Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you. I just get on and you get
Speaker 1: to end.
Speaker 2: That's what I do.
Speaker 1: Bad. No, it is right there.
Speaker 3: It is Thursday, May first, twenty twenty five. Welcome to
Speaker 3: the only show about dogs hosted by dogs. This is Sparta.
Speaker 3: I'm the host, Jason Straighthorn, I'm all my co hosts.
Speaker 3: Swerving Irvan. What you're doing over there?
Speaker 4: Man?
Speaker 1: You got balls?
Speaker 4: What's up? Bro?
Speaker 2: Hey Stram down here in Naples, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: At the auction.
Speaker 2: With my man big Okay Montgomery clip gold course looking
Speaker 2: on you. You get your can you get your practice in?
Speaker 3: You know what, man, it's been a it's been a
Speaker 3: big day of practice down here in Naples, Florida. You
Speaker 3: know you see the scene down here behind me, everything
Speaker 3: looking real, real plush. But uh man, look, we gotta
Speaker 3: get to the news of the day, Swerving, Irving and
Speaker 3: everybody knows that, and everybody's been talking about it since,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean the wee hours of the morning.
Speaker 3: Alan haller out as the athletic director from Michigan State.
Speaker 3: You know, after three and a half years, three plus
Speaker 3: years at the Helm in Michigan State University of a
Speaker 3: former Michigan State football player comes out of land Scene
Speaker 3: Sexton High School and is now transitioning to another role.
Speaker 3: His last day will he made eleventh for you know,
Speaker 3: you and I have been on the phones all day long.
Speaker 3: People here in Naples are talking about it at the
Speaker 3: Greg Montgomery Foundation event. What's the thoughts? Tell me what
Speaker 3: you're feeling about the loss of Alan Haller.
Speaker 5: I mean straight, first of all, knowing the knowing the league,
Speaker 5: like knowing how life has presented itself. Meaning when you
Speaker 5: have an allegation like we had with Mail, Well, you know,
Speaker 5: you have different situations like you do, and you gotta
Speaker 5: come down on somebody. Somebody got to be the fall. Guys,
Speaker 5: somebody gotta take it. If you had to hear him,
Speaker 5: you better know it's coming for you. And that's just
Speaker 5: my opinion of it. You know, I don't have the
Speaker 5: ends and out that its pros and cars.
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't know.
Speaker 5: But when you're losing guys, and I know everybody losing
Speaker 5: guys nil, But you know we don't lost a prison,
Speaker 5: you know, lost the basketball player. You know, guys talking
Speaker 5: about it nil. You know you got alumni guys clean out.
Speaker 5: I mean it, there's so much that I'm even hearing
Speaker 5: from guys that's played in the seventies in the eighties
Speaker 5: saying like they don't have a connection with this guy,
Speaker 5: even the head coach.
Speaker 2: They're like, who hired this guy?
Speaker 5: We don't even have a connection with the head coach
Speaker 5: and he So it's just so much that I'm hearing
Speaker 5: and not knowing the logistics of everything.
Speaker 2: It's it's a big situation.
Speaker 4: You know. You said a lot there.
Speaker 3: You talk about like what people from a lot of
Speaker 3: different eras are feeling about the hire of different coaches
Speaker 3: and how this new era of Michigan State, not only
Speaker 3: Misigan State, but athletics college athletics as a whole are moving,
Speaker 3: you know, with nil transfer portal, the way that you know,
Speaker 3: people are looking at how to be forward thinking. You know,
Speaker 3: this is a different, different era of college athletics, you know.
Speaker 3: And you know, Alan Haller, for all the things that
Speaker 3: he was able to accomplish, hiring a lot of great coaches,
Speaker 3: doing a lot of great things and getting projects implemented
Speaker 3: at Michigan State to further advance sparring athletics, still wasn't
Speaker 3: enough for what is needed at Michigan State. You know,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of people around college athletics that are
Speaker 3: a little confused, you know right now, you know, you see,
Speaker 3: you know, what's going on around the country. Soever you
Speaker 3: see it, you definitely see it. Having a son at Stanford,
Speaker 3: another one at Imgenus being highly recruited, and you know,
Speaker 3: you have the three D view if you will, to
Speaker 3: be able to see what other schools besides the school
Speaker 3: that you played for and love are doing now as
Speaker 3: I am being able to see that, you know, I
Speaker 3: have a son who went to University of Michigan, you know,
Speaker 3: over the last you know, a few months and signed
Speaker 3: with them, So I'm able to see things that you know,
Speaker 3: the typical you know, both of us are able to
Speaker 3: see things that the typical fan aren't able to see.
Speaker 3: And what you're seeing at Michigan State is not has
Speaker 3: not been on par with what we're seeing other places.
Speaker 4: Make no mistake about it.
Speaker 3: Michigan State is not a place that you and I
Speaker 3: can divorce because we played for we bleed Green, We
Speaker 3: love Michigan State. It's not something that we're saying, hey,
Speaker 3: we're trying to throw Michigan Statement in the trash. If
Speaker 3: you can't divorce your mama, right couldn't do it. I
Speaker 3: can't divorce mind. So the difference is when there's leadership,
Speaker 3: there's a vacuum, there's a lack of forward thinking. Then
Speaker 3: you know, you're forced to be in situations such as
Speaker 3: this where we're all looking and reeling for answers, and
Speaker 3: you know, I'll tell you, man, like this is a
Speaker 3: tough day. It's a tough day all the way around.
Speaker 3: You know, big revenue sports. We got Brad Gray right here,
Speaker 3: the big revenue sport. Football has got to get better today.
Speaker 3: That takes a dollar more. So far MSU hasn't shown
Speaker 3: the willingness. Maybe that changes. Now, go ahead, it's well.
Speaker 5: Hey, it's funny, funny, big great someone. I was just
Speaker 5: gonna say, Straightca, you made a hell of a point.
Speaker 5: What you always do? Someone today? Once again, everybody down
Speaker 5: here at the auction for my man grig Alright, we're here.
Speaker 5: Someone said that Allen did a good job for us,
Speaker 5: helping the other small sports come alive on campus. But
Speaker 5: for some reason, with football, it wasn't a priority to
Speaker 5: make football one of the tops because we'll top twenty
Speaker 5: five schools straight. We've been there since ninety six, ninety seven.
Speaker 5: You got to talk about us. You know, and and
Speaker 5: someone said today just like what Gray said, he aligned
Speaker 5: it with with what Big Gray just said.
Speaker 2: He didn't focus enough.
Speaker 5: On football and made football be like it is and
Speaker 5: all the big coverage, a big teams campus. It was
Speaker 5: the same thing what we just said, I was, that's
Speaker 5: the red time, you know football.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you lack a focus of football, I
Speaker 3: think that's a major mistake.
Speaker 4: That's clear.
Speaker 3: Michigan State or no matter what school is, if you're
Speaker 3: in the Power for conferences, that's Big ten, that's SEC,
Speaker 3: that's Big twelve, that's a CEC. Okay, if you're in
Speaker 3: those conferences, you know that the big revenue generator is football.
Speaker 3: You know, there's nowhere else that has the TV viewership,
Speaker 3: There's nowhere else that has the amount of people that
Speaker 3: pack stadiums for each game. So football should be careabout.
Speaker 3: You know, there's other conferences that's not that's not the case.
Speaker 3: You know, the Big East and places like that where
Speaker 3: they don't have to share. Where they're looking forward to
Speaker 3: this you know, uh House settlement where they're going to
Speaker 3: be roughly twenty and a half million dollars that you know,
Speaker 3: university is going to be able to share amongst different sports.
Speaker 3: You know, places that do not have football may thrive
Speaker 3: in the basketball round because they'll be able to take
Speaker 3: the line, share that money and put it in basketball.
Speaker 3: But that being aside, what we have been saying right
Speaker 3: here on this show that this is spared I m
Speaker 3: issue swear.
Speaker 4: Let's talk about it. Man.
Speaker 3: We've been talking about this for months, for over a year,
Speaker 3: that Michigan State has to get with it. That there
Speaker 3: are schools that are not just dealing with revenue share. Okay,
Speaker 3: there's schools that are doing revenue share plus.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: When we talk about plus, what are we talking about.
Speaker 3: We're talking about donations. We're talking about donors, man, the
Speaker 3: donor pool, talking about NIO. We're talking about an athletic
Speaker 3: director that has to what the profile. That's what we're
Speaker 3: going to be talking about over the next couple of days.
Speaker 3: Here is the profile of the athletic director that can
Speaker 3: lead you in this environment?
Speaker 4: What does that look like? You know, I know there's
Speaker 4: going to be a national search. We know that right now.
Speaker 3: That's interim director when Jim Smith right now and the
Speaker 3: whole interim director with Tom Izo. We understand that. But but
Speaker 3: there's gonna be a search going on. Is somebody that's
Speaker 3: already in house and somebody that's already a spartan.
Speaker 4: This is somebody.
Speaker 3: They're gonna go out to the west coast, they're gonna
Speaker 3: go down south, They're going out to east and try
Speaker 3: to find the new athletic director. What's that's the question
Speaker 3: And we're not here to about going on at Michigan
Speaker 3: State and what are the I guess answers to what's
Speaker 3: the path forward to Michigan State if they want to
Speaker 3: be successful, if we all want to be successful in
Speaker 3: any sport, and mainly we're talking about football squad.
Speaker 2: I mean I totally degree. You know, it's like what
Speaker 2: I said, it don't want many more.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 5: We we got to find somebody that want to make
Speaker 5: us tops, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Because I think we got the resources.
Speaker 5: While we tap it into the resource is the right way,
Speaker 5: you know, And I think that's the key. You know,
Speaker 5: we got to find out what everybody else is doing.
Speaker 5: You know what Ohio State doing that we not doing.
Speaker 5: You know what Michigan doing that we're not doing. You
Speaker 5: know what Miami's doing that we're not doing. We we
Speaker 5: gotta find out. We gotta that that got that person
Speaker 5: gotta come in and make that difference. It ain't no
Speaker 5: if in the US about it. And if they don't
Speaker 5: find the right person, guess what, we're gonna be singing
Speaker 5: the same. Everybody gonna be hoping what's on?
Speaker 2: Win one more.
Speaker 5: That's all we're gonna be cheering for because we're not
Speaker 5: gonna put the football program in the right position because
Speaker 5: I don't think and I'm not knocking Joe Montana University
Speaker 5: and and DePaul and wherever we're getting these guys from.
Speaker 5: We're just not gonna you know, you're not gonna get
Speaker 5: my blood pressure up this year.
Speaker 2: I'm not. You're not gonna fool me because I'm a realist.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: I know we need the Jimmies and the Joels, and
Speaker 5: the time right now is n I L. It ain't
Speaker 5: about recruiting. It ain't no more recruiting, no more. That
Speaker 5: stopped three four years ago.
Speaker 2: It's n I L.
Speaker 5: You gotta put yourself in and to be able to
Speaker 5: compete in the nil.
Speaker 2: If not, we're gonna keep doing were doing.
Speaker 5: And I guess the guys that we get because that's
Speaker 5: the pool that we got it gotta be.
Speaker 4: Right. Yeah, yeah, there's no doubt about it. I think that.
Speaker 3: You know, when you look at Michigan State recruiting in
Speaker 3: the NIL and portal shopping, both in basketball and football,
Speaker 3: there's there's this tension. It seems to be, you know,
Speaker 3: the coaches feel hamstrung, handcuffed something. It's not Hey, let's
Speaker 3: just go out here and just make offers and whatever
Speaker 3: we want to do, we're gonna get it done. And
Speaker 3: if we're wrong, we got somebody that's gonna back us,
Speaker 3: is gonna you know, make up the difference. And that's
Speaker 3: it's not the game that we're playing right now in
Speaker 3: East Lancy, you know, right or wrong, it's not. And uh,
Speaker 3: in order to be competitive on a level where you're
Speaker 3: trying to compete for championships today, unfortunately, that's where that's
Speaker 3: where you need to be wherever. I mean, you can't
Speaker 3: just you know, look, Jonathan Smith and Tom Izzo are
Speaker 3: both excellent coaches.
Speaker 4: On the exces and TH's.
Speaker 3: But you just named it just now when you said,
Speaker 3: but you can't win championships without the Jimmy's and Jones,
Speaker 3: and by that we need to mean you need the
Speaker 3: players you need to have the players. And the only
Speaker 3: way to really get the players the athletes when you
Speaker 3: talk about athletes for athletes, has to be able to
Speaker 3: have a program set up that that can show them
Speaker 3: a path that they're going to be better young men
Speaker 3: and women when they leave Michigan State University in many
Speaker 3: ways education. But you know, listen, you definitely have to
Speaker 3: compete financially. Not saying you gotta be them, you gotta
Speaker 3: only have to be Texas throwing forty million dollars at
Speaker 3: the football program. But you know, as they said just
Speaker 3: a week a couple of days ago, right, forty million
Speaker 3: dollars roster at Texas. You know there's there's gonna be
Speaker 3: a lot of those kind of rosters around the country.
Speaker 4: But you need to be able to compete.
Speaker 3: Mischiss State has a lot to offer oute side of
Speaker 3: just money, you know, because they have uh, one of
Speaker 3: the most beautiful campuses that Swerve. You can tell everybody
Speaker 3: about what it's like to be on campus at at
Speaker 3: Case Hall.
Speaker 4: And I don't know what did we lose, Swerve. I
Speaker 4: think we lost.
Speaker 3: Did we losing Hey, listen, look we live here in Naples.
Speaker 3: We're talking about what's happened at Michigan State.
Speaker 4: There you go, swerve.
Speaker 2: You can't. You can't lose me. You can't.
Speaker 3: You might have to get out of them walls, brother,
Speaker 3: and walking around outside.
Speaker 5: It ain't.
Speaker 3: It's still some sunlight out here. It's still some little
Speaker 3: sunlight out here.
Speaker 2: Man, straight, Can you hear me, stri Can you hear me?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it ain't just case. You can't get it. You
Speaker 2: can't forget about club.
Speaker 5: Marsh Smash or Smash marsh Man.
Speaker 3: You changing, yeah, yeah, smash Man, Mash Mash, Mash, mash Man,
Speaker 3: whatever it is, Marsh, club marsh Man.
Speaker 5: I know all I know. I had a hell of
Speaker 5: a time and it's a great time, you know. But
Speaker 5: at the end of the day, man, you know, you
Speaker 5: know I don't I don't knock, you know, Hallan, you know,
Speaker 5: like I said on the Woman anymore. You know, I
Speaker 5: thank him for everything that he did. But you know
Speaker 5: it's it's people in higher places. Is noise that was made,
Speaker 5: you know, And like I said, you had the mail situation.
Speaker 5: I thought it was just amount of time, you know.
Speaker 5: That's why I would promote myself to be the next
Speaker 5: a d you know, why not me? You know, I
Speaker 5: need everybody to send letters and emails and boot for
Speaker 5: Smurv and Irving to be the next ad.
Speaker 3: You know, hey, man, I'm sure there's gonna be a
Speaker 3: lot of people knowing they had in the ring right now.
Speaker 3: You know, it's a heavily highly politically charged they've had.
Speaker 3: They've got message boards of lighting up right now because
Speaker 3: of all the search firms that are rumored to be
Speaker 3: on retainer to go out and find the next ad.
Speaker 3: You know, this is this is big business in college
Speaker 3: athletics right now to find who's going to be at
Speaker 3: the helm for these positions such as this, you know,
Speaker 3: Swerve and Irving.
Speaker 4: Hey, you can do it, you can do it. Maybe. Hey,
Speaker 4: I'm in your corner, you know that.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm just saying when you talk about what's
Speaker 3: going on around the country. Man, hey, you got guys
Speaker 3: out here that have that they're rumoring to come to
Speaker 3: Missisan State a u CLA.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: You know jar Bod, guy who's making almost two million
Speaker 3: dollars a year at UCLA younger than us Swerve right now,
Speaker 3: you know, looking to maybe come back. He was an
Speaker 3: associate ad a few years ago at Michigan State University.
Speaker 3: You know, you got guys uh from University of North Carolina.
Speaker 3: You know, looking at the message boards around the around
Speaker 3: Michigan State Athletics. You know, there's rumors that maybe he
Speaker 3: was offering a job already and he's already turned down.
Speaker 4: We don't we don't know what the facts are.
Speaker 3: And this we're just telling you what the word on
Speaker 3: the street is, West Virginia have an athletic director. Uh.
Speaker 3: That that that's another guy who's rumored to be in
Speaker 3: the mix for the Michigan State job. You know, look,
Speaker 3: the list can go on and on, and we we're
Speaker 3: gonna get that profile to what do people What do
Speaker 3: the fans really want? What are they really looking for
Speaker 3: the director? We need a profile not just swerving, Like
Speaker 3: what what does Swerven nerv mean to the people? And
Speaker 3: what is that gonna mean?
Speaker 2: But one thing you got to let the people know.
Speaker 5: One thing, you got to let the people know that
Speaker 5: Swerven Hervier just say talking ship. He got a massive
Speaker 5: degree in educational leadership, so he's already a born leader.
Speaker 5: Now you know the political part of being the leader.
Speaker 5: You know, all I'm saying is both for swerving over
Speaker 5: it for be your next a d.
Speaker 3: You get that you get you got that down, King
Speaker 3: smile down brother, right hey man, Look so tomorrow you
Speaker 3: know this, This golf outing for the Montgomery Foundation kicks
Speaker 3: off in Naples, Florida, right now as the sun sets
Speaker 3: here on the west side of Florida, South Florida, not
Speaker 3: too far away from your old stomping ground. Swerve in Miami.
Speaker 3: What are you going to shoot? Inquiring minds want to
Speaker 3: know what is swerving? O We're gonna shoot tomorrow.
Speaker 5: First of all, I gotta give a shout to Hope
Speaker 5: because when we were driving down here, I did not
Speaker 5: know that Brownwood County it is only like forty seven
Speaker 5: hours away from Naprile.
Speaker 2: I did not know that.
Speaker 5: But anyway, straight I came in today, you know, to
Speaker 5: the people that don't know where we're at. This is
Speaker 5: this is This is where I'm at. This is where
Speaker 5: the auction was at. Right, See look at that. I
Speaker 5: got Michigan fans right there where I go right and
Speaker 5: swerving iran for a D the next ad swerving IRV
Speaker 5: say that swerving iver.
Speaker 4: See what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: I'm telling you it's all over, you know, er Van
Speaker 5: spur Man.
Speaker 2: I can't make this s it up. Straight up, swerving
Speaker 2: irve for the next ad, telling.
Speaker 1: People, next ad, next a deep, I'm.
Speaker 5: Gonna be the next A D at Michigan State Universe.
Speaker 2: You want me the campaign?
Speaker 4: I mean, what else is not much?
Speaker 5: Not much, but I mean I'm guaranteed you to get
Speaker 5: a hold in one after I finished about two cigars tomorrow.
Speaker 2: So I'm just the people want me. Just all I'm saying,
Speaker 2: I'm all for the people.
Speaker 4: Straight.
Speaker 3: Hey, you can't do nothing with it. Hey you swear
Speaker 3: with irver like man, Look you see this answer sunsets
Speaker 3: in Naples. Man, we got a lot going on here
Speaker 3: because we got to get up early. We got to
Speaker 3: get to bed early, because we got to be up
Speaker 3: at that early shotgun.
Speaker 4: You got to be up the range at six am.
Speaker 4: All what is it? Six thirty? No?
Speaker 2: No, no, So they start at eight fifteen.
Speaker 5: But for the average, the range, the range, No, no, no,
Speaker 5: I don't do the range right. If they're starting at
Speaker 5: eight fifteen, we're in the golf car at eight fifteen.
Speaker 2: I would get here at eight eleven.
Speaker 5: Oh man, now you average, you average golfers got to
Speaker 5: get here seven o'clock and all that warm up and stretch.
Speaker 2: I ain't got time for that shit straight.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you tripper, you tripper.
Speaker 3: You gotta get a couple of swings and man, you
Speaker 3: know you can't sleep till left eight eleven and get
Speaker 3: in for an h fifteen shotgun. I don't know, Hey, Swerve,
Speaker 3: Hey man, final thoughts. Man, Look, we gotta get up
Speaker 3: out of here because I gotta get to bed.
Speaker 5: Man, come on, gee, hey all, I'm saying once again, man,
Speaker 5: I want to salute you know, like I said before,
Speaker 5: is I know it's a tough time for for my
Speaker 5: man Howler. Appreciate you for three and a half. By
Speaker 5: the end of the day, all the music must keep playing.
Speaker 5: You know, we got it, We got it. We gotta
Speaker 5: move on, we gotta step up, and we gotta find
Speaker 5: somebody that's gonna take us to the next level.
Speaker 2: So appreciate you. Best of looking.
Speaker 4: Whatever you do.
Speaker 5: You're successful. You was a successful police officer. You'll be
Speaker 5: you know, thedeed, you'll be successful after this. But the
Speaker 5: next person up it's gonna take us to the next level.
Speaker 3: And guess who it is, Swerving Irving, Yeah, I hear you, brother,
Speaker 3: you listen, you know, swear whenever that misigan state is
Speaker 3: not going to just just just send Alan Haller home
Speaker 3: with his pockets empty. He will be paid out the
Speaker 3: remainder of his contract, which is another year and a
Speaker 3: half when I think it's a million dollar plus contract
Speaker 3: per year.
Speaker 4: So he'll be okay, he'll be okay. You know.
Speaker 3: So I'm definitely praying for the brother because you know,
Speaker 3: he is one of us and we are him. So
Speaker 3: you know, if one of us goes down, we all
Speaker 3: go down together. And you know, we think that he
Speaker 3: will stand strong with the help and the support of
Speaker 3: what he was able to accomplish at Michigan State, and
Speaker 3: you know, the people here do appreciate what he was
Speaker 3: able to do and going forward with Swerve man, you know,
Speaker 3: for you get your campaign.
Speaker 4: Going, let's do that.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of people profile wives that are looking
Speaker 3: to get in the game. So they had in the
Speaker 3: ring so to speak, and swear when Nerves just one
Speaker 3: of them, you know, so hey, you know, you got
Speaker 3: my vote. There's a lot of people out here that
Speaker 3: are that are gonna wanna get involved in this game,
Speaker 3: and so we're gonna talk about this in more detail
Speaker 3: next week, you know, with Live from Naples, Florida. For Swerving,
Speaker 3: Irvan I'm Jason Strayhorn. This is Sparta M s U. Everybody,
Speaker 3: have a good night, God bless you all, and go
Speaker 3: great go.
Speaker 4: Why