Speaker 1: Thucol Macknis So March is right around the corner and
the Cougars are written the metal of it.
Speaker 2: It's time to talk to some college basketball, a lot
Cougar sports with Ben Cripple.
Speaker 1: We welcome back to Fugure Sports. Here on a three
nine and ninety three ESP and the fan Ronald the
three and nine. We were here holding it down for
Ben Cripple, got Brett always bringing the hammer by my
side as well. Gonna get into a little basketball discussion,
going to discuss a lot of stuff about this BAYU
men's basketball team. Gonna take a different approach. I look,
I love talking hoop. You guys know I love talking basketball.
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 1: I'm the basketball guy. Ben has given me that ropes.
I love talking about it. Getting Jonathan Tavnari on. You know,
we've had Anson Winder on former b AU greats. We've
had h Tyler before. Still trying to you know, uh
get TJ. Look, this BAU basketball program has has shocked
the world in my opinion, and they it started with
Mark Pope. I know a lot of people might look
at that differently, but it started under Mark Pope when
no one thought that they would be be good. They went,
I think was fifth or sixth in the Big twelve.
And then Pope got hired and the staff dispersed, and
everyone thought the sky was falling. Chicken little who wasn't lying,
and maybe for a second it wasn't. Then lo and
behold here comes, you know, the bearded dragon who unfortunately
had to shave his beard in Kevin Young and said, look,
I'm preparing to develop young men for the NBA. And
that's what he did, the top ten lottery pick. And
now you got the number one recruit in the twenty
twenty five class. So you have the number one Euro,
you got the number one high school guy who's going
to be the number one pick in the twenty twenty
six NBA class maybe excuse me, the NBA draft. And
then you also had the number one Juko. Just a
phenomenal of that. But he's an even better person. And look,
I know a lot of people feel sometimes that Kevin
Young is just business. But this is why I tell you, guys,
watch the cut. You watch the cut. Kevin Young is
leading to the discussions, he's leading the prayer. It's like,
I love to see this from Kevin Young. And it
goes back to what President Rees announced. He says, Hey,
we got a great man, but a great follower first
and foremost of Jesus Christ. And sometimes that can get
overlooked when you know you have a very intense and
serious personality and you're about your business and your action.
But that doesn't take away and getting to know Kevin
Young just over these last two years, I see a
lot of Christ and that man more than I think
maybe some other people might not have the opportunity. So
I'm just very grateful to be able to do that,
you know, and cover this team. And we're gonna break
it down with the guy who does the fan experience
for him. He gets to see the team a little
bit more, maybe more than I do interact with them.
But we're gonna discuss that Dawson Baker, you know, unfortunately
it will be out for the rest of the season
and has a decision to make on his future. But
it felt like, you know that fans and people forgot
about Dawson and shout out to the top king, but
he was delivered a stack of letters. I don't know
how many it is, and I'm gonna have to have
a guy on the line and tell me how many
letters that he got, but they wrote him love letters,
thank you message especially around the holidays. A great light
the world from the BYU Rockets. This is this was
great to do to be a to do that and
show Dawson some love, and I know Dawson definitely felt
the spirit and it blew up over social media as
it should have. Guys, But this basketball segment, it's gonna
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Let's get out to the ESPN, the fan, the hotline.
I don't want to make them wait anymore. I've made
them wait a little bit I have none other than
Joel Marry, the manager of the fan Experience and Marketing
for the bou men's basketball team and manager of marketing analytics. Joel,
thanks for joining me today.
Speaker 2: Brother. Hey, absolutely, Ron'm excited to chat with you and
chat with Tigernation.
Speaker 1: Tell me how all of this came about, because I
saw it a couple of weeks ago. I was very intrigued.
Great thought process by you and the rock board just
who resually came up with this idea to write Dawson Baker.
And you're gonna have to tell me how many letters
is that, because that's a thick stack of letters that
dB got.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say it was a healthy stack and
credit where it's due, because you know, Cougar Nation really
is always excited to you know, share the love that
they have with players. And in fact, that's where it
started was the staff had been getting kind of fan mail,
which isn't very common. There's not like a mailbox necessarily
for you know, players or staff, but they some people
seemingly found the address and started kind of sending some
some good wishes and well wishes to Dawson and so
they In fact, I was approached by the staff to say, hey,
can we make this, you know, bigger if we do
it all at once and kind of have all of
the fans you know, kind of the word I've been
using is love bomb Dawson, And so that's kind of
the genesis of it was, hey, can we do this
all at once? And we luckily had a great opportunity
on the concourse at the Merritt Center what we call
the fan zoned to kind of host that. So you know,
we had fans just take a quarter sheet of a
piece of paper. So yeah, it had to have been
easily four or five hundred of those little pieces of
paper that they were able to write a little note
to him and give him, as you know, their best
wishes as he goes through a pretty grueling process right
with his knee injury and a lot of isolation, I'm
sure is what it feels like. Obviously he's got a
great support team and good professionals to help him get
back on his feet, but you know, I'm sure that
that's the lonely process. And so the thought was, hey,
how can we you know, kind of give Dawson a
love bomb? And in fact, we did do it over
two different games up on the concourse. Pregame is where
we did it and when we did it. But it
was an awesome opportunity just to kind of say, hey,
here's a big stack in that hour that you know,
the rocks waiting for the game to start, and for
general fans who are you know, walking the concourse, give
him a chance to you know, share some love to
Dawson directly. And it was especially good. I thought to,
you know, have it captured, you know, show the reaction,
because sometimes we'll have things like that that are you know,
fan facing, but are intended for the players that sometimes
it's like is he going to ever really see the
output of this? You know, is he going to really
read my letter? And so it was really fun to
see that, like you said, kind of blow up and
you know, have people realize, hey, that actually made it
to him and it made a big difference for him
and for his family that's supporting him and help him
not feel as lonely in the in the recovery process.
Speaker 1: Man, you guys hit out of the park for sure.
I swear I feel like you guys, you don't miss
a beat down there. Ay BYU Athletics. That's for sure. No,
his reaction was. It caught my attention, honestly, and I
mean my wife was the one that pointed out, was like,
did you see this? And I said, see what she's like?
Did you see that? She's like Dawson Baker like got notes?
And I said, no, how did I miss that? And
then I went to social media. I was like, oh,
my goodness, like and just his reaction. I know he
gave the reaction, Hey, thanks to rock, you know, but
take me a little bit more behind the sly. I
don't know if you've had a chance to talk with
Dawn of how he felt, because the reaction was genuine,
just like the one of him in the locker room, right,
he didn't know that. I feel like he's been on
the highlight of these these videos, which is awesome. But
just take me behind the scenes of how Dawson was
because I feel like that made me emotional in a
moment as just a person, right and just a fan
of the game of basketball, and I know that probably
had to make Dawson emotional as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. In fact, I very fortunately had the
chance to take the elevator with him outside of the
Merritt Center that day, and it wasn't you know, I
wasn't like, you know, cherry bombing them waiting to say
hi to him on the way out, But it just
worked out, which again was really fortunate for me. I
don't always see the payoff of, you know, those kind
of interactions that we try to prepare for. But I
was really humble to be in the elevator with him,
and you know, he's got his crutches, had some nice
shoes on. In fact, President Reese was in the elevator
and gave him a shout out for a shoe game,
which Dust's always had a strong shoe game. But we
were able to take the elevator up and on the
way out, I said, hey, I heard you got some notes,
which again I tried to play it off a little bit,
you know, almost play dumb for a moment, but I said, hey,
you got some some fun notes from the fans, and
he goes he kind of had a little tear in
his eye and was just said, hey, you know that
really really means a lot. It's a it's a long
road ahead, but it was really cool to see individuals
with their names on a little piece of paper saying
something to me. As an individual because you know, I'm
sure he knows that there's you know, there's support, and
you know, social media can certainly you know, people post
and comment on the post rather that say hey, you know,
we wish you the best. But it's really fun to
see it in the handwriting of a you know, six
year old kid or a longtime Cougar club member that's
been at games forever. So he was really grateful and
in fact, his wife was there as well, and you
could kind of tell that she was grateful as well,
which is a really cool interaction. So you know, can
be able to see the interaction in the moment when
you know, Richie walks up and says, hey, these are
from the rock and from the fans was its own
payoff moment for sure. But then again being able to
walk out with him and just wish them the best
myself and say, hey, it's the least we could do
on our staff from the fan experience side, to just
express our gratitude and use the platform that we have
to you know, make a personal touch for him, which
is really humbling. Again, he was very emotional and you
could tell as a very genuine, uh gratitude moment for him.
So again really humbled to even experience that and kind
of get lucky on the way out that that I
got to walk out with him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, Joe, we talked and we talked about
the interview and prep you. I I didn't think I
was going to get that response. I had no idea
you had the opportunity to be on the elevator, you know,
you know with him, I was shooting in a dark
hoping you would and that that that's very touching that
you are to experience that, And thank you for sharing that.
Of the behind the scenes always you know are important
to me. We only see things that face value. Social
media can only tell us so much, but we really
don't know what's going on behind the scenes. So thank
you for that. That moment you get b yu, you guys,
and you guys were able to light the world, you know,
for Dawson Baker and his family. I know that he
will he will cherish that. But I want to go
back to behind the scenes. Get to know you a
little bit better. Tell us about you know, your role.
You're the manager of the fan experience in marketing for
men's basketball. You're the behind the scenes guy I see
you all the time. I know you're busy. I don't
get to talk to you as much, but you got
a lot going on.
Speaker 2: Just take us through.
Speaker 1: What did the day in the life is like for
you for a normal game day for bou basketball.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, it's a really it's crazy that I get
to call us my job. I'll admit it's really fun
because I prepare, you know, as early as I can
for a given game. And what's interesting is the two
kind of parts of my job are marketing and fan experience.
And some people may say, well, isn't it the easiest
job ever to market a team like this? And in fact,
I tell the guys in the once kind of the
first meeting of the year, I'm invited in to kind
of describe what I do, and I just say, hey,
you guys make selling tickets really easy, so thank you.
And in the market sitting side, my mindset pivots a
lot to you know, how do we now have season
ticket holders using their tickets? So that's kind of at
least one thing that is heavy on my mind, and
you know, improving the usage of tickets, So that's a
big part of what I do. But the true game
to game preparation that we do is really regimented on
some sould. Inventory is a big part of things that
we do. So in fact, even as listeners here, you know,
a quick shout out at the stat of the day
was brought to you by a blank In fact, I
run through the same things. So I prepare for the
in game entertainment portion of the game from you know,
doors open till about fifteen twenty minutes or so after
the game concludes. Basically, anything that's between the whistles or
really outside of the whistles is what I get to
work towards. So that's the you know, the timing of
the intro video with the sheet falling and the music
and the lights and all those sorts of things, in
addition to during timeouts, the breaks where we have a
chance to you know, run a half court shot by
a sponsor or, you know, do a Light the World initiative,
which we did technically unsponsored but certainly aligned with BUYU,
which is a big thing I wanted to push over
the last few years. But so yeah, my entire job
is to entertain the fans and particularly do that in
a way that helps the environment of the game be
conducive to that home court advantage that everyone wants and
everyone luckily talks about when they think about the Merritt Center.
So you know, trying to think, Okay, we have, you know,
handful of things that we have to do before the
end of the game, and we just went on a
ten oh run, and so what I'm going to do
is actually let the energy you ride a little bit
longer and kind of push my script aside and you know,
kind of mold things as they go, which is a
really fun part of it. So, you know, I know,
Coach Young says all the time that each game has
a new life or a new story behind it, which
is surprisingly very true of what I do, because there's
different times where can those runs that we go on
or I just want to live in those moments and
still get the things done that are paid for, but
then allow you know, kind of flexibility for that and
realize too that I have the kind of the levers
if you will, to help kind of squash the energy
of the other team if they go on a quick
six to zero run. You know, how can I help
our fans and the team, you know, kind of let
that be a quick burn and then move on to
the next thing and reignite our fans in a positive way.
So that's at least kind of the high level of
what we do and what I get to do and
I can call my job is to try to build
the environment such that the players can feel the energy
at the right time. Perhaps the other team cannot feel
the energy at the right time in hopes of having
a great home court advantage in the Merritt Center.
Speaker 1: And you just get a bou fans new life and
you might have put a name just target on your back.
So if one of these teams Arizona comes up here
on atal run, they're gonna need you to kill the
momentum to do that to Swim and Bye's favor. I'm
totally I'm totally joking when I say that, But that's
that's good to know about that I've experienced. Look, i'm
a media member there, but I've enjoyed every part of
the atmosphere from the sheet drop to the half court shot.
I do have to ask this, and I need to
let you go in a little bit. But I was
told by you know, the better three force, I need
to ask this. I don't want to do this. I
told her. I said, I rather Joel hook up me
having a half court shot, you know, trying to bring
some money to the family. But I was told by
the Better three Force, you're ever gonna have that baby
crawl again because we got a little one. And she's like, oh,
that would be fun. And I was completely vetoing it.
But you know, sometimes you just stop arguing because you're
not gonna win.
Speaker 2: Hey, I feel that for sure, But yeah, in fact
it is. It is one that we will have and
in factor's a kind of some new elements to it
that we're always trying to enhance those types of things too, right,
kind of make it feel a little bit more like
a broadcast for those kids and have a little bit
more wow. So that, to my understanding, it actually has
been sold, so we should have a few of those
baby races coming up.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm definitely gonna have to talk to you. She said,
you're gonna ask him about this and we're gonna make
that happen. It was like, I don't like to be
in the light. I just want to sit up in
the seat. She's like, it's happening. We need to have
her do it. Just started crawling everywhere and she's giggdy
about it. So I'm like, okay, so I will get
home safely tonight. I won't sleep on the couch because
I asked the correct question in the right way.
Speaker 2: Uh, very well done, you know you.
Speaker 1: Know all about that. I'll get you out of here
on this, Joel. Just take me through BYU Athletics and
BYU as a whole. What is meant to you as
a student. You know your job well when when you
were a student. Obviously Fu's just got baptized. I think
that speaks proudly to what the BYU mission statement is.
And it happened after he left BYU, not during his time,
and someone who is completely of a different faith, and
you know you felt like embodied the mission statement at
b YU.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. In fact, I was listening to the segment
prior and I was humbled enough that in fact to
be at the baptism just yesterday, which I was really
humbled for the chance to be there, and it was
really to that point kind of encapsulate all that. You know,
He's one of many examples of just people that live
life in a way that just like brings light to
other people. And it was you know, not surprising to
see that he would bring what he you know, his
experiences in life and his personality and just add that
to the light of the Gospel and what BUYU itself
and the church stand for. And so that's one thing that, Yeah,
your main question is, you know, that alignment that I
can have in my role is what I strive for,
you know, with the mission and aims of BUYU in
general as the university. Same with within athletics. You know,
we harp on it as a team a lot and
I kind of drive it into my team's head a
lot of you know, can we be aligned to the
best of our ability and really be honest with ourselves
because we want to just be the best version of
ourselves in what we do and the interactions that we
get to have with our fans. And again, you know,
fous is a great example of that. Where from his
freshman year, which is actually my first year in this
role working with basketball, you know, I've seen him grow
both as a basketball player but as a person even more,
which is why it was such a humbling opportunity to
see him, you know, dressed in white and being baptized
and then you know, directly after being confirmed a member
of the church and receiving the priesthood immediately in fact,
and just to think, hey, he's the light that he's
already shared in my life and in even my wife's
life and others that know him. It's the Gospel is
just going to add to the light that he already has.
And it's just so humbling to think that again, not
only am I doing this job that's fun and really
entertaining and engaging and dynamic, but I get to do
it at a place where if I align myself well
with the principles of the Gospel and the university, it's
going to even have a bigger impact on those that
come into the arena, and it can hopefully leave having
a great experience, hopefully having seen a lot of wins,
and hoping to come back at future times. So get
humbled to have the chance to call this my job
and think about it a lot, and and and try
to just do my best to be my best and
share that light the best that I can.
Speaker 1: Well, you've been sharing that light. You do a great job,
and you're portion with the with the basketball team. I've
told Anna Metcalf, your colleague as well. Phenomenal job with football.
I'm always in impressed. We'll have to talk of off record,
but I love the new additions that were added, uh
you know that will be added for conference play for basketball.
I love the new additions for football of the field.
You know, the all of it is great, and you
guys have truly earned by I think others and you know,
I pull other media members of this day for football
and basketball say those are some of the best. If not,
that's the best atmosphere to come to in the Big twelve,
number one and in college athletics that they enjoy their
time in provo. So you guys do a great job.
Please coop up the good work. But before I let
you go, I got to give you the pitch. What's
the best way? You know myself? The listeners, the people
that download the podcast and that are tuning into the
show right now can support you what you do, how
you do work, and they maybe follow you on social
media ad to get all the updates.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely well, thanks for the chance to do so.
Maybe even at a higher level, I'd encourage people to
give BYU fan Experienced our team's account a follow that's
where you can learn about themes of a game or
giveaways or you know, fan zone related things, and that's
just BYU fan X, which is FA n e X
short for experience, but then just personally on X. My
handle I suppose as it's called is Marion m a
ar Io n Underscore Joel Underscore thirteen, product of twenty thirteen,
Class of twenty thirteen. That is from high school, which
is where that came from, but yet available online. Always
open to feedback and experiences from fans, because again, if
I can even understand one person's experience a little bit
better and improve that and multiply it time over time,
over time, my job gets a lot better and everyone's
experiences get better too. So be sure to drop me
a line if there's ever any suggestions, and we take
them seriously too, so no hesitation.
Speaker 1: Look, I graduated in April, Joel can my class last year.
He does take the suggestion seriously. I've had a chance
to talk to him, but now that I'm outside, I
see all of it coming to fruition, trust me, So
give him a follow today on his personal account at
marian Underschool Joel Underscore thirteen, and then also followed them
at you know BYU fan X as well. Look, you
gotta follow this guy, the marketing and data nerd per him,
not me. He was born in Colorado, but he was
built in Provo.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. It takes a chance to be on of.
Speaker 1: Course, thanks Joe brother, I'll let you go, man and
late Mary. Christmas to you and the family, and happy
New Year two year as well.
Speaker 2: Man. Hey, likewise, thanks so much. Gokus, Okay, I'll let
you go.
Speaker 1: That was Joel Marion. Love to have Joel on discuss.
I wanted to take a different angle guys of bu
basketball and highlighting Dawson like the world. Happy holidays to everybody,
Merry Christmas. Look, I am a big advocacist the gospel.
Jesus Christ changed my life forever I am. I'm a
convert to the church, and I've seen how it's blessed me.
One of the reasons I met by he was to
surround my I sell by these people. So whenever I
hear stories and see these things, I love to highlight them.
But we gotta go to break. We gotta get to
Jerem Jordan on the flip, don't go anywhere you touch
the am dollar. Might it might not be christ Like,
it might not be like the word. I might Juda
chopp you in the throat, but it's only two minutes.
Two minutes a word from our sponsors. Don't go anywhere,
Jerem Jordan on the flip in the Little Cougar Beat.
You're listening to Cougar Sports one O three nine ninety
eight three ESP