Speaker 1: All right, we are live today at Arup Blood Services.
Speaker 1: It's ninety seven eighty six South five hundred West and Sandy,
Speaker 1: let me repeat that as the edge was a.
Speaker 2: Little loud coming in there.
Speaker 3: That's why I died.
Speaker 1: Ninety seven eighty six South five hundred West and Sandy.
Speaker 2: Give local, Save Local.
Speaker 1: It's the sole blood provider for the University of Utah
Speaker 1: and the Huntsman Cancer Institute, which means we need blood.
Speaker 1: If you're looking four ways to give back this holiday season,
Speaker 1: roll Up takes about thirty thirty five minutes of your time.
Speaker 1: We'll hook you up with a Megaplex gift card, Amazon
Speaker 1: gift cards on the table as well, and you can
Speaker 1: say hello to the legend himself, Richard.
Speaker 2: Smith on a Wednesday Smeddi, Happy Wednesday.
Speaker 4: Man, same to you, Spencer. This is by the way,
Speaker 4: this is a great spot for you to do your
Speaker 4: show whenever you get the opportunity to come out here
Speaker 4: to Arup. These guys do such a great job and
Speaker 4: helping the University of Utah and the hospital and getting
Speaker 4: the blood and the donation they need, you know, to
Speaker 4: help people this time of year. So it's it's fantastic.
Speaker 4: I always love doing stuff with you in these kinds
Speaker 4: of settings where people are trying to help help other people.
Speaker 3: It's just terrific.
Speaker 1: Well, I appreciate you saying that. I appreciate you being
Speaker 1: out here. It's nice to come out in this direction.
Speaker 1: So we've got you for an hour. We'll save the
Speaker 1: jazz stuff for a little bit later, because I like
Speaker 1: to get your perspective on some of the local things
Speaker 1: that are happening. And since you and I last spoke,
Speaker 1: the head coach of the University of Utah said not yet,
Speaker 1: not like this, and Coach Wit is back for year
Speaker 1: twenty one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I've got to say I've been surprised.
Speaker 1: At what I perceived to be a reaction that I
Speaker 1: wasn't anticipating. And I want to be very clear here,
Speaker 1: I can't say forty percent of the community or twenty
Speaker 1: whatever it is, But based off of some emails I've received,
Speaker 1: some phone calls, some text messages, and some of the reaction,
Speaker 1: I feel like he's still considered to be one of
Speaker 1: the best coaches in all of college football, and certainly
Speaker 1: the best coach that this university.
Speaker 2: Has ever had.
Speaker 1: And I keep coming back to this line from Batman.
Speaker 1: You either die a hero or you live long enough
Speaker 1: to become a villainy. Well, what's your take on some
Speaker 1: people that think it might be time to the succession
Speaker 1: plan to take place?
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, my reaction is, who are these
Speaker 4: people like? I mean, it's you know, it's Bobby in
Speaker 4: his basement bedroom of his parents' home, like putting stuff
Speaker 4: online or whatever. I mean to me, I mean guys
Speaker 4: like Kyle Whittingham who have done what they've done, who's
Speaker 4: shown you what they know what they're doing. And I mean,
Speaker 4: to me, it's insulting that it's even you know, any
Speaker 4: kind of a discussion topic among the people in general,
Speaker 4: because someone who's shown what they can do and they
Speaker 4: have a bad year for whatever. All the reasons are
Speaker 4: that everybody knows. All of a sudden, everybody wants to
Speaker 4: jump ship and it's a uh, it's you know, but
Speaker 4: we live in spence in this uh what if you've
Speaker 4: done for me lately?
Speaker 3: World? Right?
Speaker 4: And everybody wants everything yesterday, and so as soon as
Speaker 4: it's not good, they're all they all want to throw
Speaker 4: everything in the trash can and start over again. It's
Speaker 4: it's really to me, it's really insulting.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: For coach Winningham and for his staff, you know, to
Speaker 4: have that kind of reaction after all they've done and
Speaker 4: and shown what what they mean to college football in
Speaker 4: in the Western United States and in this in this region.
Speaker 4: It's you know, he he individually has done enough that
Speaker 4: he should be allowed to do it. However he wants
Speaker 4: to do it like he's gotten from me. He's gotten
Speaker 4: that card that says you got it. You just do
Speaker 4: whatever you want. You want to stay another five years,
Speaker 4: you want to leave tomorrow, you want to have some
Speaker 4: other guy.
Speaker 3: Who's gonna be here.
Speaker 4: So whatever it is, you've earned that right based on
Speaker 4: what your track record has been. And this thing about
Speaker 4: reacting to a bad season because of all the things
Speaker 4: we know happened is just ludicrous to me.
Speaker 1: Let me play Devil's advocate for a moment here while
Speaker 1: also making my personal opinion clear, as I did the
Speaker 1: Monday after the announcement. Kyle wants to come back. How's
Speaker 1: coming back? I mean, I'm old enough to remember when
Speaker 1: six wins a bowl game and maybe beat BYU was
Speaker 1: the pinnacle for Utah football.
Speaker 2: They were in the Rose Bowl two years ago.
Speaker 1: Yep, Okay, Now this is a new world in collegian athletics,
Speaker 1: as you and I have discussed. But let me pose
Speaker 1: this scenario to you and let's kind of process it
Speaker 1: through to see if there's anything there. Because what's happened
Speaker 1: now in the landscape of college football, and it's not
Speaker 1: just in Utah, because whenever you hear a college football
Speaker 1: speak during the offseason, what is he talking about? Nil
Speaker 1: investment from the community.
Speaker 2: We need your help.
Speaker 1: So there are powerful ute alumni, booster season ticket, older
Speaker 1: donors that are now being asked to do more economically
Speaker 1: and financially for the athletic department than they've ever been
Speaker 1: asked to do before. And some of them are writing
Speaker 1: seven figure checks. Okay, I know that to be true. Therefore,
Speaker 1: my guess would be their voices are going to be
Speaker 1: a little bit more loud as it pertains to what
Speaker 1: they want their program to look like.
Speaker 2: If you're asking us to write these checks.
Speaker 1: If there are those people, not Bob in his basement, no,
Speaker 1: powerful donors, people that are backing this program financially, that
Speaker 1: call Taylor Randall and call Mark Carlt and say it's time.
Speaker 2: What do you do with that?
Speaker 4: Well, you know those are the guys Spence who are
Speaker 4: also at every reception, every major announcement of whatever, hob nobbing.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: We're using this live example, right of uh with Kyle Whittingham,
Speaker 4: you know, rubbing shoulders with him, hanging out. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: I like this new quarterback. Yeah, this is gonna be
Speaker 4: great whatever whatever, and uh and they want to be
Speaker 4: a buddy buddy in the program because they feel like
Speaker 4: they've bought their way in.
Speaker 3: Or they've earned their way in in some other regard.
Speaker 4: And then as soon as uh, uh, you know, there's
Speaker 4: a ripple in the water, you know, they they start
Speaker 4: running for the for the hills. I mean, that's you know,
Speaker 4: I'm not sure those are the people, you know, that
Speaker 4: that you want involved in your program. If they, I mean,
Speaker 4: you're either in in with the group or you're not
Speaker 4: that that's kind No, that's right, and so uh, you know,
Speaker 4: and I don't know if there's any of those people
Speaker 4: necessarily uh you know involved at this point in time
Speaker 4: with the with the University of Utah. I know exactly
Speaker 4: what you're saying. There are a lot of those kind
Speaker 4: of people who are who are what we always reference
Speaker 4: as heavy hitters, right, and they they have a voice
Speaker 4: in the room Okay, but there's there's some point, there's
Speaker 4: some line in the sand where you know, you have
Speaker 4: some guy who's been there for a little while and
Speaker 4: he's been okay, had some success, some things didn't quite
Speaker 4: go right whatever. Okay, we're questioning what this is long term.
Speaker 4: But when you're talking about a Kyle Whittingham, you're talking
Speaker 4: about a Greg Popovich, you're talking about a Jerry Sloan,
Speaker 4: whoever it is, who has shown you what they can
Speaker 4: do when they have the players, when when everything's lined
Speaker 4: up and they're ready to go toe to toe with
Speaker 4: their opposition night and night out. You know, if those
Speaker 4: guys still wanted to you know, be doing it and
Speaker 4: they've they've got it, they know how to figure it out, they'll,
Speaker 4: you know, Kyle Winningham, Yeah, it's a new landscape and
Speaker 4: in I L and all that and transferred portal stuff.
Speaker 4: But Kyle, I'm sure has gotten guys on his staff
Speaker 4: who know how to navigate that stuff, who know how
Speaker 4: to what they need to do to be able to
Speaker 4: keep that train moving forward. I know, like you know, uh,
Speaker 4: not to transition off of for a second, but but
Speaker 4: with Kevin Young, the new basketball coach at b YU,
Speaker 4: you know, has brought in his a brand new staff
Speaker 4: there and has lined up all these guys who work
Speaker 4: in their office, you know, dealing with all this stuff.
Speaker 3: And obviously we've seen a.
Speaker 4: Big apple fall off the tree yesterday with the announcement
Speaker 4: of the Debanza kid uh committing to come to BYU.
Speaker 4: But you surround yourself with people in the in the
Speaker 4: college landscape now, with people who know that, who know
Speaker 4: the grassroots, who know what it takes and what you
Speaker 4: have to be able to do. And you know what
Speaker 4: I'm afraid of is that that it's just starting to
Speaker 4: get away from everybody in terms of, you know, what
Speaker 4: the numbers are and what's what's happening now in college
Speaker 4: athletics across the board to get kids, you know, to
Speaker 4: to commit to come to your university and play with you.
Speaker 4: And I know Kyle's guy guys around him who are
Speaker 4: figuring that out, who know what needs to be done,
Speaker 4: and they'll reset and they'll come back strong next year.
Speaker 3: There's no doubt in my mind about that.
Speaker 2: All Right, you referenced it.
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll move off the coach with stuff and we're
Speaker 1: going to continue to kind of talk about some of
Speaker 1: the things that are causing ripples throughout the community. But
Speaker 1: we now know, based off of some good reporting of
Speaker 1: college basketball writers, that aj Debants has signed his letter
Speaker 1: of intent November nineteenth or twentieth. Of course, as all
Speaker 1: young athletes do, there had to be a dog and
Speaker 1: pony show. He had to jump off a helicopter with
Speaker 1: his red bull hat on to sit next to stephen
Speaker 1: A Smith with his father to inform the world that
Speaker 1: he has decided to attend Brigham Young University.
Speaker 2: I always get a kick out of it because after.
Speaker 1: The announcement, I listened to three or four random college
Speaker 1: basketball podcasts, and I always get a kick out of
Speaker 1: listening in real time when national people learn about what
Speaker 1: BYU was all about and so like.
Speaker 2: For instance, this morning, I was listening to in a.
Speaker 1: College basketball podcast where they learned in real time what
Speaker 1: BYU's honor code is, and they learned in real time
Speaker 1: what happened with Brandon Davies and why Jimmerfurdett never went
Speaker 1: to a Final four and how the Brandon Davies situation.
Speaker 1: So you know, Brandon was their second best player and
Speaker 1: he gets kicked off the team for allegedly having premarital sex.
Speaker 2: I think they went to the sweet sixteen, but.
Speaker 1: For det was so next level that year, they probably
Speaker 1: could have gone to an Elite eight, maybe a Final four.
Speaker 2: We'll never know.
Speaker 1: And so the reaction of the national media that cover
Speaker 1: college basketball know who AJ is has been pretty funny
Speaker 1: because they're stunned that AJ has picked Brigham On.
Speaker 2: Now. He could have gone anywhere.
Speaker 1: His final final schools were Carolina, Kansas, Bama, and BYU.
Speaker 2: The reports are he really.
Speaker 1: Wanted Bama, but they couldn't meet his financial ask and
Speaker 1: Carolina and Kansas rely on their blue blood nature, so
Speaker 1: they say, no, this is the deal. If you want
Speaker 1: to play for us, you're gonna make this amount. Obviously,
Speaker 1: there's a Ryan Smith angle here, there's a Danny Ainge
Speaker 1: angle here.
Speaker 2: The reports are he has.
Speaker 1: Been paid between five and seven million dollars to play
Speaker 1: college basketball BYU for five months because he and his
Speaker 1: father both said on first take, we're one and done.
Speaker 1: Now I will say, and you're gonna roll your eyes.
Speaker 1: And I love your reaction to this. Over the past
Speaker 1: twenty four hours, I've read more about this kid than
Speaker 1: I have anybody this year. It's Cooper Flagg twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 1: It's a kid named Tyrone Stokes and twenty twenty six
Speaker 1: it's AJ Debansa.
Speaker 2: There's a CBS poll.
Speaker 1: They polled NBA scouts of those three players, Cooper Flag,
Speaker 1: Tyrone Stokes, AJ Debantsa. Who would you take if they
Speaker 1: were in the same draft? It was overwhelmingly in favor
Speaker 1: of AJ. And from what I've seen, Smitty, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know the deal. If you're at a high school game,
Speaker 1: or even if you're at a college game, you're watching prospects,
Speaker 1: the prospects that are.
Speaker 2: Ranked between like thirty and like one hundred and twenty.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's hard to tell, like exactly what's different about
Speaker 1: then the guys that pop.
Speaker 2: You see like, oh, okay, and he appears to have
Speaker 2: everything he wants.
Speaker 1: There's a marathon between this day and the day he
Speaker 1: enters the NBA. But from a Brigham Young Kevin Young standpoint,
Speaker 1: what could yesterday mean for the program they're trying to build.
Speaker 4: Well first and foremost spence What it does It puts
Speaker 4: by U right in the forefront of the national media
Speaker 4: and and everybody else who follows college basketball to say, oh, oh,
Speaker 4: those guys are in the mix now, knowing on here, Yeah,
Speaker 4: because you have a Devans and or you have Cooper
Speaker 4: Flag last year. Whoever all these guys Ace Bailey at
Speaker 4: Rutgers and you know, all of a sudden, you're used
Speaker 4: to hearing those kinds of names with the same group
Speaker 4: of schools all the time. Duke, North Carolina, Kansas sometimes
Speaker 4: U c l A, you know, uh Yukon. You know
Speaker 4: those are the those are the schools where all the
Speaker 4: guys that gravitate too and then they sifted out through there.
Speaker 4: Who's gonna who is gonna be a betefit for me?
Speaker 4: And and however they're judging that. But now all of
Speaker 4: a sudden, b y U is one of those guys,
Speaker 4: because everybody's going, well, wait a minute, this isn't an
Speaker 4: LDS kid you know from oram Utah who decided to
Speaker 4: go here, or like they've had in the past, you know,
Speaker 4: like a Great Kite back in the eighties who came
Speaker 4: from Houston, Texas, or a Danny Ainge in the late
Speaker 4: seventies who came from Eugene, Oregon. You know, this is
Speaker 4: a kid from Boston, Massachusetts. Sean Yeah, Sean Bradley was
Speaker 4: down the street, you know, But this isn't this isn't
Speaker 4: an LDS kid, and he's not a local kid. He's
Speaker 4: you know you probably uh uh six months ago could
Speaker 4: have challenged him with a map of the United States
Speaker 4: to say, okay, you got three choice, you got three
Speaker 4: chances to tell me where a BYU is located and
Speaker 4: point to it on a map, right, But they end
Speaker 4: up getting him to come from Boston to Actually he's
Speaker 4: been now his third high school and they he's down
Speaker 4: at the Utah Prep and Hurricane doing his senior year
Speaker 4: of high school and getting ready for BYU. So b
Speaker 4: YU is showing that they're a major player with those
Speaker 4: other guys now.
Speaker 3: And the only.
Speaker 4: Thing you can really equate it to or are the
Speaker 4: two things that have happened in the last twelve months,
Speaker 4: and that is that the change in the coaching situation
Speaker 4: where Mark Pope left for Kentucky and b YU brought
Speaker 4: in Kevin Young who has an NBA background and told
Speaker 4: b YU and in certain regards that you know, if
Speaker 4: you want to hire me, the only way I know
Speaker 4: how to do it is to set up an NBA
Speaker 4: type program. And if we're going to do that, you
Speaker 4: know that we have to be able to compete now
Speaker 4: in the Big Twelve with Kansas, with Baylor, with Texas Tech,
Speaker 4: with Kansas State, Arizona now in the Big Twelve. So
Speaker 4: so yeah, these you know, this is a big time
Speaker 4: basketball men's basketball conference, and so if you want us
Speaker 4: to be one of those guys, we have to be
Speaker 4: able to compete on the same level they do to
Speaker 4: go after kids. Kids know about Kansas, right, they know
Speaker 4: about Houston Baylor who won the national championship several years ago.
Speaker 4: They know something about by U, but not a lot.
Speaker 4: If you want to be with them in the same
Speaker 4: breath with those guys, you got to make these kind
Speaker 4: of changes. And that's the way Kevin Young is running
Speaker 4: the program now. And also with the financial backing of
Speaker 4: whether it's Ryan Smith or whoever it is, that that's
Speaker 4: that's lining up behind to take part in that from
Speaker 4: the financial nil standpoint, but they've got the backing apparently
Speaker 4: to do that. And so if that's the deal, then
Speaker 4: what it does spends it opens up that big door
Speaker 4: that now the one the one main kid has decided
Speaker 4: he's going there. So now the other main kids, whoever,
Speaker 4: they are coming down the pipe the next you know, year,
Speaker 4: two years, five years, whatever it is. They're gonna say, well, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm one of the top rated kids and
Speaker 4: I'm sixteen years old and I'm a high school sophomore
Speaker 4: and I got my list is you know, I'm already
Speaker 4: looking at Duke in Kansas and North Carolina and BYU.
Speaker 4: And now they put BYU in with that group, you know,
Speaker 4: because they've seen that that's a school that is gonna
Speaker 4: play with the big boys and can go.
Speaker 3: Now, what do they have to do? Now?
Speaker 4: They have to bring it on the core. Now they
Speaker 4: have to be able to produce on the court to
Speaker 4: be able to win. So that brings added pressure to
Speaker 4: the program in terms of having some level of success
Speaker 4: and being able to go to toe to toe with
Speaker 4: those guys.
Speaker 3: You know, Gonzaga has.
Speaker 4: Done it for years, you know, with a from a
Speaker 4: mid major profile in the Northwest, in the West Coast Conference,
Speaker 4: a small school conference. But Gonzaga has been able to
Speaker 4: also build it up but then make that transition to
Speaker 4: the way it's being run now because they have donors,
Speaker 4: they have people who are helping to say, yeah, we
Speaker 4: want to stay up with those guys. And Gonzaga is
Speaker 4: the one school to me that I think, you know,
Speaker 4: I love what they do, I love how they do it.
Speaker 4: But they are the school that in November and December
Speaker 4: they say, we play anybody anywhere, let's go. And it's
Speaker 4: not this like you know, Kentucky, Duke North, those guys,
Speaker 4: Oh they'll play you, but they'll play you three times
Speaker 4: at their place and one time at a neutral place,
Speaker 4: you know, or whatever. They always feel like we have
Speaker 4: the leverage, we don't have to. But Gonzaga says, hey,
Speaker 4: we'll go wherever you want us to go to Bahamas,
Speaker 4: you want us to go to Yukon, to going to
Speaker 4: New York this week to play Yukon, they go, you know,
Speaker 4: they you know, they played in Seattle the other day
Speaker 4: was a return game from Kentucky because they played at
Speaker 4: Kentucky left all this stuff.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: They've built that up where they play everybody anywhere.
Speaker 3: Before their conference season.
Speaker 4: BYU, I think is heading in that direction where they're
Speaker 4: going to say, hey, we want to play everybody because
Speaker 4: this is what we do, and that's how we attract
Speaker 4: the good players. Because the good players want to play
Speaker 4: in big games. They want to play against the other guys.
Speaker 4: You know, and if you're not worried about your preseason
Speaker 4: conference schedule, and you're not worried as a coach about, well,
Speaker 4: we have to figure out how to get to be
Speaker 4: eleven and two before we go into conference, because that
Speaker 4: shows everybody that I'm a good coach and that I'm gonna,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm gonna be able to.
Speaker 3: Hold on to my job for next year or whatever.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: That's the players want to play in the big games
Speaker 4: whenever they can, and they want to play against the
Speaker 4: other guys, and so that's what BYU is setting themselves
Speaker 4: up to do. And they're off to a running start,
Speaker 4: obviously with the recruits they've got this year and deming
Speaker 4: and catchings and now this kid coming from Boston in
Speaker 4: a year.
Speaker 1: So there's a chance, whether it's intentional because leadership is
Speaker 1: seen around corners, or there's some serendipity involved that BYU
Speaker 1: is a little bit ahead of the curve as far
Speaker 1: as how they've been able to build their basketball infrastructure.
Speaker 2: And here's why.
Speaker 1: On the football side of things, you hear all the time,
Speaker 1: we have to start building out our infrastructure the same
Speaker 1: way the NFL does. So now we have general managers
Speaker 1: in college football and there are other staff additions that
Speaker 1: sound very much like an NFL press release. Kevin has
Speaker 1: Will Voight, who you know, who's the head coach of
Speaker 1: teams internationally as well as the G League, Tim Fanning,
Speaker 1: over Time Elite. His strength and conditioning staff are all
Speaker 1: former NBA people. His nutritionists she came directly from pro basketball.
Speaker 1: There's no other staff in college basketball built like this, Smitte,
Speaker 1: There really is not, And the main reason why is
Speaker 1: that it's really rare for people who have tasted NBA
Speaker 1: charter food to decide that they want to go take
Speaker 1: a rental car to Des Moines, Iah to recruit a prospect. Right, So,
Speaker 1: look there before we break, the question I have for
Speaker 1: you is is this sustainable to the point where we're
Speaker 1: seeing the beginning stages of Kevin and Brigham Young building
Speaker 1: a college basketball powerhouse? Or is it Ben Simmons to
Speaker 1: Lsu is it Dewan Wagner Memphis.
Speaker 2: We've seen this right before.
Speaker 1: We've seen big time top prospects take the path less
Speaker 1: traveled by because the uncle's the assistant coach or whatever
Speaker 1: it is, and it's just a moment in time. Does
Speaker 1: this feel like to you it's the start of something
Speaker 1: pretty sustainable down in provo.
Speaker 4: Well, I think what will happens Spence is, as you
Speaker 4: mentioned a minute ago, you can get all this stuff
Speaker 4: set up, you can line it all up, you can
Speaker 4: get all the best people around you and to help
Speaker 4: get the program up and going the way you want
Speaker 4: and going in that direction. You can have the support
Speaker 4: behind you in terms of the finances, the resources you
Speaker 4: make available. But at the end of the day in March,
Speaker 4: you have to be whatever it's going to be. You
Speaker 4: have to be twenty seven and three and you know,
Speaker 4: making a deep.
Speaker 3: Run in the NCAA tournament.
Speaker 4: You know, if you get the top players and your
Speaker 4: team is waddling around eighteen and fourteen year or whatever
Speaker 4: like that, you know, then people are going to start
Speaker 4: questioning whether they can actually do it.
Speaker 3: On the floor.
Speaker 4: And that's always the final The final verdict is is
Speaker 4: how well do you play and what do the wins
Speaker 4: and losses, you know, stack up to be. If he
Speaker 4: brings in the right guys and they're coaching them up
Speaker 4: and they get all this support and they they don't
Speaker 4: play as well as is expected, you know, then then
Speaker 4: there's gonna be a lot of you know, raised eyebrows.
Speaker 3: But if they if they start.
Speaker 4: Running it like in Zaga has for years, right, and
Speaker 4: every year you know they're gonna be in the mix
Speaker 4: for the conference championship and they're gonna be you know,
Speaker 4: twenty five and and five, or they're gonna have a
Speaker 4: winning record and they're gonna get on runs in the
Speaker 4: NCAA tournament. That's what builds up that momentum and sustains it.
Speaker 4: But that's that's really what the end the end game is.
Speaker 4: Do all this other stuff, which is a lot of noise,
Speaker 4: but at the end, we got to come out and
Speaker 4: produce and we got to take care of business.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I gotta go to work. Kevin's got to coach now.
Speaker 1: I mean, John Calipari did win a national championship, but
Speaker 1: when you look at the list of players he's had,
Speaker 1: people wonder if he's a coach or a car salesman.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I hope that doesn't sound harsh.
Speaker 1: All right, we'll catch a break before we do. Deb
Speaker 1: Jordan stops buy out here at Arup Blood Services.
Speaker 2: Deb, how are you? I'm great.
Speaker 5: It's so great to listen to this great conversation.
Speaker 2: He's a wealth of knowledge. I just sit back and
Speaker 2: ask the questions and listen, it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: We're asking for blood donations today out here at ARUP
Speaker 1: Blood Services at ninety seven eighty six South Sandy Parkway.
Speaker 1: As I ask you to do to start every segment,
Speaker 1: we are incentivizing.
Speaker 2: You to do good. What are we doing for our
Speaker 2: listeners today?
Speaker 5: Yeah, First of all, that feeling of euphoria is also
Speaker 5: a sense of doing good. So but for us for
Speaker 5: giving out ten dollars Megaplex gift cards to our blood
Speaker 5: donors and twenty dollars Amazon cards to our platelet donors,
Speaker 5: and we have this great drawing every day for one
Speaker 5: hundred dollar Amazon, we figure we can help you buy
Speaker 5: some Christmas presents or put that turkey on the table
Speaker 5: for you too.
Speaker 2: So I'm reading this on the copy points.
Speaker 1: The hospitals you guys serve, need at least seventy five
Speaker 1: donors per day to meet needs.
Speaker 2: Do what is it about this.
Speaker 3: Time of year?
Speaker 5: I think it's every day of the year. The hospital's
Speaker 5: growing to meet the growing population. The Huntsman is growing
Speaker 5: to meet the demands of councer patients. They also serve
Speaker 5: the Greater West regions and they're seeing patients from outside
Speaker 5: of Utah, so they're really busy. But that includes blood drives,
Speaker 5: so people can donate out in the community at one
Speaker 5: of our blood drives as well.
Speaker 1: All Right, we were talking last segment about the Huntsman Cancer Institute,
Speaker 1: and you do not know this, Smitty does some of
Speaker 1: my listeners do. I am a alumni of the Huntsman
Speaker 1: Cancer Institute and I needed blood when I was there.
Speaker 1: And it's funny you don't really consider, like, hey, I
Speaker 1: wonder where this blood came from. You're just like, hey,
Speaker 1: I kind of need this right now. So what specifically
Speaker 1: about the Huntsman Cancer Institute is so kind of vital
Speaker 1: for our listeners to come donate to make sure we're
Speaker 1: helping them out.
Speaker 5: You know, I didn't know that about you. I also
Speaker 5: am a Huntsman alone. I haven't hit my five years yet,
Speaker 5: so I'm still in that period chemotherapy. Some chemotherapy treatments
Speaker 5: just eradicate, they just destroy platelets and so you're just
Speaker 5: sort of bleeding on the inside. So we want to
Speaker 5: make sure that the chemo patients, the cancer patients, that
Speaker 5: the patients who have sickle cell can have that blood
Speaker 5: and platelets available to them. Platelets only last five days.
Speaker 5: So we always need donors to come in. You can
Speaker 5: donate every two weeks. But being a Huntsman alum is
Speaker 5: not something that you really want to be in that
Speaker 5: same club. But there's a lot of people here in
Speaker 5: the Salt Lake Valley and we need to help them.
Speaker 1: It's not a club you want to be in, but
Speaker 1: when you are in it and you come out the
Speaker 1: other side, there's a perspective that you can't teach.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I didn't need a transfusion when I was there.
Speaker 5: I was really lucky when I was being treated there,
Speaker 5: But you know, you just feel awful. Your life is
Speaker 5: just spiraling out. And so the fact that a family
Speaker 5: is going through that, or a dad or a mom
Speaker 5: or a grandma is going through that, we want to
Speaker 5: make sure that they're not worried about anything else when
Speaker 5: they're there as well, Like the blood is there, the
Speaker 5: plate's there, everything is there that they need to get
Speaker 5: treated for sure.
Speaker 1: All right, before I set you loose, let's just tell
Speaker 1: people about the process they'll go through when they come
Speaker 1: out here to donate.
Speaker 5: So it's pretty easy. You come in and you greet
Speaker 5: with our receptionist and you have a little health history
Speaker 5: questionnaire that kind of through all your medications and what
Speaker 5: your body is going through at the moment. We want
Speaker 5: you to be healthy. You get a little mini health
Speaker 5: screening with our forubottomist, and then the donation process for
Speaker 5: a blood only takes about, you know, thirty minutes total,
Speaker 5: So for thirty minutes you can really save three people's lives.
Speaker 1: And then you can come out and hang out in
Speaker 1: the waiting room and eat the best snacks around.
Speaker 2: You can ask smitty basketball question. You had to come
Speaker 2: hang out with us, right.
Speaker 5: It's pretty great. You guys should come down today. We're
Speaker 5: open until seven tonight. We're open seven days a week.
Speaker 5: We're going to be closed on Christmas, so that means
Speaker 5: we need a few more donors a day before and
Speaker 5: a few more donors a day after. But that allows
Speaker 5: our staff to have the day off as well, but
Speaker 5: the hospital doesn't stop.
Speaker 2: Deb Thanks for your work. Thanks for okay.
Speaker 1: Here's the address, ninety seven eighty six south five hundred
Speaker 1: West in Sandy. Very easy to find, but I would
Speaker 1: put it in your GPS.
Speaker 2: Follow that out.
Speaker 1: We've got a station van out front ninety seven eighty
Speaker 1: six out five hundred West and Sandy all.
Speaker 2: The blood stays in Utah.
Speaker 1: They are the sole provider for the University of Utah
Speaker 1: and the Huntsman Cancer Institute.
Speaker 2: So please come out.
Speaker 1: Get a Megaplex gift card, Amazon gift card on the
Speaker 1: table as well. Out here at Arup Blood Services on
Speaker 1: a Wednesday. All right, Morris Smithy coming up next right
Speaker 1: here on ESPN seven hundred.
Speaker 6: Kyle Whittingham and Utah Football, Utah Men's and women's basketball,
Speaker 6: Martee games in the NFL from Week one to the
Speaker 6: Super Bowl, the biggest NBA games from the regular season
Speaker 6: to the finals. Top NHL games till they lift, the
Speaker 6: Stanley Cup, Major League Baseball, and the World Series, the
Speaker 6: biggest of Vincent sports are exclusively on Utah's number one
Speaker 6: sports talk ESPN seven hundred and ninety two to one.
Speaker 3: Alp M.
Speaker 1: All right love today. Arup Blood Services. Come on by
Speaker 1: and say hello. Richard Smith is live on site ninety
Speaker 1: seven eighty six South, five hundred West and Sandy very
Speaker 1: easy to find the phone numbers eight oh one, five
Speaker 1: eight four fifty two seventy two. You can visit Utah
Speaker 1: blood dot org for more information if you have any questions.
Speaker 1: Open seven days a week, they will be closed on Christmas.
Speaker 1: So if you're looking for something to do this.
Speaker 2: Holiday season, come on, buy and do some good, donate
Speaker 2: some blood. Are you you fan of the holidays?
Speaker 1: You get Christmas out, you decorate the tree, get ready
Speaker 1: for the Well, no.
Speaker 3: We do.
Speaker 4: We do it all. But my my wife, Linda does
Speaker 4: all that stuff. She's she gets all the house you
Speaker 4: know where I live in a scenario, you know, spence,
Speaker 4: so I can try and help with something. I'll put
Speaker 4: something on a shelf and then she'll come over five
Speaker 4: minutes later, and you know, it goes over here, does
Speaker 4: it's it's over on this.
Speaker 2: Side, not that sid Well, that's probably good.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: But I and I joke about that, of course, but
Speaker 4: but she but I mentioned that to a friend of
Speaker 4: behind just recently about that, and she's asked me about
Speaker 4: Christmas decorator. I said, well, yeah, my wife does it,
Speaker 4: does it all. But I seem to like not put
Speaker 4: stuff in the right place. And he says, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's that's I'm onto that guys do that on purpose,
Speaker 4: so that so that the the the wife of the
Speaker 4: women in the house will go, hey, why don't you
Speaker 4: go downstairs and watch the football game? And I'll take
Speaker 4: care of the decorating. Okay, you guys got that all
Speaker 4: figured out. And I go, really, she goes, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm onto you guys.
Speaker 2: No, no, that's not true.
Speaker 1: Okay, And I don't want to wait into the area
Speaker 1: of misogynist it takes. But when I was home for Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: I decided I was going to clean the kitchen and
Speaker 1: I was going to do the dishes, and my dear mother,
Speaker 1: bless her heart, comes downstairs and changes every like.
Speaker 2: I put everything in the wrong place.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I guess what's the answer.
Speaker 1: You try to help out a little bit, but when
Speaker 1: it comes to the final decision, you just take a
Speaker 1: step back and say do your thing.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, in our whole household anyway, Spence, for
Speaker 4: anything that we do, it's it's it's an equal opportunity place.
Speaker 4: I have one vote and my wife has two votes,
Speaker 4: and so that's you know, that's how it run. That's
Speaker 4: a democratic society.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's how you stay married. And you're better at
Speaker 1: it than I certainly have proven to be. All right,
Speaker 1: Richard's live on site real quick breaking news. Bill Belichick
Speaker 1: is accepting the North Carolina coaching job.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what I don't. Hey, look, everybody has to do
Speaker 4: their home thing. Bill Belichick again in uh, you know,
Speaker 4: we talked about Kyle Whittingham in the last segment. Belichick
Speaker 4: has done so much to prove who he is as
Speaker 4: a coach and at the NFL and the pro rags.
Speaker 4: He's got to be some kind of you know, lifer
Speaker 4: who's just itching to get back in the film room
Speaker 4: and on the on the practice field and all that
Speaker 4: kind of stuff. To to go back to college, especially
Speaker 4: with all this nil transfer portal stuff. He's, uh, you know,
Speaker 4: why would you when if you're someone who's in in
Speaker 4: his position go back and do that. It's got to
Speaker 4: be just because he has such a such an itch
Speaker 4: to do that kind of work and to get into
Speaker 4: it and and you know, especially at the college level
Speaker 4: where you're doing that recruiting and all that stuff. But yeah,
Speaker 4: that's a kind of a surprise to me.
Speaker 2: Are our coaches just lunatics?
Speaker 1: I mean, can they not walk away once they're because
Speaker 1: it seems like lifers, right. Some of them do transition
Speaker 1: into media, uh, and some of them do transition into
Speaker 1: other things. But I mean, Bill Belichick's been a football
Speaker 1: coach for like fifty years. Is it just kind of
Speaker 1: at some point what you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well that's you know, you some guys have to
Speaker 4: have it in their blood and they're just like they
Speaker 4: just they just can't get away from you. Whether it's
Speaker 4: Jay Wright, you know at Villanova, who did step away
Speaker 4: while he was right in the middle of his his
Speaker 4: career and and and and uh really doing well at Villanova.
Speaker 4: Whether it's Mike Krzyzewski who was near the end of it,
Speaker 4: you know, in terms of his age and stuff, but
Speaker 4: he just decided that now is the right time to
Speaker 4: step back. And you know, Bill Belichick, it didn't go
Speaker 4: I think the way that he wanted to at the
Speaker 4: end with New England, and uh has been out for
Speaker 4: a couple of years, and you know, looks like he
Speaker 4: just has to be around the game.
Speaker 3: And maybe this is.
Speaker 4: An opportunity where he gets to be able to do
Speaker 4: it the way he wants to do it, and you know,
Speaker 4: at a place that's that's a high profile school.
Speaker 2: So well, and maybe it's an avenue back to pro football.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Interesting news though, is Bill Belichick has accepted the job
Speaker 1: at North Carolina to coach their football team. All right,
Speaker 1: last segment discussing some of the local stuff with aj
Speaker 1: Debant's high speed ahead to bring me young, and coach
Speaker 1: went back on the sidelines when it comes to coaching
Speaker 1: the youths for the twenty first season coming up, I
Speaker 1: want to ask you one more question in this space
Speaker 1: and then we'll do some jazz I guess. Transfer portal nil.
Speaker 1: As of this morning, I haven't checked the up to
Speaker 1: date numbers. This afternoon, we're approaching two thousand football players
Speaker 1: in the transfer portal. We talked about, you know, the
Speaker 1: players that Utah is losing and they're gonna lose more.
Speaker 2: That's just the deal.
Speaker 1: Initially I pushed back on the premise that this was
Speaker 1: becoming pro sports, but.
Speaker 2: Now it just is.
Speaker 1: And it seems like every single issue that drives fans crazy,
Speaker 1: every single issue that drives administrators and coaches crazy, really
Speaker 1: could be solved by allowing the players to unionize and
Speaker 1: collectively bargain with the governing body that run And I'm
Speaker 1: saying football specifically, okay, And yes, I know that the
Speaker 1: ancillary issues are plentiful. And whenever you hear pushback on
Speaker 1: the pro model comes from university presidents who do not
Speaker 1: want these young people to be employees of their institution.
Speaker 1: And I understand that, but I'm SPORTSCOC radio host. So
Speaker 1: we're going to stick with the football side of things.
Speaker 1: What's the downside, Smitty at this point? Because at least
Speaker 1: if you allow the players to unionize collectively, bargain and
Speaker 1: it would be a mess, it would take a long time.
Speaker 1: At the very least, they will sign contracts to stick
Speaker 1: around for a couple of years. And look, each contract,
Speaker 1: just like in the pros, would be different. Your opt
Speaker 1: out is this, if you don't play this amount of games,
Speaker 1: if you're not happy after a year, maybe it's a
Speaker 1: one and done thing where you can leave the next season.
Speaker 1: But if you're the institution, you would have the ability
Speaker 1: to sign a player for maybe three years and then
Speaker 1: he's allowed to go pro or whatever. Do you see
Speaker 1: any downside at this point to the model that the
Speaker 1: pros use, that college is clearly leaning into anyway.
Speaker 4: No, Well, it seems like it has to go in
Speaker 4: that direction because right now, when you're talking about in
Speaker 4: professional sports, you negotiate with someone you know, whether they're
Speaker 4: a draft pick that's coming in or a free agent
Speaker 4: that you're trying to acquire you have a written agreement
Speaker 4: that says that they're going to perform for you services
Speaker 4: that you will in turn pay them for for X
Speaker 4: amount of period of time. In college now, you don't
Speaker 4: have anything like that that's binding. So you can have
Speaker 4: you know, you can have a guy coming into your
Speaker 4: program and he's all set to go and something goes
Speaker 4: wrong in a practice or a friend of his and
Speaker 4: another school says, Oh, we're really we're really killing it
Speaker 4: in practice.
Speaker 3: We're gonna be a good team this year.
Speaker 4: Too bad you didn't come and play with us whatever,
Speaker 4: And the kid goes, oh, maybe maybe I should come
Speaker 4: play with you guys. I mean, you can do that
Speaker 4: at this point in time in college athletics, So they
Speaker 4: have to have something that they're gonna be able to
Speaker 4: put their teeth into that that allows the institutions to
Speaker 4: have some modicum of control in terms of how they're
Speaker 4: running their programs with respect to the student athlete, because
Speaker 4: otherwise it's just this wild wild West that's a revolving
Speaker 4: door and and everybody's coming every you know, in and out,
Speaker 4: and you don't know who's on what team, and and
Speaker 4: it really really references the uh the old Seinfeld routine
Speaker 4: that he used to do about growing up a Mets
Speaker 4: fan and all his all his guys and he rooted
Speaker 4: for you know, Tommy ag and Cleon Jones and all
Speaker 4: these guys when he was growing up.
Speaker 3: And they were his guys.
Speaker 4: And and now he's says, I'm still a Mets fan,
Speaker 4: but I don't know who's playing for the Mets because
Speaker 4: you know, the guy's changed so much and everything, because
Speaker 4: so really I'm not rooting for the players. Really, what
Speaker 4: I find I'm doing is I'm just rooting for laundry.
Speaker 4: You know, So whoever's wearing a Mets jersey, that's who
Speaker 4: I'm rooting for.
Speaker 3: But I don't even know who the guy is.
Speaker 4: And so, you know, that's that's what it's gotten to
Speaker 4: in terms of college athletics. You know, the teams are
Speaker 4: switching around, the players are switching in and out every year.
Speaker 4: We don't have a gymmer for Debt for four years
Speaker 4: to root for and grow up with and see them
Speaker 4: get better and all that, yeah, and all that kind
Speaker 4: of stuff. So, uh so that that's what's disturbing about
Speaker 4: college athletics right.
Speaker 3: Now in that regard.
Speaker 4: And then whatever is happening with the revenue producing sports, right,
Speaker 4: which is always said to be football and men's basketball.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: Uh, some schools maybe women's basketball somewhat, some schools maybe
Speaker 4: like the University of Utah with the women's gymnastics. You know,
Speaker 4: But again, why is that that way up there, Spence?
Speaker 4: Because they've had a winning program that's been sustained for
Speaker 4: so many years and people have gotten used to that
Speaker 4: and they want to be part of that winning, you know,
Speaker 4: positive environment. And what's gonna happen with all of the
Speaker 4: other ancillary sports, you know, the tennis team and the
Speaker 4: track and field team, and the baseball team, and you know,
Speaker 4: whoever it is that that aren't revenue producing sports, how
Speaker 4: are they going to be affected by all of this stuff?
Speaker 4: Is really is really going to be very interesting in
Speaker 4: the coming years.
Speaker 1: All Right, got about ten minutes ish left with Smitty,
Speaker 1: so we will talk some jazz.
Speaker 4: Okay, all right? That was that was good. That's good, Spence.
Speaker 4: The pregnant pause that.
Speaker 1: Look, I'm going to say this and you're gonna roll
Speaker 1: your eyes at me, but John Collins is a fifty
Speaker 1: to forty ninety guy this.
Speaker 2: Year, that's right, And he's twenty seven years old.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: And I feel like because Walker Keyante Taylor Price. I
Speaker 1: feel like because there's so many nineteen twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: year old players on the roster and they're so far
Speaker 1: from being even average.
Speaker 2: We talk about John like he's forty yep. Is there
Speaker 2: an area.
Speaker 1: In your mind, a space that exists that John might
Speaker 1: be a player that is playing better Underwill than he
Speaker 1: ever did with any coach he's had before, And maybe
Speaker 1: he's part of like this thing. But I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make it interesting space.
Speaker 3: No, no, but that.
Speaker 4: But it's a great point because when they made their
Speaker 4: trade for John Collins, he was really more like their
Speaker 4: version of a free agent signing right. They couldn't get anybody.
Speaker 4: Atlanta almost seemed like they wanted to trade him, you know,
Speaker 4: from the moment they re signed him, and it seemed
Speaker 4: like it was a move that they had made at
Speaker 4: that time simply because they didn't want to lose him
Speaker 4: for nothing. So they signed him, signed him at that
Speaker 4: time to a contract that a lot of people thought
Speaker 4: was maybe too much, you know, in the twenty five
Speaker 4: million dollar range a year for what he did for
Speaker 4: the team. They were willing to trade him. Eventually, the
Speaker 4: Jazz had had money available, so they so they took
Speaker 4: him in to take a look at him. And now
Speaker 4: he's playing a different game. He's you're you're exactly right.
Speaker 4: A lot of people lose sight of the fact that he's,
Speaker 4: really basketball wise, just entering his prime. He's in that
Speaker 4: same window that Lowry markin is in. They're the same age.
Speaker 4: And so has he refined his game? Has he been
Speaker 4: able to change some of his game enough that it
Speaker 4: fits in. Is it, if you want to take the
Speaker 4: negative view, is it because he's with a team that's
Speaker 4: not expected to win and a team that's struggling to
Speaker 4: win games right now. So when you have those games
Speaker 4: and you're in those games on that side of it,
Speaker 4: there's less pressure on you. And if you have less
Speaker 4: pressure to produce, maybe you play more freely. And if
Speaker 4: you play more freely, maybe a real skill level or
Speaker 4: talent level comes out. You know, it's all those things
Speaker 4: and that could be combined. And so what you're looking
Speaker 4: at as a guy who, again it's only twenty games
Speaker 4: into the seasons or a quarter of the way into
Speaker 4: the season, but he has played a lot better.
Speaker 3: He's played for me a lot better as a five,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 4: And and but in recent games they've had him and
Speaker 4: marking In and Kesseler on the front line as their starters,
Speaker 4: and so he's still producing some I think it's gonna
Speaker 4: be interesting because do they want to pay him, you know,
Speaker 4: that kind of money for what they're getting as the
Speaker 4: end result of the team, which is not very many wins.
Speaker 4: And so maybe this is a great showcase for him
Speaker 4: to show other teams, hey, I can be a contributor
Speaker 4: and do some different things on a winning team. Maybe
Speaker 4: they'll they'll look at moving him, you know, closer to
Speaker 4: the trade deadline, or maybe they see him as you know,
Speaker 4: you know, maybe we're uncovering a guy who can be
Speaker 4: part of our rebuilding program and we can fit him
Speaker 4: into some hole that will help us going forward. It's
Speaker 4: been that's been fascinating to me. I think that's been
Speaker 4: the main storyline so far this this first quarter of
Speaker 4: the season for the Giants.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, Larry's awesome.
Speaker 1: So there's really nothing new to talk about with market
Speaker 1: In because he's under contract.
Speaker 2: That can't trade him. He's here for a while.
Speaker 1: I think Walker's played himself back into the equation of
Speaker 1: a big who you want to keep seeing grow to
Speaker 1: be here for a while. And john is an interesting
Speaker 1: case study because at the very least, you now have
Speaker 1: showcase the player in a spot where maybe somebody calls
Speaker 1: you prior to the deadline to give you something real
Speaker 1: for them, and at the very most you found potentially
Speaker 1: another piece of the puzzle that you want to keep
Speaker 1: on your roster.
Speaker 2: So there's no downside to Johnstone.
Speaker 3: And again, Spence, this is all part of that. You know.
Speaker 4: The analogy we've used before in terms of how the
Speaker 4: Jazz are approaching this process of theirs is, you know,
Speaker 4: like the the the old miner prospector panning for gold
Speaker 4: in the stream, you know, and he puts his pan
Speaker 4: in there, and he gets the water and everything, and
Speaker 4: he shakes it around and shakes it around and and
Speaker 4: gets rid of all the rocks in the sand and
Speaker 4: maybe finds a little nugget in the pan or something.
Speaker 3: And and this is what the Jazz are doing.
Speaker 4: They're they're giving different guys different looks at different positions
Speaker 4: and seeing if anything hits or anything comes up that
Speaker 4: maybe they hadn't seen before. And maybe even though the
Speaker 4: focus is of course has been on the group of
Speaker 4: draft picks they've had the last two years. Maybe John
Speaker 4: Collins has you know, you know, entered into that fray
Speaker 4: and said, hey, you know, I'm I'm I'm still here
Speaker 4: and uh, you know, I could do some things here.
Speaker 3: And you know, I don't.
Speaker 4: Know if the if the one eighty thing is sustainable
Speaker 4: all year long, but just the fact that he's in
Speaker 4: that in that area, in those in uh, in those
Speaker 4: statistical categories, really says something about, you know, the skill
Speaker 4: level that he has and maybe there's something that Will
Speaker 4: Hardy and his coaching staff can uh can can mine
Speaker 4: you know, with his game that that that can help
Speaker 4: them going forward.
Speaker 1: All Right, I'm gonna I'm gonna make an attempt here.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do a sports socc radio attempt to try
Speaker 1: to make this topical for our last piece of content
Speaker 1: here before you catch a break. Because I've read and
Speaker 1: heard and seen a lot of people drawing a straight
Speaker 1: line between what b YU Basketball is building and what
Speaker 1: Ryan's building with the Jazz. That's not how that works, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's it's b YU is not the jazz pharm system.
Speaker 1: AJ Debants is not gonna be a jazz man because
Speaker 1: he's playing for b YU for five months. Uh jegor
Speaker 1: Demon the kid who's gonna be a lottery pick, maybe
Speaker 1: top five, He's not gonna be a Jazz Man unless
Speaker 1: they draft him. Neither with neither Will Cannon Catchings or
Speaker 1: any of the other talented young players they have.
Speaker 2: But is there a benefit.
Speaker 1: That Ryan is intentionally trying to create bank rolling BYU
Speaker 1: basketball that could benefit.
Speaker 2: The Jazz long term?
Speaker 1: Like one thought, if it's not talent for talent, because again,
Speaker 1: you can't just take BYU players.
Speaker 2: And put them on the Jazz, That's not how it works.
Speaker 1: Could there be some sort of like aj Debansa has
Speaker 1: a positive experience in Utah and therefore players wants to sign.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to stretch my mind here to create a
Speaker 1: topic that might be kind of interesting. You ru in
Speaker 1: a front office for forty years. Is there any tangible
Speaker 1: benefit as far as what Ryan is doing for BYU
Speaker 1: that could benefit as pro basketball team?
Speaker 3: Sure? Well, well, there are a couple of things.
Speaker 4: One is that by having those that kind of a
Speaker 4: player and we use him that the band's a kid,
Speaker 4: you know, just as a as a hypothetical, as long
Speaker 4: as he's in the BYU program, as long as he's
Speaker 4: on the campus, those coaches, the people who are around the program,
Speaker 4: the Ryan Smith, the Danny Aingels or whatever have that
Speaker 4: have tight connections with them. They're they're getting a firsthand
Speaker 4: look at who he is outside of the basketball world. Right,
Speaker 4: So what kind of a kid is he? How are
Speaker 4: the coaches dealing with him? How does he react to coaching?
Speaker 4: What kind of kid is he on the campus? Is
Speaker 4: he is he a social kid? Is he is he
Speaker 4: do people like being around him? Does he have that
Speaker 4: kind of energy personality?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 4: Is he a guy who's just out for himself? You
Speaker 4: know all these things you try and evaluate off the
Speaker 4: court of the things that they're gonna have firsthand knowledge of,
Speaker 4: you know, more so than anybody else because they're around
Speaker 4: twenty four to seven for this long time period that
Speaker 4: he would be here, right, So they get to experience
Speaker 4: that firsthand, so they know what that's what, what that's
Speaker 4: all about. The other part of it is, you know,
Speaker 4: they don't draft him. Somebody else gets him. And again
Speaker 4: we're just using the de Bands kid as an example.
Speaker 4: And five years from now, seven years from now, he's
Speaker 4: in the middle of his NBA career or whatever. He's
Speaker 4: killing it and he becomes a free agent. He does
Speaker 4: the Gordon Hayward thing and becomes an unrestricted free agent
Speaker 4: at age twenty six, twenty seven.
Speaker 3: What have you?
Speaker 4: And he goes, yeah, you know, when I was at
Speaker 4: BYU and I lived there, I really like the people there.
Speaker 4: I like the people that were around, I love the
Speaker 4: you know whatever, blah blah blah. And so that gives
Speaker 4: them a leg up now to instill that knowledge in
Speaker 4: that person so that when they if and when that
Speaker 4: time should ever come, you know, that may help them
Speaker 4: in a free agent recruiting process to say, you know, hey,
Speaker 4: you know you might hey, no, no, I know what
Speaker 4: Utah is all about because I lived it, and and
Speaker 4: that could help them in that regard. So, yeah, there
Speaker 4: are some benefits that can help you know, you know,
Speaker 4: does it ever happen?
Speaker 3: Who knows, and we'll we'll see.
Speaker 4: But that's uh, those are certain things that are pluses
Speaker 4: for you when you're trying to make decisions down the road.
Speaker 1: Okay, No, that's good insight. So it's not nothing, you know,
Speaker 1: and we'll see, uh see how it plays out.
Speaker 2: Great to see you. We'll set. You listen, you go
Speaker 2: put the star on top of the tree. At least
Speaker 2: you'll do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, I my wife does it all and she does
Speaker 4: a great job. And she she's the expert. She knows,
Speaker 4: she knows what's going on. I'm just the guy sitting
Speaker 4: in the back of the bus.
Speaker 2: Well, we always love having you, my guy.
Speaker 1: Good to see you, Richard said, forty years with the
Speaker 1: Utah Jazz Front Office.
Speaker 2: Appreciate his time. He'll be back next week.