBA game on the station
Speaker 1: that features the Memphis Grizzlies in the Minnesota Timberwolves, FedEx
Speaker 1: form Memphis Tennessee RSL and talks to bring in a
Speaker 1: Slovakian striker. Alex Jensen hires an assistant coach for Utah
Speaker 1: men's basketball program. So very very busy day. Unexpectedly, you're
Speaker 1: almost to the weekend. Lovely Thursday afternoon, all right, Porta,
Speaker 1: before we get out of here, what comes our way
Speaker 1: on a Friday edition of the show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as you mentioned Masters weekend, Spence, you're all wearing green.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had a busy morning.
Speaker 1: This is just I'm gonna pinch you. I wore this
Speaker 1: to the gym waiting Is that a safe? No, that's
Speaker 1: Saint Patrick's Day. But you know what, I'll wear a
Speaker 1: little green tomorrow in honor of the green jacket.
Speaker 3: I'm not Irish, so I don't really do the Saint
Speaker 3: Patrick's Day thing outside the corn beef. So if you
Speaker 3: don't wear You're green on Master's Week, that's when that's
Speaker 3: what I get it in. Rex Hogard stops by the program,
Speaker 3: the president of the Golf Riders Association of America and
Speaker 3: of course Golf Channel, NBC sports guy Howard Beck for
Speaker 3: your NBA Daily assist. We get Chris com Ronnie in studio,
Speaker 3: and we get Richard Smith in studio, and we finish
Speaker 3: off the week with Paul Pugmeyer after the cut line
Speaker 3: is decided.
Speaker 2: On a Masters Friday.
Speaker 1: There you go, and we're hoping that Tony fen Now
Speaker 1: can have a good round two after struggling out of
Speaker 1: the gates at Augusta. Our guy is three over par
Speaker 1: along with a bunch of other really good golfers. Looked
Speaker 1: like the golf course was playing pretty tough today. All Right,
Speaker 1: we will say good night, special thank you today to
Speaker 1: Amy Donaldson, Dave McManamon, Pablo Mash, Johnny and Morgan scallay
Speaker 1: for me the sound that you may have missed from
Speaker 1: the show today. Website is ESPN seven hundred sports dot com.
Speaker 1: Make sure to download our mobile app and take us
Speaker 1: on the go. The ESPN seven hundred app is available
Speaker 1: in the App Store and the Google Play Store for free.
Speaker 1: And then, finally, for what we do in our space
Speaker 1: every afternoon for four hours, check out our podcast page.
Speaker 1: It is called The Drive with Spence. Check its and
Speaker 1: it is available wherever you get your shows. So subscribe, rate, review,
Speaker 1: say nice things in the comments, give us all the stars.
Speaker 1: It actually helps out for porter. I'm Spencing and I
Speaker 1: enjoy your Thursday evening. We've got a little NBA basketball
Speaker 1: between the Grizzlies and the Tea Wolves coming up in
Speaker 1: a bit and join us for a Friday Drive and
Speaker 1: as well as you can catch that right here on
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Speaker 1: to be part of Utah's ESPN Radio network.