Speaker 1: All right, what's going on? Drivetime Monday afternoon, eleven minutes
Speaker 1: past the hour of two o'clock. It is very warm today.
Speaker 1: It is very hot.
Speaker 2: It is about ninety three degrees in sunny.
Speaker 1: It's a warm day. It's gonna be a very warm week,
Speaker 1: kind of the dog days of summer. Happy Monday to you.
Speaker 1: Hope you had a great weekend, and as it is
Speaker 1: every single day, it's going to have you along for
Speaker 1: the ride. Spence check, it's back beyond the mic. I
Speaker 1: was out last Thursday and Friday after a very busy
Speaker 1: Tuesday and Wednesday in Dallas for Big twelve Media Days.
Speaker 1: Had a good time down there. That's a heavy lift.
Speaker 1: Eight hours of live radio back to back days.
Speaker 2: But good to have Sean by my side.
Speaker 1: Sean O'Connell, and I want to remind you that any
Speaker 1: of the sound you may have missed from Media Days,
Speaker 1: University of Utah BYU and others, ESPN seven hundred, Sports
Speaker 1: dot com is where you go if you're pinting for
Speaker 1: more college football conversation.
Speaker 2: After a massive, massive.
Speaker 1: Couple of days down in Dallas, but it is great
Speaker 1: to be back in front of his microphone on this
Speaker 1: Monday afternoon.
Speaker 2: Hope you had a great weekend. Happy Monday team.
Speaker 1: The Vegas Summer League rolls along the Utah Jazz and
Speaker 1: several other teams have decided to load Management's summer league.
Speaker 1: Cooper Flagg has been shut down. We don't know if
Speaker 1: Dace Bailey is going to play again. He did not
Speaker 1: play last night. Neither did Wall Clayton Junior. The Jazz
Speaker 1: are playing the Spurs tonight. We'll see if Dylan Harper goes.
Speaker 1: But we have some summer league action, and we are
Speaker 1: inching closer and closer to fall camp in the world
Speaker 1: of college football. But we're gonna do a little something
Speaker 1: different today. Last Wednesday, we lost Frank Layton at the
Speaker 1: age of ninety three, the legendary Jazz head coach, NBA
Speaker 1: Executive of the Year, Coach of the Year in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four, and quite frankly, that's like two percent of
Speaker 1: the measure of the man pillar in our community. Father, husband,
Speaker 1: friend to many, And the timing of everything was very
Speaker 1: unfortunate because I was not on air the day after
Speaker 1: Frank passed, nor was I able to attend the services
Speaker 1: over the weekend. My father was there, some family members
Speaker 1: were able to attend, but I was officiating a wedding
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, actually in Data Point, but I could
Speaker 1: not tap out of that. So I'm going to dedicate
Speaker 1: today's show to Frank's memory. So we're kind of throwing
Speaker 1: out the rundown and we have a great guest list
Speaker 1: on tap. We're gonna start things off with Phil Johnson
Speaker 1: coming up at about two thirty. Fill, of course, was
Speaker 1: Frank's assistant and then went on to become Jerry's assistant.
Speaker 1: Phil himself was a head coach and a Coach of
Speaker 1: the Year winner, a great, great offensive mine. So we're
Speaker 1: gonna bring in Phil right off the bat. Frank's son,
Speaker 1: Scott Layden will join us, and for those of you
Speaker 1: that know Scott, you know it's a big, massive coup
Speaker 1: to get him on the show.
Speaker 2: So he's gonna stop by.
Speaker 1: Later on, My father, Dave Jackets will stop by, and
Speaker 1: then Ron McBride, former head coach of the University of
Speaker 1: Utah football team, and then Richard Smith live in the studio,
Speaker 1: Phil Johnson, Smitty.
Speaker 2: Scott Laden, Dave.
Speaker 1: Checkets me, Spence checkets all of you, the great listeners,
Speaker 1: Coach Ron McBride, and that young man Porter Larson on
Speaker 1: a Monday afternoon. Happy Monday, buddy, how are you doing?
Speaker 1: Happy Monday to you?
Speaker 3: Up?
Speaker 4: What up?
Speaker 1: How are you? How is your trip? So first of all,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe we'll do some story time later. I
Speaker 1: gotta say, you know, I speak for a living and
Speaker 1: I've done it for twenty years, and I have addressed groups,
Speaker 1: and I've MC dinners and I've hosted round tables. I
Speaker 1: was stunned at how nervous I was to officiate a wedding.
Speaker 1: It really caught me off guard, Like it's probably a
Speaker 1: unique pressure. I didn't feel nervous, and I prepared, I
Speaker 1: wrote my script. I went over the thing like four
Speaker 1: or five times. In Orange County, there are specific pieces
Speaker 1: of legal ease you have to intertwine to make sure
Speaker 1: you say the right thing at the right time. And
Speaker 1: then as the Sarah, you know, I walked out there
Speaker 1: first because star of the show whatever, no deal. And
Speaker 1: as I'm standing there, I see some family, see some
Speaker 1: friends feeling good. What was your walkout song? Well, I
Speaker 1: didn't really choose it. It was whatever their wedding song was.
Speaker 1: I believe it was, you know, some sort of love song.
Speaker 1: So I don't even remember. But I'm standing there, wedding
Speaker 1: party walks up, bride and groom stand there, and then
Speaker 1: I need to launch into Dearly Beloved. You know we're here,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah, and my hands started cheaking. I
Speaker 1: didn't like my body had this visceral reaction like fight
Speaker 1: or flight. Dude.
Speaker 5: It was weird.
Speaker 1: And you're usually sitting down doing a show.
Speaker 2: That's fair, and also in a studio with nobody around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and to have hundreds of people do a d
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, it kind of caught me off guard.
Speaker 2: How nervous so was.
Speaker 6: There's a part of radio where you stop talking to
Speaker 6: the listener and you just start talking to the mic,
Speaker 6: and you just start, you know, doing it. You stop
Speaker 6: thinking about the audience. That's different when they're staring at
Speaker 6: you and it's the biggest moment of two people's lives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get it. I get it.
Speaker 6: But as you mentioned earlier, throwing out the rundown, only
Speaker 6: a few people on the planet I would do that
Speaker 6: for Frank.
Speaker 1: Laydon's absolutely, So today's show is all about the life
Speaker 1: and the memory of Frank Laydon Without Frank. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't think it's hyperbolic to say that there is no
Speaker 1: Utah Jazz. So Phil Johnson will be our first guest
Speaker 1: via phone, but joining me live in studio, good enough
Speaker 1: to do this for the next four hours or so.
Speaker 1: Someone who has a unique perspective on not just Frank
Speaker 1: but the Leyden family, the legacy and the life of
Speaker 1: Frank Leyden. One of, if not the best friends to
Speaker 1: that family. Rich At Smith live in studio, Smitty, happy
Speaker 1: money man, how are.
Speaker 7: You, Spen's good to be with you and excited for
Speaker 7: this day. This is I'm predicting that this ends up
Speaker 7: on your podcast show on the on the the website
Speaker 7: they just spend seven hundred website in the future as
Speaker 7: the best show of the year. I'm predicting that right
Speaker 7: now because this guest list you have and the stories
Speaker 7: that I'm going to predict are going to start flowing
Speaker 7: and coming out. Are is going to be a great
Speaker 7: moment for ESPN seven hundred. I'm excited that you and
Speaker 7: Porter decided to do this, and this is a great
Speaker 7: a great opportunity to uh to to honor, you know,
Speaker 7: one of the true legends.
Speaker 5: In our community.
Speaker 1: And I don't have to tell port this, but I'm
Speaker 1: going to remind him on air. Our bumps today will
Speaker 1: all be Frank Sinatra. I know he's already on that, yep.
Speaker 1: As we bring all these guests and so Smitty, let's
Speaker 1: start with as I referenced, Uh, you know, the timing
Speaker 1: of course of these things.
Speaker 2: It's never great, and certainly none of this is about me.
Speaker 1: But I had an obligation over the weekend that I
Speaker 1: could not tap out of, so therefore I was not
Speaker 1: able to attend the services. So we'll get into Frank's life,
Speaker 1: his legacy story time. But tell us, you know, talk
Speaker 1: to my father. We're gonna bring him on later. How
Speaker 1: are the services that kind of take us first?
Speaker 7: Yeah, the services were great. It was a quick turnaround.
Speaker 7: Frank passed away on Wednesday midday and a decision was
Speaker 7: made by the family it would be best to do
Speaker 7: a service as quick as they could try and organize one,
Speaker 7: which ended up being on Saturday morning at eleven o'clock
Speaker 7: at the Cathedral of the Madeline here in downtown Salt
Speaker 7: Lake City, which, by the way, those who were not
Speaker 7: able to attend or would be interested in viewing the service,
Speaker 7: It actually is the whole service video online on YouTube.
Speaker 7: You could just go to YouTube and just type in
Speaker 7: funeral service of frank Leyden and it'll pop up and
Speaker 7: you can watch the whole service. But it was, it
Speaker 7: was a beautiful, beautiful morning. A lot of people came Spence,
Speaker 7: you're not You're not the only dignitary who who couldn't
Speaker 7: make it on on such short notice. Chris Hill, who
Speaker 7: wanted to be there, was on a fiftieth anniversary cruise
Speaker 7: with his wife Kathy, Frank's good friends Chris Lino and
Speaker 7: Colleen Lindstrom, or or back east at a family gathering
Speaker 7: in New York. Dave Friedman, who certainly would have been there,
Speaker 7: was an early jazz guy from the day one, and
Speaker 7: he's he's in a family obligation in southern Illinois and
Speaker 7: so people are spread all over the place. Ron McBride
Speaker 7: made it. He was at mac we'll talk about later,
Speaker 7: but he was at a wedding in Cincinnati on Thursday.
Speaker 7: On Friday, excuse me, Friday afternoon, got up at four
Speaker 7: am Saturday morning, six am, flight to Salt Lake, comes
Speaker 7: to Frank's services, comes to the celebratory lunch in the afternoon.
Speaker 7: After that, goes home, takes a quick nap, gets up
Speaker 7: the next day on Sunday flies to Hawaii to to
Speaker 7: work at a football camp where he is this week.
Speaker 7: Uh and and that's that's the dedication that that people
Speaker 7: have when they when they want to honor somebody like that.
Speaker 7: And then coach Mack made all that effort just to
Speaker 7: make sure he was here. And he's the one who
Speaker 7: texted me earlier to say, hey, Vicky just texted me
Speaker 7: and said, you guys are doing a show about Frank
Speaker 7: this afternoon.
Speaker 5: What time am I on? Oh?
Speaker 7: I said, I said, okay, Mac, I said, let me
Speaker 7: check with Spence and I'll get.
Speaker 5: Right back to you.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and and uh And that's the kind of friends
Speaker 7: Frank has and and that's that's the legacy he has,
Speaker 7: and that's what what hopefully we're able to honor today.
Speaker 1: And I do have to say thank you, Smitty to
Speaker 1: you because we have Phil Johnson, Scott Laden, Dave Check,
Speaker 1: it's Ron McBride today. But you sent me a list
Speaker 1: of about twenty names that I forwarded it on to
Speaker 1: my producer and Dynamite showbooker Porter And so this week
Speaker 1: we will intersperse the Dave All reads, the Jay Francis
Speaker 1: is the Dave Fredmans of the world and you know
Speaker 1: we'll do that next week as well. So it's not
Speaker 1: just going to be today, but today is all about Frank.
Speaker 1: For our listener's context, Smitty, what's the origin story. When
Speaker 1: did you first meet Frank Layton? When did you first
Speaker 1: become connected to the family. Let's kind of get some
Speaker 1: contexts on just how unique the relationship is that you
Speaker 1: have with Frank and Scott in the entire family.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well it's my mine's very very different. And then
Speaker 7: everybody has a has a different path and a different story.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 7: I'm in graduate school in Connecticut. I'm working as a
Speaker 7: graduate assistant at Central Connecticut from my college coach there.
Speaker 7: I get a job offer at the University of View Talk.
Speaker 7: As I'm studying a graduate program in higher education administration.
Speaker 7: I've been doing some stuff on the basketball side at
Speaker 7: the school, and so I go to see my coach,
Speaker 7: coach Bill Dietrich, longtime venerable New England coach, to say
Speaker 7: my goodbyes. I'm moving out west. He says, hey, when
Speaker 7: you get out there, get settled as you go see
Speaker 7: my friend Frank Layden. He just got the job as
Speaker 7: the general manager of the Utah Jazz. And I said
Speaker 7: oh great. Now this is in May of seventy nine. Well,
Speaker 7: the Jazz were still in New Orleans. And so at
Speaker 7: that moment, as I'm speaking to coach Dietrich, I'm trying
Speaker 7: to figure out a way to tell him that, well,
Speaker 7: Salt Lake City and New Orleans aren't exactly next door
Speaker 7: to each other, you know. And then I said something
Speaker 7: you know to the extent to him and he said, no, no,
Speaker 7: you don't understand. I just talked to Frank the other
Speaker 7: day and he told me that they're going to make
Speaker 7: an announcement that the team is moving to Salt Lake
Speaker 7: and then he leaned forward spence for emphasis across his
Speaker 7: desk and said, don't tell anybody. And so I said, wow, okay,
Speaker 7: so that happens, I move out here. I'm I'm not
Speaker 7: gonna go see Frank because I don't want to bother
Speaker 7: him because there's a million people after him. The team's
Speaker 7: moved here, and everybody's quote after a job. And then
Speaker 7: my coach sends me a handwritten note in October of
Speaker 7: that year, Hey, I hope it's.
Speaker 5: Going well in Utah.
Speaker 7: Make sure you go see frank leydon and tell him
Speaker 7: I sent to Maybe he can give you a job
Speaker 7: as a part time scout or something on the side.
Speaker 5: Okay, So I.
Speaker 7: Reluctantly go to see Frank because I'm thinking I don't
Speaker 7: want to bother him, but at the same time, I
Speaker 7: want to honor my coach who has made a couple
Speaker 7: of efforts to connect us. So I go see Frank
Speaker 7: and we meet and nothing happens of that. But a
Speaker 7: couple of years later, he takes over his coach. He
Speaker 7: hires Scotty, who comes out to help him. Scott and
Speaker 7: I start running in the same circles up at the
Speaker 7: University of Utah, pick up basketball guys, and we start
Speaker 7: connecting and become friends through that. And then he decided
Speaker 7: he wanted to ask me if I would do some
Speaker 7: part time stuff for them on the game nights, and
Speaker 7: then uh, and then doing some video stuff, and then
Speaker 7: doing some scouting stuff. And then it all started, you know, uh,
Speaker 7: piling up one, you know, one year after another, another responsibility,
Speaker 7: another thing, Can you do this, can you do that?
Speaker 5: And all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 7: And and I did that for thirteen years on a
Speaker 7: part time basis, and never thinking it was gonna be
Speaker 7: anything else. I was just doing it to help out
Speaker 7: my friends, and the people became my friends who were
Speaker 7: Frank Layton and Phil Johnson and and uh and of
Speaker 7: course Jerry Sloan and and uh. And then in ninety
Speaker 7: five they they said they wanted to create a new
Speaker 7: position as a video coordinator in a college scout and
Speaker 7: do you want to come and do that full time?
Speaker 7: Wasn't sure I wanted to do it, but my wife
Speaker 7: kind of convinced me, Hey, you should try it. And
Speaker 7: you know, you can always go back to higher education again,
Speaker 7: another job, whatever, but this is probably one one shot
Speaker 7: deal to work in the NBA. And I said, you know,
Speaker 7: that makes sense, and Scotty was saying the same thing,
Speaker 7: so so I kind of took that leap of faith
Speaker 7: and it ended up snowballing into a twenty seven years
Speaker 7: and you know, working full time, but over the span
Speaker 7: of the life of my relationship with the Jazz and
Speaker 7: the Leyden family ended up going from eighty two basically
Speaker 7: to twenty twenty two with the Jazz and a forty
Speaker 7: year career working with the Jazz, and of course my
Speaker 7: relationship with the Leyden's obviously much much further past the
Speaker 7: relationship with the Jazz once they left and went to
Speaker 7: New York and other stops along the way. But Frank
Speaker 7: just became a good friend because that's who he is.
Speaker 5: He's just I know how to say it, because.
Speaker 7: I know it sounds being redundant or like beating a
Speaker 7: dead horse. But he was a regular guy, and he
Speaker 7: was just everybody's friend, and everybody was the same to him,
Speaker 7: and he was concerned about everybody on the same level
Speaker 7: and always asking what he.
Speaker 5: Could do for you.
Speaker 7: And you know, we just became very good friends in
Speaker 7: recent years, became more meaningful to me as he got older,
Speaker 7: and our relationship became even stronger. And I'm all the
Speaker 7: better for that.
Speaker 1: So Smitty, for context, oftentimes when he would be on
Speaker 1: his way into the studio to do his hit with me,
Speaker 1: you would be coming straight from spending some time with Coach.
Speaker 2: In his care facilities.
Speaker 1: So you were good enough to give me updates that
Speaker 1: I would share with my family. We will catch a break,
Speaker 1: but Smithy is going to be along for the ride
Speaker 1: during the entire show.
Speaker 2: Coming up at three o'clock. It'll just be Smitty and I.
Speaker 1: But let's catch a break so we can get to
Speaker 1: Phil Johnson coming up on the other side. So here's
Speaker 1: the rundown for the show today, it's a little bit different.
Speaker 1: We are honoring the life of Frank Laydon, who he
Speaker 1: lost last week at the age of ninety three.
Speaker 2: Last Wednesday we have thrown out of the rundown.
Speaker 1: Today we are honoring the life of Frank Laydon, who
Speaker 1: he lost last week at the age of ninety three.
Speaker 1: Scott Layden's going to join us a little bit later,
Speaker 1: my father Dave check its McBride. We may even get
Speaker 1: a random call in from Karl Malone. We're going to
Speaker 1: see how that work. Smitty is live in studio with me.
Speaker 1: All show a long which I appreciate. And let's welcome
Speaker 1: in our first guest of this Monday show, an assistant
Speaker 1: coach for Frank. One coach of the Year in his
Speaker 1: own right, and of course went on with a great
Speaker 1: run next to Jerry Sloan. The great Phil Johnson good
Speaker 1: enough to give us some time on a Monday afternoon.
Speaker 2: Phil, Happy Monday, sir.
Speaker 1: How are you well?
Speaker 8: Nice? Nice to talk to you, Spance. How's everything going.
Speaker 2: Everything's good. I really appreciate your time.
Speaker 1: So you're one of the first people I've thought of
Speaker 1: when we were putting this Rundown together. So I just
Speaker 1: wonder how you articulate your relationship with Frank in kind
Speaker 1: of the legacy he leaves behind as he passed away
Speaker 1: last week.
Speaker 8: Well, first of all, I was in I was having
Speaker 8: trouble getting a job because Jerry and I had both
Speaker 8: been fired in Chicago, and so I didn't have a
Speaker 8: lot of opportunities. But Frank called and I came out
Speaker 8: for an interview to be his assistant, and that was
Speaker 8: the start of are of our relationship. And uh, it
Speaker 8: was just amazing to work for him. I had worked
Speaker 8: I have been in the in the Dick Mota, you know.
Speaker 8: And my my, my era of coaching was a lot
Speaker 8: with his style of coaching, and so Frank brought a
Speaker 8: different outlook to me of his coaching style. And so
Speaker 8: it was it was really important to me in my life.
Speaker 8: And he was more than just a coach to me.
Speaker 8: He was a really good friend. And I could tell
Speaker 8: him anything and he could tell me anything. And uh,
Speaker 8: and we we honored each other and I honored him.
Speaker 5: Coach this is Toby.
Speaker 7: Uh, tell our listeners just a little bit about the
Speaker 7: inner workings when you were with coach Leyden, how how
Speaker 7: he empowered those of you who were working around him
Speaker 7: in terms of working with the team every day.
Speaker 8: Well, it's interesting because you know when I first came
Speaker 8: out here, I moved out here, got the job, came
Speaker 8: out for an interview, and the press interviewed this and everything.
Speaker 3: And.
Speaker 8: I was wondering when we were going to have a meeting.
Speaker 8: I kept thinking, geez, are we going to have a meeting.
Speaker 8: I'd go down to the Selp house and Frank wouldn't
Speaker 8: be there, and so I just kind of waited. Finally,
Speaker 8: after I said, well, I'll go to the meeting early
Speaker 8: Westminster for practice, and so Frank came in and just
Speaker 8: before practice and looked in Scott and I were there
Speaker 8: and he said, Phil, I really like what you do offensively.
Speaker 8: Can you put that in? And that was the start
Speaker 8: of us. And I said okay, And so that day
Speaker 8: I started putting the offense in that we used here
Speaker 8: for probably thirty years. So that's how much he trusted
Speaker 8: me as to what I could do for this team,
Speaker 8: and so he was very He really listened to me.
Speaker 8: He wanted to put things in that I wanted to
Speaker 8: put and I obviously made everything made sure he was agreed.
Speaker 8: I just didn't put things in without talking to him
Speaker 8: and so forth. But that's kind of how we worked it.
Speaker 8: And a lot of times he just turned practice over
Speaker 8: to me and I, you know, he might Sam Batistone
Speaker 8: might come up to visit and he'd say, Phil, you
Speaker 8: got practice. I'm going to talk to Sam. And so
Speaker 8: that's how much trust he had in me. But more
Speaker 8: than that, it's how I watched him coach the team
Speaker 8: because he was a really good, tough coach. A lot
Speaker 8: of people get this idea that he was a jokester
Speaker 8: and he told jokes and he was funny. Yeah he
Speaker 8: did that, but not with his team very much. Once
Speaker 8: in a while, but usually he was very strict guys.
Speaker 8: When guys guy rounded him to start practice, he had
Speaker 8: him have their hands behind their back, standard attention. Now,
Speaker 8: I've never heard of that before, but you know what,
Speaker 8: the guys did it. So that's kind of how it started,
Speaker 8: and that's how much trust he had in me.
Speaker 1: Well, the nineteen eighty three eighty four team really solidified
Speaker 1: the presence here in the market, made the playoffs, first
Speaker 1: playoff appearance since moving to Utah, won the Midwest Division.
Speaker 1: Adrian Danley, Ricky green All Stars, Frank coach the All
Speaker 1: Star Team. He was Coach of the Year Executive of
Speaker 1: the Year. He was the first to do it at
Speaker 1: the time. Only pat Riley, Larry Bird and one other
Speaker 1: Frank has won of four people to have won both
Speaker 1: of those awards. But you already referenced the offense that
Speaker 1: you implemented and the offense that year. You guys averaged
Speaker 1: like one hundred and sixteen points per game and one
Speaker 1: of the best offensive teams in the NBA. Tell us
Speaker 1: about that year and tell us about that experience and
Speaker 1: what it was like to watch that group come together
Speaker 1: and really the first playoff appear, Aaron's beating Denver in
Speaker 1: the first round, solidifying the Jazz here in Salt Lake.
Speaker 8: Yeah, you got to have heart, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 8: The Denver thing, well, you know what, that the year
Speaker 8: before we'd kind of established how how are you going
Speaker 8: to play? And we had they had drafted Mark Eaton
Speaker 8: before before I got before I even came that year,
Speaker 8: but that's the same year I came. He came in
Speaker 8: the same year I came with the team. So we
Speaker 8: added like Rich Kelly and some important pieces to that.
Speaker 8: And I'll tell you what that team just came together.
Speaker 8: You know, Adrian Dantley, for his hike, was one of
Speaker 8: the greatest players to ever play in the NBA. And
Speaker 8: so you know, you put John Drew with him. Even
Speaker 8: though he had some personal problems, he cleaned himself up
Speaker 8: for that year. And also he would come in off
Speaker 8: the bench, and so you had Ricky Green and Jerry's
Speaker 8: backing him up and Daryl Griffiths and these guys that
Speaker 8: could play basketball. And so it was like Daryl Griffiths,
Speaker 8: I mean, they shoot threes today, but he was shooting
Speaker 8: them down. Not as often as they do today, but
Speaker 8: he could make threes and that really made us an
Speaker 8: explosive team.
Speaker 5: Coach.
Speaker 7: When you tell people, I don't think a lot of
Speaker 7: our fans know you were at that stint. You you
Speaker 7: were with the Jazz for a couple of years and
Speaker 7: then you got another opportunity to be a head coach
Speaker 7: with the with the Sacramento Kings. Uh tell our listeners
Speaker 7: exactly the how you connected Jerry and how coach Sloan
Speaker 7: ended up coming Uh to take over. When when you
Speaker 7: left the Jazz for that opportunity.
Speaker 8: Well, we were playing in Portland and I got a
Speaker 8: call in the morning before the game that night, and
Speaker 8: Sam Battison said it was Kansas City. At that time
Speaker 8: they hadn't moved yet, and he said, Kansas City wants
Speaker 8: to talk to you, and I've given them permission to
Speaker 8: talk to you. And I said, oh, I don't want it.
Speaker 8: He said, Phil, you need to be a head coach again.
Speaker 8: And I said, okay, Well I'll talk to them. And
Speaker 8: so I interviewed with Kansas City and then they were
Speaker 8: going to move the next year to Sacramento. But anyway,
Speaker 8: I ended up taking the job, which in retrospective was
Speaker 8: a mistake, but I took the job and Frank and
Speaker 8: Frank said, Phil, who do you want to replace? Who
Speaker 8: do you think I should hire to replace you? And
Speaker 8: I said Jerry Sloan. Now Jerry had done a little
Speaker 8: bit of scouting for us, not much, a little bit
Speaker 8: of scouting in the Midwest area, I said Jerry Sloan.
Speaker 8: He said, well, Phil, would you call him for me?
Speaker 8: I called Jerry and asked him if he wanted to
Speaker 8: replace me. So that's how that happened. He said, yeah,
Speaker 8: I'll come out and talk to talk to Frank, and
Speaker 8: so that's how that happened. So That's an interesting story,
Speaker 8: isn't it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Well, what's interesting about the coaches is that how
Speaker 7: things work that way when when people are going to
Speaker 7: make a personal recommendation and just someone says, well, if
Speaker 7: Phil Johnson says that's that's what we should do, then
Speaker 7: that's what we should do. And there's not all this,
Speaker 7: you know, bringing in fifty people to interview and all this.
Speaker 5: Kind of stuff.
Speaker 7: And and uh, you know that that relationship that you
Speaker 7: and Frank had and the trust he had in you
Speaker 7: to to to rely on a recommendation like that for
Speaker 7: someone who he knew Jerry Sloan of course as a
Speaker 7: player and as a coach with the Chicago Bulls, but
Speaker 7: of course didn't know him, you know, real well personally. Uh,
Speaker 7: until until you made that kind of a connection with them.
Speaker 8: Yeah, And as it worked out, I ended up not
Speaker 8: lasting very long with Sacramento and U and uh, Jerry
Speaker 8: got the job and I was I was his first call,
Speaker 8: and so I was I got released by Sacramento and
Speaker 8: I was able to come and be Jerry's assistant. So
Speaker 8: you know, it was just, uh, it's in this in
Speaker 8: this business, you got to you got to get lucky,
Speaker 8: which I have been in my in my career of
Speaker 8: being able to find some work and and then when
Speaker 8: you get that job, you've got to you've got to perform.
Speaker 8: And so that's that's the way, you know. I've always
Speaker 8: worked as an assistant coach. I try to be as
Speaker 8: loyal as possible. I don't do anything with the team
Speaker 8: without the head coaches knowing what I'm doing. I'm not
Speaker 8: going to talk to him on the side and tell
Speaker 8: them that they're getting they're not getting enough playing time
Speaker 8: and this and that. I'm always if I talk to
Speaker 8: him on the side, it's always backing whoever is the
Speaker 8: head coach. And I've been head assistant coach to three
Speaker 8: great coaches, Dick Mada, Frank Laden, and Jerry Sloan. And
Speaker 8: so that's how I've always operated as an assistant coach.
Speaker 8: But Frank was such a good basketball coach. I I
Speaker 8: just uh, he doesn't get enough recognition and for his
Speaker 8: coaching ability gets more recognition for his jokester and and
Speaker 8: telling telling stories and stuff. He was good at bad obviously,
Speaker 8: but he was a great coach.
Speaker 1: Phil Johnson is our guest longtime assistant coach Utah Jazz.
Speaker 1: Of course, Frank laden and then uh maybe best known
Speaker 1: around here for making sure Jerry Sloan was not ejected
Speaker 1: night after night, and good enough to give.
Speaker 2: Us some time on.
Speaker 1: This Monday afternoon, Phil, take us behind the curtains, and
Speaker 1: you've already referenced about, you know, how you were brought
Speaker 1: back to be Jerry's assistant. And Frank would joke later
Speaker 1: on in life that he knew if he knew coaches
Speaker 1: in the NBA were about to be paid four or five, six,
Speaker 1: seven million dollars a year, maybe he would have, you know,
Speaker 1: reconsidered his decision. But there are very few coaches in
Speaker 1: the history of pro basketball that have decided to walk
Speaker 1: away from a team that was ready to win at
Speaker 1: a high level the way Frank did. And of course
Speaker 1: he wanted to, as he said, quote enjoy life with
Speaker 1: Barbara and his kids.
Speaker 2: But take us.
Speaker 1: Into your understanding of how that decision came down and
Speaker 1: your reaction when you heard that, even though he had
Speaker 1: put together a good team and already had some real success,
Speaker 1: he had decided to step away from a job that
Speaker 1: a lot of people would really really want.
Speaker 8: Well, it's interesting because Frank I had talked to Frank,
Speaker 8: you know, during during when we saw them earlier in
Speaker 8: the year before he retired, and he says, don't make
Speaker 8: any moves. Something's going to happen here. That's what he
Speaker 8: told me. So I was not surprised. He said, don't
Speaker 8: you go any place or anything until you find out
Speaker 8: what's going on here. And so that's really how he
Speaker 8: operated with me. And I knew that. And I'm an
Speaker 8: example myself and Jerry Sloan of when it's time and
Speaker 8: you feel it in your in your soul that it's
Speaker 8: time to get out and leave, that's what you do.
Speaker 8: And that's what Jerry and I did. That's what Frank did,
Speaker 8: and so that's the that's kind of what happens with that.
Speaker 8: You just you feel like and you know it's in
Speaker 8: really good hands with with Jerry Sloan, that's how he
Speaker 8: felt and so I you know, I I haven't spent
Speaker 8: a lot time talking to him about it, but I
Speaker 8: think that was kind of his thought process.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think the coach, the relationship that you guys
Speaker 7: built with the players and the way that you coached them.
Speaker 7: You could always see, you know, the respect they had
Speaker 7: for for for how you approached the job every day
Speaker 7: in practice, and what that meant to you in terms
Speaker 7: of getting ready for the games.
Speaker 5: Uh, can you talk to us just.
Speaker 7: A little bit about you know that that daily practice
Speaker 7: regimen and and and the kind of approach that that
Speaker 7: you and coach Layden had had with the players.
Speaker 8: Well, you know, it just was there was no there
Speaker 8: There was no joking around, There was no there. There
Speaker 8: was always serious business when we started practice, and you
Speaker 8: know we had and we had a reteam. For instance,
Speaker 8: I when when I came with Frank, I worked with
Speaker 8: the big guy. We would split up half on each
Speaker 8: end and Scott and Frank would work with the smaller
Speaker 8: the guards on one end and I'd work with the
Speaker 8: forwards and the centers on the other end of the
Speaker 8: and we had drills and something. So we got into
Speaker 8: a routine. And that's that's been the story of my life.
Speaker 8: That's how I lived my life now is routine. And
Speaker 8: if you can get into a routine and let them
Speaker 8: know what's going to happen, and you've changed things obviously
Speaker 8: along the way, but get into a routine and know
Speaker 8: that you're going to work on the things that you're
Speaker 8: going to that's going to benefit them later. And that's
Speaker 8: that's really how you build their confidence and their ability
Speaker 8: to accept what you're doing, and so they don't have
Speaker 8: to do a bunch of radical changes every time. Now,
Speaker 8: once you start the season, you're going to have to
Speaker 8: change for each opponent and that type of thing, and
Speaker 8: you've got to be ready for that. But that's kind
Speaker 8: of how we approached it, and so you know, that
Speaker 8: was that's just how we ran things.
Speaker 7: That's interesting, Coach that you mentioned about how good a
Speaker 7: coach that Frank was and the x's and o's and
Speaker 7: how serious he was during during practice sessions and during
Speaker 7: the course of games and making adjustments and timeouts and
Speaker 7: so forth. I recently saw a documentary done by the
Speaker 7: granddaughter of Yogi Bera, who put a documentary together about
Speaker 7: his career and his life, basically making the point that
Speaker 7: he was one of the best catchers of all time
Speaker 7: in baseball, and all the numbers, not just because he
Speaker 7: was on championship Yankee teams, but all of his individual
Speaker 7: numbers showed that he was one of the best catchers ever.
Speaker 7: And yet he never gets quite that due for being
Speaker 7: an actual day to day baseball player because of all
Speaker 7: the quips and the quotes and the stories he would
Speaker 7: tell afterward. Everybody kind of gleaned on that and kind
Speaker 7: of didn't really pay attention to the hard court stuff
Speaker 7: he was doing every day as a ballplayer. And that
Speaker 7: kind of alludes a little bit to what you were
Speaker 7: saying earlier about about how Frank you know, he'd got
Speaker 7: more attention for the stories and the interviews and all
Speaker 7: that than really about how good of a coach he
Speaker 7: was on the floor.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think that's very relatable. And you know, Frank
Speaker 8: during Frink, he had so much trust in me. Is
Speaker 8: like I said, routine and everything, but he had so
Speaker 8: much trust in me that he would come and you know,
Speaker 8: we'd call it, he'd call a time out and they'd
Speaker 8: come and he'd stand up and I would kneel down
Speaker 8: in the in the huddle and he would talk. He
Speaker 8: seldom got on his knees or anything, the way he
Speaker 8: would stand up and talk to him and he'd talk
Speaker 8: to him about this and that, But what's going on
Speaker 8: the score, this and that. They ain't lean over to me,
Speaker 8: He says, Phil, what do you want to run? That's
Speaker 8: how much trust he had and that's how we ran things.
Speaker 8: And then Scott had his input to Scott was great
Speaker 8: with his his input as far as you know, he
Speaker 8: had knowledge way beyond his years, and so you know,
Speaker 8: it was just an effective staff. And you know, you
Speaker 8: can't overlook guys like Sparky that was our trainer, that
Speaker 8: had tremendous loyalty to the coaches, and you know, it
Speaker 8: went down the line. The ownership. Sam Batistone was great
Speaker 8: to work for during that time, so things went well,
Speaker 8: you know.
Speaker 1: And Phil Johnson is with us here on the drive.
Speaker 1: We are honoring the life and legacy of Frank Leiden,
Speaker 1: who passed last week at the age of ninety three.
Speaker 1: And I want to hear from both of you on
Speaker 1: this because I've heard both of you say this and
Speaker 1: other people as well. Because of Frank's front facing kind
Speaker 1: of comedic personality, did dazzling dunks and basketball bloopers with
Speaker 1: Marv Albert that I've watched ten thousand times as a kid.
Speaker 1: The coaching phase of his life is off and overlooked.
Speaker 1: But what about the talent evaluation And it's certainly it's
Speaker 1: never a decision made by one person, and Frank had
Speaker 1: Scott and Scouts. But you can make an argument that
Speaker 1: John carl are two of the best draft picks of
Speaker 1: all time. And then there's Mark Eaton, then there's Throw Bailey,
Speaker 1: then there's Bobby Hanson and trading for Adrian Danley. Later
Speaker 1: Jeff Hornsack is brought in. So Phil will start with you, then, Smittye,
Speaker 1: I want to hear from you as well. So Frank,
Speaker 1: certainly as a basketball coach, had high acumen, but it's
Speaker 1: pretty undeniable that he also was an excellent evalu evaluator
Speaker 1: of talent.
Speaker 8: Yeah, well, I don't think there's any question. Uh, you know,
Speaker 8: first of all, Scott was really good at that and
Speaker 8: now it always has been and uh, and we were
Speaker 8: we're in a position where we would Frank really listen
Speaker 8: to people. He listened to Scott and he listened to
Speaker 8: people around him. And then what goes with that is
Speaker 8: you got to get a little lucky, you know what
Speaker 8: you know, you don't, it's it's we made we made
Speaker 8: some choices that weren't particularly good, you know, but you've
Speaker 8: got to get a little better lucky for even for
Speaker 8: that guy to be available. And then once you get
Speaker 8: him that he's good as good as you think he's
Speaker 8: going to be. You know, we go back you and
Speaker 8: take you back to when John Stockton came out. You know,
Speaker 8: we'd we'd heard he was a pretty good basketball player,
Speaker 8: and we went back to Chicago to the Trout camps
Speaker 8: back there, and I saw him play and I said,
Speaker 8: and Scott and I were sitting together and I said, Scott,
Speaker 8: this guy's pretty darn good. So we kept watching film
Speaker 8: and everything, and we kept thinking that that Portland was
Speaker 8: going to take him ahead of us. And so when
Speaker 8: we when we called the press in to see who
Speaker 8: we had on our board as perspective draft picks, we
Speaker 8: didn't put John Stockton's name on the board. That's how
Speaker 8: how how we were hiding him from the press and
Speaker 8: not even using his name. And so when when we
Speaker 8: saw that and Portland didn't take him, we were right
Speaker 8: there and were able to get him. So you have
Speaker 8: to juggle in there, and then you've got to get
Speaker 8: lucky that John Stockton's going to be as harder worker
Speaker 8: and a person as he is, and so's and that's
Speaker 8: what we tried to look for as character, guys that
Speaker 8: had character and were good people and in along with
Speaker 8: their talents. So really that's that's kind of how it went.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it is, it is interesting coach.
Speaker 7: The base of the foundation of the Jazz organization as
Speaker 7: it exists today, you know, some fifty years later, was
Speaker 7: all set by the tone I think of Frank as
Speaker 7: the general manager and then as he was the head coach,
Speaker 7: and the kind of players he tried to bring in,
Speaker 7: I mean, just right off the bat, you know, nineteen
Speaker 7: eighty drafting Darryl Griffith, eighty one, trading for Adrian Dantley,
Speaker 7: eighty two, drafting Dominic Wilkins, who never came could have
Speaker 7: been one of the guys with the group you know that.
Speaker 5: Took off in the eighties, but had that thing.
Speaker 7: But at that time, you know, we remember that the
Speaker 7: Jazz were in trouble financially, and so some of the
Speaker 7: the money that they paid to sell Dominic Wilkins' rights
Speaker 7: to Atlanta helped to keep the team afloat at that time.
Speaker 7: And and you know, something like that enters into the
Speaker 7: fray and and Frank just went, you know, just did
Speaker 7: what he had to do at that moment in time
Speaker 7: to make sure, you know, it worked as best as
Speaker 7: you could. And then he drafts you know, Mark Eaton
Speaker 7: and Bobby Hansen, and then John Stockton, and then Carl
Speaker 7: Malone and and and that basis, but getting the right guys.
Speaker 7: And I remember being there. Those are the first two
Speaker 7: drafts that I was helping out with in eighty four
Speaker 7: eighty five, and you know, getting John at sixteen and
Speaker 7: then and then the next year Carl was supposed to
Speaker 7: go five, six.
Speaker 5: Seven, and he kept falling.
Speaker 7: And I remember Frank saying the Scott, what's what are
Speaker 7: we gonna do at thirteen? Well, we got to take
Speaker 7: Malone if he's there. And Frank, well, I hope there's
Speaker 7: nothing wrong with him. I mean, how come everybody else
Speaker 7: is passing him? And Scott goes, well, we got to
Speaker 7: take him. He's the best player. And that's what it
Speaker 7: turned out to be, that he came to us at
Speaker 7: thirteen and we take him. And I remember Frank in
Speaker 7: the post draft media availability session said well, somebody asked
Speaker 7: him you hoping Malone will score a lot of points
Speaker 7: for you next year, and he said, well, we got
Speaker 7: a lot of scoring.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 7: We have Adrian Dantley, and we have Drel Griffith, and
Speaker 7: we have Ricky Green, and we have John Drew coming
Speaker 7: off the bench, and he goes and we got Mark
Speaker 7: Eaton developing as a rim protector in the middle, but
Speaker 7: we really need some rebounding, so we hope he comes
Speaker 7: in and helps us with the rebounding and interior defense.
Speaker 7: And then if he scores eight or ten points a game,
Speaker 7: that'll be a bonus, you know, and thirty five thousand
Speaker 7: points later or whatever.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 7: It's but like you say, you got to get the
Speaker 7: right guys, you got to get a foundation. But then
Speaker 7: also there's some measure of luck that where you get
Speaker 7: guys like John and Carl who not only end up
Speaker 7: being great people, hard workers, great talent, but also they
Speaker 7: just happened to play every night, uh, every game for
Speaker 7: all these years. You know, they're not taking nights off
Speaker 7: and they're not doing load management or whatever. They're just
Speaker 7: playing every single night. And that that was a big
Speaker 7: thing that you just kind of luck into.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's that's that's part of it, that's for sure.
Speaker 8: And uh and that that is the part that comes
Speaker 8: along with the luck, you know. But but you also
Speaker 8: got to you've got to do your work and and
Speaker 8: also plan for anything you can.
Speaker 1: Fill last thing and we'll sell you loose, sir, so
Speaker 1: much appreciate you joining us today. Uh, of course.
Speaker 9: Uh.
Speaker 1: I think it's safe to say the majority of our
Speaker 1: listeners of a certain age remember you and Jerry on
Speaker 1: the sidelines during the incredible run you had together that
Speaker 1: led to a couple of NBA Finals appearances, and uh,
Speaker 1: the the the golden era of jazz basketball. How much
Speaker 1: of that era I do not want to take any
Speaker 1: of it away from you and Jerry, But since we're
Speaker 1: talking about Frank, how much of that era had Frank's
Speaker 1: fingerprints fingerprints on it?
Speaker 8: Well, he had them all. It was all over on
Speaker 8: with him because he had set he had set the franchise,
Speaker 8: he had saved the franchise bottom line, and uh, he
Speaker 8: had we had a basis to work from, and then
Speaker 8: we just carried it on, you know. And uh, And
Speaker 8: he coached, Jerry coached in his own style. He didn't
Speaker 8: coach exactly like Frank or he didn't coach exactly like
Speaker 8: any player coach he'd played for. He coached like Jerry
Speaker 8: Sloan coaches. And I helped him like I helped coaches.
Speaker 8: And I helped him and we had a great relationship.
Speaker 8: And and that's really the basis for how we succeeded.
Speaker 8: We also were lucky to have really good players and uh,
Speaker 8: and then we're able to play games and play a
Speaker 8: lot of games and not miss games. I mean, players
Speaker 8: today it's it's amazing how how they take games off
Speaker 8: and miss games. And our players didn't do that. And
Speaker 8: so not only that, later on we had to end
Speaker 8: us backing of our players with ownership as far as
Speaker 8: Larry Miller was concerned. You had Mark Eaton that back
Speaker 8: does tremendously, and we had John Stockton and Karl Malone
Speaker 8: that simply wouldn't have allowed. Now, Larry was loyal to
Speaker 8: us and everything, but if things got tough, you know,
Speaker 8: your players have to back you, and that's what we had,
Speaker 8: and we had Frank behind us as well. So that's
Speaker 8: how things worked out, and that's that's that's how the
Speaker 8: longevity happened.
Speaker 1: Bhil Thank you sir for the time. We really appreciate
Speaker 1: the context. Hope everything as well with you and if
Speaker 1: you ever want to hop on the show, I've got
Speaker 1: a space for you.
Speaker 3: Hope you know that all right?
Speaker 8: Thanks a lot, Hiks.
Speaker 1: Coach Phil Johnson long time or excuse me, but yeah,
Speaker 1: head coach in college and in the NBA, and then
Speaker 1: was Frank's assistant for a few years and came back
Speaker 1: to stand alongside Jerry Sloan for an incredible run of
Speaker 1: jazz basketball that nearly culminated in maybe one, if not
Speaker 1: two championships. If it's not for a guy named Michael Jordan,
Speaker 1: we have thrown out the rundown. Today we are honoring
Speaker 1: the life and legacy of the great Frank Layden, who
Speaker 1: we lost last week at the age of ninety three.
Speaker 1: Richard Smith is good enough to join me live in studio,
Speaker 1: and really nobody better to be by my side today
Speaker 1: as we welcome in these great guests. We just spent
Speaker 1: about thirty minutes with Phil Johnson.
Speaker 5: It was awesome.
Speaker 1: Scott Layden will join us coming up at about twenty
Speaker 1: six or seven minutes from right now, we'll bring in
Speaker 1: Dave Checketts. Ron McBride will join us live in Hawaii,
Speaker 1: the former Utah football coach. He became very close with Frank.
Speaker 1: But Smitty, just you and I this segment, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to take advantage of this space to talk about
Speaker 1: your relationship with Frank following his retirement. We will talk
Speaker 1: a lot about the man, the coach, the talent evaluator,
Speaker 1: as we have with Phil, but you traveled with Frank
Speaker 1: and Barbara.
Speaker 2: You spent countless hours.
Speaker 1: With the Leyden family on trips, and you would go
Speaker 1: see him on a regular basis. You have a unique
Speaker 1: prison and perspective on Frank Laydon the man, not just
Speaker 1: Frank Laydon the coach or the talent evaluator sort of
Speaker 1: inside can you give us based on all the time
Speaker 1: that you spent with Frank, Barbara in the entire family.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we were very fortunate.
Speaker 7: Linda and I spent a lot of time with them,
Speaker 7: even going back into the nineties where we would go
Speaker 7: on these trips and Linda was asking me this the
Speaker 7: other day, and I really couldn't remember the logistics of
Speaker 7: how we did it. But we always had a trip
Speaker 7: of three or four days down in early July every
Speaker 7: summer down to the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City
Speaker 7: on the campus of Southern Utah University. And it was
Speaker 7: Linda and I, Scott and Marcia and their young family.
Speaker 7: Frank and Barbara would come, and Jerry and Rose Weber,
Speaker 7: who are good friends of ours, would come with their
Speaker 7: young family and we would go down there every year
Speaker 7: most of the nineties, every early July, and Linda was saying, well,
Speaker 7: how'd you guys do it when if you had summer league,
Speaker 7: or you had the free agent period, which which always
Speaker 7: is in early July, and you had the draft, you know,
Speaker 7: right near the end of June or whatever. And I said,
Speaker 7: you know, I don't I don't remember how.
Speaker 5: We did it.
Speaker 7: But we did it because because we were all there
Speaker 7: for a number of years in a row together, and
Speaker 7: this was before the advent of cell phones and really
Speaker 7: before you know, the proliferation of email and certainly texting
Speaker 7: didn't exist at that time.
Speaker 5: So I'm not sure how we did.
Speaker 7: Maybe when Scott comes on, he may recall, you know,
Speaker 7: how we did it, because because he was the front
Speaker 7: man on a lot of that kind of stuff that
Speaker 7: would be going on in the summer during that time.
Speaker 7: But but we just became close friends. I think it
Speaker 7: was maybe part partly because of our East Coast roots.
Speaker 7: I grew up in Connecticut, Frank was a Brooklyn guy. Scott,
Speaker 7: of course, grew up in New York and a lot
Speaker 7: of time up in the Buffalo area when he was
Speaker 7: a teenager. And part of us because of our love
Speaker 7: for the theater, and that's what took us to the
Speaker 7: Shakespeare Festival every summer, partly our our love of baseball.
Speaker 7: We would go to a lot of the minor league
Speaker 7: baseball games here at that point in time, and then
Speaker 7: as Frank retired, he would have more time to do
Speaker 7: that and we would we would find time. Linda and
Speaker 7: I just became good friends with Frank and Barbara. We
Speaker 7: had a lot of mutual interests and we just enjoyed
Speaker 7: each other's company to that extent. And then we in
Speaker 7: twenty eleven we started this annual summer baseball trip that
Speaker 7: was that was grown out of us going to Be's
Speaker 7: games with our our friends Chris Leno and Colleen Lindstrom,
Speaker 7: and we would sit there and and everybody would talk about, Wow,
Speaker 7: someday we should go to a major league game. Someday
Speaker 7: we should go to a major league game. And so
Speaker 7: one time I just said, hey, I'm tired of hearing
Speaker 7: about the Ajor league game. Either let's just go to
Speaker 7: a major league game or stop talking about it. And
Speaker 7: everybody goes, oh, well, we could we could go to
Speaker 7: major league. I said, well, when when are we going
Speaker 7: to do it? And so right then, Franco Smith's right,
Speaker 7: let's let's k what do we got let's let's get
Speaker 7: a day, let's go, And so we hammered something out
Speaker 7: for that summer and we ended up going to Colorado
Speaker 7: Rockies and that started a fifteen year trek that still
Speaker 7: exists today. The last couple of years, Frank and Barbara
Speaker 7: haven't been able to travel, uh, but they've always been
Speaker 7: in on the discussion of Okay, where are quote we
Speaker 7: going this year, And it was always to a ballpark
Speaker 7: that that somebody hadn't been to before. So it started
Speaker 7: in Colorado, and then it went to San Francisco, Then
Speaker 7: I went to Arizona. Then I went to Anaheim, and
Speaker 7: then I went to San Diego. Then I went to
Speaker 7: La then I went to Minnesota and so forth.
Speaker 5: And and uh, and we just we just.
Speaker 7: Had a great time planning those events and and spending
Speaker 7: time with each other in that regard, and and UH
Speaker 7: and a lot of dinners and a lot of uh
Speaker 7: hanging out of local restaurants and local theater up and
Speaker 7: Pioneer Theater, you know, a lot, and and and going
Speaker 7: to two plays or musicals downtown here and just just
Speaker 7: kind of you know how friendships evolve, spence, you find
Speaker 7: common ground and and you like each other's company and
Speaker 7: you enjoy and are comfortable with each other, and and
Speaker 7: it just evolves and it just grows naturally, and uh
Speaker 7: we were the beneficiaries of that, uh friendship and and
Speaker 7: uh that kind of closeness over the years that that
Speaker 7: you know, again we're talking about building teams and drafting
Speaker 7: players and everything. Some some of it you can plan,
Speaker 7: and some of it you can control, and then there's
Speaker 7: a certain part of it that's out of your control
Speaker 7: that just happens. And you know, our friendship, you know,
Speaker 7: started with certain roots, but then it just grew into
Speaker 7: something else that just they just took took place and
Speaker 7: evolved over the years and and very powerful for Linda
Speaker 7: and I to have those kind of friendships with the
Speaker 7: Laydon family.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, I'll have to go back. Excuse me, I'll
Speaker 1: have to go back and try to find this sound.
Speaker 1: But I think it was about two years ago and
Speaker 1: maybe Porter Canel be out here. And we had Frank
Speaker 1: on a lot, so it wasn't like, you know, a
Speaker 1: one or two time thing. But his favorite Frank Sinatra
Speaker 1: song was I think it's called My Way. I think
Speaker 1: that's the name of the song. And so to intro
Speaker 1: Frank I played it coming in and I noticed in
Speaker 1: the background that he was singing, and so I just
Speaker 1: laid back as the host, I just backed away from
Speaker 1: the mic and we let that breathe for like a minute,
Speaker 1: and he just sang the entire intro and it was
Speaker 1: just like the sweetest thing.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I wonder you already referenced some of the things that
Speaker 1: he was interested in outside of basketball. Can you elaborate
Speaker 1: on that, whether it's theater or food or music like
Speaker 1: jazz fans know Frank laydon as the coach and then
Speaker 1: the front facing funny guy, but the man, what was
Speaker 1: he interested in outside of sports?
Speaker 5: Well, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 7: You talk about, you know, joining the song, we would
Speaker 7: you know, we would you know, go out for an
Speaker 7: evening and uh, you know, have a dinner somewhere.
Speaker 5: And it was nothing.
Speaker 7: It wasn't like we were, you know, going to these
Speaker 7: five star restaurants and three Michelin star places or whatever.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 7: Frank and Barbera were very mom and poppish and they
Speaker 7: just like to support the local, you know, small places.
Speaker 7: The other place Greek restaurant where we had the family
Speaker 7: celebration the other day after the funeral mass service, and
Speaker 7: we would go there frequently, uh for for a bite
Speaker 7: to eat, and then Frank would always say, hey, how
Speaker 7: about some dessert. How about if we go get an
Speaker 7: ice cream at dairy queen Okay Coach and anytime we
Speaker 7: would drive by a dairy queen wherever it was, And
Speaker 7: Linda has a great story about the three of them.
Speaker 7: I wasn't there at the time, down at the Shakespeare
Speaker 7: Festival and spending an hour one night driving around Cedar
Speaker 7: City looking for a dairy queen because Frank said, no,
Speaker 7: that's what we have.
Speaker 5: We have to get a dairy queen ice you know.
Speaker 7: So anytime we would go buy one wherever we were,
Speaker 7: and we'd be out of town somewhere traveling. We'd be
Speaker 7: down in Anaheim, we'd be in Phoenix or whatever, and
Speaker 7: we're driving by and Frank would go, hey, there's a
Speaker 7: dairy queen. How come there aren't more dairy queens, Like,
Speaker 7: I don't know understand why they're not on every corner
Speaker 7: like McDonald's. They're like the best thing ever. So we
Speaker 7: would go up. We would go up there. There was
Speaker 7: one that closed recently up in Centerville and had been
Speaker 7: there for a long time Alex Jensen and knows it
Speaker 7: well growing up in Centerville, and we would go get
Speaker 7: a Dairy Queen ice cream and would sit in the
Speaker 7: parking lot and there's me and Frank in the front
Speaker 7: seats and Linda and Barbara in the back seats. We're
Speaker 7: eating it, and I'd turn on Frank Sinatra and whatever
Speaker 7: whatever it was, I just put it on onid of
Speaker 7: my phone. Hit one of the songs. Boom, Frank and
Speaker 7: Barbara just go right into, right into the song.
Speaker 5: Its boom boom.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, but it and they're just singing away and
Speaker 7: Linda and I and we're looking at each other, and
Speaker 7: so Linda would join in and then should be looking
Speaker 7: at me like, well, come on, come on, I go.
Speaker 5: These guys are like they're they're like killing me.
Speaker 7: And you know, they're and they're singing, and they're they're
Speaker 7: dancing their shoulders and what we what we all affectionately
Speaker 7: called seat dancing, and they'd be seat dancing and and whatever.
Speaker 7: And this is when they're in their late eighties. We're
Speaker 7: still doing this and they're they're they're singing, and they're
Speaker 7: and they're enjoying Dairy Queen ice cream cones sitting in
Speaker 7: the car in the parking lot. This is this is like,
Speaker 7: you know, this would be like some story of somebody
Speaker 7: telling you know, yeah, George Bush, you know you used
Speaker 7: to like to hang out at the Taco bell or something,
Speaker 7: you know, and then and but this is a real thing,
Speaker 7: and this is how they were.
Speaker 5: It was just the simplest.
Speaker 7: Things and the the things that made them happy and
Speaker 7: that were were personal and they were easy. And that's
Speaker 7: just kind of the the friendship we had and that
Speaker 7: that evolved and it was simple and and we just
Speaker 7: knew that there wasn't any pretension to any of the
Speaker 7: stuff that we were doing together.
Speaker 1: A man who was on a list with pat Riley,
Speaker 1: Red Hourback and Larry Bird is just smashing dairy Queen
Speaker 1: ice cream?
Speaker 2: Was it vanilla? What was his order?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 7: See, for example, you know, Frank would always get he
Speaker 7: always get, well, spitty, what are you getting, I get
Speaker 7: a medium vanilla con with the chocolate the chocolate dip. Yeah,
Speaker 7: I get that. I'll get that. And Barbara always had
Speaker 7: to has to have chocolate. Chocolate ice cream is her
Speaker 7: favorite ice cream in the world. So we all knew
Speaker 7: Barbara's getting a chocolate Linda's getting a vanilla chocolate twist.
Speaker 7: Frank and Smithy are getting the chocolate dip okay whatever,
Speaker 7: And uh that was that was our regular order going
Speaker 7: through the Every Queen drive through.
Speaker 8: Uh.
Speaker 7: The other thing, Uh, Linda just texted me, Uh, so
Speaker 7: I gott and and and this is a good reminder
Speaker 7: you talk about Frank. Frank was such an avid reader.
Speaker 7: And Scott mentioned this a little bit in his his
Speaker 7: uh comments at the at the service the other day.
Speaker 7: But Frank was always about gaining more knowledge, gaining information
Speaker 7: about whatever. He was an avid reader, and he and Linda,
Speaker 7: my wife, would would always bond over the Sunday New
Speaker 7: York Times book section. So Frank would always get the
Speaker 7: New York Times. He'd read the book section. And then whenever,
Speaker 7: you know, Linda and I happened to come over the
Speaker 7: next time to visit, and he was the first thing
Speaker 7: would walk in the room, and then Barbara and Frank
Speaker 7: would be sitting there and we'd.
Speaker 5: Go, Hey, what's going on? Go Linda, Linda, right here?
Speaker 7: I got the book report right here, and he'd hold
Speaker 7: it up like that was the first thing, you know,
Speaker 7: don't forget, don't forget. I got the book book, the
Speaker 7: book section right here for you, and Linda would take
Speaker 7: it and go over and sit next to Barbara and
Speaker 7: should open up and be, oh, yeah, I already read
Speaker 7: this book.
Speaker 5: I read that book.
Speaker 7: And then they'd be going back and forth about books
Speaker 7: they read that were in common and whatnot. And and
Speaker 7: he was he was always, even even up to his
Speaker 7: his uh last.
Speaker 5: Months, uh, he was.
Speaker 7: He was a voracious reader and accumulator of information. He
Speaker 7: wanted to know what was going on, What's happening in
Speaker 7: the world, What's new? What should I be aware of?
Speaker 7: I would walk in the room, Smitty, what's new?
Speaker 5: Give me? Give me some updates?
Speaker 7: Wow, this and that, this and that, whatever and and
Speaker 7: uh that his mind. Even towards the end, Spence was
Speaker 7: still was still in in uh and uh full speed,
Speaker 7: and was was still curious about the world around him.
Speaker 1: So upon his passing, Smitty Frank and Barbara married sixty
Speaker 1: eight years.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you about that relationship.
Speaker 1: In preparation for the show today, I found a documentary
Speaker 1: that was done on that eighty three, eighty fourteen. I
Speaker 1: think our friends ATKSL put that together. And Frank that
Speaker 1: year had the honor of coaching the All Star team,
Speaker 1: and he was asked by a media member, is this
Speaker 1: the highlight of your life? Is this the most fun
Speaker 1: task that you've ever had? And he said, no, my
Speaker 1: honeymoon was the highlight of my life. And you know,
Speaker 1: there was a humor intertwined into the tapestry of the response,
Speaker 1: but ultimately you could see the light in his eyes.
Speaker 1: And sixty eight years it's a long time. Children, grandchildren.
Speaker 1: Tell me about your experience with Frank and Barber.
Speaker 7: Well, that's going to choke me up a little bit,
Speaker 7: because Frank was such a public figure and wherever we went,
Speaker 7: and somebody mentioned this the other day, Hey, whenever you're
Speaker 7: out to dinner with Frank, and Frank says, hey, I
Speaker 7: got to use the restroom, you know it's going to
Speaker 7: be least a twenty minute process because it takes him
Speaker 7: ten minutes to get to the restroom, because he stops
Speaker 7: at every table along the way with someone going.
Speaker 5: Hey, coach, how you doing, Hey, what do you guys doing?
Speaker 5: What is that you got the lobster tonight? What is
Speaker 5: that you know? Whatever?
Speaker 7: And the same thing coming back. And Barbara was used
Speaker 7: to that when they would be together, walking together, and
Speaker 7: yet Frank Whenever someone might come up and say, oh, coach,
Speaker 7: how you doing. Hey, can I introduce you to my
Speaker 7: to my cousin, he really wants to say hello, yeah,
Speaker 7: of course, you know, whatever, you'd introduce him, and Frank
Speaker 7: would always immediately turn and say, and let me introduce
Speaker 7: you to my wife, Barbara. He would always include Barbara
Speaker 7: in anything that was going on, however small it was,
Speaker 7: or whatever fancy affair he was getting an award at
Speaker 7: or something. He would always mention Barbara as the backbone
Speaker 7: of what he was doing and that she was so
Speaker 7: important to him and his life. And and I'll tell
Speaker 7: you Spence, Uh, even in in in the last few months,
Speaker 7: and and he was he was fighting, you know, in
Speaker 7: the in the hospital, and you know, every time I
Speaker 7: would go there, you know, one of the first.
Speaker 5: Things he would say to me was, you know, uh,
Speaker 5: where's Barbara? Is Barbara coming up today? You know?
Speaker 7: And she would come up, uh, virtually every day, uh
Speaker 7: to visit with him. And she was still living at
Speaker 7: home and and had some some people helping her out there.
Speaker 7: And and but he was always wondering where Barbara was
Speaker 7: or if Barbara was was doing okay.
Speaker 5: And this, you know, this was the life they had.
Speaker 7: They he was always always looking out for her and
Speaker 7: understanding that not only was she just as much a
Speaker 7: part of who he was as a public figure, but
Speaker 7: also that that she should not be left, you know,
Speaker 7: in the background in that regard that she had had
Speaker 7: earned and deserved to be recognized just like he was
Speaker 7: in any kind of of public setting. And Barbara was
Speaker 7: so great at it and was so so accommodating to
Speaker 7: Frank and understood what was going on and and just
Speaker 7: had such a cheerful disposition. The both of them just together,
Speaker 7: they just lit up the room, no matter what the
Speaker 7: circumstance was, and it was such a heart rendering feeling
Speaker 7: and such a it's just a heartwarming experience to see
Speaker 7: them together and to try and learn for yourself that
Speaker 7: this is how I need to be, This is how
Speaker 7: I should be living my life with the people that
Speaker 7: are important to me. Is the way that they are
Speaker 7: every single day, And it's, you know, that was one
Speaker 7: of the powerful parts of his personality that he had.
Speaker 2: Also three children.
Speaker 1: Of course, most people know Scott because he's had his
Speaker 1: own very successful career in basketball. Mike and Kate and
Speaker 1: I believe eleven grandchildren, ten girls, one boy, yes, right, right,
Speaker 1: So so give us some insight on Frank lad and
Speaker 1: the father and the grandfather.
Speaker 5: Well, he's a very.
Speaker 7: Doting grandfather, you know, one of you know, he loves
Speaker 7: all the obviously the grandchildren. He's always you know, the
Speaker 7: Scott's Scott's family with four daughters, are all really into
Speaker 7: reading and education, and they're always exchanging with Frank, conversations,
Speaker 7: phone calls, notes about books, about sending swapping books with
Speaker 7: each other because he was such a voracious reader. Katie's
Speaker 7: daughters we're all avidly involved in athletics growing up.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 7: Their youngest granddaughter, Riley is is a softball player up
Speaker 7: in the state of Washington and at the collegiate level,
Speaker 7: and and Frank was always going to her games as
Speaker 7: much as he could hear locally, and then always asking
Speaker 7: about how she's doing up there, Does she have a
Speaker 7: game this weekend, what's going on, how she how she
Speaker 7: hitting the ball, how she swinging all all that kind
Speaker 7: of stuff.
Speaker 5: Is just you know, just just very.
Speaker 7: Involved in the whole process of the grand children and
Speaker 7: how they were doing in their respective areas. And again,
Speaker 7: they all have different like all of us, different interests
Speaker 7: and and and different different things that they are involved in.
Speaker 7: But he always made sure that he was actively involved
Speaker 7: in what they were doing and showing interest. Uh, and
Speaker 7: and what they were involved in and uh. You know
Speaker 7: again that's just who he was. It wasn't a fake thing.
Speaker 7: It wasn't something, oh, I have this obligation as a grandfather.
Speaker 7: I was supposed to do this and make a phone
Speaker 7: call about this or whatever. You know, he did it
Speaker 7: out of love and out of true heartfelt feeling for
Speaker 7: the for the family that he had around him. And
Speaker 7: you know, it's just one of one of his great
Speaker 7: personality traits.
Speaker 1: Not to go James Earl Jones Field of Dreams on you,
Speaker 1: but you reference Frank's granddaughter playing softball and Frank love baseball,
Speaker 1: right was some of my favorite stories that Frank would share.
Speaker 1: And you know, as because I've one of the first
Speaker 1: things I thought of when I first got this job
Speaker 1: is like, I'm bringing Frank on to do all the
Speaker 1: Frank things and tell all the Frank stories because it's
Speaker 1: great radio. And oftentimes I wouldn't even ask a question,
Speaker 1: but sometimes his soliloquies would kind of transition over into
Speaker 1: his stories of going to Ebbittsfield growing up watching the
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Dodgers when he was a child back in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: I believe he played right. Tell me about his love
Speaker 1: of baseball a little bit. As you're handing me a
Speaker 1: picture of a baseball signed by the great Jackie Robinson.
Speaker 1: A life is not important except in the fact it
Speaker 1: excuse me, A life is not important except in the
Speaker 1: impact it has on other lives.
Speaker 2: That's and Frank oftentimes has used that line.
Speaker 5: That's that was his favorite Jackie Robinson quote.
Speaker 7: That's what he always used to use somewhere in any
Speaker 7: major speech he gave, in any kind of awards ceremony,
Speaker 7: or somebody asked him to come speak at some gathering,
Speaker 7: whatever it might be, he would always somewhere in his
Speaker 7: talk mentioned that quote from Jackie Robinson, and uh and
Speaker 7: and say, that's what we we all have to be about.
Speaker 7: We all have to be about, you know, figuring out
Speaker 7: how we can impact other people's lives. What was what
Speaker 7: is going to be important for someone else? And that
Speaker 7: baseball picture I just showed you is a baseball that
Speaker 7: we got from the last Major League game that we
Speaker 7: were at, and we put that inscription on it from
Speaker 7: Jackie Robinson and Scott placed it on the on the
Speaker 7: on the casket at the burial site for Frank in
Speaker 7: honor of his love of baseball and his admiration for
Speaker 7: Jackie Robinson and and what he meant to American culture,
Speaker 7: but also to human relations and what Frank tried to
Speaker 7: live by himself every day was the aspect of how
Speaker 7: can I positively impact someone else's life and whatever that's
Speaker 7: gonna be today, That's what I'm going to try to do.
Speaker 7: And I just gotta tell you this quick story, Spence.
Speaker 7: Frank was in the hospital. This is three weeks ago.
Speaker 7: We're going down to la to see a Dodger game,
Speaker 7: Dodger Weekend series, and Frank knew about it, and he
Speaker 7: had good friends down with the Dodgers, and he was
Speaker 7: trying to tell me that, you know, he wanted me
Speaker 7: to get something from the Dodgers for one of the
Speaker 7: caretakers that was helping him, Omar and Lauren. They're great
Speaker 7: caregivers for the Leaden family. And he's telling me Omar
Speaker 7: is a big Dodger fan. Can you bring something back
Speaker 7: from the Dodgers for him?
Speaker 5: So I do that. I bring it back. It's in
Speaker 5: his hospital room. I go in.
Speaker 7: They're there visiting with him. They said, hey, hey, would
Speaker 7: you get the Dodger stuff for Frank. We go, no,
Speaker 7: listen for Frank, this is for you, and Omar says
Speaker 7: for me. I said, no, no, here, and I give
Speaker 7: him this stuff, a bunch of things, and he goes,
Speaker 7: this is unbelievable. He goes, oh, my dad, it's going
Speaker 7: to be Oh this is great. I said, no, this
Speaker 7: is Frank. I said, I'm just the courier. Frank instructed
Speaker 7: me when I'm in La last the other day to
Speaker 7: go get this stuff for you and bring it back
Speaker 7: for you because he knew it was important to you.
Speaker 7: And it brought tears to our eyes and everything. And
Speaker 7: Frank's laying in his bed and giving a thumbs up
Speaker 7: because he couldn't quite talk, you know, clearly enough at
Speaker 7: that time. But even there, even in that moment of
Speaker 7: his life, he's thinking about what can I do for
Speaker 7: somebody else that will brighten their day and make their
Speaker 7: day better? And you know, that's just such a great
Speaker 7: example for me and for everyone to be able.
Speaker 5: To look at.
Speaker 1: Let me clean up the quote quote A life is
Speaker 1: not important to accept in the impact it has on
Speaker 1: other lives attributed to the great Jackie Robinson.
Speaker 2: We'll catch a break. Scott Layden is going to join
Speaker 2: us coming up next.
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Speaker 1: We have thrown out of the rundown today to honor
Speaker 1: the life and legacy of the great Frank Layton, who
Speaker 1: he lost last week at the age of ninety three.
Speaker 1: Joined by Phil Johnson to start the show, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: bring in Dave Checkets. My father Ron McBride will join
Speaker 1: us in the five o'clock hour live in Hawaii. Richard
Speaker 1: Smith is live in studio, and we go live to
Speaker 1: Las Vegas, where Frank's son, Scott Laydon good enough to
Speaker 1: give us some time on a Monday afternoon.
Speaker 2: Scotty, Happy Monday, sir.
Speaker 1: How are you?
Speaker 3: I'm well, thank you? What a lineup? It's an honor, No,
Speaker 3: it is, well, thank.
Speaker 1: You, It's awesome to have you, Scott, and I just
Speaker 1: I'm going to start with a simple question. What was
Speaker 1: it like being Frank's son?
Speaker 3: Well, as you could imagine, it was amazing because so
Speaker 3: many lessons. Uh. He both he and my mom were
Speaker 3: incredible parents. And you know, I'm we were all blessed
Speaker 3: uh with them, and and and also he shared himself
Speaker 3: to so many people, and especially in the Utah community.
Speaker 3: But he he uh, from from early on, Uh, it
Speaker 3: was just a lot of fun being a gym rat
Speaker 3: in his in his world. So and he had he
Speaker 3: had a lot of great friends, A lot of a
Speaker 3: lot of his friends were characters, and so that that
Speaker 3: was one thing I always enjoyed is the opportunity to
Speaker 3: be around him. And and uh you know, he was competitive,
Speaker 3: he was smart, he was a teacher, very very honest
Speaker 3: and kind and and and always did the right thing.
Speaker 3: So uh many lessons to be learned uh from him.
Speaker 3: And and again I I just think our family is
Speaker 3: blessed to have our parents and how they uh they
Speaker 3: were around us.
Speaker 7: You know, Uh Spence, this is uh, you got Scott
Speaker 7: Laydon on on the air.
Speaker 5: You got them on live.
Speaker 7: So this is this is kind of like the Dallas
Speaker 7: Mavericks in the recent draft lottery chance of getting the
Speaker 7: top pick and and the balls fall your way and
Speaker 7: you have Scott Layden on the air.
Speaker 5: This is like this is like over the lottery odds.
Speaker 5: This is this is amazing, Scott.
Speaker 7: How before before you ask the question this is gonna
Speaker 7: devolve is your is.
Speaker 3: Your role today to break my chops?
Speaker 7: This is well apparently apparently that's the that's the position
Speaker 7: I find myself in. So we got we got way. Hey,
Speaker 7: I know I know better than anybody. This is a
Speaker 7: one shot deal. So we we got to get them
Speaker 7: all in on the one on the one shot.
Speaker 5: That we have.
Speaker 10: Hey, hardly, you know what, hardly hardly And you know what,
Speaker 10: uh Spence had had sent me a beautiful note last
Speaker 10: week and and uh, I said, of course.
Speaker 3: And then as if I wasn't gonna go on after
Speaker 3: his dad strong armed me to come on. So there
Speaker 3: you go.
Speaker 7: I tell you gotta say I'm doing it with Smitty,
Speaker 7: I go, well, and I don't have time for that. Hey,
Speaker 7: well tell us tell us a little bit before you
Speaker 7: get into it with your dad. Just what's happening in Vegas?
Speaker 7: Give us the give us the vibe at the Summer League.
Speaker 3: You know, I just got here. I just uh here
Speaker 3: for a couple of meetings and visit some friends. And
Speaker 3: then uh, as you know, I told you Smitty, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna keep heading west so I can we can visit
Speaker 3: some of some more friends. So the the you know,
Speaker 3: because of uh uh the events this past weekend, I've
Speaker 3: had a lot of melancholy thoughts and and but it's
Speaker 3: it's it's certainly rich to see a lot of people here.
Speaker 3: And I can't tell you the outpouring of you know,
Speaker 3: the NBA community, but also uh and and your your
Speaker 3: phone was going crazy too, Smitty because you're such a
Speaker 3: dear friend of mine, my parents. But it was like,
Speaker 3: you know, the jazz community, they were amazing, you know
Speaker 3: with the with the shirts and the signage and the
Speaker 3: you know, the the Utah outpouring was was fantastic. So
Speaker 3: this is an opportunity to visit and and uh uh
Speaker 3: be around some some great folks from the n b A.
Speaker 7: Yeah, how about the Saturday service which is amazing. Uh
Speaker 7: you did such an amazing job there uh at that
Speaker 7: and uh and yet the people who who showed up
Speaker 7: with such a short, short turnaround, so to speak, who
Speaker 7: came from out of town to support you and your
Speaker 7: family at the services, it was just an uh an
Speaker 7: amazing tribute to your dad and what what he meant
Speaker 7: to all of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I I think I think that we you know,
Speaker 3: we purposely had a quick turnaround and the and the
Speaker 3: uh uh the Cathedral of Madeline was so accommodating. I
Speaker 3: thought they did amazing job with the mass and the
Speaker 3: music and everything. I know my mom really enjoyed that.
Speaker 3: But all the all the people that came out, and
Speaker 3: I know, the Jazz made an incredible effort to have
Speaker 3: their all their people there, whether it was Ryan Smith
Speaker 3: or or or Danny and Austin and Jay Z and
Speaker 3: you know, I'm obviously I'm very good friends with with
Speaker 3: coach Hardy, So it's it's a it was certainly amazing.
Speaker 3: And then other NBA folks came by that were I
Speaker 3: didn't anticipate any of that. And and there was a
Speaker 3: strong Spurs alumni because of of my time there, so
Speaker 3: you know R c And and Dave Tellip and Dennis
Speaker 3: Lindsay of of Spurs and and jazz fame. Of course, Uh,
Speaker 3: Sam Presty made an incredible effort. He probably won the
Speaker 3: award furthest Away right, but you know, it just I
Speaker 3: don't know, they all these folks really appreciated my dad,
Speaker 3: and I think it's it makes you know, it makes
Speaker 3: the family feel special, It makes my mom feel special.
Speaker 3: So that that part of it was was was uh,
Speaker 3: you know, an amazing that you you don't anticipate that. Uh.
Speaker 3: And then of course, uh we had the who's who
Speaker 3: of Paul Bears, John Stock to call him alone, Richard Smith,
Speaker 3: Rich Kelly uh and Thorough Bailey. That was the starting
Speaker 3: lineup and then off the bend was Dave check Its
Speaker 3: and you know it was really uh that to see
Speaker 3: those guys in the front all of you guys in
Speaker 3: the front row was I don't know, it just it
Speaker 3: was it was surreal and uh and you know how
Speaker 3: my dad felt about all those guys. And you know,
Speaker 3: obviously Mark was missed in it. But when you put
Speaker 3: all those guys together, Uh, the I think the the
Speaker 3: common thread is that they all had tremendous character and
Speaker 3: and I think that's why my dad enjoyed being around
Speaker 3: those guys and coaching those guys because of their their
Speaker 3: commitment uh to uh playing harrd and playing the right way.
Speaker 3: You know, my dad had he only had a couple
Speaker 3: of rules and and and and he would you know,
Speaker 3: at the start of the season he would say, look,
Speaker 3: it's this is very simple. I have two rules beyond
Speaker 3: time and play hard. And you know it sounds you know,
Speaker 3: with with where we are today with analytics and you know,
Speaker 3: everything we have going on in the game. But his
Speaker 3: teams were you know, they presented and then they played hard.
Speaker 3: So it and then it carried you know onto obviously
Speaker 3: coach Sloan, which was uh, you know, play hard, play smart,
Speaker 3: and stay together. So very simple. The simplicity of it
Speaker 3: was was was incredible. But we had guys of uh
Speaker 3: uh tremendous character and then we had tough guys. I
Speaker 3: go down the roster and I wanted, I want you
Speaker 3: to tell me and I'm gonna miss some guys smittye,
Speaker 3: but in Larry Miller, Okay, Dave check Its, Frank Laden,
Speaker 3: Jerry Sloan, Phil Johnson, John Stockton, call him alone, thorough Bailey,
Speaker 3: Mark Eaton, and I can keep going. But if you
Speaker 3: just take that crew right there, there was a they
Speaker 3: had a they had a mental toughness about them that
Speaker 3: was it was amazing. And I you know, obviously I'm
Speaker 3: showing up at work every day. I'm looking around, I'm thinking, wow,
Speaker 3: this is this is impressive. And they and they always
Speaker 3: exceeded expectations. They always exceeded uh and got better all
Speaker 3: the time because of the work ethic and the and
Speaker 3: the and the and the mental uh part of it,
Speaker 3: and and all those guys and can go right down
Speaker 3: the list. You know, your dad's fence is is tough minded.
Speaker 3: The guys I know Larry Miller would look, you know,
Speaker 3: we don't. We don't need to go any further than
Speaker 3: you know, third West to see that, you know, his
Speaker 3: his accomplishments. So yeah, it was, it was. It was
Speaker 3: fun to be part of that. And I think in
Speaker 3: these moments you have so many you know, thoughts racing
Speaker 3: through your mind and so I'm I feel blessed for that.
Speaker 7: Well, you know, the the emotional part I had scot
Speaker 7: of many at the at the service on Saturday was
Speaker 7: standing in the in the line with the pall bearers
Speaker 7: getting ready for the beginning.
Speaker 5: Of the of the mass. And uh and there right
Speaker 5: at the front of the line.
Speaker 7: Uh is uh John Stockton and karme Alone, who both
Speaker 7: live out of town and are both notified on I
Speaker 7: assume sometime during the day Thursday, maybe late Thursday, that
Speaker 7: that we're gonna have the service on Saturday morning. And uh,
Speaker 7: and then they are at the front of the line
Speaker 7: and you know, just showing showing what your dad meant
Speaker 7: to them. Uh, not not just as players and employees
Speaker 7: and the team and all that, but just as as
Speaker 7: people and what influence he had on their lives in
Speaker 7: that regard that that they made whatever the arrangements were
Speaker 7: they had to make. H to be there to honor
Speaker 7: your dad in that in that regard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they you know, I think they they love playing
Speaker 3: for my dad. He loved coaching them, and it's uh
Speaker 3: uh their their effort to come, you know, it just
Speaker 3: it really tickled my mom that that they were able
Speaker 3: to uh be there, and and you know as as
Speaker 3: both John and Carl and you know, Carl especially said
Speaker 3: im misses for the world. So those things are all
Speaker 3: like I think you you remember that forever, you know,
Speaker 3: and I think you know, going back to how my
Speaker 3: dad felt about all those guys, he he always appreciated, uh,
Speaker 3: trying to get players of character. I mean, I can't
Speaker 3: tell you how often he would talk about Cyril Bailey
Speaker 3: and just you know, his character as a person and
Speaker 3: how unflappable he was and how you know he just
Speaker 3: he he was such a team guy. So those those
Speaker 3: guys are just I mean, they're they're there. They were blessing,
Speaker 3: uh when when my dad was coaching, but they're you know,
Speaker 3: they're blessing and a treasure to to U time.
Speaker 7: Now, Hey, Scott, let's let's uh let's settle the uh
Speaker 7: the urban myth that that's been going on for years. Uh, here,
Speaker 7: explain to our listeners, h exactly how it came to
Speaker 7: be that Scott Laden was hired to be an assistant
Speaker 7: coach for the Utah Jazz.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't. I don't know if it's a myth,
Speaker 3: but you know, I have I have always been I've
Speaker 3: always been a U a supporter, and I appreciate nepotism,
Speaker 3: so I think, I mean otherwise where you know, how
Speaker 3: am I getting getting a job here? But the thing
Speaker 3: and reflecting a lot, now, the thing that was so
Speaker 3: incredible was working together with my dad in a competitive
Speaker 3: environment and you know that the staff was very small,
Speaker 3: and you know the other guys obviously, whether it was
Speaker 3: UH coach Johnson or and then coach Sloan, it was.
Speaker 3: It was an incredible lie time of of being in
Speaker 3: a in a an intense environment, a very competitive environment,
Speaker 3: but then just you know, always being together. I don't know,
Speaker 3: like you knows, most kids when they graduate from college,
Speaker 3: they're running away from their parents. I ran towards them,
Speaker 3: you know, And I was fortunate that my dad would
Speaker 3: hire me and then we had this incredible relationship and
Speaker 3: it worked very well. And but he, you know, he
Speaker 3: had he had as you guys know, well, he had
Speaker 3: great street sense and he had great basketball since and
Speaker 3: and he knew what it took to to to team build.
Speaker 3: You know, he was ahead of his time. And when
Speaker 3: you look at where when he took over the Jazz
Speaker 3: and one of his big things was, you know, always
Speaker 3: leave a place better than the way you found it.
Speaker 3: So when the team moved to Salt Lake City in
Speaker 3: seventy nine, I mean he he really ramped up the
Speaker 3: the talent on the team and identified, you know, players
Speaker 3: that could help us win. And it was it was
Speaker 3: before and long before we got into the uh Stockton
Speaker 3: to Malone era. And you know, Mark Eaton changed the franchise.
Speaker 3: You go back to that that time. But you know,
Speaker 3: signing Ricky Green, UH, signing Jeff Wilkins, drafting Mark Eaton,
Speaker 3: you know right there. But then obviously uh drafting Darryl Griffith.
Speaker 3: Though all of a sudden the pieces were coming together,
Speaker 3: Adrian Dantley, John Drew on and on, and we were
Speaker 3: we were a competitive team, but we were anchored by uh,
Speaker 3: you know, a guy that didn't get enough credit, but
Speaker 3: certainly talk about character and toughness. Mark Eaton was was
Speaker 3: the I beam that you know, kept us all going
Speaker 3: and uh, it was, it was, yeah, it was. It
Speaker 3: was a fun, fun time, but competitive and wasn't It
Speaker 3: wasn't always like fun and games, but it was. It
Speaker 3: was just in a world where we were, you know,
Speaker 3: fighting to win. And then of course my dad turned
Speaker 3: the team over to my dad and obviously Dave check Its,
Speaker 3: but they turned the team over to Jerry Sloan and
Speaker 3: coach Sloan took everything to the next level, which was
Speaker 3: which was impressive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Chatty with Scott Layden, excuse me, on the show
Speaker 1: today we have thrown out the rundown to do something special.
Speaker 1: We are honoring the life and legacy of his father,
Speaker 1: Community Pillar frank Leyden, who passed last week at the
Speaker 1: age of ninety three. Scotty, I believe upon your father's passing,
Speaker 1: your parents have been married sixty eight years. I wonder,
Speaker 1: I wonder if you could to the extent that you
Speaker 1: feel comfortable. She had some insight on experiencing that relationship,
Speaker 1: watching those two for your entire life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was they they just they got along famously
Speaker 3: and they were they were always together, which was a
Speaker 3: wonderful thing about them. And you know, sixty eight years.
Speaker 3: As you know, it's a pretty good number right now,
Speaker 3: but it it never It always amazed me at how
Speaker 3: well they got along, how well they were both in
Speaker 3: public and in private, and how great a parents they were.
Speaker 3: But my mom always you know, set my dad up
Speaker 3: as as as the straight person to you know, to
Speaker 3: make him shine. But it was an interesting quality. I
Speaker 3: know you guys have seen this. And because he was
Speaker 3: such a public figure and in the public often, he
Speaker 3: would always point out my mother and he would always
Speaker 3: talk about her in a public at him and and
Speaker 3: he would just just heat praise on her. And I
Speaker 3: always remember that. I just said, you know, here's a
Speaker 3: he always had this opportunity, but he always took advantage
Speaker 3: of the opportunity to just tell everyone how amazing she
Speaker 3: was because she, you know, my mom has has an
Speaker 3: incredible resume herself as far as her education and helping people,
Speaker 3: uh you know, who are less fortunate than people that
Speaker 3: have had some addiction issues. So she's always like, uh,
Speaker 3: been behind the scenes, but but had this amazing career.
Speaker 3: And my dad always appreciated that, always recognize that, and
Speaker 3: they were always you know, the couple they I talked
Speaker 3: about this a little bit at the at the at
Speaker 3: the mass but.
Speaker 4: They they.
Speaker 3: Uh, we're like always curious. So they were always reading.
Speaker 3: They were always into whether it was sports, watching TV,
Speaker 3: every sport, it wasn't just basketball. Going to the theater
Speaker 3: and then performing in the theater. You know. They performed
Speaker 3: a famous play that that couples uh perform a love Letters.
Speaker 3: And I just thought that that was an amazing uh
Speaker 3: a thing that they did because it, you know, showed
Speaker 3: their depth and their intelligence and and everything. And and
Speaker 3: when you're listening to the smithy knows his play well,
Speaker 3: but when you're when you're watching love Letters, and it's
Speaker 3: usually performed by famous couples. But and and they probably
Speaker 3: did thirty or so performances. But the the the fiction
Speaker 3: of it was blurred with the reality of of their lives,
Speaker 3: you know. And and it was in the last, the
Speaker 3: last scene of the play, there's a there's a great quote,
Speaker 3: he's uh uh uh, I don't ever think I've loved
Speaker 3: anyone the way I loved her, and I know I
Speaker 3: never will again. She was at the heart of my
Speaker 3: life and I already miss her desperately. I just wanted
Speaker 3: to say that to you and to her. So it
Speaker 3: was like it was really an amazing relationship and a
Speaker 3: loving relationship. And then you know, I don't know if
Speaker 3: you guys knew this, but when when my parents where
Speaker 3: they first met is they met at Missus McGuire's bar,
Speaker 3: which is in Rockaway, Long Island, New York. And Missus
Speaker 3: McGuire was the mother of two Hall of famers. She
Speaker 3: had three boys, but two of them were Hall of famers.
Speaker 3: One was Al McGuire, who, you know, is interesting how
Speaker 3: you know, weaves through coach mcgaris and the whole Brooklyn thing.
Speaker 3: But Al McGuire was not only a great basketball coach,
Speaker 3: won the championship at Marquette, but he also was a
Speaker 3: good player. But his brother, Dick McGuire is in the
Speaker 3: Hall of Fame for like, he was just an incredible
Speaker 3: NBA player and one of the first like real point guards.
Speaker 3: You know, whether it was McGuire cooozy and then you know,
Speaker 3: everybody compared John to those guys because they would pass
Speaker 3: first and they were unselfish and everything. Anyway, they used
Speaker 3: to have basketball courts across the street from Missus McGuire's bar,
Speaker 3: and it was like one hundred and eighth street in
Speaker 3: the Rockaways, which is on the beach, and you know
Speaker 3: it's a short throw the rockaways is we're all firemen
Speaker 3: and cops and everything. But across the street from her
Speaker 3: bar where these basketball courts and guys would go out
Speaker 3: and play pickup games. And my dad, you know, like
Speaker 3: everybody else, was playing ball. Then he just graduated from college.
Speaker 3: He's going in the army. Uh, he was playing ball,
Speaker 3: and he went and I went and had a I
Speaker 3: don't know what you're allowed to say as radio. Maybe
Speaker 3: maybe it's like a diet soda or something. But yeah,
Speaker 3: so he went to the bar and uh met my
Speaker 3: mom and I was it. And then they were you know,
Speaker 3: they were inseparable. So uh it was a time, uh
Speaker 3: you know, and then they of course my dad went
Speaker 3: to the army and uh they they moved out to
Speaker 3: uh Long Island, and my dad started his uh uh
Speaker 3: coaching and uh a career and teaching in high school,
Speaker 3: you know, starting out at Saint Agnes where Billy Donovan's
Speaker 3: father played for my dad, and then eventually we drafted
Speaker 3: Billy Donovan. And so there's so many you know, basketball connections.
Speaker 3: And one of my dad's good friends was was Luke
Speaker 3: on a second who coached Saint John's and you know,
Speaker 3: there there's a great connection there. And there, as I
Speaker 3: was saying earlier, it was always uh characters around that
Speaker 3: I that he knew his friends and would would uh
Speaker 3: they always beat You'd always see them, and you'd always
Speaker 3: go to their camps, and then he would take their
Speaker 3: their children into his camp. And it was really a
Speaker 3: fun time, you.
Speaker 5: Know, Spence. Uh.
Speaker 7: What's what Scott hasn't mentioned is during the time Frank
Speaker 7: and Barbara were dating, Scott's mom was an central figure
Speaker 7: working at the famous twenty one club in Midtown Manhattan.
Speaker 7: And and Frank you used to love to tell the
Speaker 7: story about going to pick up Barbara and guys out
Speaker 7: in front, going hey, I don't know whose jeloppy that is,
Speaker 7: but get it out of here because it doesn't belong here,
Speaker 7: and Barbara going, oh no, no, that's that's Frank's well,
Speaker 7: get them out of here.
Speaker 5: We gotta we gotta get going.
Speaker 7: And you know, and uh, but Barbara, to Scott's point,
Speaker 7: had a great uh life career of her own, not
Speaker 7: only early on, but of course in later years here
Speaker 7: at the University of Utah through the Master's program and
Speaker 7: and helping people involved in in substance abuse issues and
Speaker 7: and uh and stuff like that, helping and counseling and
Speaker 7: and helping people along. And both Frank and Barbara were
Speaker 7: were so intertwined with the idea and the scope and
Speaker 7: and humanity of trying to help other people and trying
Speaker 7: to see where they could uh put themselves into a
Speaker 7: situation to be able to uh uh to help the
Speaker 7: next person uh who who who needed a little lyft
Speaker 7: and and uh both of them were equally adept at
Speaker 7: doing that all all throughout their lives.
Speaker 1: Well said Maddie, Scott, are you able to hang through
Speaker 1: a break to join us for one more segment?
Speaker 2: I'll leave that up to you, sir.
Speaker 3: Of course, I'm here, Okay, Well catch any time.
Speaker 2: We will catch a quick break.
Speaker 1: Scott Layden is with us sun of frank Leyden in
Speaker 1: longtime high level NBA executive Live in Vegas. We are
Speaker 1: honoring the life and legacy on the program today of
Speaker 1: the great frank Leyden who left us last week at
Speaker 1: the age of ninety three.
Speaker 6: For the first time since the turn of the century,
Speaker 6: MLB's All Star Game will be held in Atlanta, the
Speaker 6: first ever at Truest Park, since opening in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 6: All Star festivities begin tonight and culminate in the Midsummer
Speaker 6: Classic July fifteenth, as the National League looks to gain
Speaker 6: its second win since twenty thirteen, while the AL aims
Speaker 6: to extend its dominance. Tonight, it's the home run Derby
Speaker 6: said to compete as the favorite, Cal Raleigh, O'Neil Cruz,
Speaker 6: James wood Byron Buxton, Matt Olsen Junior, Broh Brent Rooker
Speaker 6: and Jazz Chisholm Junior. Tune into ESPN seven hundred at
Speaker 6: ESPN Radio at six pm. Forty seven days until kickoff
Speaker 6: for Utah football is eight face off with UCLA in
Speaker 6: the Rose Bowl August thirtieth. The countdown to kickoff on
Speaker 6: your Home of the Youths drop to you today I
Speaker 6: Outlaw Distillery and Outlawdistillery dot Com with your Sports Center update.
Speaker 6: I Importer Larsen on Utah's number one sports talk. It's
Speaker 6: ESPN seven hundred ninety two point one FM, live on
Speaker 6: YouTube and at ESPN seven hundred sports dot Com.
Speaker 1: All right, welcome back. In it's Monday edition of the Drive.
Speaker 1: It's about ninety three degrees outside Sunday and hot thanks
Speaker 1: for making Thanks for.
Speaker 2: Making us a part of your day. Hope you had
Speaker 2: a great weekend.
Speaker 1: We have thrown out our usual rundown to allocate today's
Speaker 1: time and energy to honoring the life and legacy of
Speaker 1: frank Leydon, who we lost last week at the age
Speaker 1: of ninety three. So we're hoping my own father might
Speaker 1: stand me up on my on my own radio show.
Speaker 1: We're hoping, as Scott Layden is joining us live in Vegas,
Speaker 1: Richard Smith is live in studio. Both of you know this.
Speaker 1: My father currently is stuck on the Van Wick on
Speaker 1: the way to JFK, so we may we may get
Speaker 1: a call from him at some point, Scott, but I
Speaker 1: can't guarantee it. So we're a little fluid this segment, gentlemen,
Speaker 1: Can you guys handle that?
Speaker 7: Hey Scott, Scott, how many times have you used the
Speaker 7: excuse I'm stuck on the Van Wick?
Speaker 3: Yeah, how about that. But it is a great episode
Speaker 3: of Seinfeld when they when they discuss that. And unless you,
Speaker 3: you know, have grown up in New York, it's hard
Speaker 3: to it's hard to imagine, but it is real. It is.
Speaker 3: It is. It can be uh, yeah, it can It
Speaker 3: can really lock you up. I have to tell you it,
Speaker 3: as Spence. I've mentioned this t before, but I think
Speaker 3: the world of day check its. I mean, what he
Speaker 3: did in concert with Larry Miller and my dad, bringing
Speaker 3: the franchise to a level of professionalism that was amazing.
Speaker 3: And you know he would always say first class or
Speaker 3: not at all, and we were first class. And I
Speaker 3: mean he could, he could. He was a dynamo. I
Speaker 3: loved working for him in Utah. I loved working for
Speaker 3: him in New York with that, you know, he had
Speaker 3: that corner office and just what he had on his plate.
Speaker 3: It's it was unbelievable, what what what he had going
Speaker 3: on in New York and uh, you know now what
Speaker 3: I'm what I'm getting at is that I was so
Speaker 3: excited to see him get in the Utah Sports Hall Fame,
Speaker 3: which was well deserved, but but he should also be
Speaker 3: in Springfield. I mean, what what his impact on the
Speaker 3: sport basketball and how good he was and and just
Speaker 3: you know how he managed the teams and the team
Speaker 3: building and you know, getting the right personnel in place.
Speaker 3: It really he's uh, I would think well deserving of
Speaker 3: of uh getting to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Speaker 5: Scott.
Speaker 7: You spent all these years with with the jazz in
Speaker 7: the eighties and nineties, and then then uh in ninety nine,
Speaker 7: summer of ninety nine, you get a uh, you get
Speaker 7: a phone call from I assume uh from from Dave Check.
Speaker 7: It's about the possibility of of maybe going.
Speaker 5: To work for the New York Knicks. Uh.
Speaker 7: Uh run our listeners through just a little bit where
Speaker 7: you can tell us about how that process actually took
Speaker 7: place and how that how that came about for you.
Speaker 3: No, I mean it was I don't know. We we
Speaker 3: had made a decision as a family to to give
Speaker 3: that a shot. I talked to my friend, uh Rick Majeris,
Speaker 3: who was coaching the youths at the time, and he said,
Speaker 3: you know, uh, most men live in quiet desperation without
Speaker 3: ever taking a chance. And so we had we had
Speaker 3: had so much success, and uh, I think our family,
Speaker 3: you know, because we had our four daughters were in
Speaker 3: grade school, and we we took a shot to go there,
Speaker 3: and you know, we've that's we've called that home ever since,
Speaker 3: even though I've had jobs elsewhere, We've always kept that
Speaker 3: as a home base. And when I was a kid,
Speaker 3: you know, my dad and I were we were Nick fans,
Speaker 3: and uh, it was like a dream come true. And
Speaker 3: then you know, to go back and and work again
Speaker 3: with with day was special. I wish, As I told
Speaker 3: him the other night, I said, I wish, I just
Speaker 3: wish it was a little longer, because I think working
Speaker 3: for him and and and I'm gonna tell you something,
Speaker 3: and Spencer, I think you you've you've you've experienced a
Speaker 3: when people tell you everyone loved working for him because
Speaker 3: it was it was competitive, it was fast paced, it
Speaker 3: was intense. But he he always had a great temperament
Speaker 3: and he had that that mental edge to make the
Speaker 3: place competitive and successful. I mean, and you go right
Speaker 3: down the list now, uh you know Madison Square, Garden,
Speaker 3: the Knicks, Radio City Music called the Rangers in no
Speaker 3: particular order, and then the other thing that and and
Speaker 3: this is like I was in awe of of how
Speaker 3: he managed all these entities. But we also had the Yankees.
Speaker 3: Listen to me, We we the the the the Garden.
Speaker 3: Uh managed the MSG network that had the Yankees on
Speaker 3: there and which which gave uh uh we hired my
Speaker 3: dad as a as a consultant, and and uh we
Speaker 3: the Yankees. Like the few weeks after we hired my dad.
Speaker 3: The Yankees were in the World Series, and uh uh,
Speaker 3: your dad was nice enough to get what we're called
Speaker 3: the seats and they was right.
Speaker 1: Behind I know the seats.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, you know the seats.
Speaker 5: Well, Scott us get us, give us the Spike Lee story.
Speaker 3: Yeah so so, but you could you could reach out
Speaker 3: because we were right behind it, the Yankee doug out.
Speaker 3: You could reach out and touch Joe Tory. That's that's
Speaker 3: how good those seats were. And uh so, as you know,
Speaker 3: my dad's a bigger baseball fan, was a bigger baseball
Speaker 3: fan than anything. So it was Marshia and I, my
Speaker 3: mom and dad and about the about in the fourth
Speaker 3: or fifth inning, the first baseman Martinez for the Yankees
Speaker 3: comes off the field and it was one of these
Speaker 3: moments where you like, you're just so excited for your dad.
Speaker 3: You know, it's like you couldn't you couldn't replicate it.
Speaker 3: And Dave I wish he was there to see it.
Speaker 3: But Martinez comes off the field after a put out
Speaker 3: and he's got the ball in his mit and he
Speaker 3: rolls it across the top of the dugout right to
Speaker 3: my dad because he recognized my dad he rolls it
Speaker 3: right to my dad and my dad gets the ball
Speaker 3: and it's the World Series and the ball has a
Speaker 3: World Series marker on it and he's studying it and
Speaker 3: I'm watching him. I'm thinking, oh, it's the coolest thing
Speaker 3: I've ever seen. Here's here's a lifelong baseball fan. Now
Speaker 3: he's got a World Series ball, you know. And I'm thinking,
Speaker 3: what's what's going through his mind? He's studying this ball
Speaker 3: and like the scenes in the logo and everything's I'm
Speaker 3: like tickled, I'm so happy, right And he looks at
Speaker 3: me and he says, you know, it's not I love
Speaker 3: Martinez so and then and then the game goes on.
Speaker 3: Two innings later, Martinez comes off the field again after
Speaker 3: it put out and rolls the ball across the dugout
Speaker 3: to me. So, now I have a World Series ball.
Speaker 3: And I'm not as affected as my dad was because
Speaker 3: I like baseball, but I'm not like you and my dad, Smitty.
Speaker 3: But now I have a ball, and I'm thinking, I
Speaker 3: don't know, I don't know about this. This is like
Speaker 3: I just got the nick job GM the whole thing,
Speaker 3: and I'm thinking, okay, I need to I don't need
Speaker 3: his attention. Anyway, all of a sudden, spike Lee, who's
Speaker 3: sitting does not have he was not in the seats,
Speaker 3: he did not have as good as seat. He had
Speaker 3: pretty good seats. But anyway, he's behind us and he
Speaker 3: starts a chant, one ball per family, I think, and
Speaker 3: now I'm like, I'm panicked. My first, my first public
Speaker 3: appearance in New York, I'm gonna be on a you know,
Speaker 3: back greedy. You know, he needed the ball for himself.
Speaker 3: So I turned around with this with this chant going on,
Speaker 3: and I started, you know, the little kid who was
Speaker 3: with his dad, and I tossed him the ball and
Speaker 3: then everybody was like they were okay. Then I was
Speaker 3: all right. But I'll tell you, you know, you asked me
Speaker 3: before Spence about, you know, growing up around Frank Layton
Speaker 3: and who got the He got the Niagara job when
Speaker 3: I was ten years old, so it was nineteen sixty
Speaker 3: eight and he went to Niagara. So it was like
Speaker 3: a lifetime, you know, all all time opportunity for him
Speaker 3: to go coaches his old school. And he loved Niagara,
Speaker 3: loved Niagara, and Niagara not too long ago named the
Speaker 3: court after he and my mom. So I was ten
Speaker 3: years old, and Syracuse came on to Niagara campus. The
Speaker 3: Niagara Gymnasium held twenty five hundred people, and Syracuse obviously
Speaker 3: was pretty big. East They come on to campus and
Speaker 3: Niagara wins the game. Calvin Murphy, all right, who was
Speaker 3: number three in the country and scoring it was Maravich
Speaker 3: Mount Murphy and average like Calvin average thirty six, Marriviage
Speaker 3: average like forty four. And Murphy gets sixty eight in
Speaker 3: the game, no three point line, sixty eight And I'm
Speaker 3: ten years old and my dad, you know, they win
Speaker 3: the game, and so he and I are driving home
Speaker 3: and he looks over at me and he says, you
Speaker 3: know what's done. This is gonna be a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: And it was. It was like I, you know, you
Speaker 3: see your dad have success. There was nothing like it.
Speaker 3: And to put it in context, the sixty eight points
Speaker 3: one game, no three point line, I scored fifty seven
Speaker 3: at Saint Francis Nice, So that puts it in context.
Speaker 3: You But it took me four years.
Speaker 1: I should have let him fish, you know. Scott, First
Speaker 1: of all, thank you for the kind words about my father,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'll let him come on and unpack
Speaker 1: his thoughts. He loved your father. He loved your.
Speaker 3: Father love I agree, and vice versa. By the way,
Speaker 3: vice versa.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder if you could share some insights in
Speaker 1: that relationship, because you referenced hiring Frank as a consultant
Speaker 1: back in New York, and you know they worked.
Speaker 2: Together when and my dad was a puppy.
Speaker 1: Frank could have very easily looked down on this young
Speaker 1: kid getting this opportunity at the age of twenty seven,
Speaker 1: but Frank alway treated him with respect and always treated
Speaker 1: him with kindos. I wonder if you could shut some
Speaker 1: insight on that working relationship.
Speaker 3: Well, I think I think your dad came in and
Speaker 3: infused a professionalism and a business acumen that that was
Speaker 3: desperately needed. That's something that we didn't you know, we
Speaker 3: really didn't have. I mean, we were run by smart people,
Speaker 3: don't get me wrong. But your dad came in with
Speaker 3: an enthusiasm and just generated and made the jazz, you know,
Speaker 3: world renowned. And I think the other thing is because
Speaker 3: of the mutual respect that my dad and and your
Speaker 3: father had that they it worked well together. They kind
Speaker 3: of like just it blended it and they they complimented
Speaker 3: each other so well, and they had so much respect
Speaker 3: for each other and they were able to have success
Speaker 3: that way. And trust me, these these relationships are not
Speaker 3: always like you know, uh like warm and fuzzy, and
Speaker 3: they're not always like it's not kindergarten. This is a
Speaker 3: competitive world that we were in. But they had so
Speaker 3: much respect that they could debate, they could argue, they
Speaker 3: could disagree. But when that when they all left that room,
Speaker 3: when they when everybody left the room, we were we
Speaker 3: were unified together. And that's the the like I'm looking at,
Speaker 3: I'm looking at And I know your dad appreciates this too,
Speaker 3: because his alignment when when he was involved with franchises
Speaker 3: was was elite. But when you look at the Oklahoma
Speaker 3: City Thunder, so mister Bennett, Sam Presty, uh, coach Dagenhall
Speaker 3: and the players, there's an alignment that is unique, special
Speaker 3: and and and it's and it's real and so I'm
Speaker 3: not surprised that they have success and they and that
Speaker 3: they're able to be patient during that time. Quite frankly,
Speaker 3: when the Jazz were in that that window of you know,
Speaker 3: the competitive years, that twenty years, there was an alignment
Speaker 3: that was unique and was it always easy No, it
Speaker 3: wasn't always easy, but it was you know, Larry Miller,
Speaker 3: it was Dave Checketts, Frank Laden, Jerry Sloan, Stockton, Malone, Eaton,
Speaker 3: and the alignment was was real so that when you
Speaker 3: when we had a you know, we have like a
Speaker 3: crazy one off, bad playoffs series. You know, you're losing
Speaker 3: five games to the Rockets, and you know, that's that
Speaker 3: kind of thing where you had, you know, we're winning
Speaker 3: sixty games every year that they're that you don't you
Speaker 3: don't waiver. And that's not to mean that we didn't
Speaker 3: have tough conversations, that we didn't figure out how to
Speaker 3: get better, but we never wavered on you know, who
Speaker 3: the coach was, who the important players were, and what
Speaker 3: why were we having success? Uh in the in the
Speaker 3: regular season, but also then how do we get better?
Speaker 3: And then eventually we go to the finals twice. But
Speaker 3: that alignment and that you know is so unique and
Speaker 3: it was unique. Uh, and that's why I believe, you know,
Speaker 3: when you look at I was fortunate to go and
Speaker 3: and and work with the Spurs, who have obviously their
Speaker 3: elite at their alignment and and that. But they used
Speaker 3: to talk about all the time, you know, we used
Speaker 3: to study the jazz. We used to study uh, and
Speaker 3: you know where the success was? Why was it successful?
Speaker 3: And then as they would tell you, not me, as
Speaker 3: they would tell you that that they they they had
Speaker 3: the same sort of alignment, and we put put the
Speaker 3: same sort of effort into keeping everything consistent and and
Speaker 3: and having a success day in day out, put year
Speaker 3: to year.
Speaker 1: Let's go out to the phone lines now and bring
Speaker 1: in my father stuck on the van Wick.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: So we have we have Richard smith live in studio.
Speaker 1: We have scott Leyden in Las Vegas, and my father
Speaker 1: Dave check Its joins us from New York. So I'll
Speaker 1: try to play traffic cop best I can. Hello, Dad,
Speaker 1: how are you.
Speaker 3: Hey?
Speaker 11: It's been a great show. I've been listening and happy
Speaker 11: to join and say hello. And I don't know how
Speaker 11: I can add anything to what rich Richard and what
Speaker 11: Smithy and what Scottie said. Scotti gave the talk of
Speaker 11: the century at Frank's funeral. He just he just he
Speaker 11: caught his whole life just beautifully as only a son could.
Speaker 11: It was I was I was sitting with the other
Speaker 11: Paul bears, as you know, and all of us were
Speaker 11: we're grabbing for Kleenex because Scott brought him right right
Speaker 11: to life, so he recapped his life so beautifully.
Speaker 1: I'll ask you the same question to start that I've
Speaker 1: asked all of our guests, that included, of course Smitty
Speaker 1: and Scott. We had Phil Johnson on earlier. We're going
Speaker 1: to bring in Ron McBride coming up in the five
Speaker 1: o'clock hour. But your thoughts on the life and legacy
Speaker 1: of Frank Layton. What did Frank Layton mean to you?
Speaker 11: Well, he met everything to me. When I joined the
Speaker 11: Jazz in nineteen eighty three, twenty seven years old, I
Speaker 11: had never run a lemonade stand, and Sam Battistone, on
Speaker 11: the recommendation of David Stern, brought me in and handed
Speaker 11: the reins to me and said, you know, David told
Speaker 11: me you'd you'd be able to save this franchise and
Speaker 11: keep it here. And David told me to give everything
Speaker 11: to you. And I really.
Speaker 8: Did not know.
Speaker 11: All of the steps that we'd have to take to
Speaker 11: turn into a franchise that wasn't rumored to move, wasn't
Speaker 11: going to leave Salt Lake, wasn't going to go into bankruptcy,
Speaker 11: he wasn't going to merge with the Denver Nuggets. Just
Speaker 11: you can't imagine the time that it was. But the
Speaker 11: first guy I reached out to was the coach and
Speaker 11: general manager, Frank Layden. And I'll never forget how he
Speaker 11: He came to the Salt Palace to meet with me
Speaker 11: on my second day of work, and he came in.
Speaker 11: He was he was driving a car that the franchise
Speaker 11: had given to him to drive. And you know, here
Speaker 11: he is like the head guy, coach, head coach, general manager.
Speaker 11: He's driving this to Yoda wagon that that looked like
Speaker 11: it had been tracked that the dealership of choice had
Speaker 11: given him. But you know what, his his great humility,
Speaker 11: his great dignity, his I came away. I remember coming home,
Speaker 11: Dohn and saying to your mom, this guy is incredible.
Speaker 11: He knows everything about the game, he knows everything about
Speaker 11: his job. He's just never been given the support and
Speaker 11: tools here that he needs to really build something special.
Speaker 11: And that's my job. Give him the money, give him
Speaker 11: the freedom, give him the ability instead of drafting, you know,
Speaker 11: drafting players and having to sell them as they as
Speaker 11: the Jazz had to do famously. You know, I wanted
Speaker 11: to give Frank Layden everything he needed to hire the
Speaker 11: best people, best coaches, to draft the best players, and
Speaker 11: we were going to be about winning. And when I
Speaker 11: said that to him, he said, that is music to
Speaker 11: my ears. But you know, he had never said that publicly.
Speaker 11: He always defended Sam and Sam's willingness to bring the
Speaker 11: team to Salt Lake. But that became my goal and
Speaker 11: we became great partners. In spite of the fact that
Speaker 11: he'd grown up in New York, I grew up in Utah.
Speaker 11: In spite of the fact that that I had I
Speaker 11: had no experience in the NBA and he had all
Speaker 11: this experience. All he showed me my whole life, my
Speaker 11: whole life was nothing but loyalty and dignity.
Speaker 4: He's he's one of.
Speaker 11: The best people I've ever met, by far. I mean
Speaker 11: he he had a character about him that that was
Speaker 11: full of goodness. And could he be tough, Yes, he
Speaker 11: could be tough. And he and I, he and I
Speaker 11: only had one run in the whole time we worked together,
Speaker 11: and it was over something stupid that had been said
Speaker 11: during a game time promotion, and he just let me
Speaker 11: have it. And I went right back at him, and
Speaker 11: I said, Frank book. I know I made a mistake,
Speaker 11: but we have always we've treated each other with great dignity.
Speaker 8: And you know what, he.
Speaker 3: Apologized like immediately, he just said, I'm so sorry that
Speaker 3: there were other things on.
Speaker 11: His mind and all of the rest of the time
Speaker 11: to the most difficult moments, especially Adrian Danley holding out
Speaker 11: on him and not reporting the camp and David Falk
Speaker 11: his agents just disrespecting the team, the franchise and us.
Speaker 11: Frank and I were just arm in arm. We were in.
Speaker 3: Lockstep, lockstep, and I really believe, you know, he turned
Speaker 3: it around because we got into tools he needed to
Speaker 3: do it. But in terms of what he meant to me,
Speaker 3: I can't even I can't even say, I can't even
Speaker 3: say he was He was the most valuable friend and
Speaker 3: mentor I could ever imagine, in not just in basketball,
Speaker 3: but in life, because we talked about life a lot.
Speaker 3: We talked about raising kids, we talked about how to
Speaker 3: treat your wife, we talked about character. He loved people
Speaker 3: of character, and he taught me so very much. And
Speaker 3: one of the other this is the last thing I'll say.
Speaker 3: I don't think there's any way I didn't have a
Speaker 3: choice when when Larry and I decided that we could
Speaker 3: not we could no longer work together. I didn't have
Speaker 3: a choice. I had to leave.
Speaker 11: But I loved the NBA and I got my dream
Speaker 11: job because the Knicks were the team of my childhood
Speaker 11: and Spencer you know this, I never could have gone
Speaker 11: to New York and she sheeted without having first been
Speaker 11: prepared by the all time New Yorker Frank Laden. He
Speaker 11: got me ready for what was a really tough job
Speaker 11: back there. But he just he taught me so many
Speaker 11: principles about winning and championship, culture and character, and I
Speaker 11: took it all in. I was just a sponge with him,
Speaker 11: and it allowed me, I think, for you know, to
Speaker 11: have a decade of success with the Knicks and Madison
Speaker 11: Square Garden.
Speaker 7: You know, Dave, we were we were talking about some
Speaker 7: of those qualities of Coach Layden's UH in earlier segment
Speaker 7: with Coach Johnson, and I made the UH the analogy
Speaker 7: that to me, it was a little bit like the
Speaker 7: recent documentary that came out about Yogi Berra and his
Speaker 7: granddaughter who did this film and researched all the information
Speaker 7: and said that that her her grandfather was known, you
Speaker 7: know as the quote the quote master, and the storyteller
Speaker 7: and all that kind of stuff, But nobody really gave
Speaker 7: him his due for for who he really was as
Speaker 7: a baseball player, you know, game in and game out,
Speaker 7: and his numbers over the years and all of that
Speaker 7: kind of stuff, and when you look at him, you know,
Speaker 7: his numbers far surpassed almost everybody else, uh in baseball
Speaker 7: during that time. And and also as as a catcher
Speaker 7: in the game. And we were saying, how how that somehow,
Speaker 7: you know, sometimes uh uh came over into how Frank
Speaker 7: was viewed by the public because he was a funny
Speaker 7: guy and told stories and did the stuff he did
Speaker 7: in a public facing a way. But behind the scenes,
Speaker 7: a lot of people don't know what kind of X
Speaker 7: and O's tactician he was as a coach, you know,
Speaker 7: how he was in the front office, how he managed people,
Speaker 7: and all the things he did actually run the franchise
Speaker 7: in the early days when it was teetering, and all
Speaker 7: the things he had to do to keep all those,
Speaker 7: if you will, all those plates spinning on top of
Speaker 7: the on top of the sticks in order none of
Speaker 7: them fall off. And what great skill he had in
Speaker 7: doing all of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 11: He was amazing and not only skilled and smart, but
Speaker 11: so caring and so committed. And I'm not sure he
Speaker 11: ever I mean, even though he had those nice accolades
Speaker 11: Coach of the Year, Executive of the Year in eighty
Speaker 11: four when we won the Midwest Division title my first
Speaker 11: year with the team, So I got spoiled quickly because
Speaker 11: that just started a run of when we just made
Speaker 11: the playoffs every year that we were together, Frank and I.
Speaker 11: And it's because of the job that he did not exs,
Speaker 11: not just excess and oose, but his leadership, his support
Speaker 11: is mentoring. I thought of a funny story, Spencer that
Speaker 11: I'll never forget. I was, of course negotiating player contracts
Speaker 11: and trying to get players signed as quickly as I could,
Speaker 11: to always get guys into camp and make sure we
Speaker 11: had the best players on the floor. And I was
Speaker 11: right in the middle of the Dantley holdout, and I'm
Speaker 11: just so angry about all of that. But there was
Speaker 11: a time later on Frank was still coaching where we
Speaker 11: were almost done with a contract extension for Mark Eaton,
Speaker 11: and he Mark Eaton's agent, Keith Glass, just wouldn't give
Speaker 11: up on this one. Stupid incentive he wanted in Mark's contract.
Speaker 11: He wanted an incentive that if Mark led the team
Speaker 11: in rebounding that he got an extra twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 11: And I went to coach Laden and I said, okay, Frank,
Speaker 11: this is the last thing we need to do. If
Speaker 11: we do this, he'll sign this new five year extension,
Speaker 11: we'll be done with him and we can carry on.
Speaker 11: And he said, what is it. And I said, he
Speaker 11: wants a twenty five thousand dollars bonus if he leads
Speaker 11: the team in rebounding. And he said, no, no, I'm
Speaker 11: not doing that. We're not doing that because you know,
Speaker 11: that's exactly what we need, is him trying to take
Speaker 11: rebounds away from whoever's on the other side of the
Speaker 11: free throw lane so he can add to his numbers.
Speaker 11: We're just not going to do that. And I said, Frank,
Speaker 11: it's like twenty five thousand dollars in a contract that
Speaker 11: was paying eating probably something like four or five hundred
Speaker 11: thousand dollars at the time. And I said, this is
Speaker 11: all we need to get this done. This thing will
Speaker 11: be behind us. We'll have him for five years. And
Speaker 11: Frank said, Dave, you know what, this is your deal.
Speaker 11: You do what you want. But I say, no, I'm
Speaker 11: against and so I went back. I negotiated for so
Speaker 11: long in this contract that I went back to Keith
Speaker 11: Glass and I said, Keith, if you tell me this
Speaker 11: is the very last deal, I'm doing this against my
Speaker 11: coaches wishes, I'll do it just just just to have
Speaker 11: it behind us. And Keith said, that's the last thing.
Speaker 3: We have a deal.
Speaker 11: So we signed the contract and it was a full
Speaker 11: two years later. It was two years after we signed
Speaker 11: that contract that we're playing in a very tight game
Speaker 11: at home. I think it was against the Mavericks, and
Speaker 11: we're at home and on a certain free throw I
Speaker 11: don't remember. I think it was Rolando Blackman shooting a
Speaker 11: free throw out. It's I can remember the moment like
Speaker 11: it was yesterday. And he makes the first free throw
Speaker 11: and misses the second, and Eaton goes up to grab
Speaker 11: the rebound, just as Malone does as well, and neither
Speaker 11: one of them yielded to the other, and they tipped
Speaker 11: the ball in went in the basket. And Scotty remember
Speaker 11: where I used to sit on the second road, just
Speaker 11: down from Press Road, and I see Frank marching toward me.
Speaker 11: We're in the middle of the game and I'm sitting
Speaker 11: with my I'm sitting with my family, and he comes
Speaker 11: over and stands right in front of me and he says, so, Dave,
Speaker 11: what do you think about your I'll leave out the word,
Speaker 11: what do you think about your incentive?
Speaker 8: Now?
Speaker 11: He inserted a little admitt what do you think about
Speaker 11: your blank?
Speaker 3: You're blank? He's blanking incentive now.
Speaker 8: What do you think about it now?
Speaker 3: And he stands there like I'm just answering, and I
Speaker 3: just am shrugging my shoulders like I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: Scott and Dad, I want to get you inside in
Speaker 1: this too. You know, Frank did something that really nobody does,
Speaker 1: and he would joke in later years that if he
Speaker 1: knew coaches were going to be paid four or five
Speaker 1: six million dollars a year, maybe he would have stuck around.
Speaker 1: But he retires in nineteen eighty eight, and as the
Speaker 1: legend goes, he had just been ejected from a game
Speaker 1: by Earl Strom after getting into a shouting match with
Speaker 1: Darryl Walker. But he also talked Scott about his desire
Speaker 1: to spend time with Barbara, with your mother and with
Speaker 1: the family, and you know, just kind of live his
Speaker 1: life a little bit, and you know, Jerry of course
Speaker 1: takes over and the rest is history.
Speaker 2: But Scott will start with you, then Dad will go
Speaker 2: to you on this.
Speaker 1: Can you shed some insight onto into exactly what that
Speaker 1: was like for him to walk away from a team
Speaker 1: that he had built it was ready to win at
Speaker 1: a very high level.
Speaker 3: I think I think the probably, I mean, this may
Speaker 3: be an oversimplification, but I think I think it was
Speaker 3: a selfless act at the time. And you know, while
Speaker 3: while I think he had, you know, enjoyed coaching, I
Speaker 3: think he I think he felt good about coaching, he
Speaker 3: felt good about the team, but I also think he
Speaker 3: understood where there was a little bit of a tipping
Speaker 3: point that if we waited too long, we could lose
Speaker 3: you know, a great coach and coach Sloan and his
Speaker 3: selflessness I think allowed him to step away. And the
Speaker 3: other thing is, and and Dave knows this well because
Speaker 3: they were really close, is that he had other, you know,
Speaker 3: other interests. It did like he wasn't he wasn't beholden
Speaker 3: to just basketball. He had so many other things that
Speaker 3: he wanted to do, and he wanted to do with
Speaker 3: my mom and my brother and sister. So it wasn't
Speaker 3: like he needed, you know that that's all he could do.
Speaker 3: He was more of a renaissance man than not. And
Speaker 3: he also loved being out in the community and and
Speaker 3: and travel and and so I think he I think
Speaker 3: he was comfortable with where he was and what he
Speaker 3: had done. And now you know, it was it was
Speaker 3: Jerry's time. And no one was more supportive of Jerry
Speaker 3: Sloane than my dad because if you look at coach
Speaker 3: Johnson and you look at Coach Sloan as as when
Speaker 3: they were assistants, they were.
Speaker 9: Both capable of being head coaches for sure, but both
Speaker 9: of them were so fiercely loyal and I'll tell you
Speaker 9: it was a great quality.
Speaker 3: It was a great lesson for me. They were both
Speaker 3: fiercely loyal to my dad and that's what made those
Speaker 3: relationships work. So when it came time, I think it
Speaker 3: was easy for my dad to say, you know what
Speaker 3: this is, this is Garry's time, so yeah, we'll.
Speaker 1: Go over to you. I wonder, you know, when Frank
Speaker 1: it came to you with that decision, what that was like,
Speaker 1: and how eventually it went from Frank to Jerry.
Speaker 11: It happened over quite a long period of time. Right
Speaker 11: after training camp that season, he started to make noise
Speaker 11: like that. When I would talk to him, he'd say,
Speaker 11: Dave Man, I don't know if I can do this.
Speaker 11: And we had had keep in mind that I think
Speaker 11: our coming out party was nineteen at the end of
Speaker 11: the the seventy or the seventh let's see eighty seven
Speaker 11: eighty eight season, when we played the Lakers in a
Speaker 11: seven game series. They would go on to win the championship,
Speaker 11: but we played them in a very tough seven game series,
Speaker 11: and actually when we came home for Game six, we
Speaker 11: blew them out like one oh six to eighty on
Speaker 11: our floor and set up a big Game seven, which
Speaker 11: we in LA. But I was surprised because he started
Speaker 11: making noise right after training camp about I hate getting
Speaker 11: on airplanes, I hate all the travel, I hate the
Speaker 11: hotel rooms. All of a sudden, he said, it's just
Speaker 11: it's just gotten old for me. And I said, but Frank,
Speaker 11: we finally have a team. We finally have a team
Speaker 11: that can do something really special. I mean really special.
Speaker 11: You saw what we did with the World Champs last year.
Speaker 11: This year could be better. We should be better, and
Speaker 11: don't you want to stick around to enjoy it? But
Speaker 11: he said he would keep saying I just don't have it.
Speaker 11: I just don't.
Speaker 3: I just don't feel it. But all these.
Speaker 11: Years later, I have concluded that there was something else
Speaker 11: to play with him. And you know, he'll never He'll
Speaker 11: never confirm this. He would never acknowledge it, even though
Speaker 11: I pushed him over the years to say, I know what.
Speaker 3: Was up with you then, And what was up was
Speaker 3: he did not want he did not want if he
Speaker 3: stepped down. He wanted Larry and me to have no choice.
Speaker 3: He wanted it to be Jerry Sloan. And the best
Speaker 3: way to do that would be the resign mid season,
Speaker 3: because I mean, we're not going to conduct a search
Speaker 3: then and select somebody else. I wouldn't have anyway, But
Speaker 3: Larry always talked about, you know, if Frank ever steps down,
Speaker 3: we're going to have to do a search.
Speaker 11: And I knew. I think we all knew that Jerry,
Speaker 11: even though he'd been fired in Chicago, we knew he
Speaker 11: was a great, great coach and a person of great character.
Speaker 11: I think Frank did that totally to force our hand.
Speaker 3: I've never said this publicly but I think he did
Speaker 3: it totally to force our hand, to make sure that
Speaker 3: this guy who had been so loyal to him and
Speaker 3: was so ready for the job, got the job.
Speaker 7: And as I remember that, Dave, if I'm my memory
Speaker 7: show as we correct, I think we had a game
Speaker 7: in the in the Salt Palace on a Wednesday night,
Speaker 7: came in Thursday morning, announced to the team that that
Speaker 7: he was stepping down immediately as the head coach, and
Speaker 7: Jerry was running practice that morning, and Jerry ran ran
Speaker 7: the practice, and then the team got on a flight
Speaker 7: that afternoon. I think it was to go to Dallas
Speaker 7: for a game Friday night, and it was just you know,
Speaker 7: just as you say, it was just like, we don't
Speaker 7: have any time to do anything else. This is what
Speaker 7: we have to do. We have to do this thing.
Speaker 7: And because we got a game with.
Speaker 11: One night, yeah, and we had, I mean all of
Speaker 11: us had agreed the night before that that's what we
Speaker 11: would do. And Larry came in too. Larry Miller walked
Speaker 11: into the dressing room well, and we let Frank announce
Speaker 11: that he was stepping aside and that Jerry was was
Speaker 11: going to take over. And then Larry said, I want
Speaker 11: to just say one thing. And he looked at the mailman.
Speaker 11: I remember him giving the mailman at Death's there, and
Speaker 11: he gave him this look and he said, this was
Speaker 11: Frank's decision and only Frank. He was nobody else had
Speaker 11: anything to do with this. This is totally his decision.
Speaker 11: Because he thought Larry thought the players would would think
Speaker 11: that he had he had pushed Frank out. He wanted
Speaker 11: he wanted the.
Speaker 3: Players to know and this was true. It was totally Frank.
Speaker 1: We're chatting with Scott Laden live in Vegas, Dave Checkets
Speaker 1: live in New York.
Speaker 2: Richard Smith live in Salt Lake City.
Speaker 1: I don't both of you have to go, so we'll
Speaker 1: end with this and Scott will start with you, and
Speaker 1: then Dad, we'll go to you. I wonder whether it's
Speaker 1: pearls of wisdom, pieces of advice, funny saints, and I
Speaker 1: know there's a lot there if you could share any
Speaker 1: of the great lessons you learned from Frank.
Speaker 2: Before I said both of you lose. Scott will start
Speaker 2: with you.
Speaker 3: Oh, there were many I haten to do this, but
Speaker 3: I said this the other night or the other day
Speaker 3: at the during the eulogy, he had all these things,
Speaker 3: and they were coming at us constantly. Words of advice.
Speaker 3: Whenever you go in a restaurant, immediately go into bathroom,
Speaker 3: because whoever cleans the bathroom cleans the kitchen. Always leave
Speaker 3: a place better than you found it. Now, clearly Utah,
Speaker 3: Salt Lake City, the jazz were better than he found
Speaker 3: it when he left. Never refuse a breath mint that
Speaker 3: sound advice. And then my favorite, and this is where
Speaker 3: I'm nervous, but I'm gonna say anyway, never trust a
Speaker 3: man with two first names. So I said, I said, Dad,
Speaker 3: what I don't understand what what do you mean by that?
Speaker 3: He said, we'll think about it.
Speaker 12: Son, Mike Lee, Lindsey Graham, Paul Ryan, Oh my god,
Speaker 12: my daughter is my speech writer.
Speaker 3: So he said, he said, you know, I'm not a
Speaker 3: member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat. And
Speaker 3: today's day and age. In today's day and age, it's
Speaker 3: like it's so poignant. But during the last several months,
Speaker 3: I can't tell you how many nerves came into his room.
Speaker 3: And I said, coach, thank you so much. You're the
Speaker 3: only room in the hospital that has Rachel Maddow an MSNBC.
Speaker 3: I'll leave it there. I'm sorry.
Speaker 5: No, I'll tell you.
Speaker 3: I got to tell you something because I worked with Smitty,
Speaker 3: I worked with Spencer when he was a young man.
Speaker 3: I can't. I just can't get over that Internet that
Speaker 3: worked for me is now this radio. I don't know.
Speaker 3: You're like, you're a dynamo. I just can't get over
Speaker 3: with you. Know. It's so You're like, no, I can't
Speaker 3: believe you're the same person. And then I'm telling you
Speaker 3: I loved and I told him the other night, I
Speaker 3: loved working for Dave check Its because every day was competitive,
Speaker 3: it was intense, and we were focused on winning it all.
Speaker 3: And that's I. I appreciate the opportunity that have worked
Speaker 3: with you guys, and obviously worked with my dad. So
Speaker 3: thank you, thank.
Speaker 1: You for those words, Scott, Dad will win with you.
Speaker 11: Oh Scottie, the opposite is true. You were just a
Speaker 11: joy always to work with and you know, to shure
Speaker 11: you work with your dad everything from the lucky ties,
Speaker 11: you know, to all everything we did to try and win.
Speaker 11: My favorite thoughts from Frank I'll just offer up too.
Speaker 11: I know he said never trust a man with two names,
Speaker 11: but he had those other thing, Scott. He said, never
Speaker 11: trust a man with a beard and he's hiding something,
Speaker 11: and he meant it, absolutely meant it. Never trust the
Speaker 11: man with the beard. But this was one of his
Speaker 11: favorite sayings. And this is why I think he ran
Speaker 11: out of gas with the Jazz. I think this had
Speaker 11: something to do with it, and he resigned too early.
Speaker 11: But he always said, it's better to surprise than disappoint,
Speaker 11: and that was one of his favorite sayings. And you
Speaker 11: know what, the Jazz is under Frank had started surprising
Speaker 11: people in that eighty three eighty four season. And in
Speaker 11: that eighty eight season, we had played the Lakers to
Speaker 11: a stancill. I mean they had to dig deep. We
Speaker 11: were the best team they played that year, and they
Speaker 11: went all the way to winning a title. And Frank
Speaker 11: knew that that young team had come of age and
Speaker 11: he just didn't love being in a situation where there
Speaker 11: was only downside. He loved being in a situation where
Speaker 11: there was only upside because he he knew he could
Speaker 11: surprise people. He knew his team could surprise people. And suddenly,
Speaker 11: instead of the underdog, the lovable underdog, the Jazz had
Speaker 11: become a real force in the NBA.
Speaker 5: Well Daved and Scott.
Speaker 1: Good I was just.
Speaker 11: Gonna I love I love him, I'll miss him and
Speaker 11: love the whole Laden family.
Speaker 7: You know, I was just going to add just a
Speaker 7: little anecdote David Scott. You know, I remember Frank Scott
Speaker 7: when when Scott first got to New York and got
Speaker 7: situated and brought Frank in, and and Frank came home
Speaker 7: from the first visit in New York, and and.
Speaker 5: I'm visiting with him.
Speaker 7: We're out to dinner, and he said, hey, look at this,
Speaker 7: and he takes out his key ring and he shows
Speaker 7: you and and I said, what is that, coach. He goes,
Speaker 7: see this key right here. I go, yeah, He goes,
Speaker 7: that's the key from Adison Square garden. And I said
Speaker 7: for the garden. He goes, yeah, they gave me the
Speaker 7: key to their garden. This opens every door in the garden.
Speaker 7: And and he just had this twinkle in his eye
Speaker 7: like I've gotten right to the top, right at the right,
Speaker 7: now I'm at the pinnacle. This is it. I got
Speaker 7: a key to the garden. I can't get in any
Speaker 7: door I want. And this was he was so proud
Speaker 7: of that and was so so excited to show me
Speaker 7: that he had the key.
Speaker 1: It was funny, Scottie, Dad will set you loose. Uh,
Speaker 1: you can't thank you enough. I know you both have
Speaker 1: things to do. So this has been awesome. Travel safe
Speaker 1: and we'll chat soon.
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you, sir, all right.
Speaker 5: Thanks guys, Scott Lane so much.
Speaker 2: Scott by Dad.
Speaker 1: Scott Laden live in Vegas, Dave Checkets live in New York,
Speaker 1: Richard Smith live in Salt Lake. We still have more
Speaker 1: to do, even though it feels like we've done a lot.
Speaker 1: The former head coach of the Utah football team, Ron McBride,
Speaker 1: uh via Smitty, requested to come on today. And when
Speaker 1: Ron McBride hasked to come on a radio show, you
Speaker 1: come on a radio show. He's in Hawaii conducting a
Speaker 1: football camp, but he and Frank were very close, so
Speaker 1: we'll bring him on.
Speaker 2: We have done something a little unique today.
Speaker 1: Back to kind of our regular schedule programming for the
Speaker 1: rest of the week. I was out Thursday of Friday
Speaker 1: last week, so I was not able to be on air.
Speaker 1: After the passing of frank Leyden last week at the
Speaker 1: age of ninety three, so we are honoring his life
Speaker 1: in legacy. Phil Johnson joined us. Scott Layden live in Vegas,
Speaker 1: Dave Checkets live in New York. Richard Smith is good
Speaker 1: enough to join us in studio live in Salt Lake.
Speaker 1: Now we go across the ocean to the rock where
Speaker 1: the Great Ron McBride is good enough to give us
Speaker 1: some time on a Monday afternoon. Coach Mack, how are you, sir?
Speaker 8: Good?
Speaker 1: How you guys do We're good?
Speaker 2: We're good.
Speaker 1: I'll just ask you the same question I've asked all
Speaker 1: my guests. What was it like to be frank Leyden's friend?
Speaker 4: Oh man, he was special and a number of things
Speaker 4: that in favors he did for me over the last
Speaker 4: thirty years or or just unbelievable because whenever you call
Speaker 4: him for something, he always said, no problem, I got you.
Speaker 4: And even when he started goal out, he still showed up.
Speaker 4: And I think in the last ten years we had
Speaker 4: twenty three events and he showed up for twenty one
Speaker 4: of them, and the only ones he did show up
Speaker 4: was this year because he, unfortunately was on a huge declaim.
Speaker 7: The coach, It's really nice for me to take a
Speaker 7: few minutes to visit with us about about frank today.
Speaker 7: Tell us, tell us about the unique relationship that you
Speaker 7: two had, because I've been fortunate to be around you
Speaker 7: guys in some public settings and also private get togethers,
Speaker 7: and you guys always just seemed to have a unique
Speaker 7: speciald that goes beyond sports, but was was more of
Speaker 7: just a personal thing involving you just how you felt about.
Speaker 4: Each other about it was a personal thing. And and
Speaker 4: we we did a lot together. You know, he had
Speaker 4: dinners together, events together, Uh, games together. You know, I
Speaker 4: can't I can't tell you how many times he spoke
Speaker 4: to to my football teams. And it was an awesome
Speaker 4: pre pregame speaker. And it's funny, you know, and and uh,
Speaker 4: you know, just he he had a way of of
Speaker 4: reaching every every situation. Then, you know, he had a
Speaker 4: way of just okay, what what what's what do you
Speaker 4: got to get get across there? What do you need
Speaker 4: to say? And then I'd say, Frank, if you cover
Speaker 4: this and this and this, and then you whom ideas
Speaker 4: and then he would just take it from there. You know.
Speaker 4: He was he was funny, he was he was passionate,
Speaker 4: He he was you know, he was everything you could
Speaker 4: ask in a person. You know, he just was uh,
Speaker 4: and we had you know, we had a great relationship
Speaker 4: probably from day one. You know, I come over the
Speaker 4: first time when they when the jazz came here, and
Speaker 4: and I said, who's the guy who makes all the decisions?
Speaker 4: They who are getting Frank Layton? I said, well, I
Speaker 4: need to get hold myself. I need to see if
Speaker 4: I can we can buy some tickets for some recruits
Speaker 4: we have coming in and to see whether so I called.
Speaker 4: I said, so, I called him, and he got on
Speaker 4: the phone. They were talking and yucking it up, and
Speaker 4: I said, look, I said, I got these, I got
Speaker 4: a few guys. He said, okay, how many tickets do
Speaker 4: you need? I said, well, you know, we could use around.
Speaker 3: Thirty And he says, what time can you be here?
Speaker 3: I said, And from that time on, you know, I
Speaker 3: mean we became became great friends. And and that spans alone, you.
Speaker 4: Know, a long time. And and he always you know,
Speaker 4: it doesn't matter what the community asked him for, he
Speaker 4: always did. It didn't matter what you know, he was.
Speaker 4: He was great with the with the team, great with
Speaker 4: the players, and he was great with my players. You know,
Speaker 4: you couldn't ask for a better person. And and him
Speaker 4: passing leaves a huge boy in my life because I
Speaker 4: was very dependent on seeing him and and uh, you
Speaker 4: know just uh he was just he's just one of
Speaker 4: those unique people you know that you that you come
Speaker 4: across in your life done well.
Speaker 7: I know, coach, Uh you, you and Vicky were some
Speaker 7: of the last people to be able to visit with him.
Speaker 7: And and uh, I know you guys had such a
Speaker 7: such a close, uh close bond, you know, with the
Speaker 7: Leaden family and uh and it's just so heartwarming to
Speaker 7: see that how you guys always uh interacted with each other.
Speaker 4: I mean, please, so I had I forget what you
Speaker 4: have been in the night he passed away. I had
Speaker 4: been doing something pretty much all day and when I
Speaker 4: when I got home, I said, I said to Vicky Kelly,
Speaker 4: I said, you know, we need to go over to
Speaker 4: see Frank because I don't think he's I don't think
Speaker 4: he's doing well. I don't think I don't know what.
Speaker 3: So we.
Speaker 4: My daughter Kelly said, Okay, you guys, get in the car.
Speaker 4: I'll drive you up. And I could tell that that
Speaker 4: you know that you know he was he was not
Speaker 4: going to make it, you know he was. It was
Speaker 4: just heartbreaking because he fought this for.
Speaker 3: A long time.
Speaker 4: And what you can tell you you know, he was,
Speaker 4: he was satisfied with with with what he did in
Speaker 4: this life.
Speaker 1: Coach. I've been asking people this question all day, and
Speaker 1: of course most people know Frank is a great coach
Speaker 1: and a very funny personality. But upon his passing, he
Speaker 1: and Barbara were married sixty eight years. I wonder what
Speaker 1: sort of insight you have as far as your friendship
Speaker 1: with them as a couple and Frank as a husband.
Speaker 4: Well, we we did a lot of things with them
Speaker 4: as as uh, you know, we got to eat kind
Speaker 4: of and Vicky would have once with Barbara and a
Speaker 4: group of ladies. They usually me, you know, once or
Speaker 4: twice a month, and they Kid and Barbara were real close.
Speaker 4: And and then of course we had the old timers lunch,
Speaker 4: you know that that that he done, that put together,
Speaker 4: and that was and I, you know, I'd always show
Speaker 4: up a little bit late, and I would always stay afterwards,
Speaker 4: and that's when we that's when we'd have our real conversations.
Speaker 4: After once was over and kind of everybody was gone,
Speaker 4: and then Smitty would stay, Frank would be there, I
Speaker 4: would be there, and then we get down to serious,
Speaker 4: serious business of what was going on.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: He left to talk baseball. Oh you know he's he's
Speaker 4: a baseball fanatic. Love to talk about his hometown and uh,
Speaker 4: and his his love for Barbara was just uh unique,
Speaker 4: you know, they know, such a great relationship and and
Speaker 4: uh and how much he depended on on on her
Speaker 4: and uh, it just was you know, it's just you know,
Speaker 4: I don't know what to say, except I know that
Speaker 4: that at least a huge void. And he was a
Speaker 4: huge supporter of my foundation for kids and he was
Speaker 4: always always great with that any just anything anything you want,
Speaker 4: you know, And and uh, a very intelligent man, you know,
Speaker 4: just just as far as you know anything about you
Speaker 4: talk anything about sports and uh and politics you know,
Speaker 4: he was he was he was fun to talk to
Speaker 4: about politics. Here and my wife were on the same wavelength,
Speaker 4: you know, and and on politics, so so that that
Speaker 4: was always an interesting conversation between Vicky and Frank about
Speaker 4: you know, the today's today's world, about what was going
Speaker 4: on and uh and uh he had opinions and she
Speaker 4: had opinions. But uh, it was uh, I mean, what
Speaker 4: what can you say? I mean, this guy thought was
Speaker 4: ever day one since since the jazz came here. When
Speaker 4: I got to know him, we were instant. You know,
Speaker 4: we had an instant connection. And uh, if I could
Speaker 4: ever do anything for him or he needed me for something,
Speaker 4: always always glad to do it. But but his his
Speaker 4: favorite saying all the time was you know, in closing
Speaker 4: a phone call or or or when you're getting ready
Speaker 4: of leaving, or what can I do for you?
Speaker 3: You know? That was his.
Speaker 4: He said, well, just let me know what I can
Speaker 4: do for you. And I said, you don't need to
Speaker 4: do anything for me. Well make sure you if you
Speaker 4: need something, just tell me and I'll do it. And
Speaker 4: I can remember Schmittie would bring him to two events
Speaker 4: and he'd say, wow, I don't know how long I
Speaker 4: can stay, but I'll stay until until you say I
Speaker 4: can go. You know, I said, hey, you you go
Speaker 4: wherever you want to go. But he'd hang and he
Speaker 4: hang and hang, and he'd be there just talk. He'd
Speaker 4: greet everybody when they came in, and you know, he
Speaker 4: just uh he gave up his time and uh, he
Speaker 4: loved it talk to people. He was a great, great communicator. Uh,
Speaker 4: you know, had a great belief in the in the
Speaker 4: in the jazz, you know, and obviously they they drafted
Speaker 4: some great players during this time, and and they were
Speaker 4: able to develop these guys and and uh, you know,
Speaker 4: make it a make make us a great, a great product,
Speaker 4: and uh you know, and with the event of John
Speaker 4: and Carl and Jeff and that group and you know
Speaker 4: that was a special group of players.
Speaker 7: Here coach UH shifting gears for just second, we need
Speaker 7: to publicly uh congratulate you on your selection to be
Speaker 7: uh inducted into the Utah Ring of Honor at the
Speaker 7: University of Utah.
Speaker 5: Congratulations. Tell tell us a little bit about.
Speaker 7: That, about your uh, how you got the phone call,
Speaker 7: how you found out about that.
Speaker 4: We were we were at a event, you know for
Speaker 4: and I think it was our you know, our golf
Speaker 4: our golf tournament. Then we had a deal on Funday night.
Speaker 4: So the Mark Crowt had called uh Vicky and said,
Speaker 4: make sure the coach is on time. And I'm thinking,
Speaker 4: why is the athletic director that you don't worried about
Speaker 4: it from out time to the event. And then I
Speaker 4: get on he says, we have to be on time
Speaker 4: to this event. I said, why, said, I have no idea.
Speaker 4: I thought, well, maybe they're going to take my tickets away,
Speaker 4: I know, you know, so so then UH Mark Mark said, Hey,
Speaker 4: I like to make an announcement, you know, on the home.
Speaker 4: I got what's what's this going to be? And he
Speaker 4: says that, you know, coach Max went into the ring
Speaker 4: of honor them and you and the job was just
Speaker 4: so you know this this uh excited about it and
Speaker 4: and appreciate it. And uh uh I appreciate it to
Speaker 4: the particularly to the to the players that played for me,
Speaker 4: and and the and the and the families that that
Speaker 4: that built you know, what's theirted day and the players
Speaker 4: and you know, and so we had a we had
Speaker 4: a vision a long time ago of what this place
Speaker 4: could be and uh and and the vision is still
Speaker 4: right there, you know. And and and Kyle obviously has
Speaker 4: has done a great job and and to take it
Speaker 4: to the next step. And he's hired the right people
Speaker 4: and you got you know, a great you know, most
Speaker 4: of the defensive staff that played at Utah and.
Speaker 3: Then any desire the.
Speaker 4: New offensive coordinator when running back coach Jake Kukus. And
Speaker 4: you know, so they got a lot of people that
Speaker 4: I know quite well that are working for him in
Speaker 4: their home.
Speaker 3: They're all happy and they don't want to go anywhace else.
Speaker 3: And they're committed to.
Speaker 4: What Kyle's vision is at the University of Utah.
Speaker 1: Well, coach Mac, thank you so much for your time
Speaker 1: on this very special day. We will set you loose,
Speaker 1: enjoy Hawaii and safe travel, sir.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay.
Speaker 4: I would like to say then closing that how much
Speaker 4: I love Frank and how much I'm missing And he
Speaker 4: was a real guy, you know, and smid what you
Speaker 4: did for him in the last twelve years, thirteen years
Speaker 4: of taking care of and being his sidekick, being there
Speaker 4: all the time. I can't tell you how much all
Speaker 4: of us appreciate what what what you did for what
Speaker 4: you did for him, especially through the tough times. And
Speaker 4: that's what tells you a lot about people, is what
Speaker 4: you do when somebody can't do something for you and
Speaker 4: it's gonna thank you. Thank you for giving up for
Speaker 4: yourself and caring about front.
Speaker 5: Very kind of your coach. Thank you.
Speaker 4: Okay, have a good have a good day you guys.
Speaker 4: Yeah that I love.
Speaker 3: What's more.
Speaker 8: Way, Yes, I.
Speaker 13: I you know I've been off mold than I could too,
Speaker 13: but through it all and that was out. I ended
Speaker 13: up and spit it out. The record shows I took
Speaker 13: the blows. But did it?
Speaker 1: Bravo, Yeah, we're on air.
Speaker 5: We're on there now.
Speaker 13: Yeah, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 5: Good night, everybody.
Speaker 13: Is the check in the mail, that's just one though.
Speaker 1: The check is in the mail.
Speaker 13: Last time you told me you was sending a watch,
Speaker 13: you couldn't even come in the.
Speaker 1: Time of day, you know, I uh, I wasn't sure
Speaker 1: if we're going to be able to find that. And
Speaker 1: I don't know whether to laugh or cry, to be
Speaker 1: honest with this, Minty.
Speaker 5: That was Porter.
Speaker 1: When was that two years ago?
Speaker 13: Maybe?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think the spring of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that, of course was the great frank Leyden,
Speaker 1: who was a consistent guest on this program throughout the
Speaker 1: course of this program and others throughout the course of
Speaker 1: my career. Has been so good to me, not just
Speaker 1: in my career, but in my life. And so I
Speaker 1: am sad to say goodbye. I am grateful that he
Speaker 1: is not suffering anymore. And I have so many wonderful
Speaker 1: memories ever since I was just little kids. Smitty, I
Speaker 1: can't imagine what's going through your head right now. So
Speaker 1: as we wrap it up, Penny for your thoughts. As
Speaker 1: you hear frank sing a little Frank Sinatra to wrap
Speaker 1: up the show today.
Speaker 7: Oh that was that was so apropos. And I'll tell
Speaker 7: you what. He wouldn't want you to be shedding a
Speaker 7: tear at all. He'd want you to be laughing or
Speaker 7: you know, make some kind of comment like really are
Speaker 7: you are you really trying to sing on the public
Speaker 7: airwaves and whatever, and you know, but he's uh, he
Speaker 7: was truly, as I've said to many people over the
Speaker 7: last several days, he's truly from my perspective, in my opinion,
Speaker 7: one of a kind. But he was one of a
Speaker 7: kind in the best type of way.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 7: It's you know hard to you know, everybody says, oh,
Speaker 7: there'll be another, never be another one like that, and
Speaker 7: you know in any sport or something thing or whatever.
Speaker 7: But you know, you'll hope that there's many more, uh
Speaker 7: Frank Layton's around somewhere because that just makes makes life
Speaker 7: better for everybody who's who's around people like that. And
Speaker 7: I know that would be a sentiment he would want
Speaker 7: to share, is that, Uh, everybody celebrate and everybody, Uh,
Speaker 7: everybody have fun and enjoy the people around you and
Speaker 7: and and take care of them the best way that
Speaker 7: you can.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much. This show today would not
Speaker 1: have happened without you. And as coach Max said earlier,
Speaker 1: you were omnipresence in Frank's life over the past decade plus,
Speaker 1: helping a lot Smidi so a lot of people around him.
Speaker 2: Are you a lot?
Speaker 7: No, just just just trying to be a friend, trying
Speaker 7: to uh, you know, repay whatever you can. Never you know,
Speaker 7: any any anything you do in those kinds of situations,
Speaker 7: I suspense. I I truly believe that you always end
Speaker 7: up getting more than the than you give, you know.
Speaker 7: And Frank gave me so much and and I was honored,
Speaker 7: uh and privileged and humbled to uh to uh be
Speaker 7: able to call him a friend of mine. And uh
Speaker 7: and we'll we'll we sure surely will miss him and
Speaker 7: and uh but we'll try to celebrate him all the
Speaker 7: time whenever we.
Speaker 1: Can, in honor of Frank Laydon. Coming up on the
Speaker 1: other side is the Major League Baseball Home run Derby,
Speaker 1: which Frank would probably want to follow the show porter,
Speaker 1: great job today. Way to put a cherry on top
Speaker 1: of that Sunday with that final bump before we saycond night,
Speaker 1: What comes our way to Tuesday?
Speaker 2: Edition of the show.
Speaker 6: Yeah, man on a on a Tuesday show, a little
Speaker 6: more remembering one frank Leydon Grant Harrison will stop by
Speaker 6: the show. Tim McMahon stops by the show, Bill Riley,
Speaker 6: Dave Fox a loaded Tuesday show, and yeah, just to
Speaker 6: echo your guys sentiments, all of you worked with Frank
Speaker 6: in like a professional setting. You knew him for decades
Speaker 6: and decades, so that feeling is is is very present
Speaker 6: and forward.
Speaker 4: For me.
Speaker 6: I cleaned Frank's golf clubs everyone in a while as
Speaker 6: a he came up to Park City golf courses with
Speaker 6: all his friends, all their New York accents, and they
Speaker 6: all they all gave me, gave me crap all the time.
Speaker 6: They you know, that was that was how they approached life.
Speaker 6: But Frank specifically made me feel like I had been
Speaker 6: his friend for a long time and I never met him,
Speaker 6: and I know that that's how he made like everyone
Speaker 6: he ever met feel. So h just a little more
Speaker 6: perspective that I know, like a thousand fans also shared
Speaker 6: with one Frankly.
Speaker 1: Well said, and we will say good Night's special thank you.
Speaker 1: Phil Johnson, Scott Layden, Dave Checketts, Ron McBride, The incomparable
Speaker 1: Richard Smith. My name is Spence Checkett, saying good night.
Speaker 1: I loved Frank Laydon and I will miss him. Enjoy
Speaker 1: your Monday evening home run Derby's next. We're talking out
Speaker 1: a Tuesday drive as well as you can catch it
Speaker 1: right here on ESPN seven hundred