Speaker 1: Welcome to the Big Blue and Sider Dickabrielle with you
Speaker 1: on a Wednesday edition of our program. It is the
Speaker 1: final day of April, first Saturday in May. Coming up
Speaker 1: the Kentucky Derby. That's right, I'm not gonna make it
Speaker 1: there this year. We're going to talk about that a
Speaker 1: little bit more. In segment number two. We'll here from
Speaker 1: Bob Baffert, who has got a couple of horses, one
Speaker 1: in particular that I think could win the race, but
Speaker 1: if the other horse he's got has drawn the rail,
Speaker 1: so we'll talk about that as well. A little bit
Speaker 1: later on with West End Bureau Chief Gary Moore, we
Speaker 1: will double down on our Kentucky Derby pick for this year.
Speaker 1: Coming up at the bottom of the hour, Aaron Gershan
Speaker 1: of The Cat's Boss. We'll talk about Kentucky football and basketball,
Speaker 1: and right now the news is all about the portal
Speaker 1: with these programs, and Mark Pope's out there trying to
Speaker 1: do some work, so we'll we'll find out about the
Speaker 1: latest from Aaron. Also his thoughts on the NFL Draft,
Speaker 1: because his New York Football Giants did a good thing
Speaker 1: and drafting Abdul Carter, the d lineman from Penn State,
Speaker 1: but also Jackson Dark, a quarterback from Ole Miss, And
Speaker 1: I texted Aaron during the draft and said what do
Speaker 1: you think? And he didn't like the pick, So we'll
Speaker 1: find out where he stands about that. Right now, Dark
Speaker 1: a good quarterback at the college level in a great
Speaker 1: system for qbs at Ole Miss. But will that translate
Speaker 1: to the National Football League as Pat McAfee calls it,
Speaker 1: the men's league, So we'll hear from Aaron on that.
Speaker 1: We'll also talk with Sean Woods, the unforgettable guard. We
Speaker 1: talked with him every Wednesday. He's now the new head
Speaker 1: coach at Scott County and I'm going to talk to
Speaker 1: Sean about the NFL draft. In Shador Sanders as it
Speaker 1: relates to coaching in general, You've got the ultimate what
Speaker 1: in baseball you call him a dugout dad? What do
Speaker 1: you call him in football? Sidelines? Dad? And Dion Sanders,
Speaker 1: who has steered his son every step of the way.
Speaker 1: And look, this kid's a really good player. There's no
Speaker 1: question about it. He's a really good player. He's been
Speaker 1: really good wherever he's gone. But his baggage is his
Speaker 1: father and that cost him and it cost him in
Speaker 1: more ways than one. It cost him with the attitude
Speaker 1: that he is instilled Dion has in his son, who
Speaker 1: by all accounts blew the job interview. But it also
Speaker 1: cost him because Dion has made it clear that he
Speaker 1: will be part of the process, not just telling teams
Speaker 1: where his kid will play and not play in terms
Speaker 1: of don't draft me, I'm not going to play for you.
Speaker 1: And Eli Manning did that. John Elway did that, but
Speaker 1: neither one of them and I know Elways or Eli's dad,
Speaker 1: Arch was one of the greatest names in the history
Speaker 1: of football, but he didn't make it clear that he
Speaker 1: would be, you know, part of the overall process. He
Speaker 1: just advised his son don't go to San Diego and
Speaker 1: they didn't and it worked out. But Sanders now is
Speaker 1: it's in a really, really tough situation and Sean's going
Speaker 1: to talk about that with me. We'll talk to him
Speaker 1: about parents. He's had to deal with it as a
Speaker 1: college head coach and now as a high school head coach.
Speaker 1: He will deal with it as well. Every coach does.
Speaker 1: Heck I filled in coaching a flag football team one
Speaker 1: Sunday for a friend of mine and had a parent
Speaker 1: walk around from one sideline to the other and say,
Speaker 1: you know, my kid hadn't touched the ball yet. Well,
Speaker 1: truth be told, his kid was a nice kid, was
Speaker 1: the worst player on the team. And I had this
Speaker 1: thing where everybody got a play to carry the ball
Speaker 1: at least one and we had a specific play design
Speaker 1: for his kid, and it was coming up. But because
Speaker 1: this guy walked around, I said, okay, fine, and I
Speaker 1: moved his kid up in a rotation, handed him the
Speaker 1: ball and he screwed it all up. He embarrassed himself.
Speaker 1: I felt bad for the kid, but I was also
Speaker 1: angry at myself for not telling the dad, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to tell him. But on the other hand, it's
Speaker 1: flag football. It's a lot more complicated now for Shador
Speaker 1: Sanders and Dion Sanders, and in fact, there's so much
Speaker 1: money at stake. And Chris Carter, the former all everything
Speaker 1: wide receiver, is quite vocal when he's interviewed. He was
Speaker 1: on the podcast called Fully Loaded this week, and he
Speaker 1: broke things down in terms of how much money Sanders
Speaker 1: cost himself, Like.
Speaker 2: You're going for a job interview, So for this job interview,
Speaker 2: he was so concerned about, oh, what his outfit was,
Speaker 2: His necklace was over one hundred grand. Like he hadn't
Speaker 2: even convinced people that you're the face of our franchise.
Speaker 2: Matter of fact, he had convinced people that they were
Speaker 2: better off going in a different direction, even with people
Speaker 2: who had lesser talent. That's the rub he put on
Speaker 2: the people.
Speaker 3: That's the case.
Speaker 4: That's a bad interview, bro.
Speaker 1: No, it is the case.
Speaker 2: He didn't get drafted, right, it's no speculation, like we're
Speaker 2: through the draft. We through three days. He threw away
Speaker 2: at least thirty to fifty million dollars at least yep.
Speaker 1: Sure did uh, he's a good player, but would not
Speaker 1: work out for teams in the combine and again did
Speaker 1: not come across well at all talking to the teams.
Speaker 1: And you can say that's fair, that's not fair to
Speaker 1: look ultimately, as Carter said, as everybody has said, it
Speaker 1: is a job interview, and any of you, as have I,
Speaker 1: who've been in a job interview, you've got to let
Speaker 1: them know what they're going to get when they hire you,
Speaker 1: when they draft you, when they signed you, whatever. And
Speaker 1: if you come across as somebody who is going to
Speaker 1: come in and tell the company how to do things,
Speaker 1: not here's what I can bring to you, but here's
Speaker 1: how you're going to change in order to fit my skills.
Speaker 1: That is a recipe for disaster. That's somebody who's going
Speaker 1: to politely show you the door. So we'll talk more
Speaker 1: with Sean about that. But I haven't really gotten into
Speaker 1: it that much. I wanted to collect as much info
Speaker 1: as I could, but I've read several accounts that said
Speaker 1: this guy just did not come across well and it
Speaker 1: turned off so many teams. And by the way, there
Speaker 1: were only four or five teams in the first round
Speaker 1: looking for a starting quarterback. After that, you're drafting a backup.
Speaker 1: And do you want to burn your first round, second round,
Speaker 1: third round pick and that kind of money on a backup? No. Now,
Speaker 1: I didn't think he dropped at a fifth round, but
Speaker 1: he at least has a shot now with the Cleveland Brown.
Speaker 1: Speaking of John Elway, what a mess for him. His
Speaker 1: business partner and former agent was writing in a golf cart.
Speaker 1: Elway was driving and something happened and this guy, Jeff Spurbeck,
Speaker 1: fell off and hit his head on asphalt. This happened
Speaker 1: in California. Late Saturday. TMZ reported that Elway was at
Speaker 1: the wheel. No indication he was driving negligently, but the
Speaker 1: injuries were described as life threatening. So they were sitting
Speaker 1: and they were in the cart after attending a party
Speaker 1: with Spurbeck and their spouses. They had an emergency crew
Speaker 1: respond took him to a trauma center. That's all we know.
Speaker 1: But what a moment for the former two time Super
Speaker 1: Bowl winning quarterback John Elway. He's gotta feel terrible about that. Obviously.
Speaker 1: Speaking of feeling terrible, the baseball Wildcats must feel pretty
Speaker 1: bad this morning. Blew one. Last night they were leading
Speaker 1: Western Kentucky three nothing going into the bottom of the fifth.
Speaker 1: Remind you this is a good Western Kentucky team. Western's
Speaker 1: now won thirty five games. I can't imagine won't make
Speaker 1: the nca tournament field. But they picked up a big
Speaker 1: win last night over an SEC team, didn't they While
Speaker 1: Kats committed three errors in the bottom of the fifth
Speaker 1: and blew the game by a final of six to four.
Speaker 1: Cats go on to Mississippi State this weekend, starting Friday.
Speaker 1: You'll hear the games right here on six thirty WLAP
Speaker 1: there on SEC plus as well. We'll talk Derby next.
Speaker 1: You're on the Big Blue in Sider. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the Big Blue Insider. Coming up at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the hour, Aaron Gershawan and the Cat's pause. It is
Speaker 1: the last day of April. First Saturday in May is
Speaker 1: coming up. You know that means the Kentucky Derby. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna get there this year. It's bothering me. I
Speaker 1: haven't been to the Derby in a couple of years.
Speaker 1: I've been to somewhere between forty five and fifty derbys.
Speaker 1: I lost count. I went to something like thirty seven straight,
Speaker 1: thirty eight out of thirty nine dating back to nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two. I was in the infield in seventy two
Speaker 1: for rever Ridge and Secretariat seventy three. I was standing
Speaker 1: on top of an empty beer keg. Yeah, they snuck
Speaker 1: a keg in to the infield and at one point
Speaker 1: I saw this flash of blue and white silks. That's
Speaker 1: the only part of the race I saw in person.
Speaker 1: The infield is the worst place to be if you
Speaker 1: want to watch the race. At least it was back
Speaker 1: then before they had the huge TV screens, and you
Speaker 1: can't hear anything if you've got a transistor radio. Back then,
Speaker 1: you couldn't even hear that because the noise was so loud,
Speaker 1: it took us forever to find out that Secretariat had won.
Speaker 1: I missed in seventy four because and that was my
Speaker 1: first year in the UK, because I had to take
Speaker 1: God help me, a geology exam Saturday morning Derby Day,
Speaker 1: and I pleaded with the teacher to let me take
Speaker 1: it some other time. Nope, so I missed the hundredth running.
Speaker 1: The Queen was here, I'm sure she missed the fact
Speaker 1: that I was going. But anyhow, from that point on
Speaker 1: I went for the longest time up to I think
Speaker 1: it was twenty eleven when my son graduated EKU and
Speaker 1: they had graduation ceremonies. I'm talking to you Eastern Kentucky
Speaker 1: University on Derby Day and I grabbed one of the
Speaker 1: pr people. I said, what are you thinking, Well, tomorrow
Speaker 1: is Mother's Day. I'm like, perfect have graduation day when
Speaker 1: every mother who might be there would be proud to
Speaker 1: see their kid walk and get a diploma. But nope,
Speaker 1: they added on Derby Day. So anyhow, because of wre
Speaker 1: Kentucky Baseball things like that, I haven't really been able
Speaker 1: to get to the Derby as much lately as I
Speaker 1: would have liked, but I will watch it. And of
Speaker 1: course I do own a share of a horse that
Speaker 1: won the Kentucky Derby back in twenty twenty, Authentic. I
Speaker 1: have what's called a micro share. It's through the program
Speaker 1: that my racehorse dot Com has going was spend through
Speaker 1: a farm you can get online right now. I bought
Speaker 1: a couple more shares of a horse called black Tie Optional,
Speaker 1: trained by Bob Bafford. There are several horses available, and you,
Speaker 1: for not a whole lot of money, can buy in.
Speaker 1: You can be a thoroughbred owner. It's a lot of fun, really,
Speaker 1: And I bought a share of Authentic. The night before
Speaker 1: the derby, I had helped Channel twenty seven with the story,
Speaker 1: had interviewed a guy from my race Horse for the
Speaker 1: radio show, and I got home and I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: that's a great idea, So I jumped online bought a share.
Speaker 1: They were whipping and driving coming home. I'm yelling like
Speaker 1: a banshee, and my wife's like, what are you so
Speaker 1: excited about? And I pointed at the TV at the
Speaker 1: horse that was on the lead, and I said, we
Speaker 1: own that horse. So yeah, I've got a photo of
Speaker 1: me with the roses and the saddle towel and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. But Baffort's got a couple of horses going
Speaker 1: as you know this year. He's got Citizen Bull who's
Speaker 1: on the rail, which bothers me. He's twenty to one. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Rodriguez is in the four hole and he's twelve to
Speaker 1: one and I kind of like him. He's got Mike
Speaker 1: Smith aboard, and Mike Smith is vying to become, at
Speaker 1: age fifty nine, the oldest Derby winner as a jockey.
Speaker 1: Right now, it's Pat Day who is on Ferdinand back
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty six and speaking in the rail. That's
Speaker 1: the last horse to come from the one hole and
Speaker 1: win the Kentucky Derby. It's hard and I'll talk with
Speaker 1: Gary Moore about that a little bit later on in
Speaker 1: the show to win out of the one hole with
Speaker 1: a field that big. But I may throw a few
Speaker 1: Nichols at Rodriguez, who is a good horse with a
Speaker 1: good rider and a good trainer. So Bob Batford of
Speaker 1: course on the backside all week doing all kinds of
Speaker 1: interviews after missing the Kentucky Derby, after the mess involving
Speaker 1: Medina Spirit who won the Kentucky Derby, but was taken
Speaker 1: down for testing positive for illegal substance not allowed on
Speaker 1: race day. It's actually legal up until race day, and
Speaker 1: there was a minute amount in the system. And then
Speaker 1: Bafford went head to head with Churchill Downs or the
Speaker 1: powers that be in racing or both, and it went
Speaker 1: on longer, probably than it needed to. But now he's back.
Speaker 1: He's good for the game, whatever you think of him.
Speaker 1: And he talked to wdrb Over in Louisville about how
Speaker 1: he believed when he got back. You know, he didn't
Speaker 1: have any trepidations about being welcome on the backside.
Speaker 5: My greatest memories are hearing Churchill Downs coming the first time,
Speaker 5: bringing horses, winning the Kentucky Derby, having my parents here
Speaker 5: winning the Kentucky in them being here. So to me,
Speaker 5: like I said, when you have great memories like that,
Speaker 5: I've never I was never sour on the issue, and
Speaker 5: I wasn't really blaming the Churchill Downs. It's what went
Speaker 5: on with other things that happening and why it happened,
Speaker 5: and so it was one of those things where I
Speaker 5: understood their position, my position. We just were fighting for
Speaker 5: the horse. He ran so hard to win the derby,
Speaker 5: and to be disqualified for something that was so minute,
Speaker 5: but it still couldn't be in the system. It was
Speaker 5: a legal medication. But it's one of those things where
Speaker 5: you know you miss being here, but I you know,
Speaker 5: I still watch it on television. We had Derby parties.
Speaker 5: I still enjoyed it, you know. So, I mean the
Speaker 5: Derby is so important to our industry. I mean without
Speaker 5: the Kentucky Derby, I probably couldn't get anybody to buy
Speaker 5: a horse, you know, because everybody it's a dream. It's
Speaker 5: like the Masters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's a great analogy. It really is like
Speaker 1: the Masters, because every pro golfer wants to win a tournament,
Speaker 1: any want to win a major. But if he held
Speaker 1: him down, they would tell you the one I want
Speaker 1: to win is the Masters, which is probably the hardest
Speaker 1: one to win. And the Kentucky Derby is the hardest
Speaker 1: race to win because they're three year olds, they've never
Speaker 1: gone a mile and a quarter and you've got a
Speaker 1: field of twenty, you've got one hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 1: people and how many times have you heard a jockey
Speaker 1: talk about when they come out of the far turn
Speaker 1: and they head for home, it's like slamming into a wall,
Speaker 1: the noise they face as they cut that last corner
Speaker 1: as ca what Ldford used to say, they cut that
Speaker 1: last corner and they come to me now they hit
Speaker 1: that wall to sound and a lot of horses can't
Speaker 1: handle it. So it just takes a special trip. It
Speaker 1: takes you know, everything falling into place, obviously, but as
Speaker 1: Bafford points out, the early stages again coming out of
Speaker 1: the gate, if you have to come off the rail
Speaker 1: or anywhere near it, that can be a big problem.
Speaker 1: So those first few jumps are vital.
Speaker 5: And you don't know if these jockeys are nervous the
Speaker 5: other You know, a lot of the first time they've
Speaker 5: ridden it, and their horses are geared out. With twenty horses,
Speaker 5: they leave there in a scrum. You know, the first
Speaker 5: two hundred yards. It's it's one or loss in the
Speaker 5: first two hundred yards. And once they get into the backside,
Speaker 5: and if your horse is in a nice rhythm, but
Speaker 5: if he has once he checks once forget it there.
Speaker 5: It's like they're lactic acid builds up. They get scared
Speaker 5: and they quit running. And it's the only race that
Speaker 5: you good horses get beat. Thirty forty lanes. You'll see
Speaker 5: the chart. You got beat forty lanes. It's never going
Speaker 5: to happen again in his life.
Speaker 1: He's right about the jockeys, and as a rule, I
Speaker 1: don't bet on a horse just because of a jockey.
Speaker 1: But it can help. And as I said, Mike Smith
Speaker 1: knows what he's doing, and it helps if you got
Speaker 1: a rider who has been in this mess before. And
Speaker 1: I'll never forget being on the track one year, that's
Speaker 1: where I usually would watch the race from the track,
Speaker 1: near the finish line, and there was such a scrum,
Speaker 1: so much banging going into the first turn that I
Speaker 1: saw a rider unseated. A rider flew up in the
Speaker 1: air and I thought, you know, you get that split
Speaker 1: second thought. I thought, he's going to come down. He's
Speaker 1: going to get crushed, he's going to get run over.
Speaker 1: But because the horses near him were banging his horse,
Speaker 1: he had nowhere to fall but back onto his horse.
Speaker 1: It was frightening. I do not remember the horse or
Speaker 1: what happened later. I'm pretty sure the horse didn't win.
Speaker 1: It was not the winner. I would remember that, But
Speaker 1: that's the kind of thing that can happen. It's the
Speaker 1: one time of year when people who ordinarily don't follow
Speaker 1: horse racing are racing fans or at least just realize
Speaker 1: it's happening. And one of them is comedian Jim gaff
Speaker 1: Again he's got a bit on the Kentucky Derby, and
Speaker 1: whoever does his social media accounts has been making the
Speaker 1: rounds with it. It's been on Facebook, Twitter, on Instagram
Speaker 1: and here's a little bit of it. It's pretty funny.
Speaker 6: I have to admit we are a country that loves
Speaker 6: to bet on horses. Every spring we tracked the three
Speaker 6: races of the Triple Crown, and every spring I always
Speaker 6: have the same thought.
Speaker 3: We're still doing this is Woodrow Wilson President, But people
Speaker 3: love the Triple Crown, the Kentucky Derby, where people bet
Speaker 3: on horses while they're dressed like characters from Gone with
Speaker 3: the Wind.
Speaker 1: It's like prom for gamblers. Do you like my hat?
Speaker 6: I'm living in my sister's garage because I have a
Speaker 6: debilitating gambling addiction. Shall we have another?
Speaker 4: Men?
Speaker 6: Julb that was announced the winner of each race on
Speaker 6: the news. You're can always tell the horse was named
Speaker 6: by a guy on his eighth wife. The horse is
Speaker 6: always named like Viagua's revenge alimony be Dad. They show
Speaker 6: a picture of the winning horse on the news, they
Speaker 6: could show us a picture of any horse. We wouldn't
Speaker 6: know the difference. I don't know what we're supposed to
Speaker 6: do with that horse image. It's not like we're gonna
Speaker 6: run into that horse in a bar. Excuse me, did
Speaker 6: you win the Kentucky Derby?
Speaker 7: I did.
Speaker 6: I won the Kentucky Derby. Now I'm at a bar
Speaker 6: enjoying a half invison. There is the classic photo of
Speaker 6: the winning horse right there. They're always wearing that huge
Speaker 6: horseshoe wreath of flowers they stole from someone's grave site,
Speaker 6: standing next to the winning horses. The owner of the horse,
Speaker 6: who did not train the horse, did not ride the horse,
Speaker 6: and based on body language, has never really met the horse.
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. If you are a derby owner,
Speaker 1: I'll guarantee you you're so excited you've been to the
Speaker 1: barn at least once or twice that week, and if not,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't be a Derby owner. That's Jim Gaffigan courtesy
Speaker 1: of Jim Gaffigan Productions. In Bob Baffert came to us
Speaker 1: from WDRB Aaron Gershon's next year on six point thirty
Speaker 1: Welcome Back, We are chatting with Aaron Gershan of the
Speaker 1: Cat's Balls. Aaron, of course covers football and basketball for
Speaker 1: the Wildcats, also a diehard New York Football Giants fan.
Speaker 1: And this is a situation, Aaron, where you're beat covering
Speaker 1: Kentucky football kind of intersects with your beloved Giants and
Speaker 1: one of the players that they drafted. You covered Kentucky
Speaker 1: Ole miss You watch the Cats beat Jackson Dart in Mississippi.
Speaker 1: At first, you were a little leary about the Giants
Speaker 1: drafting Jackson Dart and a lot of people thought he
Speaker 1: was a bit of a dark horse quarterback draft candidate.
Speaker 1: Now you feel better about that?
Speaker 8: Why feel a little better? I think it's the fact
Speaker 8: he has to sit. He's almost guaranteed to sit this
Speaker 8: year when they have Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston on
Speaker 8: the roster. My big thing, my big thing, really, and
Speaker 8: it's something we've talked about in the past of Tennessee
Speaker 8: and translating to the NFL. If you remember the Will
Speaker 8: Levis Hendon Hooker debate a couple of years ago, it's
Speaker 8: that offense at Ole Miss. It's great for college. It
Speaker 8: tears up to college defenses, but it's very, very simplified
Speaker 8: and does not at all reflect what an NFL offense is.
Speaker 8: I mean, it's very much first three there, okay, that's
Speaker 8: not there, check down that's it, or run. There's not
Speaker 8: many going through progressions. It's a very you know, quick
Speaker 8: to the line of scrimmage. You're not in the huddle,
Speaker 8: you're not calling out. You know, you're not calling much
Speaker 8: out at the line of scrimmage. It's just very very
Speaker 8: much running gun, let's go, you know, hurry up, purry up,
Speaker 8: purry up. Whereas my worry is, okay, how's that going
Speaker 8: to translate.
Speaker 4: To the NFL.
Speaker 8: But the fact he has look Brian Dable, I guess
Speaker 8: they had a bad year last year. He's a quarterback.
Speaker 8: Uru he got the most out of Daniel Jones in
Speaker 8: twenty twenty two. He turned Josh Allen around as soon
Speaker 8: as he got there. I mean, Jalen hurts to at college.
Speaker 8: I mean, go on and on. I feel good about that,
Speaker 8: and I feel good that he has to sit behind
Speaker 8: Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston, who I don't they're not
Speaker 8: great quarterbacks at this point in their careers, but they've
Speaker 8: been through a lot and they're both really good leaders,
Speaker 8: and I think they'll both help them out a lot.
Speaker 8: So I think he got drafted into a good situation.
Speaker 8: And then, so I was telling you before we started here,
Speaker 8: I'm just glad they didn't take him at three because
Speaker 8: he can't pass on Abdul Carter, who I think is
Speaker 8: probably to the best player of the draft.
Speaker 1: I agree. I couldn't agree more and I was happy
Speaker 1: for you that they took him, And there were a
Speaker 1: lot of people thought he should have been the first
Speaker 1: player off the boards, first player taken. But you know,
Speaker 1: going back, and we've talked about this before, but that
Speaker 1: Old Miss game as much fun as it was to
Speaker 1: cover it obviously from the UK sideline, and you got
Speaker 1: a chance to talk after the game with some really
Speaker 1: happy players and coaches. But to me, Aaron, that was
Speaker 1: the most puzzling game of all That was more puzzling
Speaker 1: than the losses in my opinion, because Ole Miss had
Speaker 1: everything going forward, I mean, was psyched up, had a
Speaker 1: great crowd, a great day for football, and Kentucky for
Speaker 1: the most part, did everything right, including a huge best
Speaker 1: pass that that that quarterback ever threw in his life
Speaker 1: for the h Yeah, oh oh.
Speaker 4: Yeah, four seven.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 8: I was thinking, yeah, they even and look, remember what's
Speaker 8: even crazy about it? Remember Old Missus first drive they
Speaker 8: went down the field with ease and it was like,
Speaker 8: oh my gosh, they're going to score seventy points, They're
Speaker 8: going to run Kentucky out. And Kentucky was out. You
Speaker 8: know Max Harrison, that was first game he missed to
Speaker 8: Ryan Nichols with true freshman was out there at corner.
Speaker 8: I'm pretty sure I want to say Waller went down
Speaker 8: in that game. Maybe not, I feel like he did, right. Yeah,
Speaker 8: So they were banged up at corner. Nichols I think
Speaker 8: was playing hurt already. So they were a mess in
Speaker 8: the secondary going up against the best passing offense in
Speaker 8: the in the conference. And then you know Jackson Dart
Speaker 8: who think ended up being the first team quarterback in
Speaker 8: the SEC last year. So uh yeah, it was just
Speaker 8: an on paper, a matchup nightmare for Kentucky and Ole
Speaker 8: miss last year too had one of the best pass
Speaker 8: pachers in the country as well. You know, you saw
Speaker 8: Walter Nolan went in the first round to Arizona, so
Speaker 8: it was a just a looked like a matchup nightmare
Speaker 8: for Kentucky. Like if you were going to tell me
Speaker 8: they were going to upset someone in sec play, that'll
Speaker 8: probably be one of the last teams I would have
Speaker 8: picked last year. But uh, they made it happen somehow,
Speaker 8: and then you know, that was kind of the last
Speaker 8: good moment the unfortunately it really was.
Speaker 1: But you know, it gives you hope when you've got
Speaker 1: some of those guys coming back that they can build
Speaker 1: them yet. But as most teams are, it's a totally
Speaker 1: new look for the football Wildcats. But let me shift
Speaker 1: over and don't miss too.
Speaker 8: By the way, when they come in we two, they
Speaker 8: lost a lot if you watch the draft, they lost
Speaker 8: a lot of guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the style is going to be the same,
Speaker 1: isn't It.
Speaker 4: Was going to be the same. That was gonna be
Speaker 4: the same.
Speaker 1: We'll let me shift you over to basketball. And you've
Speaker 1: written about uh Miami guard transfer Kentucky's looking at first
Speaker 1: of all, how do you pronounce his name?
Speaker 4: And yeah, divine something? Yeah, is that right? I think so?
Speaker 8: I don't know so, but uh, yeah, Look, Kentucky's at
Speaker 8: the point where they can be very selective and with
Speaker 8: the House settlement not passing, they're still at thirteen. It's
Speaker 8: still thirteen scholarships. So basically they're in the same boat
Speaker 8: as they were at this well not quite this time
Speaker 8: last year, but after they landed Jackson Robinson. Where okay,
Speaker 8: we're at twelve. Guys, Now, if there's a thirteenth guy
Speaker 8: that makes sense for us, you know, we'll take him.
Speaker 8: If not, you know, we don't necessarily have to fill
Speaker 8: the void. One thing they're gonna have to do is
Speaker 8: still two walk on spots. That's a different story, assuming
Speaker 8: it does stay at thirteen, because they did lose two
Speaker 8: walk onto the portal. But they can fill it if
Speaker 8: they want with a guy like this divine kid who
Speaker 8: you know, was a freshman at Miami last year. Miami
Speaker 8: was terrible, obviously, but he showed some promise at a
Speaker 8: really good game. There's two of his best games of
Speaker 8: the year actually were against Duke and Louisville. So the
Speaker 8: guy showed a few flashes. Couldn't really shoot much from three,
Speaker 8: you know, six to three. You know, maybe you can
Speaker 8: unlock something there. Maybe you find a freshman you you know,
Speaker 8: you think you could grow over the years or at least,
Speaker 8: you know, it's really hard to grow guys over the
Speaker 8: years of the portal era, but at least hope you
Speaker 8: can maybe go the international route, maybe take you know,
Speaker 8: another Angley Aminor type, who's the guy who's just willing
Speaker 8: to do whatever for you. You know, the options are
Speaker 8: there now. Kentucky's at the point where, you know, obviously
Speaker 8: with all the injuries they had last year and then
Speaker 8: Quainton still you know, I still want to see him
Speaker 8: on the court in November to believe he's going to
Speaker 8: be ready for Opening night. Yeah, you know, you probably
Speaker 8: want to fill that thirteenth spot this year given what
Speaker 8: happened to you last year, but they don't necessarily have
Speaker 8: to with the deaths and you know, the talent they've
Speaker 8: bought in already.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. And it's the kind of thing where
Speaker 1: Pope now I think, has done such a good job
Speaker 1: building the roster by all accounts, one of the top
Speaker 1: five in terms of the transfer classes. He can afford
Speaker 1: to be juicy Canny.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 8: I mean they've kind of taken the Florida approach a
Speaker 8: little bit from last year, where they kind of have
Speaker 8: two of everything that you could put in there. And
Speaker 8: feel really good about. I mean, they have two tweeners
Speaker 8: who are super athletic and can score and really defend,
Speaker 8: and Cam Williams and Moda Boste. They have, you know,
Speaker 8: two bigs that you feel comfortable in. Are two centers
Speaker 8: excuse me, that you feel comfortable in, especially Quaintons, and
Speaker 8: then also Garrison who's back, and maybe Malachime Marino proves
Speaker 8: he's ready.
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 8: I think he's gonna be kind of an odd man
Speaker 8: out this year. If that's okay. You have tons of
Speaker 8: death at the two position now, between Aberdeen Chandler Back.
Speaker 8: I mean, they just have tons of death there, and
Speaker 8: then assuming always back as well at the two. I
Speaker 8: didn't need to mention him. You could play Aberdeen at
Speaker 8: the ones with Jalen Low. I mean, there's just so
Speaker 8: many different options that Mark bopas. I mean, really, you know,
Speaker 8: he loves playing eleven guys, so that's good because he
Speaker 8: can definitely use just about everyone on this roster. It's
Speaker 8: just going to be it's gonna be interesting right now
Speaker 8: to see who the odd man out is. I would
Speaker 8: guess it's Malachime Marino. But if they ad a thirteenth
Speaker 8: that's what makes it tricky. It kind of feels like,
Speaker 8: whoever they bring in for that thirteenth spot, it's either
Speaker 8: going to be someone that it's surprisingly really good, like
Speaker 8: not surprisingly, but just it's a surprise they took someone
Speaker 8: and recruited over someone they have because that means maybe
Speaker 8: another guy in this current roster of being odd men out,
Speaker 8: like a Jasper Johnson, maybe even Tchatonella, or it's going
Speaker 8: to be just a guy again who's kind of like
Speaker 8: the odd man out on this year's team.
Speaker 1: You know what, you bring up a couple of really
Speaker 1: good points, and I'm thinking about, you know, the fan reaction,
Speaker 1: media reaction, and social media being what it is these days,
Speaker 1: you can't help it. But last year there were so
Speaker 1: many people who got upset who you know, took the
Speaker 1: to the as we used as they took to the airwaves,
Speaker 1: but complained when he would sub when a team was
Speaker 1: on a pretty good run. And then he put in
Speaker 1: it you know, the different guys, why do you leave
Speaker 1: him in and all that stuff. But he made it clear,
Speaker 1: this is the way, as you said, this is the
Speaker 1: way we're going to run things. This is the way.
Speaker 1: That's the way his coach did there. It's the way
Speaker 1: Rick Beatino did things. They played like hockey shifts, you know,
Speaker 1: and they played their butts off on defense. Now a
Speaker 1: little bit different with Pope because the defense didn't really
Speaker 1: take hold, as you know, till a second half of
Speaker 1: the second but you know, play hard, we'll sub you
Speaker 1: and then we'll put you back in. That didn't set
Speaker 1: well with people. But on the other hand, if Malachi
Speaker 1: Moreno is the odd man out, and you know as
Speaker 1: well as I, he'll get minutes in the non conference games.
Speaker 1: But if he's not really kicking, but he'll sit in
Speaker 1: the SEC games, that's going to piss people off. So
Speaker 1: Pope's gonna earn He's gonna earn us keeping me.
Speaker 8: Yeah, when you have this job, he just has to
Speaker 8: be the all out let their twitter coaches coach on
Speaker 8: Twitter type deal. I mean, look, and what you know.
Speaker 8: Last year, I think the reason they play eleven guys out. Yes,
Speaker 8: Rick Patino did it, but they want to play. Last year, yes,
Speaker 8: they were top thirty in Temples, they did not go
Speaker 8: as fast as they wanted to and they didn't get
Speaker 8: money three office.
Speaker 4: They won to last year.
Speaker 8: In large part because they didn't have a point guard
Speaker 8: for several games down the stretch, and Lamont was banged
Speaker 8: up and Jackson was falling out a position, Travis Perry
Speaker 8: was playing out a position, you name it. They had
Speaker 8: You know, I'm not a big excuse guy. They had
Speaker 8: excuses why they didn't go as fast this year. Assuming
Speaker 8: everyone stays healthy, those excuses aren't there. And you bring
Speaker 8: it in guys like like Modia Bosta is coming in
Speaker 8: from the number one simple team in the offense in
Speaker 8: the country. Excuse me, that's the guy who's going to
Speaker 8: be comfortable playing fast. Denzel Aberty in a Florida, they
Speaker 8: play as fast as anyone in the country. He's going
Speaker 8: to be the guys comfortable playing fast. And then you have,
Speaker 8: you know, your core returners who should be comfortable with it.
Speaker 8: I haven't looked. I don't have the top of my
Speaker 8: head how fast pit Arizona State played with Low and
Speaker 8: Quaintons and then camber LANs from Tulane. But you know
Speaker 8: those guys will get used to it, especially Low, and
Speaker 8: I'll have no choice to get to get used to it.
Speaker 8: And look, Lamont Butler was playing in the one of
Speaker 8: the slowest offenses in the country. It's not the slowest
Speaker 8: of San Diego State, and he got really comfortable with it.
Speaker 4: He just got hurt. So there.
Speaker 8: I think you got to remember that last year didn't
Speaker 8: go as planned as far as the tempo, and that's
Speaker 8: kind of the reason they play that way. And it
Speaker 8: kind of looked funkier because it's like, all right, you're
Speaker 8: not going that fast, you're not running these guys at
Speaker 8: the ground. But that's you know, that's kind of what
Speaker 8: they trained for in the offseason. Now, you know, again,
Speaker 8: assuming health, hopefully you can stay a lot healthier than
Speaker 8: you did last year. They're going to play really fast
Speaker 8: from day one, and it's gonna make a lot more
Speaker 8: sense to want fresh bodies out there.
Speaker 1: He is Aaron gershan and the Cast Paws. We'll talk
Speaker 1: Kentucky football on the other side of the break here
Speaker 1: on six thirty WLAP Welcome back. We're talking with Aaron Gershawan.
Speaker 1: He is the beat writer for the cast Balls, part
Speaker 1: of the two four seven network. Last time we spoke,
Speaker 1: it was just when the portal had closed for Kentucky football,
Speaker 1: and we touched a little bit on the guys who
Speaker 1: would come in. But let's look a little deeper at
Speaker 1: for instance, Harley Gilmour, who has had a bit of
Speaker 1: a checkered past, as we know, was a uck and
Speaker 1: was kind of showing the door at Nebraska, kind of
Speaker 1: showing the door. Now he's back, which chose you what
Speaker 1: happened to him here? Aaron couldn't have been all that bad,
Speaker 1: but was just just bad enough, you know, So how
Speaker 1: do you how do you see him fitting in?
Speaker 4: They need him now.
Speaker 8: I mean they're at a point where they legitimately need him.
Speaker 8: I was kinda you know when they first signed and
Speaker 8: was kind of like, Okay, you know, get him back
Speaker 8: in the program, get his stuff figured out off the field,
Speaker 8: and then you know, try to untap that guy that
Speaker 8: was so dominant in the spring and then the fall
Speaker 8: camp before he got hurt last year and even showed
Speaker 8: flashes you know, of that potential on the field last season.
Speaker 8: Now they're a point where they they need him. Look
Speaker 8: true Edwards the transfer from Louisiana Tech, who was you know,
Speaker 8: waiting eligibility. He's gone. He signed with the LA Rams.
Speaker 8: So that's a guy that you were counting on that's gone.
Speaker 8: You had, I don't know what the injuries, if any
Speaker 8: of them were really serious. Hopefully not that they had
Speaker 8: pile up during a spring ball here, but you know,
Speaker 8: Fred Ferrier, there was a guy that was now in
Speaker 8: dj who is a guy that we saw in the
Speaker 8: open practice played really well and kind of excited you
Speaker 8: a little bit. As a true freshman. He was down
Speaker 8: by the end of camp. So you know, you hope
Speaker 8: those guys are okay. But in Kentucky, you know, still, yes,
Speaker 8: the portal's closed, but they can still add. I know
Speaker 8: they had a receiver from I think Jackson State who's
Speaker 8: been pretty productive the last two years on campus yesterday,
Speaker 8: so I think they need to add another body in there.
Speaker 8: They have three open scholarships left right now. But you know, yeah,
Speaker 8: gil Moore, look, they got to They definitely got to
Speaker 8: figure out his stuff off the field and get him
Speaker 8: in line and hopefully, you know, he's in a place
Speaker 8: with that that he can contribute and if so, like
Speaker 8: he needs to be in there. I don't know about
Speaker 8: a starter, but he needs to contribute in that wide
Speaker 8: receiver because they're you know, the bodies, the injuries piled up,
Speaker 8: and True Edwards, a guy who I think many people
Speaker 8: thought was going to be the go to target this year,
Speaker 8: is now not an option.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's gone to the pros. Plus Gilmore now got
Speaker 1: to understand that this is well, I say, this is
Speaker 1: probably it for him. But the portal being what it is,
Speaker 1: seems like you can play for it in ninety years.
Speaker 1: But in terms of at Kentucky and the SEC, if
Speaker 1: he wants to play at this level, he's got to
Speaker 1: keep his nose clean. You could say the same Verseeth McGowan.
Speaker 1: The kid came from Mensago State, a running back which
Speaker 1: they really needed, had a good start at Oklahoma, got
Speaker 1: himself into trouble, legal trouble. U worked through that, went
Speaker 1: to Juco, went to New Mexico State, and now here
Speaker 1: he is at Kentucky. And again, this is a guy
Speaker 1: who I have no idea what he's like as a person.
Speaker 1: I know he made mistakes, but sure he's got to
Speaker 1: keep that nose clean as well.
Speaker 4: Don't you.
Speaker 8: Yeah, they really did, he said it. They needed him,
Speaker 8: and he's a guy that was very productive last year
Speaker 8: at New Mexico State. I mean he's a really really
Speaker 8: good receiving back. You know, you go put on the tape,
Speaker 8: you see a lot of those same wheel routes being
Speaker 8: run that Ray Davis ran when he he was here.
Speaker 8: I'm not saying he's gonna be Ray Davis and just saying,
Speaker 8: you know, that's the idea I think the coaches probably saw.
Speaker 8: And then you know, you're reuniting with Jay Bulware. That
Speaker 8: was his primary recruiter at Oklahoma, so you hope that
Speaker 8: relationship can help, you know, keep him in, check him in. Look,
Speaker 8: that was three years, four years ago at this point. Obviously,
Speaker 8: you know, you always got to keep an eye on
Speaker 8: these type of kids. But he would hope that nothing,
Speaker 8: having coming up in four years, were past that with
Speaker 8: him and Kentucky was comfortable enough to take the chance
Speaker 8: because they really needed to fill that last running back spot.
Speaker 8: They were down to three. I mean Savanni Bizil obviously
Speaker 8: still just not quite the same guy was in high
Speaker 8: school coming off an injury. You know, they were really
Speaker 8: down to three options at running back and one that
Speaker 8: they didn't trust, you know, in Jamaran Willcox, so at
Speaker 8: least they don't fully trust yet another in Jason Patterson,
Speaker 8: who played really well in the spring, but he has
Speaker 8: four games in his career logs. And then Dante Dowell,
Speaker 8: who you know, she's a short yard expact. Hopefully he
Speaker 8: can prove these a little more, but until proven otherwise,
Speaker 8: he's a short yard expact. So they needed to add
Speaker 8: a guy who can kind of do it all at
Speaker 8: the running back position, and it's really hard to find
Speaker 8: those guys in the spring portal and that's why you,
Speaker 8: you know, you kind of took that chance, and he
Speaker 8: fits what they need on the field. He just got to,
Speaker 8: like you said, keep together off.
Speaker 1: You know you mentioned Ray Davis. I know you're working
Speaker 1: on a piece for next month or later this month
Speaker 1: on transfers, but Ray Davis is almost a poster child
Speaker 1: now for transfers who come through the portal. I mean,
Speaker 1: you couldn't you couldn't get a better guy with a
Speaker 1: better track record, so capable and produces. I mean, the
Speaker 1: team didn't do well, but he he was terrific, does
Speaker 1: really well. Actually they did do well while he was here.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, but has a really nice rookie season
Speaker 1: and now he's gonna shepherd Hairston and d I Walker
Speaker 1: up in Buffalo. So yeah, I mean, but I mean
Speaker 1: that's almost I won't say once in a lifetime, but man,
Speaker 1: if you can land somebody like that, you're damn lucky.
Speaker 1: And you got to be drilled for Harston and uh and.
Speaker 8: For Diane Walker, Oh, no question, they landed in a
Speaker 8: great spot to not only win right away, but you
Speaker 8: have Ray up there that you've already played with and
Speaker 8: it's been a leader for you. It's a great situation
Speaker 8: for both those guys for sure. But yeah, look, I
Speaker 8: mean that's the one thing with Kentucky the last five
Speaker 8: last year, the portal class just flopped. It is what
Speaker 8: it is like they missed last year. They took the
Speaker 8: chance on Vandgers who hadn't really played. He wasn't good. Uh,
Speaker 8: Dumus Johnson was really good, but he can only do
Speaker 8: so much. Got hurt as well. Bother than that, I mean,
Speaker 8: and Farmer was good too, the guard from Florida. Otherwise,
Speaker 8: I mean the overall they've done a pre job with
Speaker 8: these portal classes. I mean, Mondale was probably got a
Speaker 8: little disrespected, just given or not respected, just not talking
Speaker 8: to and Kedrian Smith in twenty twenty two down some
Speaker 8: really nice players in the portal year was so bad.
Speaker 8: So you know, hopefully this can be more like you.
Speaker 8: And I'm not saying that one pops off as a star,
Speaker 8: because I mean remember in twenty twenty one when they
Speaker 8: had one ditch once. No one navigates the portal better
Speaker 8: than Kentucky Randa and obviously just caught up and passed them,
Speaker 8: and then that was always going to happen. But uh,
Speaker 8: you know it hasn't been nearly last year, but it's
Speaker 8: really been one bad portal year hit the way they
Speaker 8: wanted to, you know, were winked, but you know.
Speaker 4: He still had a deecis statistical year.
Speaker 8: The quarterback then into some pretty big wins, like it
Speaker 8: wasn't a total bost it was a it was kind
Speaker 8: of like, I mean, yeah, so that one, and especially
Speaker 8: with how Vandergrift, I think they've done up.
Speaker 1: You got up next guy number two, Sean Woods, the
Speaker 1: end forget of a guard and West End Bureau Chief
Speaker 1: Gary Moore. That's all I had on six thirty gony.
Speaker 9: Earl Peet, such pact sat down anything, don't.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Big Blue Insider. And it is Wednesday,
Speaker 1: which means we will visit with the unforgettable Guard Sean Woods,
Speaker 1: the new head coach of Scott County High School. But
Speaker 1: before we talk hoops coach, I know you love foot
Speaker 1: all and europe An Indianapolis coach fan I know were
Speaker 1: you happy with the draft, by the way, what your
Speaker 1: coach did.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah. You know one thing about football and draft is,
Speaker 4: you know, they know about a lot of things that
Speaker 4: we don't. They see things in a different light than
Speaker 4: we do as spectators and fans. So I never really
Speaker 4: unless it's a Heisman Trophy winner or a guy that's
Speaker 4: a standout that had great it was a great skilled
Speaker 4: player that you know of like lineman, I can't tell
Speaker 4: who's good and who's bad, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: So I don't even look at it that way. If
Speaker 4: you're and a receiver, maybe a corner who gets a
Speaker 4: lot of interceptions, or running back who's rush for a
Speaker 4: lot not a yard, or or receiver who called a
Speaker 4: lot of passes. The other guys, I don't know who's good,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, because I think all cost
Speaker 4: football plays are pretty good, so I can't be the
Speaker 4: judge of that.
Speaker 1: Well, everybody loves a good tight nd. They took the
Speaker 1: kid out of state, Tyler Warren, quarterback's best friend, and
Speaker 1: then took a d N from Ohio State, and they
Speaker 1: cranked out some pretty good players. So I think you
Speaker 1: guys did a big I thank you.
Speaker 4: Guys did all right, solid solid, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you got to be happy for Maxwell Harriston
Speaker 1: going in the first round, no doubt about Buffalo to
Speaker 1: a really good team. And the fact that that kid,
Speaker 1: that young man was congratulating every pick, every kid who
Speaker 1: walked out of the and they're all kids to me,
Speaker 1: who walked out of the green room got a hug
Speaker 1: from Max Harriston.
Speaker 4: That's just who he is, you know, and that's why
Speaker 4: the thing is going to happen to him, because he's
Speaker 4: also going to be a great locker room guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's big, that's big. Uh. Well, let's get
Speaker 1: to one other matter for the draft, and you and
Speaker 1: I have talked The reason we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: this is Sean and I have talked about, of course
Speaker 1: nil in the portal for for many weeks now and
Speaker 1: how it's affected college sports, and now you've got and
Speaker 1: it just seems like there's an element of entitlement that
Speaker 1: goes with that. And now you've got a kid who
Speaker 1: showed up for his job interviews and shador Sanders and
Speaker 1: cost himself a lot of money. And I'm wondering, as
Speaker 1: a guy who's been a head coach and has been
Speaker 1: a recruiter for your entire career for the most part.
Speaker 1: And you've had to talk to kids, talk to their parents,
Speaker 1: gauge situations, things like that. And as a football fan,
Speaker 1: what was your take on how all that played out?
Speaker 1: Because this guy costs himself a lot of money.
Speaker 4: I knew what was going on before. I mean, it
Speaker 4: was evident, you know, look at it from this standpoint. Okay, coaches,
Speaker 4: especially at pros, you got general managers, you got owners. Okay,
Speaker 4: nobody's going to come in there and tell them what
Speaker 4: to do, how to do, when to do with their
Speaker 4: teams and their organization.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 4: Okay, this kid here, the reason why he's in this
Speaker 4: situation is because of what I've been saying. Parents are
Speaker 4: ruining kids' lives, you know what I mean. And and
Speaker 4: and the question that everybody in the NFL has is
Speaker 4: Chador has always played for his dad ever since he
Speaker 4: was a kid. His dad coached him in the Little League,
Speaker 4: his dad coached him in high school, his dad has
Speaker 4: coached him in college. His dad has you know, because
Speaker 4: of the way he has gone about it, acts like
Speaker 4: he's the God's gift to everything. Well, you know, first
Speaker 4: of all, Shadull Centers is a pretty good football player,
Speaker 4: but I don't think he's I don't think he's head
Speaker 4: and shoulders are better than all the other quarterbacks. And
Speaker 4: you got to throw this in the equation, who has
Speaker 4: he played? Okay, he played in the swack at Jackson State.
Speaker 4: He did good. He played in the Mount West or
Speaker 4: the Southwest Conference or the Big Twelve, now, whatever you
Speaker 4: want to call it. And that's okay, all right, but
Speaker 4: nobody wants to put up with your your ego. And
Speaker 4: you know you come in an interview is you're trying
Speaker 4: to sell the organization on yourself. And when you went
Speaker 4: in there and you acted like you're the guy's gift
Speaker 4: to everything and it's all about my dad, then these
Speaker 4: guys thinking, okay, well, how can we coach you when
Speaker 4: you're always gonna be questioning us because it's not what
Speaker 4: your dad wants or your dad thinks is right or wrong.
Speaker 4: Nobody's gonna put over that. There's too many athletes and
Speaker 4: there's too many quarterbacks in the world. There's so many
Speaker 4: quarterbacks right now that's even playing in the NFL that
Speaker 4: are sitting behind somebody that are better than shir Door Sanders.
Speaker 4: And they don't have to put up with the baggage.
Speaker 4: And you don't come in saying that you know, I'm
Speaker 4: only going to play for this team. We're not gonna
Speaker 4: play for this team. Well, come on, now, you know
Speaker 4: you and your dad, the way you guys go about
Speaker 4: things has cost you forty fifty million dollars. Nobody's putting
Speaker 4: up with that anymore.
Speaker 1: What about the argument? And well, Eli Manning did it
Speaker 1: with Archie Manning.
Speaker 4: Well, and guess what, there's levels to this and I
Speaker 4: and I'm in agreement with that. That is true. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that is. John Elway did the same thing, right, Okay,
Speaker 4: but Eli Manning's dad ain't ain't as flamboyant, and let's
Speaker 4: get it, and he's not African American. So you put
Speaker 4: out those two flamboyant African America and you're telling people
Speaker 4: what to do, how to do. They're not doing that.
Speaker 4: They're just not I.
Speaker 1: Also think, Sean and you're right about that, there's no
Speaker 1: denying it. But there's also a level you know, when
Speaker 1: when you when I think when you mix in the
Speaker 1: first thing you talked about telling operations and organizations, here's
Speaker 1: how we're going to do it. I'm the guy coming in,
Speaker 1: I'm the rookie, and here's my dad, and we're going
Speaker 1: to tell you what we need to do here, you know,
Speaker 1: when it's obviously supposed to be the other way around.
Speaker 1: I don't remember Eli doing that. I certainly don't remember
Speaker 1: Lway doing that.
Speaker 4: No, and their dad wasn't on social media. You know,
Speaker 4: killing people and talking about this organization is not good
Speaker 4: enough for us. You know, they had their deals, they
Speaker 4: had their wishes, and they went about it and yeah,
Speaker 4: they you know, they weren't treated the same as as
Speaker 4: as Dion them. But there's some people who don't like Deon.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's evident, right, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: That's just you know, I mean, that's that's it is
Speaker 4: what it is. And they're not going to say, well,
Speaker 4: Dion Sanders, you know, you might can do what you're
Speaker 4: doing at Colorado and the Jackson State and all that,
Speaker 4: but you don't run nothing up here in the NFL.
Speaker 1: I also read a comment from, you know, an anonymous
Speaker 1: they're always anonymous for obvious reasons. But somebody said, you know,
Speaker 1: we didn't want Dion in our building telling us how
Speaker 1: to run our operation.
Speaker 4: And then you know what and that's true, and that's
Speaker 4: what hurt them because they that's how they see it.
Speaker 4: And Dion might not do that because he's got a
Speaker 4: coach com Colorado. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Find the time?
Speaker 4: Yeah, he find the time. But what I'm saying, nobody
Speaker 4: wants that headache. And they also and also everybody, somebody
Speaker 4: was going to draft this kid or bring him in.
Speaker 4: I mean, he's too good not to be you're drafted
Speaker 4: at all, right, but you didn't want him to come
Speaker 4: in and he already had a leverage like if he
Speaker 4: was the first rounder, you had to pay guarantee the
Speaker 4: money and you had to play him. Okay, now they
Speaker 4: want to see what your doing. Sentence is all about,
Speaker 4: do you have grit? Can you compete? You know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying, Will you compete for this job? But will
Speaker 4: you come in here? Because when you heard if you
Speaker 4: heard him, when he got drafted and they called him,
Speaker 4: the first thing the GM said, as the coach said,
Speaker 4: was we need you to come in here and compete.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying, blah blahlah blah. You know,
Speaker 4: because we want to know if he can compete because
Speaker 4: everything's been handed to him.
Speaker 1: Well, look at their qb room. Man, they got five quarterbacks,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's going to come down to more
Speaker 1: than just competition, too, is going to go down to
Speaker 1: all that stuff.
Speaker 4: They did it for publicity reasons, but they don't have
Speaker 4: to keep them. And I would be shocked if he
Speaker 4: even makes it wow to camp Man. I'm just telling
Speaker 4: you right now, he's one slip on a banana pill
Speaker 4: for just being cut. And I'm being honest with you.
Speaker 4: And that's and that's and that's the leverage that they
Speaker 4: want to have. It's unfortunate that, you know, this young
Speaker 4: man is put in that position because I think he's
Speaker 4: earned the right no matter what what he's done on
Speaker 4: the football field, he's earned he's earned the right to be,
Speaker 4: you know, the number one projected quarterback. He earned that
Speaker 4: for what he did on the football field. That that
Speaker 4: that that can't be denied.
Speaker 1: Yea.
Speaker 4: But what they can't do is he's over the top.
Speaker 4: They're just over the top. They're they're they're just over
Speaker 4: the top. I mean the kid that they got drafted first.
Speaker 4: You know, he's a braggadocis kid too, But that's just confidence,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. Ward yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: not to that extent, but not to this. This is
Speaker 4: over the top.
Speaker 1: Cam Ward. Was it bragging about wearing a necklace worth
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand dollars?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 4: No, you know, I mean and and and that's the
Speaker 4: question too. You know what's really important to your social
Speaker 4: media the way you look bling bling and the thing
Speaker 4: that Dion didn't. I mean, Dion tells them in a
Speaker 4: solemn way when you watch their watch their their their
Speaker 4: show or their Twitter or whatever they're doing videos. Dion
Speaker 4: was like, you know, they come to Dion and you
Speaker 4: know she doer does And he said, well, you know
Speaker 4: I got to work out for you know, for the combine,
Speaker 4: you know, my speed and this and that, and Dean
Speaker 4: I was like, well, you're not me. You know, I
Speaker 4: never worked out for a combine. You know, I to
Speaker 4: do baseball, you know, I you know, I got the plane,
Speaker 4: you know, went right there. And I told him, look, man,
Speaker 4: you know, just let me run my four or five.
Speaker 4: And I'm gone, Yeah, I can say that.
Speaker 1: I was that he was sure didn't work out for
Speaker 1: the combine.
Speaker 4: And see that hurt him absolutely. And guess what whose
Speaker 4: fault is that? Who needs to getting advice from Yep.
Speaker 4: So Dion is just as guilty for his son to
Speaker 4: have these mishaps as anyone.
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 4: He is the main reason.
Speaker 1: You sound like a guy who's dealt with parents in
Speaker 1: your career.
Speaker 4: And you know what now from here and that's going
Speaker 4: to be my deal when I have my first family.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean. Coaches don't want to deal
Speaker 4: with parents. These parents are are more My mom never
Speaker 4: questioned a coach one time.
Speaker 1: You've told me that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you know what I'm saying. And all parents
Speaker 4: want to do is jockey for their kid. But what's
Speaker 4: it doing for the kid, Because when when the rubber
Speaker 4: reached the road with life, they're gonna be looking over
Speaker 4: their shoulders, you know what I'm saying, waiting, you know,
Speaker 4: for their Mohammed dad to say whatever they've been saying
Speaker 4: their whole life. Yeah, you're right, you should do it.
Speaker 4: Just in the same situation.
Speaker 1: He is Sean Woods, the unforgettable Guard. We'll come back
Speaker 1: and shift over to basketball. We'll still talk about coaching
Speaker 1: and parents in just a minute. On the Big Moon
Speaker 1: Sider six thirty WLAP Welcome back. We're talking with Seawan
Speaker 1: Woods and forgettable Guard as Jersey hangs in the raptors
Speaker 1: of ugh new head coach at Scott County. Before the break,
Speaker 1: you were talking about parents. If you could give advice
Speaker 1: to parents about in general, not just in a season
Speaker 1: or in a moment or whatever, how to handle their kids,
Speaker 1: how to help their kids without you know, complicating things
Speaker 1: with regard to their relationship with their coach. What would
Speaker 1: you tell parents.
Speaker 4: I'll tell them to stay out of the way, you know,
Speaker 4: and enjoy the ride. If you want to do some
Speaker 4: extra with your kid, go do extra with your kid.
Speaker 4: You no question, Like, if you want to get some
Speaker 4: extra workouts in and things like that outside of their
Speaker 4: team deal, that's fine because that's what all these guys
Speaker 4: are doing. If you want to be a really good
Speaker 4: basketball player, then you got to do over and beyond
Speaker 4: to become a really really good basketball player. That's what
Speaker 4: the elite are doing. Okay. Second of all, there's no
Speaker 4: way that your kid can thrive under any coach when
Speaker 4: you're going against the coach. Question everything that the coach
Speaker 4: is doing. How can you have success and how can
Speaker 4: that team have success? Because that kid is never going
Speaker 4: to flourish as much as he can in the environment
Speaker 4: that he's in if his mom and dad are always
Speaker 4: questioning what's going on, and.
Speaker 1: Generally they're sitting in a crowd of other parents, and
Speaker 1: it kind of spreads, doesn't it.
Speaker 4: And it spreads like wildfi, you know. And then and
Speaker 4: shame on the coach if he even allows that, Like
Speaker 4: if you bow down to one, they all got you.
Speaker 4: And you know, coaches now are because there's you know
Speaker 4: a lot of coaches that I know don't put up
Speaker 4: with that. But the ones that do and are passive,
Speaker 4: those are the ones that are not successful because you're
Speaker 4: never going to win when you always got to answer
Speaker 4: a question on why did you do this, why did
Speaker 4: you do that? Why didn't my son get you know,
Speaker 4: x amount of shots or x amount of playing time?
Speaker 4: You know, a coach is hired to win games. That's
Speaker 4: what that ad is hiring him for, and that school
Speaker 4: is hiring him for sure, and you can't win at
Speaker 4: a high rate when you're answering the parents. And it starts,
Speaker 4: not it starts at the little league level. And all
Speaker 4: these parents now because they didn't make it, you know,
Speaker 4: they want to live through their kids. And half of
Speaker 4: these parents didn't even play. And if they were players,
Speaker 4: you know, what I'm saying, they were just subpar or average.
Speaker 1: But even if they were good, that doesn't mean their
Speaker 1: kids going to be as good as they were exactly.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. Your mom and dad didn't
Speaker 4: run up against a coach every time you did something good, bad,
Speaker 4: or different.
Speaker 1: Plus, you've also got parents who believe at your level
Speaker 1: now at the high school level, and you were coach
Speaker 1: at the college level, that their kid's going to get
Speaker 1: a scholar someday and going to be my papers on college.
Speaker 1: And that's a great goal to which to aspire. But
Speaker 1: you know that doesn't mean you need to get in
Speaker 1: there and you know, move your kid from school to
Speaker 1: school trying to find the best situation or a coach
Speaker 1: is going to tell you what you.
Speaker 4: Want to hear, right, you know. And you know coaches
Speaker 4: got to be careful, you know, when they do try
Speaker 4: to attract kids. You got to be up front. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, and just and sometimes you may lose a
Speaker 4: kid because the coach is only looking for I mean,
Speaker 4: a parent is only looking for a coach that's going
Speaker 4: to do just for their kid. And in the game
Speaker 4: of basketball, you got thirteen guys, know me, on the roster,
Speaker 4: high school, college or whatever, and everybody don't get to play. Okay,
Speaker 4: be happy that, you know, because this nil deal and
Speaker 4: it's the shame and all these coaches are frustrated. Okay,
Speaker 4: you sign a kid and say he's got leverage. Okay,
Speaker 4: he wants one point five mini or he's getting two million,
Speaker 4: But is that guaranteeing him playing time?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: You see what I'm saying. But he's making two million.
Speaker 1: I've heard some coaches who have admitted privately that they
Speaker 1: feel the pressure to call a play for a certain
Speaker 1: guy because he hasn't touched the ball lately. And this
Speaker 1: guy is getting a lot of NIO money, and you know,
Speaker 1: we've got to justify spending this kind of money, so
Speaker 1: we got to get him the ball. That kind of
Speaker 1: stuff and more football than basketball. But that's that can
Speaker 1: be nothing but trouble. You know.
Speaker 4: It's all this deal, all this stuff, this transfer portal,
Speaker 4: nil stuff. All that's done is taking the power and
Speaker 4: the leverage from coaches, okay, and it's putting it in
Speaker 4: these young people's hands. Okay, you were hired to run
Speaker 4: a multi million dollar company, which is your about your team,
Speaker 4: your football team, baseball team, basketball, team. Okay, and then
Speaker 4: you bring in these employees and you pay them high dollar,
Speaker 4: which are the kids the student athletes, all right, now
Speaker 4: they get to run the slum. How does that tell me?
Speaker 4: How does that organization that with your five hundred company
Speaker 4: flourished right when they're when the prisoners or the employees
Speaker 4: are running the asylum. It doesn't. It's not going to happen.
Speaker 1: Because you know that's in everyday worlds. Uh. If you've
Speaker 1: got a company like that, odds are the employee has
Speaker 1: no compete or a contract that doesn't allow them just
Speaker 1: to pick up and leave without doing anything, still taking
Speaker 1: the money and moving on. You know, that's what's crazy
Speaker 1: about about this this era that we're going through exactly.
Speaker 4: So you know, I can't coach that way. I went
Speaker 4: to the Final four, like I told you, and every
Speaker 4: coach out there was miserable.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 4: Because they're miserable because they're losing kids that are rapper
Speaker 4: rate every year. That's one thing. You got to put
Speaker 4: build a team every year. That's that's frustrating, all right,
Speaker 4: And then you're paying kids money that you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying. Everything is built on potential. So you recruit
Speaker 4: a kid, you prosperate a kid, blah blah blahlah blah.
Speaker 4: You know, and and and and where's the development come
Speaker 4: come into play? There is no that's not even thought
Speaker 4: of anymore. So when you pay them this amount of money,
Speaker 4: even as a coach, you're you're expecting instant gratification, instant
Speaker 4: success because of the money that you're giving them. So
Speaker 4: now you're frustrated because they still have some growth to do,
Speaker 4: but they're making two million dollars and they're not ready
Speaker 4: to help you win a conference or a national championship.
Speaker 1: And you have to be more as much a general
Speaker 1: manager as a manager. And that that's not what you
Speaker 1: signed up for either.
Speaker 4: Is it. No. And you know, like coaches in the
Speaker 4: in the in the NBA, right most coaches don't have
Speaker 4: they can't even have their own staff. The general managers
Speaker 4: in the organization they hire the coaching staff. That's one thing, okay,
Speaker 4: you don't have leverage or two. It's a player driven deal,
Speaker 4: right okay. And only time you have good teams in
Speaker 4: the NBA is when you have a coach to stern
Speaker 4: like a Papovich has been there a long time. You
Speaker 4: got a man at Miami because he's back by pat Riley,
Speaker 4: so you know, in prisident, I mean, I'll have Jimmy
Speaker 4: Butler's situation. Okay, you got Tom Thibodeau who coaches hard,
Speaker 4: and it's gonna coach, you know what I'm saying. But
Speaker 4: when a guy is late, not doing this and doing that,
Speaker 4: you can find them. You can knock their you know
Speaker 4: what I mean, because this is their livelihood now with
Speaker 4: these kids, they never had anything. So if they're don't
Speaker 4: go to class, if they're late, they're showing a bad attitude.
Speaker 4: Faking an injury. I mean, you got kids faking injuries now,
Speaker 4: you know. So it's a lot more to do. That's
Speaker 4: why I think high school is my calling because I
Speaker 4: want to show and set an example of what parents
Speaker 4: it's supposed to be like. Because there's no way I
Speaker 4: can tolerate a parents trying to tell me what to
Speaker 4: do and how to do with their kids. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's just hard to do, you know. I know. And
Speaker 4: you got and look at the teams that are the
Speaker 4: best teams. Rick Patino's not going for that. You know,
Speaker 4: you got my man that at Houston, he's not going
Speaker 4: for that. Samson, you know, you got Danny Hurley, He's
Speaker 4: not going for that, coach. Guys are going to continue
Speaker 4: to leave them because the phrase constructive criticism, it's almost like,
Speaker 4: uh uh, what I want to call it. He's verbally
Speaker 4: abusing me and it's just criticism. So we're in a
Speaker 4: different world, Dick.
Speaker 1: What I'm saying coach here, I got to leave it
Speaker 1: here amount of time, but we'll pick it up next.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 1: All right, good talking to you, you two, buddy. Won't
Speaker 1: be long now before Seawan is working the sidelines as
Speaker 1: a new head coach at Scott County High School. That's
Speaker 1: going to be a lot of fun and it's going
Speaker 1: to be on top of us before we know it.
Speaker 1: Coming up next, it's our West End Bureau Chief, Gary Moore.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about of course it cany derby
Speaker 1: and college baseball, the pros, all that stuff as we
Speaker 1: usually talk about with Gary. That's coming up next here
Speaker 1: on the Big Blue and Sider six thirty Welcome back
Speaker 1: to the Big Blue and Sider. It is Wednesday, meaning
Speaker 1: we look west. We cast our eyes westward down I
Speaker 1: sixty four to our West End Bureau Chief, Gary Moore,
Speaker 1: out the longest time was our West Coast Bureau chief
Speaker 1: and he joins us each and every week with a
Speaker 1: passel of topics.
Speaker 10: Well a six packs worth anyway, right, two guys in
Speaker 10: a six pack? Yeah, first wig here Dick. I was
Speaker 10: out at the all gussied up Churchill Downs today for
Speaker 10: winds wins Wednesday, and there's gonna be a.
Speaker 7: Good chance of showers tomorrow.
Speaker 1: For Thirby.
Speaker 10: It looks like fifty to fifty chants for the Oaks
Speaker 10: on Friday for some rain. And this from world class
Speaker 10: meteorologist Mark Weinberg over here WDRBTV YEP. And for Derby
Speaker 10: Day after the eighties this week, he says it looks
Speaker 10: like there's gonna be some lingering showers in the morning,
Speaker 10: maybe going into the afternoon, and a h I have
Speaker 10: only about sixty eight cool day on Saturday. As for
Speaker 10: my pick, I'm going to go with a three year
Speaker 10: old named after one of my two two college majors.
Speaker 10: That would be course journalism, currently three to one odds
Speaker 10: and coming out of post number eight so far to
Speaker 10: cover my other major. Dick, I haven't seen a horse
Speaker 10: named keg Parties yet, but the week is still young,
Speaker 10: So who are you taking on Saturday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like journalism. You know, you hate to go
Speaker 1: with a chalk because you like to try to make
Speaker 1: some money. So that's what the exotics are for sure.
Speaker 1: But ever since they began the points system, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of the horses that my little brother for
Speaker 1: years referred to as bums who didn't belong in the race.
Speaker 1: And we're just screwing things up for everybody else. But
Speaker 1: every once in a while one of them will jump
Speaker 1: up and win and pay a whole bunch of money.
Speaker 1: But really the cream, it's a little bit easier for
Speaker 1: the cream to get to the top. Plus, I'm not
Speaker 1: a big post position guy, and we'll talk about that,
Speaker 1: I know, coming up. But that's a good one. Eight.
Speaker 1: That's a good one about.
Speaker 7: Where you'd like to be. Yeah, it's kind of ourdeal,
Speaker 7: isn't it.
Speaker 10: Our second swig of a jewlip involves racing and rock
Speaker 10: horse called Sandman coming out of the number seventeen post
Speaker 10: position has gotten quite a bit of love from the
Speaker 10: biggest rock band on the planet, Metallica, whose course biggest
Speaker 10: song ever is Enter Sandman. Now the band has sent
Speaker 10: their workers over there. Mark Cassie's I think is that
Speaker 10: his workers got all sorts of Metallica T shirts. They
Speaker 10: posed with a great photo on Facebook not only has
Speaker 10: them in the shirts, but also there's that beautiful gray
Speaker 10: Sandman sticking his head out of the stable kind.
Speaker 7: Of looking like, hey, what's up. I'm with these guys too.
Speaker 10: In fact, I've posted that on X by the Way
Speaker 10: too at nine to five to five, Gary Sandman, is
Speaker 10: I guess Dick my other favorite?
Speaker 1: Currently?
Speaker 10: I guess to see last Check five to one. And
Speaker 10: I love all the winners of the Arkansas Derby's sentimental reasons.
Speaker 10: My only Derby ever went to an eighty one pleasant
Speaker 10: college one Arkansas Derby winner, so I always look at
Speaker 10: those horses. Now, if Metallica ever got into the racing biz,
Speaker 10: they got a whole bunch of other great song titles
Speaker 10: for horses. Hero of the Day, Seek and Destroy, my
Speaker 10: favorite ride the Lightning. But you know, Sandman, I think
Speaker 10: that's the best use of that song since what we
Speaker 10: last saw the last Virginia Tech home game.
Speaker 1: Right, seek and Destroy? What a great name that would that?
Speaker 1: Would that be great for a horse? And we talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about this last week. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's a cool song, but when you go cover a game,
Speaker 1: as I have many times at South Carolina football and basketball,
Speaker 1: they play it NonStop. I mean, think of Rocky Top,
Speaker 1: only more obnoxious. At least Rocky Top. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a little bit of of you know, there's a there's
Speaker 1: a softer edge to that. Not Sandman, so the kind
Speaker 1: of ruins it for the class.
Speaker 10: Our third one more Derby swig. Here our third swig.
Speaker 10: I mentioned post positions sad to say no horse has
Speaker 10: ever ever won from the seventeenth gate, So sorry Sandman, but.
Speaker 7: Hey, why don't you be the first?
Speaker 10: Maybe conventional wisdom says the ideal post that we said
Speaker 10: are probably right there in the middle, say five gate
Speaker 10: five up to fourteen or fifteen. But did you know
Speaker 10: since twenty twelve of the twenty five Derby winners have
Speaker 10: broken from gate thirteen or higher. Sure, and that includes
Speaker 10: remember you're talking about some crazy odds rich Strike three
Speaker 10: years ago age.
Speaker 7: To one from gate twenty. Yeah, how crazy was that?
Speaker 10: And conversely, only three horses have won from post one,
Speaker 10: two or three since Ferdinand one from the dreaded gate
Speaker 10: one in nineteen eighty six. Bloodhorse dot com gave me
Speaker 10: those fun factoids, so I feel a little bit better about,
Speaker 10: you know, journalism. Like we said coming in, coming out
Speaker 10: of the eighth eighth post. So how much does that
Speaker 10: affect you? I know it scares off some betters, but
Speaker 10: are are you? You said you're not really a post
Speaker 10: position guy for the most part.
Speaker 1: I'm only a post position guy when it comes to
Speaker 1: number one. And that's where risen Star was and got
Speaker 1: crushed at the rail and finished. I think fifth maybe
Speaker 1: went on to win the Preakness in Belmont the way
Speaker 1: his daddy Secretariat did minus the one hole. I think
Speaker 1: he's a triple crown winner because there's so much traffic
Speaker 1: and horses diving to the rail. Now, when you talk
Speaker 1: about those horses to the outside, remember now, for years
Speaker 1: and years and years and years, there weren't that many
Speaker 1: horses running in the Derby, and some years there were
Speaker 1: three or four. So yeah, you're not going to see
Speaker 1: that many horses from sixteen, seventeen, eighteen out there winning it.
Speaker 1: And you're right about it, Rich Strike. What I always
Speaker 1: think back to Gary is got Odell sol with Arthur
Speaker 1: Hancock back in the early eighties and when Arthur heard
Speaker 1: that he had drawn I think it was eighteen with Gatto.
Speaker 1: He was so depressed. But then he said he called
Speaker 1: a friend of his who was a mathematician, and he said,
Speaker 1: if we don't race to the front and tuck in,
Speaker 1: how much ground do we lose before the first turn?
Speaker 1: Using the Pythagorean theorem, which we all learned in high
Speaker 1: school or before. The guy said, I don't know about
Speaker 1: four feet, and Arthur said, he jumped to his feet,
Speaker 1: and yet we're back in the race. And that's exactly
Speaker 1: what goddo did right, And that's exactly how he ran
Speaker 1: and got a hole when he needed it down the
Speaker 1: stretch and won the derby. So breaking from the outside,
Speaker 1: unless you're a sprinter, I wouldn't worry about it. There's
Speaker 1: always a chance to run into problems anywhere. But if
Speaker 1: you're clean getting into the first turn and out of
Speaker 1: the first turn, you're okay.
Speaker 10: Yeah, looking forward to it. Nonetheless, our fourth swig in
Speaker 10: the six pack, we turned to Major League Baseball in
Speaker 10: the news that Commissioner Rob Manfred is going to rule
Speaker 10: on a request to reinstate the late great Pete Rose
Speaker 10: from the league's ineligible list, which would make him eligible,
Speaker 10: of course, for the Hall of Fame.
Speaker 7: It gets to that fat lot of good. Of course,
Speaker 7: that does repete.
Speaker 10: As we've already said all this after Manford met with
Speaker 10: Trump two weeks ago, and Manfred has not said though,
Speaker 10: when he's going to issue that ruling. Although back on
Speaker 10: see January eighth, throws his family fouled a petition that
Speaker 10: we saw that would have Pete posthumously reinstated, still doesn't
Speaker 10: mean he gets into the Hall of Fame, given how
Speaker 10: many older Hall of famers still resent him. But of
Speaker 10: course it does mean that there would be a chance.
Speaker 10: So I ask you, is this a good idea for
Speaker 10: any American president, no matter what party, to pop off
Speaker 10: on an athlete getting into the Hall of Fame? Or
Speaker 10: should they just keep their big powerful commander in chief
Speaker 10: yaps shut and let the leagues and players handle all
Speaker 10: of this stuff.
Speaker 1: I say, the latter the president, no matter like you said,
Speaker 1: no matter who it is, doesn't belong in this conversation.
Speaker 1: And you and I have talked about this many times,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't until recently somebody sent me a copy
Speaker 1: of the letter that Rose sent to the Commissioner in
Speaker 1: what turned out to be the final months of his life,
Speaker 1: apologizing and admitting to everything. So why you can't take
Speaker 1: him now is beyond me. But no, to answer your
Speaker 1: question directly, it's I always say it's rare that I
Speaker 1: want to see politicians getting involved in sports, and this
Speaker 1: is one instance where they have no business any any politician.
Speaker 4: I agreed.
Speaker 10: Bitswating and six pack college baseball over here yesterday, U
Speaker 10: of L, now number seventeen in the nation, beat up
Speaker 10: on poor EKU eleven to five. Talked about the Colonels
Speaker 10: this year. They are now eight and thirty seven, one
Speaker 10: and twenty one on the road. Dick, the Cards have
Speaker 10: won now three in a row. They're thirty one thirteen overall,
Speaker 10: and starting tomorrow night three up at unranked Notre Dame
Speaker 10: before they get number fourteen Vandy over.
Speaker 7: Here next Tuesday.
Speaker 10: However, as the Cards continue to go back up a
Speaker 10: little bit, my Hilltoppers fell completely out of the top
Speaker 10: twenty five after inexplicably losing all three in Miami to
Speaker 10: Florida International. Western's now number four, fourth in the Conference
Speaker 10: USA they play in and they're going to be playing
Speaker 10: third place LA Tech, and that's in Bowling Green this weekend.
Speaker 10: Thought the Toppers played well against the UK yesterday. Well,
Speaker 10: I had to after that lost weekend. Speaking of the Cats,
Speaker 10: now they get three in Stark, Vegas. Mississippi State now
Speaker 10: under new management. So I ask you, you've seen this
Speaker 10: kind of thing play out before, whenever they change managers
Speaker 10: before the season's over.
Speaker 7: Does that enter?
Speaker 10: Do you think Mississippi State would be energized? But they
Speaker 10: could be kind of depressed about all this whole situation.
Speaker 1: To be honest with you, I'm trying to remember the
Speaker 1: last time I heard of a baseball coach being fired.
Speaker 1: We see it all the time, don't we. In football? Sure,
Speaker 1: basketball at the college level. But I'm trying to remember
Speaker 1: the night last time. And remember, now, these kids were
Speaker 1: all recruited by him and his staff and this is
Speaker 1: the same guy who coached this team to a World
Speaker 1: Series championship in Omaha, yeah, four years ago. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's really unusual. But standards being what they are at
Speaker 1: Mississippi State, they're they're incredibly high, not unlike basketball here
Speaker 1: at Kentucky. So I could see him being really scary.
Speaker 1: But I don't get it. I don't understand why you
Speaker 1: do that. Now. I can't imagine that that would affect
Speaker 1: your coaching search, you know, I don't get that, but
Speaker 1: you know, it's the way things are done in Starkville.
Speaker 7: I guess sixth and final swig.
Speaker 10: Last Saturday, I was down in Bowling Green, you know,
Speaker 10: my alma mater. We talked about that WKU Student Publication
Speaker 10: Centennial weekend. They honored one hundred years of the College
Speaker 10: Heights Herald newspaper and the Talisman yearbook. Of course, the
Speaker 10: Heralds produced numerous Pulitzer Prize winners, nominees Kentucky Journalism Hall
Speaker 10: of Famers. It's a club you just joined, and even
Speaker 10: helped university a few years ago rid itself of a
Speaker 10: two year plague known as the Kerrent Alexander presidency in
Speaker 10: nineteen eighty eight when he was threatening to take over
Speaker 10: the College Heights Herald and put some advisors on it
Speaker 10: and check out everything they're going to be writing about.
Speaker 7: They got rid of him.
Speaker 10: And with all these attacks against the press anyway by
Speaker 10: billionaire owners and dictator want to be politicians, we know
Speaker 10: the stakes have never been any higher for journalism at
Speaker 10: every level, especially college and college sports, which of course
Speaker 10: is witnessing a revolution in all the sports with the
Speaker 10: portals and nil and payments in general to student athletes now, Dick,
Speaker 10: I told the guy who's coming in as the new
Speaker 10: sports editor there that look, those handing out the money
Speaker 10: do not want you or me or anyone in public
Speaker 10: to know the details of the doe.
Speaker 7: You asked the tough questions.
Speaker 10: You dig for the truth, and if they get evasive
Speaker 10: with you, or they get pissed off at you, guess what.
Speaker 7: You'll know you're doing your job.
Speaker 1: That's true, and a tip of the cap to that
Speaker 1: journalism department over there. They have turned out really, like
Speaker 1: you said, really fine journalists. A lot of people on
Speaker 1: the electronics side, really talented, and I've worked with some
Speaker 1: folks who went to WKU, and I was happy that
Speaker 1: you got to go back and take part in that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, people forget that if a journalist is doing
Speaker 1: his or her job properly, they're seeking the truth, which
Speaker 1: is what consumers need, especially I think sports fans, because
Speaker 1: you can get wrapped up in your team and wave
Speaker 1: the pennant and you know, hoist your foam finger. But
Speaker 1: you're paying a bill, so you have a right to
Speaker 1: know what the heck's going on. To a certain degree,
Speaker 1: you know, there are some points that need privacy, but
Speaker 1: when it comes to the matters that raise your ticket prices. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you ought to get the truth.
Speaker 10: And some money that you've dumped into NIL or whatever.
Speaker 10: Exactly no transparency there.
Speaker 1: We will talk more about the NIL on the other
Speaker 1: side of the break. But Gary Mori is our west
Speaker 1: End bureau chiefs. Some hot reads are coming up here
Speaker 1: on six thirty WLAP Welcome back. We're talking with Gary Moris,
Speaker 1: our west End bureau chief. He presents two guys in
Speaker 1: a six pack each week and in return we volley
Speaker 1: with a couple of hot reads for Gary. I thought
Speaker 1: this Gary was really interesting. The attorney who defended Nico
Speaker 1: Iamalaieva his NIL agreement while that kid was at Tennessee
Speaker 1: now is basically I don't know, say he's crossing the street,
Speaker 1: but he's playing for the other side now because he's
Speaker 1: going to help the University of Arkansas go after the
Speaker 1: Iamalaieva family. When Madden decided he wanted to transfer as well.
Speaker 1: Arkansas is trying to protect itself and protect the money
Speaker 1: that this kid had taken. So now they've hired this
Speaker 1: guy who's a bit of an expert. He has Tom Mars.
Speaker 1: He's attempting to enforce the biot clause against Madden Gary
Speaker 1: for two hundred grand, which seems like a small amount.
Speaker 1: But my question to you is do you believe neither
Speaker 1: one of us is a legal scholar yet? But could
Speaker 1: this kind of lay the groundwork for every other school
Speaker 1: out there that feels like they've been done in by
Speaker 1: transfers who come and then leave immediately. I think so.
Speaker 10: I would love to see this as being starting to
Speaker 10: be one of the pathways to something like this to happening.
Speaker 7: Because it's already.
Speaker 10: Look at the schools that started the whole nil thing
Speaker 10: and a lot of people started following what they were doing.
Speaker 10: And again, there's so much non transparency in all of
Speaker 10: this stuff. We don't know if he was supposed to
Speaker 10: pay it or he just took it, or he was
Speaker 10: going to pay it. There's so many questions with this
Speaker 10: that we'd love to get answers. I'm sure people in
Speaker 10: Arkansas would love to get the answers too to exactly
Speaker 10: what is going on with this? Yeah, okay, two hundred
Speaker 10: thousand dollars. Yeah, if you get that back, great, But
Speaker 10: did he already take it? I mean, is it gone
Speaker 10: for good? Was he entitled to it? What's the story
Speaker 10: and all of that stuff. Well, he probably knows where
Speaker 10: the bodies are buried on something like that. Haven't worked
Speaker 10: on the other side of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, And how is the agreement written. It's
Speaker 1: all about what's on paper exactly. So I guess they'll
Speaker 1: be challenging from that end. But if it does work,
Speaker 1: first of all, this guy Mars is going to get
Speaker 1: all kinds of work just way. Hey, hey, we need
Speaker 1: a little help over here, you know. So he knows
Speaker 1: both sides of it inside out. So this is going
Speaker 1: to be fascinating.
Speaker 7: I love the story.
Speaker 10: I love I love how they were being comparing the
Speaker 10: two brothers to Frank and Jesse James. Yes, in terms
Speaker 10: of Robin, these schools blind that beautiful exactly, keeping in
Speaker 10: mind keeping an eye on the NIL A lot of people,
Speaker 10: of course, it wasn't too hard to figure out.
Speaker 1: So and so could stay in school because the NBA
Speaker 1: money is slotted and make more potentially or nearly as
Speaker 1: much through the NIL because as we all know, kids
Speaker 1: had been leaving early because they want to get I
Speaker 1: don't blame them, wanted to get their NBA clock started
Speaker 1: and get to that second year the bigger contract. But
Speaker 1: per the NBA Gary. Only one hundred and six players
Speaker 1: entered the twenty twenty five NBA Draft. That is the
Speaker 1: lowest number of early entrance since twenty fifteen, and the
Speaker 1: peak was in twenty twenty one when three hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty three hundred, just before the nil era officially started. So, now,
Speaker 1: does this mean that the level of play, the quality
Speaker 1: of play in college basketball is going to be as
Speaker 1: good as we've seen it in the last five years?
Speaker 10: I really think so. And if you look at where
Speaker 10: some of these guys think they're going to go, if
Speaker 10: they're going to go in the drafts and do a
Speaker 10: G league thing where they might make six hundred thousand
Speaker 10: most versus a million in college or more. And that's
Speaker 10: money in the G league, and maybe it's not all
Speaker 10: guaranteed either. So you got a chance to a improve
Speaker 10: your game, make more money, even get a degree.
Speaker 7: What a concept.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that they've learned a valuable lesson,
Speaker 1: haven't they, Because there are guys who put their name
Speaker 1: in and then out, okay, but some who stubbornly left
Speaker 1: their name in there with an inflated sense of self
Speaker 1: and then they end up in the G League making
Speaker 1: pretty good dough for you and me, but not what
Speaker 1: they expected. Or they're off to Europe where you can
Speaker 1: make money depending on what team, what league, what country.
Speaker 1: But mom and Dad can't see you play, and.
Speaker 7: I never heard from again exactly.
Speaker 1: And a lot of those teams overseas. I've been told
Speaker 1: by former Kentucky players who played for good teams and
Speaker 1: not so upright upstanding teams it can be difficult to
Speaker 1: get your money, especially if you get hurt.
Speaker 10: Right, So you and I have heard this for years
Speaker 10: with the Calipari teams. I'm so tired of this one
Speaker 10: and done stuff. I here's another bunch of uk Okay, Well,
Speaker 10: now the guys are going to stay in school potentially
Speaker 10: a lot longer. They may be they may still be
Speaker 10: one and done with you and then go to another school,
Speaker 10: but they're going to stay in longer, which is good
Speaker 10: I think for everybody.
Speaker 1: If somebody put it in underrated positive impact, right of nil.
Speaker 1: We kind of saw this coming, but now it's real.
Speaker 1: He is Gary Moore. He is our west ham b
Speaker 1: area chief. We visit with him each and every Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and we also find him at.
Speaker 10: Oh I'm loitering at nine to five to five.
Speaker 7: Gary on X where are you.
Speaker 1: I'm a big one sider one see you next week,
Speaker 1: Happy Derby, say at you buddy and that'll do it
Speaker 1: for now. Thanks to Gary, thanks to Sean Woods and
Speaker 1: hearing Gershwan. That's it. Good night from the garage in Lexington.
Speaker 7: I like to ask a few questions about this breakfast cereal.
Speaker 7: I yeah, yeah, A box of tricks.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 1: I've been led to understand the tricks are exclusively for children.
Speaker 4: Is that correct?
Speaker 10: Well, I mean they say tricks are for kids in
Speaker 10: the commercials.
Speaker 4: And there's that enforced by law not to my knowledge. No, then.
Speaker 11: Anything any such such stake tapping the show can do anything.
Speaker 11: Then chat change tact.
Speaker 1: And I think.
Speaker 11: Back from tat
Speaker 3: Don't do