Speaker 1: Welcome to the Big Blue Insider. Dick Gabriel with you
Speaker 1: on New Year's Eve, taking one more day off this
Speaker 1: holiday season, So we're gonna present the best of the
Speaker 1: Big Blue Insider going into the new year, and a
Speaker 1: reminder that tomorrow night we're gonna present a special edition
Speaker 1: as we look back on the year twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: which was a huge year in UK sports. So we'll
Speaker 1: relive the highlights coming up tomorrow night on The Big
Speaker 1: Blue Insider. But tonight we're going to take you back
Speaker 1: to a conversation I had with ESPN's Jimmy Dikes after
Speaker 1: Kentucky's comeback win over again Zaga Ada in Seattle. It's
Speaker 1: a game Jimmy worked, and he talked with us one
Speaker 1: night on the Celebrity Hotline about the Cats and the
Speaker 1: Zags year on the Best of the Big Blue Insider. Jimmy,
Speaker 1: I know there was a long trip out there. You guys,
Speaker 1: you were rewarded with one heck of a game, aren't you.
Speaker 2: Gosh, He's one of the great games so far this year,
Speaker 2: and any you get a chance to do a game
Speaker 2: between two of the great national brands out there, obviously,
Speaker 2: Kentucky becomes AGAs is also you know, one of the
Speaker 2: one of the strongest brands in the college game right now,
Speaker 2: you jump on the chance and did delivered and it didn't.
Speaker 2: It did not look like at halftime it was going
Speaker 2: to deliver it because our producers, I mean the halftime,
Speaker 2: our producers literally asked me to me, what do you
Speaker 2: see anything changing this game? I said, no, oh, like,
Speaker 2: I didn't see any I saw nothing in the first half.
Speaker 2: That said, Kentucky has an answer for this. But uh man,
Speaker 2: they did, and man, what a what a great game
Speaker 2: to watch, I'm sure from the second half of that overtime.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, before we break it down a little bit,
Speaker 1: just quickly give me I don't know that we've talked
Speaker 1: in a while, and I'm just curious about your reaction.
Speaker 1: And I follow you on Twitter, of course, But when
Speaker 1: Kentucky hired Pope, when all this happened and he had
Speaker 1: to cobble together a team like a jigsaw puzzle, Well,
Speaker 1: what was your reaction? Because I always talk about the
Speaker 1: fact that you know, of all the analysts out there,
Speaker 1: of course, you know Kentucky better than anybody because you've
Speaker 1: lived it and you appreciate the tradition at all. But
Speaker 1: what was your what was your response when all this
Speaker 1: happened here in Lexington.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, because you guys are very aware
Speaker 2: of the names that were thrown around and kind of
Speaker 2: out out of left field comes to Mark Polks and
Speaker 2: this of your life, hump, that's an interesting hire. But
Speaker 2: then as the twenty four hour period went by, and
Speaker 2: I kind of dug into to what he's done and
Speaker 2: started listening to all the things that he understood about
Speaker 2: Kentucky basketball and like big Blue Nation. And within twenty
Speaker 2: four hours that's think Flip Man, how they went from
Speaker 2: this is not a great hire to we hired the
Speaker 2: guy that's going to put us back on the map.
Speaker 2: And then so far, so good they have they've been right,
Speaker 2: and you know he was He's exactly what Kentucky needed
Speaker 2: right now. The guy that comes in and completely gets
Speaker 2: the value of that Kentucky jersey, the fure that teams
Speaker 2: the state, the expectations. He hasn't ran from it. He
Speaker 2: knows the pressure. But there's it's a it's a perfect fit,
Speaker 2: you know, for for a Kentucky program that is desperate
Speaker 2: to get back to being who Kentucky basketball supposed to be.
Speaker 2: And so far they have this year.
Speaker 1: What do you think of what he runs and how
Speaker 1: his team runs it?
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: They have great belief in their system, which is a
Speaker 2: great starting point. You know, they understand exactly how they're
Speaker 2: supposed to play. If you're going to shoot thirty or
Speaker 2: more three point shots the game, then you have to
Speaker 2: make ten or eleven the game to make it pay off.
Speaker 2: And they have not shot the ball well over the
Speaker 2: last three games. Now. They delivered in the second half
Speaker 2: against Gonzaga, but more importantly, that offense got things done
Speaker 2: on the inside. And I talked about during the game,
Speaker 2: you don't jump shoot your way back from sixteen downing
Speaker 2: it's the top ten team basically on their floor. And
Speaker 2: Mark started calling play and he went heavily with Andrew
Speaker 2: Carr and then when he too went out. It kind
Speaker 2: of worked after their benefit because Kentucky became bigger on
Speaker 2: both ends of the floor. And now the matchup problem
Speaker 2: that was was really something for Gonzaga to have to
Speaker 2: work to on both ends. And you know, Mark does
Speaker 2: what a great coach does. You got to find a
Speaker 2: way to change the game, and he changed the game
Speaker 2: with that one three one zone that it really just
Speaker 2: it was a one three one to start with, but
Speaker 2: after the first pass or once the ball got.
Speaker 3: Blowed the free throw line then went manda.
Speaker 2: Man, but it completely through Gonzaga off of their rhythm
Speaker 2: and change the game.
Speaker 1: I felt like in the first half, Jimmy Gonzaga was
Speaker 1: more aggressive, more physical, kind of played Kentucky out of
Speaker 1: his shoes a little bit.
Speaker 2: Did it seem that way to you, No doubt, Man,
Speaker 2: that was the you know, that was the blueprint watching
Speaker 2: the Clemson films. Yeah, from you bike from Gonzaga's standpoint
Speaker 2: was We're just gonna be physically these guys and blow
Speaker 2: up all that dribble hand off and make sure we're
Speaker 2: out on shooters and bumping them.
Speaker 3: And it worked.
Speaker 2: It worked to a sixteen point leads, and Gonzagia was
Speaker 2: doing anything they wanted, especially off that ballscreen action with
Speaker 2: neim Hart and the Graham k Kentucky had no answer
Speaker 2: for it. But man, the things changed within that first
Speaker 2: two minutes of the of the second half. Because gonzag
Speaker 2: is really good. I mean, they're ranked inside the top
Speaker 2: twelve and this week's ap pole I mentioned that during
Speaker 2: the game that this week's ap pole your national champion
Speaker 2: is somewhere within that top twelve. It's been that way
Speaker 2: for twenty straight years, and it's not a guarantee, but
Speaker 2: about as close to a guarantee as we have in
Speaker 2: the college game predicting a national champion. And thankfully for
Speaker 2: Kentucky fans and Gonzaga both they're both inside that top
Speaker 2: twelve this week in college basketball.
Speaker 1: You talked about it on the air, you mentioned it
Speaker 1: a minute ago. But Mark Pope started calling plays and
Speaker 1: changed the game a little bit. Obviously going to Andrew
Speaker 1: Carr and he tried to get a little bit done
Speaker 1: in the first half, but I felt like he just
Speaker 1: kind of, as the expression goes boat his neck, he
Speaker 1: just went to work, didn't he in the second half?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And yeah, he had the game. That's kind of
Speaker 2: hard to It's just kind of hard to defend. He's
Speaker 2: I'm not going to say that it's an awkward game,
Speaker 2: but he's so big, strong, physical, you know, you can
Speaker 2: move him around different spots on the floor and he
Speaker 2: You're right, he kind of I think he was the
Speaker 2: first one early in that second half that kind of
Speaker 2: drew a line and said no more.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if we go.
Speaker 2: Down, we're at least going to go down with pride
Speaker 2: and fight and being the aggressor, and it went from
Speaker 2: him to Jackson Robinson and he had to move to
Speaker 2: the point and everything everything clicked. So I mean that
Speaker 2: was a really I mean, it's hard to say like
Speaker 2: which win really establishes a head coach with the program,
Speaker 2: but that might be the one when you look back
Speaker 2: on his hopefully long career as the head coach of
Speaker 2: Kentucky that it kind of solidified we got the right guy.
Speaker 1: I tell you what you mentioned, point guard. I was
Speaker 1: listening to the pregame show and heard Tom Leech talking
Speaker 1: with Mark Pope. When Pope and that's Nola mont Butler.
Speaker 1: I just kind of dropped my shoulder. I said, well,
Speaker 1: there goes that game because I didn't see honestly anyway,
Speaker 1: Kentucky with them heart are so good. How are you
Speaker 1: going to disrupt Gonzaga at all? And then get into
Speaker 1: your offense with that Butler. At what point did you
Speaker 1: guys find out on TV side that Butler wasn't going
Speaker 1: to play?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we pretty much knew it to shoot around, you know,
Speaker 2: we're yeah, we're privy to obviously a lot of information,
Speaker 2: and they trust us and we're not gonna say a word.
Speaker 2: That's not that we're not into breaking news like that,
Speaker 2: but I was like you at halftime, I was like, well,
Speaker 2: that's that's kind of what we thought. We don't have
Speaker 2: a little butler the best defensive point guard out there
Speaker 2: and them Hart's doing whatever he wants. But it's funny
Speaker 2: how you kind of fall into things sometimes as a
Speaker 2: coach or a team. When when Kirk Crisa went out
Speaker 2: and he was forced to put Jackson Robinson up up
Speaker 2: top as a primary ball handler, Kentucky got really big
Speaker 2: on both ends of the floor. They had match up
Speaker 2: problems working to their advantage, and they just kind of
Speaker 2: fell into it. I don't think Mark will play a
Speaker 2: heavy lot of minuts going forward with that lineup, but
Speaker 2: it's sure. It's good to know that, man if we
Speaker 2: get if we get in that pinch, we have a
Speaker 2: bigger lineup we can play.
Speaker 3: And it worked really well.
Speaker 1: You know when Kentucky fans were studying this new roster
Speaker 1: and they were so relieved. Frankly, when Jackson Robinson signed on,
Speaker 1: wasn't a real shock tested the waters. But I think
Speaker 1: they may have expected and this is for lack of
Speaker 1: a better term. You can help me with this, but
Speaker 1: I think maybe they were looking for a flashier game man,
Speaker 1: maybe from a guy who you know might be NBA ready.
Speaker 1: That's not his style. But I think what we saw
Speaker 1: against Gonzaga is what I mean. That was him at
Speaker 1: his best, wasn't it.
Speaker 2: The second half was the best he's played in the
Speaker 2: Kentucky Jersey. You know, he did not start at BYU.
Speaker 2: He was the sixth Man of the Year and led
Speaker 2: BYU in scoring. He's not just a guaranteed next level
Speaker 2: NBA guy, but he showed signs in that second half
Speaker 2: that he can handle the ball, he can make some
Speaker 2: tough shots. Obviously Kentucky needs him to continue to shoot
Speaker 2: better from the three point line like the team does overall.
Speaker 2: But I think it's a cool story that once he
Speaker 2: threw his name, there was no question where he was going.
Speaker 2: And he told us before the game that Cody Feger,
Speaker 2: the assistant coach, and Mark Pope changed his life. And
Speaker 2: you like guys like that that will just believe in
Speaker 2: the head coach. The head coach has great belief in him,
Speaker 2: and it was a really good coming out party for
Speaker 2: him in the Kentucky Jersey. In that second half.
Speaker 1: More with Jimmy Dikes here on the Best of the
Speaker 1: Big Bo Insiders six thirty WLAP. Welcome back to the
Speaker 1: Best of the Big Blue Insider. We're talking with Jimmy
Speaker 1: Dikes's basketball analyst for ESPN. He has written the film
Speaker 1: Doesn't Lie and hosts the Coach Me Up podcast. And
Speaker 1: of course Jimmy just a few years ago and assistant
Speaker 1: coach at Kentucky. Wow. I hate to think about how
Speaker 1: many years we go back there, but more more than
Speaker 1: a few. But uh, I know, and you you you've
Speaker 1: done some coaching since then, but you're enjoying what you're
Speaker 1: doing for ESPN. How far ahead do you have your schedule?
Speaker 1: Do you have Kentucky coming up at all?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I have them.
Speaker 2: I think my next time I have him is in
Speaker 2: early in conference play when Texas A and M comes
Speaker 2: to rout And that's about as far as my schedule
Speaker 2: goes out. I think that's like maybe the tenth of
Speaker 2: the fourteenth of January somewhere in there.
Speaker 3: We we we we send it.
Speaker 2: We team tend to get about a month out, you know,
Speaker 2: just based upon the matchups and how teams are playing
Speaker 2: where they want us to go, so I'll certainly be
Speaker 2: following Kentucky. It's you know, it was a great two
Speaker 2: years of my life there and there's nothing like Kentucky
Speaker 2: basketball and big Glue nation and the passion that they have.
Speaker 2: And you know, there's a there's a small percentage of
Speaker 2: Kentucky fans that get after all of us on Twitter sometimes,
Speaker 2: but that doesn't represent who the true Kentucky fans are.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: They they love the team that I think, they appreciate
Speaker 2: honest analysis on their games. They want to be told
Speaker 2: the truth and I try to do that and call
Speaker 2: the game down the middle.
Speaker 3: When Kentucky's good.
Speaker 2: I'm the first one to say they're good when they
Speaker 2: think and the first one to say they stink. And
Speaker 2: but when people ask me when I'm traveling, where's your
Speaker 2: favorite place to go to a basketball game? I say
Speaker 2: Kentucky just because of all the dynamics of Ruff Arena
Speaker 2: and the fan base and always sold out and you
Speaker 2: know it's a big game when you're doing Kentucky on
Speaker 2: National TV.
Speaker 1: Well, you made reference to the Kentucky fans in Seattle.
Speaker 1: I mean they always say Blue gets in and when
Speaker 1: Kentucky was doing well, you know your director was picking
Speaker 1: up shots of the UK fans. I know that didn't
Speaker 1: surprise you, what all did it?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: I said, Kentucky can play in Russia and let's go,
Speaker 2: let's go. Blue Chants going to break out at some point.
Speaker 2: That's just that's who they are.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 3: It was a great atmosphere.
Speaker 2: I mean, a lot of times you watch games they say, hey,
Speaker 2: it feels like an Elite eight. No, not really, that
Speaker 2: one did because it wasn't fifty to fifty. But there's
Speaker 2: a lot of Kentucky fans in there. Obviously a huge
Speaker 2: amount of Gonzaga fans. Both were loud at the time
Speaker 2: that they, you know, had the momentum going. But you
Speaker 2: just saw, like I said, two teams that are legitimately
Speaker 2: Final Four contenders going at it in early December, and
Speaker 2: it's great to be a part of that game.
Speaker 1: Well, getting back to that second half and you you
Speaker 1: touched on this and you guys talked about it of
Speaker 1: course on the air, and Jack Gibbons was delighted to
Speaker 1: see the one three one because job hall uh snuck
Speaker 1: that in every now and then. Of course with Jay
Speaker 1: Scheidler running the baseline, it was such a great athlete.
Speaker 1: But did you have any idea that that one three
Speaker 1: to one was coming? Did you see it and shoot around?
Speaker 1: Because I have to admit I don't get to go
Speaker 1: to practice much. I've been to a few, but I've
Speaker 1: not seen them work on that.
Speaker 3: No, I didn't.
Speaker 2: I did not see it and shoot around in the
Speaker 2: four or five practices i've actual practices I've seen in
Speaker 2: Kentucky this year, I haven't seen it. But you got
Speaker 2: to do something to change the game. And at times
Speaker 2: it was at times it confused Gunzaga. In times Kentucky
Speaker 2: was confused a little bit running it like who's going
Speaker 2: to be wearing? They let the guy wide open in
Speaker 2: the corner on one missed assignment. But that's okay. That's
Speaker 2: the beauty of the game. And for your guys to
Speaker 2: believe in something when you at halftime say okay, this
Speaker 2: is what we're gonna do defensively, and they go out
Speaker 2: and execute up believing it. And that's that's all you
Speaker 2: can ask if you're a fan of Kentucky basketball, is
Speaker 2: how much do they believe in their head coach? And
Speaker 2: I got to think to a man that they think
Speaker 2: that Mark Pope is the greatest coach right now in
Speaker 2: college ball, and that's exactly what you want, right Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's interesting people. I think I've talked
Speaker 1: to some folks who it seemed like they had this
Speaker 1: impression of Marcus this neophy, you know, this this this
Speaker 1: kind of a newbie head coach. He's new to the
Speaker 1: UK job, of course, but he has a solid resume.
Speaker 1: I mean, what he did at Utah Valley State, what
Speaker 1: he did at bring him young. Both programs overachieved. And
Speaker 1: so it's not like in terms of just his basketball acumen,
Speaker 1: it's not like he came in you're all wide eyed,
Speaker 1: you know what I.
Speaker 3: Mean, no doubt.
Speaker 2: I mean, I just just reflect him. Back in the
Speaker 2: first half of con Zaga was going away, he didn't
Speaker 2: look any different than the first half, and he did
Speaker 2: the second half when it was going his way. He
Speaker 2: just has a calmness and a belief and a confidence
Speaker 2: about who he is and how he coaches and how
Speaker 2: he sees the game. And you know, he took his
Speaker 2: BYU team into ball Gallon Kield House last year Kansas
Speaker 2: and the one it wasn't a great Kansas. It wasn't
Speaker 2: a great Kansas team, But not very many people go
Speaker 2: in there and get a win. He was never a
Speaker 2: phase at goun zagaon and he will not be.
Speaker 3: Phased this year.
Speaker 2: And you know, Kentucky's coming off of a two games
Speaker 2: road swing. That's going to be exactly what they're going
Speaker 2: to face in the SEC high high level games, competitive, physical,
Speaker 2: loud crowds. And this week was the best. This past
Speaker 2: week is the best thing Kentucky could do for himself
Speaker 2: to go play at Clemson and basically at Gonzaga and
Speaker 2: now you know, going into SEC play, Hey, we we've
Speaker 2: been down this road before. We know how to handle
Speaker 2: it well.
Speaker 1: And I think you mentioned that during the first half
Speaker 1: what happened at Clemson. You know, with that atmosphere down
Speaker 1: there here Kentucky's coming to town. You've been a part
Speaker 1: of that as a member of the coaching staff. It's
Speaker 1: like the circus arrives and Clemson just hauled off and
Speaker 1: punched him in the mouth. And and that paid off,
Speaker 1: didn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no doubt. And yet you've got to be knocked
Speaker 2: around a little bit to understand how to play through
Speaker 2: it right because Gonzag had the same game plan. They're
Speaker 2: not as physical as Clemson. They tried to be, but
Speaker 2: they're not. Yeah, and I think that's a big part
Speaker 2: of why Kentucky said, you know, we've seen this before.
Speaker 2: We can handle this. Unless they got rolling. Man, they
Speaker 2: they got rolling. They they played a great second half
Speaker 2: and Jackson Robinson had a ton of confidence when Mark
Speaker 2: puts the ball in his hands and everybody just kind
Speaker 2: of fed off of it. So now they got I
Speaker 2: don't think I think they're off all wee cantill to
Speaker 2: play Louisville on Saturday, and I don't.
Speaker 3: Have to say anything about that game. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: Louisvill is not.
Speaker 2: Louisville's not what they're going to be under Pat Kelsey.
Speaker 2: I think he's going to be a great fit for
Speaker 2: that program. I was with him in Atlanta during Thanksgiving week.
Speaker 2: Kentucky will be heavily favored. But man, you take nothing
Speaker 2: for granted in that game. And Mark Pope, he understands
Speaker 2: that game better than anybody else out there. So Kentucky
Speaker 2: should be fine in terms of are we ready to play?
Speaker 1: They've actually got Colgate on Wednesday night, but come on, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know they can work some things out there. With
Speaker 1: all due respect. A couple of minutes left with Jimmy
Speaker 1: Diyke's of ESPN worked at Kentucky again Zaga game. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, we've been talking about Mark Pope, the head coach,
Speaker 1: and he has talked about the fact that he changed
Speaker 1: his tone as a coach. He went from being you know,
Speaker 1: the kind of wear you down kind of guy. There's
Speaker 1: no way he's going to be another Rick Patino, but
Speaker 1: he went to the more of the uplifting, positive style.
Speaker 1: And Jack Gibbons in the postgame interview talked to one
Speaker 1: of the players about the fact that Jack and they
Speaker 1: sat opposite from you guys, they were on the on
Speaker 1: the bench side. He could hear Mark even when they
Speaker 1: were down. Pope kept yelling we're okay, We're okay. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you if you could hear any of that.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of rare, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is, But I mean that's who Mark is
Speaker 2: at his core.
Speaker 3: He's sent to.
Speaker 5: A positive energy, stable, confident guy and who he is
Speaker 5: and as a dad, as a husband, as a coach,
Speaker 5: and I think he realized about ten years ago that
Speaker 5: trying to be maybe something that he's not wasn't working,
Speaker 5: and then his players were playing out of fear and
Speaker 5: trying to please him and not for the right reasons.
Speaker 5: And now he's, uh, you know.
Speaker 3: He's changed. He's he will still get on.
Speaker 2: Him some I've seen him do that, but he does
Speaker 2: it with a tenderness and a tone that that you
Speaker 2: have to have in that balance between toughness and tenderness. So,
Speaker 2: uh man, it's it's all good right now. With that
Speaker 2: put your basketball program and miss Barnhardt knocked it out
Speaker 2: of the park with his hires.
Speaker 1: Are there going to be some tough times? You know?
Speaker 1: That SEC coming up Tennessee is awfully good. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you've seen them yet, but I mean, this
Speaker 1: league has gotten so competitive. Jimmy and the money. Now
Speaker 1: they're spending on facilities, coaches, staffs, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: It's finally what the SEC thought it was for quite
Speaker 1: a while. But now it's a grind, especially with Texas
Speaker 1: and Oklahoma joining.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I was the lone soldier there for a while.
Speaker 3: Last year.
Speaker 2: I kept saying the SEC is the best conference in
Speaker 2: college basketball. I got a lot of pushbacks, but I
Speaker 2: stood firm because I knew what I saw and I
Speaker 2: knew what was coming. And it is clearly this year
Speaker 2: through the first week of December. The most dominant league
Speaker 2: in college basketball and maybe historically one of the most
Speaker 2: dominant league. Now they have to finish out in non
Speaker 2: conference like they've done. But when Joelnaradi, who's pretty good
Speaker 2: at his job, project twelve teams the SEC for the
Speaker 2: NCAA turn that that would that would be a history,
Speaker 2: that would be a historical year.
Speaker 3: For the league.
Speaker 2: So if you're Kentucky, you know you're gonna get knocked
Speaker 2: around some an SEC play. That's that's that's just part
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't know, Dick.
Speaker 2: If the sc camp SEC champion is going to have
Speaker 2: four or five six losses, I don't know, but it's not.
Speaker 2: It's not going to be a two or three lost
Speaker 2: champion This year.
Speaker 1: The league too good, Yeah, because I mean Alabama and
Speaker 1: Auburn are out there. That's gonna be fun. I remember
Speaker 1: one year Kentucky under Joe b had five won the
Speaker 1: conference with five losses, but the depth wasn't there the
Speaker 1: way it is now. So uh, tell everybody where they
Speaker 1: can see you on Saturday.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm next.
Speaker 2: My next game is at the former number one team, Kansas.
Speaker 2: They lost too in a row, which is announced. You're
Speaker 2: like seriously, like you're number one and then you go lose.
Speaker 3: Two in a row. But still I thought Fall.
Speaker 2: Gallon is one of the great great places to a
Speaker 2: college basketball and they take on NC State, who got
Speaker 2: hot last year made for the Final Four, and then
Speaker 2: actually stayed the next day and do the women's game
Speaker 2: Kansas versus Penn State. So yeah, two games in two
Speaker 2: days and then come home. I think that's that. Because
Speaker 2: it's finals week for a lot of teams. I'm up
Speaker 2: again until next Saturday with wake Forest at Clemson. I
Speaker 2: go right back to Clemson, who I think is really
Speaker 2: really good. That's not a damaging loss to Kentucky's resume. Clemson,
Speaker 2: they could end up being the top two or three
Speaker 2: in the ACC. So good team you got, I know.
Speaker 1: That was my conversation with former Kentucky assistant now TV
Speaker 1: analyst Jimmy Dikes, who worked the Kentucky Gonzaga game in
Speaker 1: Seattle earlier this season. More the Best of the Big
Speaker 1: Blue Insider when we come back here on six point
Speaker 1: thirty WLAP, welcome back to the Best of the Big
Speaker 1: Blue Insider, joining us on our celebrity hodline as a
Speaker 1: guy who has actually been right here in the garage
Speaker 1: in front of him. He's been on the celebrity highline too,
Speaker 1: but coach Keith Madison usually here with the chain gang.
Speaker 1: But you're you're kind of special people now, coach, because
Speaker 1: you're an author, you've written a book. Tell me all
Speaker 1: about this.
Speaker 4: Well, it's it's been a fun experience. I really enjoyed
Speaker 4: the writing process. And the name of the book, Dick
Speaker 4: is Coaching with Purpose, and basically it's trying to help
Speaker 4: coaches avoid some of the mistakes I made. But it's
Speaker 4: not all about that. But uh, it's it's a book
Speaker 4: that hopefully helps coaches win on the on the field
Speaker 4: or on the court and off the court with their athletes.
Speaker 4: I just I just think that coaches, Yeah, they're paid
Speaker 4: to win, but they have such an opportunity to impact
Speaker 4: their athletes and in a positive way because they spend
Speaker 4: so much time with them, and because if if you're
Speaker 4: if you're a decent coach, a good coach, they're going
Speaker 4: to listen to you. So you can impact these young
Speaker 4: people and help them to become better husbands but wives
Speaker 4: be are citizens. I just think that coaches have this
Speaker 4: golden opportunity to make an impact that's perhaps bigger than
Speaker 4: they even know.
Speaker 1: Did you feel like you were not tuned into that
Speaker 1: when you first got started. I got to assume you
Speaker 1: were kind of overwhelmed by the job itself because you
Speaker 1: had so much going against you. But this sounds like
Speaker 1: something coach that has dawned on you through the years.
Speaker 4: You're exactly right. I think when I first started coaching,
Speaker 4: I really loved my players. I had a great group
Speaker 4: of young men, but it was it was it was
Speaker 4: all work, and I didn't talk to them as much
Speaker 4: about important things off the field as I should have, probably,
Speaker 4: although I still have great relationships with those guys. But
Speaker 4: I just think that you know, these coaches that whether
Speaker 4: you're a college coach or a minor league hitting coach
Speaker 4: or a little league coach, you know, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: You have influence on those people you coach. And I
Speaker 4: think that young people need that discipline and that structure
Speaker 4: that they have at practicing on the field, but they
Speaker 4: also sometimes are a little bit lost when it comes
Speaker 4: to things off the field.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm wondering about a challenge you might have
Speaker 1: faced when you first began, because that's when I first
Speaker 1: met you. When you started coaching at Kentucky. You know,
Speaker 1: relatively speaking, how old we are now, you weren't that
Speaker 1: much older than the guys you were coaching. I got
Speaker 1: to think that had a lot to do with it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think so, you know, I was, I was
Speaker 4: twenty six years old, and my first baseman was twenty
Speaker 4: two years old and my second basement was twenty two
Speaker 4: years old. Wow, I just you know it. But I
Speaker 4: think because they had such a tough year of the
Speaker 4: year before. Uh, I think they were they were looking
Speaker 4: to win, and they were looking to turn it around.
Speaker 4: And I had just played professional baseball, uh two or
Speaker 4: three years before that, and so they thought that was
Speaker 4: kind of cool. And they felt like I could relate
Speaker 4: to them, and I felt like I did.
Speaker 3: Relate to them. Uh.
Speaker 4: And we had son. You know, we worked hard, so
Speaker 4: we had son, and we uh gosh, we got to
Speaker 4: know each other because we had to. We had to
Speaker 4: take trips to places like Athens, Georgia in vance. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and we didn't we didn't take a bus. We took
Speaker 4: you know, about three vans and and John Butler drove one,
Speaker 4: I drove one, and an equipment manager drove the other.
Speaker 4: And and we're heading down I seventy five, and and
Speaker 4: it was amazing because I think you and I've talked
Speaker 4: about this before, but we we would get to the field,
Speaker 4: and let's just use Georgia as an example. We get
Speaker 4: to the field at ten thirty or eleven o'clock in
Speaker 4: the morning and take battie practice and do all the
Speaker 4: pregame activities and then play a game and then get
Speaker 4: in those vans and drive back to Electington. It was exhausting,
Speaker 4: but when you're twenty six or twenty seven years old,
Speaker 4: it's that big a deal. I guess we but that's
Speaker 4: what I really got to know those guys. You know,
Speaker 4: I've spent time talking to him in those vans, and
Speaker 4: they felt comfortable with me, and I felt really comfortable
Speaker 4: with them. But it's those kind of relationships that are
Speaker 4: so special that coaches have an opportunity to experience.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I was in touch on a regular basis with my
Speaker 4: little league coach up until the day he died. He
Speaker 4: actually called me the day he called me the day
Speaker 4: he passed away, right, and you know, and the impact
Speaker 4: he had on me as a kid, and then my
Speaker 4: high school coach was he was a great guy. He
Speaker 4: had a tremendous impact on me. I just want other
Speaker 4: coaches to leverage that and know that they have it.
Speaker 4: And winning is awesome and that's what we need to do.
Speaker 4: It's a lot more fun when you win. But you
Speaker 4: can win on the field and you can win with
Speaker 4: the players off the field, and that's doubly special.
Speaker 1: You played for and coached with a lot of different coaches,
Speaker 1: and I got to think writing this book made you.
Speaker 1: You know, and you just talk about how much you
Speaker 1: enjoyed it, but you know, sit back and reflect on
Speaker 1: what you learn from them, what they may have learned
Speaker 1: from you. I mean, you know, this had to have
Speaker 1: been a great trip down memory lane.
Speaker 3: No doubt.
Speaker 4: And that's exactly why it was fun, because I started
Speaker 4: remembering things that I hadn't thought of in years, like
Speaker 4: this one experience I had with Russ Nixon. He was
Speaker 4: a manager. Dug Flinn and I both played for US.
Speaker 4: Great manager, tough guy played. He was a catcher for
Speaker 4: the Red Sox, played with Ted Williams and all that.
Speaker 4: But I respected him so much so I had a
Speaker 4: really bad outing one night. I was the closer on
Speaker 4: the staff, and uh, he called me into his little
Speaker 4: office there at all Little Past Stadium the next day
Speaker 4: before we did our workout, and I thought, man, this
Speaker 4: is not going to go good because he was a
Speaker 4: tough guy and and you know, as a minor league
Speaker 4: do you never know whether a bad outing is the
Speaker 4: last time you'll ever pitch right. And so he calls
Speaker 4: me in and he had a really serious look on
Speaker 4: his face. And I'm not going to say it over
Speaker 4: the air, but he said, Madison, you were a horse.
Speaker 4: You could fill in the blank. And he said, uh,
Speaker 4: he said that that was that was just a terrible
Speaker 4: outing last night. I thought, oh, boys, that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And but then he said this, he said, but you're
Speaker 4: my closure, and if you go out tonight, I expect
Speaker 4: you to to be the best closer in the Florida
Speaker 4: State League. And man, he just I mean that listed me.
Speaker 4: You know, he he ripped me a little bit and
Speaker 4: I deserved it, but then he made me feel so special.
Speaker 4: And sure enough, I go out out that night and
Speaker 4: I'm throwing gas and I'm feeling good because Russ Nixon
Speaker 4: believed in me. And that's such a that seems like
Speaker 4: such a simple thing, but when coaches believe in athletes,
Speaker 4: sure they can do so much more.
Speaker 1: You know, I've never coached really at your level. I'm
Speaker 1: a little bit of little league here and there, but
Speaker 1: I've managed people through my career, and and looking back,
Speaker 1: there a couple of times when I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: I just never got through to this guy, and I
Speaker 1: probably should have just parted ways with him, uh because
Speaker 1: but I didn't because I thought, well, I'll be laying
Speaker 1: another problem on somebody else, and it's my problem to
Speaker 1: manage all that kind of stuff. Did you ever think
Speaker 1: in those terms. I got to think there were some
Speaker 1: players you just couldn't get through to and maybe somebody
Speaker 1: else could have.
Speaker 4: I don't know, Yeah, no doubt about it. I mean,
Speaker 4: I would be lying to you, Dick, if if I
Speaker 4: told you that I connected with every player that I coach.
Speaker 4: That just doesn't happen, because there's always this thing called
Speaker 4: personality that that can that can cause you not to connect.
Speaker 4: You know, maybe that maybe that young man or that
Speaker 4: young woman they just they just don't want to spend
Speaker 4: time with you. But that that does happen. But I think,
Speaker 4: you know, the coach's job is to is to get
Speaker 4: the best possible out of that particular athlete. And if
Speaker 4: you have to bite your tongue a little bit and
Speaker 4: eat some mumble pie. You know you got to do that.
Speaker 4: But your job is to get that young person to produce.
Speaker 4: And uh, if we if we go about our jobs
Speaker 4: that way, it's going to be better. And then I've
Speaker 4: had this happit for Dick or you do that and
Speaker 4: maybe you know that that player doesn't like you, yep,
Speaker 4: but you just keep you just keep on pouring into
Speaker 4: him and try to add value to not only his
Speaker 4: his skills, but also add value to his life. And
Speaker 4: if you just keep doing that, I mean, some of
Speaker 4: those people are the best friends I have right now.
Speaker 4: That the relationships started off a little top, little rocky,
Speaker 4: but then you just keep pouring into him and things
Speaker 4: turn around, and that's when it's really rewarding.
Speaker 1: Interesting coach, I appreciated. We will talk more about this
Speaker 1: when the rest of the chain gang joined you here
Speaker 1: in the garage, But tell everybody where they can find
Speaker 1: that book. Is it out yet or we are we
Speaker 1: ready to recommend it for stocking stuffers?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just coming out next week. And as a
Speaker 4: matter of fact, today I want to be putting the
Speaker 4: links on my website and you can go to my
Speaker 4: website web site coach Keithmadison dot com and you'll be
Speaker 4: able to find a link there on how to order
Speaker 4: the book. And I really appreciate you asking me about it, Dick, no.
Speaker 1: Problem, Always enjoy talking with you. Thanks, coach. Have a
Speaker 1: great holiday and we'll talk soon here in the garage.
Speaker 3: Okay, Dick, thank you.
Speaker 1: Want to come on the Best of the Big Bloon
Speaker 1: Sider here on six thirty WLAP. You're listening to the
Speaker 1: Best of the Big Bloon Sider. I'll take you back
Speaker 1: to Thanksgiving week of last month. We got some stuff
Speaker 1: to discuss. First of all, what Colorado beating Yukon, second
Speaker 1: ranked team in the country and Danny Hurley going off
Speaker 1: on the sidelines once again, and he has really taken
Speaker 1: a lot of flak for that as well he should.
Speaker 1: He says, it's the second time he has gone ballistic
Speaker 1: on the sidelines over the officials.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I know coaches have troubles with refs, but this is
Speaker 1: kind of ridiculous. Kansas beats Duke seventy five seventy two,
Speaker 1: and if it weren't for Hunter Dickinson, the headline might
Speaker 1: be the posterizing dunk delivered by Cooper Flagg, but it wasn't.
Speaker 1: Hunter Dickinson, fifth year senior, still doing childish things, ejected
Speaker 1: from the game for kicking a Duke player in the head,
Speaker 1: Malik Brown. They were scuffling on the floor. It all
Speaker 1: kind of erupted. Brown was assessed a personal foul for
Speaker 1: backing into Dickinson. They were both going for a rebound.
Speaker 1: Dickinson was given a flagrant io for kicking them in
Speaker 1: the head. They were on the ground in front of
Speaker 1: the bench area, and Dickinson kicked him in the head,
Speaker 1: so he got the flagrant two and he got the boot.
Speaker 1: Dickinson has been doing punk type things ever, so I
Speaker 1: don't know if he did it in his previous school Michigan.
Speaker 1: I don't remember seeing him do that in London. Didn't
Speaker 1: do anything goofy there when he played against Kentucky. But man,
Speaker 1: he is making some bad headlines since getting to Kansas.
Speaker 1: And remember there was a point where a lot of
Speaker 1: us thought he was coming to Kentucky. Got a better
Speaker 1: nil deal in Lawrence saying with basketball inside the NBA
Speaker 1: was kicking it around last night. See what I did there.
Speaker 1: Evidently somebody leaked somebody from the Philadelphia seventy six ers
Speaker 1: leaked the fact that Joel Embiid is late all the time,
Speaker 1: and they had a team meeting, and that's one of
Speaker 1: the things that came up. But somebody leaked what they
Speaker 1: were talking about to the media, and the gang on
Speaker 1: inside the NBA discussed it, including my man, Charles Barkley
Speaker 1: and Shaquill O'Neal, and Barkley as always quite frank about
Speaker 1: both the Embiid situation and whoever leaked it.
Speaker 7: You cannot be leaked all the time. That's disrespectful to
Speaker 7: your teammates and your coaches and everybody. You can't be late.
Speaker 7: So first Joel has to own that. But whoever leaked
Speaker 7: that to the press need to be punched in the
Speaker 7: face in a team meeting. Those are secret, Ernie. You
Speaker 7: can't tell out secrets on a team meeting. Now, like
Speaker 7: I say, maysually somebody has been punched in the face,
Speaker 7: but that didn't get out yet. No, no, But I'm
Speaker 7: saying though, when you when you when you in those meetings,
Speaker 7: they're very personal when you especially when you call out
Speaker 7: a guy like that. Like I said, Joe has to
Speaker 7: own being laid all the time. He has to own
Speaker 7: that but that that should have never guiden to.
Speaker 1: The press in this area we live in. That's never
Speaker 1: going a check no check.
Speaker 7: You know, if y'all had a team meeting, a guy
Speaker 7: accused you or something, but it shouldn't should not it
Speaker 7: should not check Jim Gray, how you doing something? But
Speaker 7: somebody has to tell it, Jim Gray, and you should
Speaker 7: not do that. I have a Joe was right on
Speaker 7: the part he said he called me a piece of
Speaker 7: crap who leaked that? But he has to own I
Speaker 7: can't be late all the time.
Speaker 1: That's Curtsey a T n T. I certainly hope whoever
Speaker 1: did the leaking wasn't Tyrese Maxey. And as a media guy,
Speaker 1: I love him when people leak stuff. But I don't
Speaker 1: want Tyrese Maxi to uh invoke any bad blood with
Speaker 1: his teammates. That's a certainty. Over in the NFL, the
Speaker 1: Players Association released the top fifty player sales list and
Speaker 1: some guys are seeing their jerseys fly off the racks.
Speaker 1: Who is number one? The top five are all quarterbacks,
Speaker 1: No surprise, Patrick Mahomes once again with the most merch sold.
Speaker 1: Second year QB C. J. Stroud of the Texans is second,
Speaker 1: Then Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts number four on the list.
Speaker 1: Bears rookie quarterback Caleb Williams. I guess that's not a surprise.
Speaker 1: And even though his team is struggling, Joe Burrow of
Speaker 1: the Bengals is number five. The highest ranked non quarterback
Speaker 1: in terms of Jersey sales. Lions d nd Aiden Hutchinson
Speaker 1: is number six, and then his teammate wide receiver i'man
Speaker 1: Ross Saint Brown is number seven. So some of those
Speaker 1: numbers are predictable and some of them are not. And
Speaker 1: by the way, number eight Christian McCaffrey, number nine Mikah Parsons,
Speaker 1: and number ten Travis Kelcey. Quick baseball note for you,
Speaker 1: the rich kid Richard. The Dodgers sign Cy Young Award
Speaker 1: winner from the Giants. There are tribals Blake Snell, so
Speaker 1: that means they have a potentially incredible starting rotation of Snell,
Speaker 1: Tyler Glass, now Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shohei Otani, assuming he pitches
Speaker 1: again and then picked from four or five guys. But
Speaker 1: one of the names that is not coming up is
Speaker 1: lexing his Walker Buehler. So the signing of Snell, and
Speaker 1: of course Bueller has been battling injuries. Although we pitch
Speaker 1: well in postseason, just might mean he's going to be
Speaker 1: looking for another team. I won't get into the money.
Speaker 1: It's ridiculous, but the Dodgers have just, you know, incredibly
Speaker 1: deep pockets. They can afford to pay the payroll taxes.
Speaker 1: But they signed Snell. Supposedly the Red Sox are trying
Speaker 1: to get him. The Yankees at a zoom call with him,
Speaker 1: but they're really concentrating on re signing one Soto And
Speaker 1: college football note you know this by now. Mack Brown
Speaker 1: fired by North Carolina right after he said he was
Speaker 1: coming back. Not so fast. My friend. One of the names,
Speaker 1: of course, it's being tossed out there, John Somerall. And
Speaker 1: this doesn't mean he's a candidate. It just means that
Speaker 1: whoever was typing up a list of guys who maybe
Speaker 1: they might want to look at. But the former Kentucky
Speaker 1: linebacker in his first year Tulane has the Greenway nine
Speaker 1: and two. They're thinking playoff playoffs. He went twenty three
Speaker 1: and four in two years at Troy. He's young, he's
Speaker 1: forty two years old, and he has a great reputation.
Speaker 1: Of course, Kentucky fans who are unhappy with stoops or
Speaker 1: banging a drum for John some Roll. Here's an interesting
Speaker 1: note about Mac Brown. When he was first in North Carolina,
Speaker 1: he had two turns there. This is when Kentucky was
Speaker 1: looking for a head coach with Seam Newton as the
Speaker 1: ad ended up hiring hell Mummy. But Newton and I
Speaker 1: were together at one point and he asked me, what
Speaker 1: are the fans saying? And I mentioned two or three names,
Speaker 1: and one of them was Mac Brown was doing some
Speaker 1: good things at North Carolina. And talking about all three
Speaker 1: guys or however many I mentioned, seem said yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're good. Yeah, but have they ever sustained anything? And
Speaker 1: I had to answer, well, I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: think so. But turns out Mac Brown did sustain well
Speaker 1: enough at Carolina, then went on to Texas before we
Speaker 1: ended up back in North Carolina. But now he's out
Speaker 1: of a job. I hope you're having a great New
Speaker 1: Year's Eve. We are presenting the best of the Big
Speaker 1: Blue and Sider and a reminder tomorrow night special edition
Speaker 1: is We're gonna look back on the big moments in
Speaker 1: the year of sports for UK athletics, football, baseball, basketball,
Speaker 1: women's basketball, A lot of great moments. We're gonna look
Speaker 1: back on some of those tomorrow night on New Year's Evening,
Speaker 1: back with our number two of the best of here
Speaker 1: on six point thirty Wlaper. Welcome back to the Big
Speaker 1: Blue Insider, I number two of our program. I'm going
Speaker 1: to take you back to a few weeks ago when
Speaker 1: I chatted with Katz Paul's general manager, editor of columnist
Speaker 1: Daryl Bird about the basketball yearbook that came out and
Speaker 1: it really is a great issue. And I had a
Speaker 1: chance to talk about his interview and his interaction with
Speaker 1: Mark Pope. I want to congratulate. Do we talk before
Speaker 1: it came out. We haven't a chance to chat since
Speaker 1: the yearbook came out with the Star Trek cover on it.
Speaker 1: Explain to people what that is because I I'm like you,
Speaker 1: I have a feeling people are going want to grab
Speaker 1: this one and hang on to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so to you. Just I was trying
Speaker 2: to think of a It's always hard on cover because
Speaker 2: you really need just one or two words to sum
Speaker 2: it up. And the more I went around talked to
Speaker 2: people energized has struck me. One day and it's exactly
Speaker 2: how it was. The whole fan base was completely re energized,
Speaker 2: starting with that introductory press conference that just was absurd
Speaker 2: when you think about it looking back on it, and
Speaker 2: just so much new LIKEE pumped into it and energize.
Speaker 2: And when you think energize, at least I do, I
Speaker 2: think Star Trek. Of course I could could not pass
Speaker 2: up the opportunity to go on that.
Speaker 1: Then there have been so many iterations of Star Trek,
Speaker 1: but that is enduring. It hasn't it energized?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, that's the original.
Speaker 3: Believe it.
Speaker 1: Now, I assume did you take the cover photo because
Speaker 1: you're really I've told you this before, you're a really
Speaker 1: good photographer. But did you set up and take you that?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: That's Kat White took that one.
Speaker 1: Okay, he's great too, he's the UK athletics photographer. Is that?
Speaker 1: Tell me about the background because it looks like the
Speaker 1: I know it's green screen or CGI or whatever you
Speaker 1: want to call it, but it looks like the transporter chamber.
Speaker 2: It is the transporter room. Yeah, a photo of that,
Speaker 2: and I had to cut out all the individual players
Speaker 2: and yeah, resize them proportionally so they looked like they
Speaker 2: were being being to board the UK starship.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was.
Speaker 1: A bit of a start to do. I was a
Speaker 1: bit of a star trek nerd. On its second running,
Speaker 1: it was I guess after it's been canceled but became
Speaker 1: super popular. I read a book, one of the first
Speaker 1: books about the making of it and how they came
Speaker 1: up with the way that they created that energizer look
Speaker 1: with the spar that's aluminum dust. They were able to
Speaker 1: sprinkle through a light or something like that. So I
Speaker 1: was so happy to see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, William Shatner's book about it is really good.
Speaker 3: Really, I've had that. I read that along. Yet it's
Speaker 3: really good.
Speaker 2: I got that a long time ago about just the
Speaker 2: whole process and how season three they had they knew
Speaker 2: they were done, and they cut the budget to nothing,
Speaker 2: and the prompts were horrible and all.
Speaker 3: It's a really good reading.
Speaker 1: In the original book I read, it might have been
Speaker 1: in his as well. And we'll get the folks, I promise,
Speaker 1: we'll get the basketball in a minute. But they wore
Speaker 1: those those uniformed shirts made out of volure, and of
Speaker 1: course you know, there were physical scenes and this and that,
Speaker 1: and whenever they would clean them they would shrink, and
Speaker 1: so they had to wear them as long as they
Speaker 1: could before they were just impossibly tight. And as you said,
Speaker 1: the budget, you know, oh my god, I got to
Speaker 1: buy more of these things. So anyhow, yeah, exactly, So
Speaker 1: let us let us get to to the basketball program.
Speaker 1: And I used the SoundBite the internight from one of
Speaker 1: your questions. I've told you asked good questions, but you
Speaker 1: asked about and I used the racing term bounce what
Speaker 1: you didn't. But you asked Mark Pope if he was
Speaker 1: afraid of a letdown after you to win over Duke,
Speaker 1: and I thought his answer and I played his answer
Speaker 1: was earlyast part of it. You know, it's pretty long. Yes,
Speaker 1: was a typical Mark Pope answer. You know that there
Speaker 1: has been a lot of thought and research and emotion
Speaker 1: going into it. But explain to everybody in a nutshell
Speaker 1: what he said if they didn't hear it the other
Speaker 1: night or when you first asked it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was, I wrote about it yesterday. To me,
Speaker 2: it's it's getting to be the norm. You ask what
Speaker 2: you think is a simple question, you get a very
Speaker 2: profound answer, is much more than what you bargeted for. Basically,
Speaker 2: summed up at the end, we focus on what we
Speaker 2: want to happen. We don't focus on what we don't
Speaker 2: want to happen, which is the only way to look
Speaker 2: at and he said, and then he gets into the neuroscience,
Speaker 2: of course, is to be worried about the letdown, the
Speaker 2: emotions that come along with with you know, the pure
Speaker 2: body chemistry of such a high that you're going not
Speaker 2: going to be rised back up with that, he said,
Speaker 2: But from that second they won, and Andrew Carton, you know,
Speaker 2: we celebrate just a little and then it was on
Speaker 2: to the next game. And you know, had that been
Speaker 2: a young team that pulled off that win against they
Speaker 2: would have looked horrible against them, and these guys didn't. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that was my premise, was what was your anxiety
Speaker 2: level because it's such an old team. I was thinking, okay,
Speaker 2: it was greatly reduced, and he's like, no, we don't.
Speaker 2: We don't even accept that as a possibility here. Okay.
Speaker 1: I also where he says, we don't get nervous, and
Speaker 1: I was like, man, it's so human to be nervous.
Speaker 1: And you wonder how did they coach that either out
Speaker 1: of somebody or into somebody, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Yeah, he said.
Speaker 2: The natural reaction is to be a little nervous that
Speaker 2: it might happen, and they just calculated and dismissed it
Speaker 2: summarily and get on with it, which I think you
Speaker 2: can do with an old team. I think it's a
Speaker 2: completely different question if this was an all freshmen like
Speaker 2: we're used to.
Speaker 1: It also helps to be pretty good, doesn't it.
Speaker 3: Yes, it does.
Speaker 2: That's what That's what has amazing me because we all
Speaker 2: it's kind of like with the football season. He said,
Speaker 2: how good you k? I said, I don't know how
Speaker 2: good rock bander is. It's never played this group. How
Speaker 2: good is basketball?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's twelve guys who've never been around each other. How
Speaker 2: long is it gonna take the mesh? How good are
Speaker 2: and you look at all these guys were considered good,
Speaker 2: Yes they weren't. They weren't considered elite by any stretch
Speaker 2: of the imagination at any no matter where they came from.
Speaker 2: And some of these I don't even if they were
Speaker 2: leading scorer on their own team, but here they are.
Speaker 2: And just I give all the credits to Mark Pope.
Speaker 3: What buttons?
Speaker 2: He's pushing and I talked to some of the players
Speaker 2: early and they're like, I'm still getting used to the
Speaker 2: fact that I'm playing for a coach that doesn't yell
Speaker 2: at me. Everything is positive reinforcement and it's and they're
Speaker 2: just lapping that up like crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's got it. I think he had one player
Speaker 1: was a bread who came off the bend, was the
Speaker 1: sixth man and you had led the team in scoring
Speaker 1: or something like that, but still something accepted the role
Speaker 1: as six man. You know, was not the marquee player
Speaker 1: on that team. That You're right, maybe Lamont Butler fit
Speaker 1: that bill well, just because San Diego State was known
Speaker 1: for defense and it was their point guard. But it
Speaker 1: hit that big shot in the tournament. But yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a great point. No great, but a lot of good, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah it is.
Speaker 2: But yet the sum so far as is looking great,
Speaker 2: and I know it's early, but there's so much more,
Speaker 2: so much room for them to improve. Yeah, some of
Speaker 2: these and I can't wait to see Colin Chandler get
Speaker 2: the rest completely off and start playing up his fool potential.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's a great point you bring up,
Speaker 1: because as you look at this team and I was
Speaker 1: thinking about this the other day. What are they going
Speaker 1: to look like in March? Everybody wants to know that,
Speaker 1: of course, and they're gonna be much better and they're
Speaker 1: gonna win some games. But will we call one player
Speaker 1: in particular great? This guy has become a great player,
Speaker 1: I honestly, with no disrespect and tenant, I doubt that
Speaker 1: simply because of the makeup of this team, the way
Speaker 1: they play, the way they rotate players. There's there's so
Speaker 1: many of them, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're no, You're not gonna be interesting to see
Speaker 2: what postseason awards look like because nobody's going to be
Speaker 2: way up there on average per game, right the star.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what I thought about the other day.
Speaker 2: Andrew against Duke. Andrew Carr has seventeen, Jackson Robinson has
Speaker 2: one point right flip it come back. A week later,
Speaker 2: Robinson has twenty, Andrew Carr has two. They did a
Speaker 2: complete reversal and didn't miss a beat. And that's to me,
Speaker 2: if I'm scouting them, I'm like, oh my goodness, word,
Speaker 2: are you what poison do you pick on this group?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Because you don't know where it's coming from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when I was looking at this roster and reading
Speaker 1: up on them before pro day. I got to Andley
Speaker 1: alman Or. I saw his size and his ability with
Speaker 1: a three pointer, and I thought, that is a matchup nightmare.
Speaker 1: And there's more than one on this roster, isn't there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are It's it's it's a very unique group.
Speaker 2: And it's like, yeah, I got a got a guy
Speaker 2: out here that shoots seventy eight percent from three point line,
Speaker 2: but he can't break the starting lineup.
Speaker 1: But what a weapon to bring off the bench. That's fantastic,
Speaker 1: you know. Is Yeah, we're talking to Darryl Bird. He
Speaker 1: is a general manager of the Cats. Pause writer, columnist, photographer.
Speaker 1: Uh were you a photographer before you started shooting pictures
Speaker 1: for the cast boys? I've always meant to ask you
Speaker 1: that now.
Speaker 2: I started when I started the newspaper Elizabethtown. I was
Speaker 2: hired as a writer, but quickly, with a smaller staff,
Speaker 2: you end up taking a lot of photos at your
Speaker 2: own event. And just kind of fell in love with it.
Speaker 2: And my desk was literally across the hallway from the
Speaker 2: dark room, and you know, the stowers like can you
Speaker 2: help me with it? And I just started doing that.
Speaker 2: I fell in love with I mean, I'm going back
Speaker 2: way old school, rolling the film on the canister in
Speaker 2: complete darkness, and you know, renting it back and forth,
Speaker 2: and then printing your own prints and using your hands
Speaker 2: to dodge and bird the images. And I hope you
Speaker 2: got it right. You don't have to do it over
Speaker 2: and just fell in over that whole side of it
Speaker 2: and just ended up kind of doing both my whole.
Speaker 1: Career dodging and Bernie Man, I remember that in the
Speaker 1: old school photographers, nobody's talking about. I learned that much
Speaker 1: when I wrote for the UK paper. I never took that.
Speaker 1: I wish I had taken the course in photography because
Speaker 1: I enjoyed doing it, but never followed up with it.
Speaker 1: But one of the guys, Stuart Bowman or somebody taught
Speaker 1: me that. But I never learned how to do the world.
Speaker 1: You have to obviously, you don't want to expose your
Speaker 1: film to any light. So when you're rolling your own
Speaker 1: film into those little canisters that you put in your camera,
Speaker 1: you have to do it in utter darkness, just by feel, and.
Speaker 2: I feel and hope that that you know, the film
Speaker 2: does not can't touch the It has to roll in
Speaker 2: a way that it doesn't touch or when you're getting
Speaker 2: ready to develop it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, amazing back and now with digital technology it's easier,
Speaker 1: but in some ways it's tougher, so you know, uh,
Speaker 1: but you can take a lot of pictures, a lot
Speaker 1: of pictures without spending more money, you know, because with
Speaker 1: the old every time you expose the frame, it costs
Speaker 1: your money.
Speaker 2: If thirty six rolls per thirty six images per roll
Speaker 2: the film, that's right. And now you'll see people shoot
Speaker 2: five six hundred of these games on digital and you know,
Speaker 2: thirty six and shoot three rows of film and get back,
Speaker 2: have it developed the next day and find out your
Speaker 2: exposure was wrong, which you know. Digital it's like you
Speaker 2: take it, you look at it, and you're like, okay,
Speaker 2: just here. Yeah, it's amazing how much different I.
Speaker 1: See you guys on the sideline, and the most guys
Speaker 1: add it as they go. They'll take picture from the
Speaker 1: day of a football play and look at it. Nope,
Speaker 1: don't like it, Delete it right now so they don't
Speaker 1: have to do it later. Sonny, we got a little gut,
Speaker 1: a little bit off off track with Daryl Bird, but
Speaker 1: I do want to talk some football when we come back.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the best of the Big Boom Insider
Speaker 1: on six thirty WLAP Welcome back to the Best of
Speaker 1: the Big Boom Insider. We're talking with Daryl Bird, the
Speaker 1: GM of the Catch Pause, who takes pictures and rights
Speaker 1: and reports and does everything for the cast bolls. He
Speaker 1: and Aaron Gershawan and a kind of a skeleton staff
Speaker 1: anymore with the Cats balls. But they put out a
Speaker 1: great basketball yearbook just in time for Christmas. But I
Speaker 1: want to talk to you, of course about Mark Soups
Speaker 1: in his football program. This has been kind of a
Speaker 1: throwback season when it comes to wins and loss has
Speaker 1: been in a different way, isn't it. It's not that
Speaker 1: Kentucky doesn't have enough talent. When Stoops got here, the
Speaker 1: cupboard was almost bear. With all due respect, he's got
Speaker 1: some talent on this team. But between injuries, mystifying penalties,
Speaker 1: it has not been a satisfying season to say the least,
Speaker 1: has it.
Speaker 2: No, it's been very, very frustrating, and I know the
Speaker 2: fans are really frustrated, and I think, you know, we're
Speaker 2: gonna be honest here, that's a pretty good segment. Was
Speaker 2: hoping he might retire and just kind of ride off
Speaker 2: into the sunset after thirty years. But he's made it
Speaker 2: clear he is and no intention of doing that. But
Speaker 2: those saying people who would like that kind of like
Speaker 2: seem right away are well he does. He has earned
Speaker 2: the chance to set with what he has done. I
Speaker 2: always go back to UK has four keen win seasons
Speaker 2: and one hundred plus years of football.
Speaker 3: And he has two of the four exactly.
Speaker 2: So shut up. He knows what he's doing. If he
Speaker 2: wants to try to fix that, you owe him that.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: But it's been a weird year.
Speaker 1: Oh it has. And that leads to my next question.
Speaker 1: I don't about you, but I kind of feel bad
Speaker 1: for him because it's written all over his face and
Speaker 1: he's not He's backed off on talking much about the
Speaker 1: portal and nil because there was some backlash nationally. I
Speaker 1: think when he complained about it, but oh, he said, Darryl,
Speaker 1: I promise you whatever he coach in America was thinking
Speaker 1: that instead of coaching now, my spare time goes to
Speaker 1: raising money.
Speaker 2: I had that one on one with him for our football, right.
Speaker 2: He was so open and I'm like, are you kind
Speaker 2: of thinking? Are you sure you want and he's like,
Speaker 2: and I said, thank you for saying this. That he
Speaker 2: was the first one that, if you remember, came out
Speaker 2: one day to Prescott and said, well these are free agents.
Speaker 4: Yes, oh my.
Speaker 3: God, it we let's call.
Speaker 2: And then this year it was I'm working to meet
Speaker 2: payroll and I'm like, what do you mean, pyroll?
Speaker 3: Payroll?
Speaker 2: If I don't play, if I don't raise enough money
Speaker 2: to pay these guys, they either won't play the game
Speaker 2: or they'll leave. Yeah, and you better believe that pressure
Speaker 2: is real, and it's in his fairness. I did a
Speaker 2: thing with Texas Radio this morning and I said, well,
Speaker 2: they were asking me kind of the same thing, and
Speaker 2: it's like, well, here's the deal in Io at Texas.
Speaker 2: It's going to football. We're like, yeah, here you get half. Maybe, yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe it's a best you can hope for is a
Speaker 2: fifty to fifty split. And it's a much smaller state
Speaker 2: with much smaller resources in that regard.
Speaker 3: So yeah, of course it's a challenge. Better believe it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Job.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, they brought the an M job and
Speaker 2: I said, well, any fan with logical sense here in
Speaker 2: Kentucky said, yeah, you better talk to an M. If
Speaker 2: they call you, yeah, better belie them.
Speaker 1: Look, and you know I worked down there. There's a
Speaker 1: bottomless pit of money down there, so that that would
Speaker 1: never be an issue. Plus, as you point out, football
Speaker 1: is king. So a few minutes left with Daryl Bird.
Speaker 1: What about this game with Texas? Uh, I expected, with
Speaker 1: all those injuries going into Knoxville an ugly blowout because
Speaker 1: we've covered some of those games down there, haven't we? Yes,
Speaker 1: but now and their question marks about Texas about strength
Speaker 1: to schedule, and then when Georgia did going in not
Speaker 1: the Kentucky's Georgia, but Kentucky played with Georgia. So I
Speaker 1: think there are some Longhorn fans who are wondering about
Speaker 1: the Wildcats.
Speaker 2: I had. That was the exact reaction from the guys
Speaker 2: on the Texas podcast. I said, you're going to get
Speaker 2: a game. They're like, oh, yeah, we know, we're going
Speaker 2: to get a game. There's no question because they're like,
Speaker 2: what's the deal? How do you beat Ole miss and
Speaker 2: nearly beat Georgia and play Tennessee as hard as you
Speaker 2: did and then lose your some of the games you've lost. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it's I don't know, I said, I think it's
Speaker 2: the soup's mentality in that locker room. They are going
Speaker 2: to play tough. They may not win. They probably won't win.
Speaker 2: They need a very on brown kickoff or turn touchdown,
Speaker 2: and they need they need to go for it on
Speaker 2: fourth and eight from the thirty, not take the field goal.
Speaker 2: I mean, if I'm gonna lose, I'm gonna lose seventy
Speaker 2: to nothing. I'm gonna keep going for touch heead, what
Speaker 2: do you have to lose at this stage. I'm with you,
Speaker 2: I'm with a You know, they're anticipating, they they're going
Speaker 2: to know they were in a fight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm looking forward to just being done. I've been
Speaker 1: in Austin when I work down there back in the eighties,
Speaker 1: but not for a game. Uh. You know, so I'm
Speaker 1: told it's going to be a full house. And uh.
Speaker 1: One of the weird things, I was on a radio
Speaker 1: show down in Austin and I had the guests on
Speaker 1: my show, the host on my show, I said, what
Speaker 1: can we expect? And one of the things he said
Speaker 1: there I was, they don't tailgate down here. They have
Speaker 1: a different kind of setup, you know, with a long
Speaker 1: I guess this road that surrounds the stadium that's dotted
Speaker 1: with different places you can go to eat and drink
Speaker 1: of that kind of thing. But my reaction was they
Speaker 1: will learn to tailgate once they see the rest of
Speaker 1: the SEC.
Speaker 3: Just they will. Yeah, not everybody accuracy. What they're going
Speaker 3: to think? Is that to me?
Speaker 2: When they were talking about UK and I said, well,
Speaker 2: here's the deal.
Speaker 1: UK.
Speaker 2: At the beginning of the year, I would k's living.
Speaker 2: I guess you're eleving by the end of the year
Speaker 2: after going through the SEC. Now their feat to death. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I'm wondering if Texas is like, Wow, this is
Speaker 2: a much more physical league than what we're used to do.
Speaker 1: You run the gauntlet, there's no questions about you do.
Speaker 1: Daryl Bird is the general manager of the Cats Paws.
Speaker 1: You need to pick up the Cats Paws Basketball yearbook.
Speaker 1: It features, among other things, Mark Pope how he got
Speaker 1: to Kentucky. I love there have been so many takes
Speaker 1: on this and I love reading everybody's takes, profiles and
Speaker 1: all the players and SEC preview, the opponents, talk of recruiting.
Speaker 1: State colleges are covered, Boys and Girls, high school, the
Speaker 1: UK women and you write about it. You have a
Speaker 1: feature about the fiftieth anniversary in the UK's nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: five season basketball, which was a great one and I
Speaker 1: was in school for that. It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: I love that team.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that team was great, and that story is it's
Speaker 2: tremendous and I was able to I talked to Joe
Speaker 2: Hall before he to talk to Kevin Greevy and Mike Playing,
Speaker 2: all those guys their memories of that whole season, and
Speaker 2: it's really cool stuff. It's amazing. Like this team, we
Speaker 2: can get good stuff, but talk to him ten fifteen
Speaker 2: years from now, and you'll get so many great stories
Speaker 2: that they won't tell you now.
Speaker 1: You are right about that. And what I always loved
Speaker 1: when teams got together with Joe b years later, he
Speaker 1: always said, I'm hearing things, stories about things. I'm glad
Speaker 1: I didn't know we're going on when I was coaching exactly,
Speaker 1: but every now and then he would tell them stories
Speaker 1: that they didn't know, you know, that was going on
Speaker 1: with the coaching staff. But that's seventy five basketball season
Speaker 1: followed a super weird seventy five football season, you know,
Speaker 1: with the investigation of Sonny Collins and or then included
Speaker 1: Sunny Collins unfairly and you know, Kentucky kept snatching defeat
Speaker 1: from the jaws of victory all year and points shaving
Speaker 1: rumors which were bogus. Uh So, yeah, we needed that
Speaker 1: basketball season, didn't we.
Speaker 2: Yeah it was. And then to go up early and
Speaker 2: have Indiana beat your brains in and you know, the
Speaker 2: old head slapped at Joe Bobby Knight. Ye come back
Speaker 2: and beat undefeated Indiana to get to the final fours.
Speaker 3: Almost perfect, people.
Speaker 2: John Wyden decided he's going to retire to day for
Speaker 2: the championship.
Speaker 1: There are people to this day and I'm sure they
Speaker 1: ask you. They asked me, what's your favorite game or
Speaker 1: moment or this or that? And my favorite basketball game
Speaker 1: is still all things considered, that game where they came
Speaker 1: back and beat Indiana in the regional and I know
Speaker 1: they didn't have Scott Green or Scott May or whatever
Speaker 1: his name was, Scott May, but still everybody expected Indiana
Speaker 1: to roll over him again and that didn't happen. So
Speaker 1: that's why that's.
Speaker 2: Way, and everybody talks about you know, Joe b in
Speaker 2: the seventy eighty finally got out them under Adolph's shadow
Speaker 2: to seventy five. That's when he got that was his
Speaker 2: signature coming out party. Look what he did with He
Speaker 2: took down Mighty Indiana what two years three years after
Speaker 2: Adolph Yeah.
Speaker 1: Great point, and took down Bobby Knight with him.
Speaker 3: So yes he did.
Speaker 1: Darryl, thank you so much. And again you need to
Speaker 1: pick up the Catspaws Yearbook. Follow Darryl on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Darryl Bird. But they can get the the yearbook wherever
Speaker 1: they get sports magazines. Am I right?
Speaker 2: Kroger specifically shop Yeah, not Kroger this year, shop Catspaws
Speaker 2: dot com.
Speaker 3: The easiest way, Okay, very good, all right, the easiest.
Speaker 2: Way we can get it right to you.
Speaker 1: Thanks Daryl Bird of the Cat's Pause and more to
Speaker 1: come on the best of the Big Boo Insider here
Speaker 1: on six thirty WLAP. Welcome back to the Big Blue Insider.
Speaker 1: Coming up a little bit later on, we're gonna replay
Speaker 1: this segment we use to close out our Thanksgiving program
Speaker 1: just ahead of the big holiday, as we look back
Speaker 1: on a great up of WKRP in Cincinnati, and if
Speaker 1: you know the show, you know where I'm going with that.
Speaker 1: I thought to take you back to earlier this month
Speaker 1: when I made some points to some things that jumped
Speaker 1: off the internet at me. I needed to touch on
Speaker 1: a couple of things that I didn't have a chance
Speaker 1: to get into yesterday. First of all, congratulations to former
Speaker 1: Wildcat Sydney McLaughlin lavroon Female Track Athlete of the Year.
Speaker 1: She was a Wildcat only one year. But she was
Speaker 1: not somebody who just used this place as a way station.
Speaker 1: And we know this because she still claims UK. You know,
Speaker 1: she wasn't one of these athletes who just stopped here
Speaker 1: for eight months and took off to a great pro career.
Speaker 1: Now she comes back to UK, so I give her
Speaker 1: credit for that. The other thing we need to talk
Speaker 1: about is the fact that when I was talking about
Speaker 1: Mark Stoops yesterday, I didn't realize because it popped out
Speaker 1: on social media a little bit later after I recorded.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that it was twelve years to the
Speaker 1: day since Mark Stoops signed on at the University of Kentucky.
Speaker 1: And I bring that up because I was talking about
Speaker 1: that during my chat with you guys about Kentucky football
Speaker 1: and the fact that Mark Stoops is trying to rebuild
Speaker 1: this program now, not the entire program, the subculture is there.
Speaker 1: The culture's there now. He just got to get it
Speaker 1: back in shape. But keep in mind what he said
Speaker 1: when he got here. He said he talked about how
Speaker 1: he was going to lay things out and get things done.
Speaker 1: Essentially was recruiting, got to bring in better players. Rich
Speaker 1: Brooks said that when he got here. Do you remember
Speaker 1: that rich Brooks said when he got here, And he
Speaker 1: said this in hindsight, He didn't say this when he
Speaker 1: was introduced, but he said, UK at the time had
Speaker 1: one player, one that could run a sub four five forty.
Speaker 1: Now you think about that, that meant that Kentucky was
Speaker 1: maybe the slowest team in the Southeastern Conference. And obviously
Speaker 1: the two things you have to have to win in
Speaker 1: this league size and speed. I don't remember what kind
Speaker 1: of size the Wildcats had. And you can have guys
Speaker 1: that are big who don't have a lot of athletic ability.
Speaker 1: We've seen that, haven't we. But minus speed, you've got
Speaker 1: no shot. You don't have receivers who can get open.
Speaker 1: You don't have d backs who can cover that kind
Speaker 1: of receiver. So Stoops comes in, looks at the talent
Speaker 1: level and goes to work. He and Vince Merrill and
Speaker 1: his staff members who have come and gone, They brought
Speaker 1: in better players, right, they developed them and they won
Speaker 1: more games. But one of the things that Stoops said
Speaker 1: was there will be no shortcuts. Well, guess what. That's
Speaker 1: exactly what. The portal and the nil represent shortcuts for everybody.
Speaker 1: Only they're gambles. You sure you got the right guy,
Speaker 1: You're sure you're paying the right people the right amounts
Speaker 1: of money. It's tempting, isn't it. And it's not just tempting.
Speaker 1: It's a must if you are a college football coach,
Speaker 1: because it's so much of a numbers game. Basketball too,
Speaker 1: but football is such a numbers game, and anymore, especially
Speaker 1: coaches paid a ton of money like Stoops, It's not
Speaker 1: what have you done for me lately? It's what have
Speaker 1: you done for me today? Coaches aren't getting four and
Speaker 1: five years anymore because the demand from fans, the demand
Speaker 1: from boosters, the demand from athletics directors who are paying
Speaker 1: top dollar demands success right now. So that's why the
Speaker 1: shortcuts are so vital anymore. And I firmly believe, and
Speaker 1: I've not talked to him about this, and even if
Speaker 1: I wanted to, I don't think Stoops will talk to
Speaker 1: me about it. I talked to Tom Leach about it,
Speaker 1: But I think this just gets it Stoops where he
Speaker 1: lives how to build a football team the right way.
Speaker 1: And given the fact that everybody and Stoops has had
Speaker 1: some success with the portal, but everybody's dealing with it now,
Speaker 1: means he can't go back to do things the way
Speaker 1: he used to do them, at least not at the
Speaker 1: Division IE level. At the SEC level, he's stuck with
Speaker 1: the current situation. So you've got to try to make
Speaker 1: the best of it. And as I said, sometimes it
Speaker 1: works out. Sometimes it's great. Will Levis's first year at Kentucky, well,
Speaker 1: Liam Cohen and a great old line worked out great
Speaker 1: and there was at least one transfer on that old line.
Speaker 1: And then sometimes it doesn't work out. Speaking of times
Speaker 1: it works out, what about Syracuse. Syracuse upsets Miami Kyle
Speaker 1: McCord is a big game. And remember this is the
Speaker 1: guy who started his career at Ohio State and I
Speaker 1: believe started for the Buckeyes for a couple of years
Speaker 1: before he left, and they couldn't be Michigan when he
Speaker 1: was there, and apparently people blamed him for it. Well,
Speaker 1: Fran Brown as the head coach of Syracuse and was
Speaker 1: catching some flak for a comment he made about sending
Speaker 1: champagne to Ohio State or sending him Kyle McCord, and
Speaker 1: on the Jim Rome Show, he said he owes Ryan Day,
Speaker 1: the head coach at Ohio State, a case of champagne,
Speaker 1: and he made note of the fact that Ohio State
Speaker 1: still lost to Michigan minus Kyle McCord, which kind of
Speaker 1: brought or took Kyle McCord if you're look at it
Speaker 1: that way off the hook.
Speaker 8: So I'm excited for just our communities. You know, everyone
Speaker 8: down there represents him, but just the country to be
Speaker 8: able to see how good of a football player he is.
Speaker 8: And you know, it was kind of put out as
Speaker 8: if he was the reason. So I mean, I guess
Speaker 8: after watching him win this weekend, and I don't know
Speaker 8: what happened to that piece of you know, you're seeing
Speaker 8: the same results again. You can't blame Kyle, correct, you know.
Speaker 8: So I'm happy that Kyle was able to go and
Speaker 8: clear his name, come here and show that he's a
Speaker 8: good quarterback. I got I got ridiculed for stateent that
Speaker 8: I wanted to send Ryan Day a bottle of champagne,
Speaker 8: where I wasn't being disrespectful. I was just saying, this
Speaker 8: guy is the real deal, and you guys let him
Speaker 8: come in like great, thank you. You know I still
Speaker 8: owe him. She's send him some more. She send him cakes,
Speaker 8: not even a bottle. She use my language, but just
Speaker 8: extremely excited and thankful for cod.
Speaker 1: At Syracuse coach Fran Brown and Syracuse played a great game,
Speaker 1: obviously beating Miami and show a Kyle m But I
Speaker 1: guess the lesson here because some people got upset about
Speaker 1: that comment, specifically Ohio State fans. You gotta be careful
Speaker 1: when you're talking about other programs, especially in college sports,
Speaker 1: and especially in college football, because people get their respective
Speaker 1: backs up very very quickly. One other note is we
Speaker 1: go to the break. Were you watching Sunday Night Football?
Speaker 1: But Chris Collinsworth and Mike Turrico. I didn't see this part.
Speaker 1: I was in and out of the game. But evidently
Speaker 1: Chris Collinsworth's hands look really bad. And at Total pro
Speaker 1: Sports on Twitter tps but that's the avatar or the
Speaker 1: account name. But if you hit at Total pro sports,
Speaker 1: they posted a screen grab and collins worth hands are
Speaker 1: all black and blue. No idea, what's going on, but
Speaker 1: it touched off a flurry of tweets and social media posts.
Speaker 1: Collinsworth has not yet said anything publicly. Some people think
Speaker 1: it's because it was so cold at the game and
Speaker 1: he wasn't wearing gloves. But yeah, it's odd looking. And
Speaker 1: you see in elderly people who bruise easily, and he's
Speaker 1: not elderly. That's my point. Sometimes their skin looks like that,
Speaker 1: or their hands look like that. But a lot of
Speaker 1: people out there concerned about Chris Collinsworth, who of course
Speaker 1: married a former UK cheerleader and whose dad Collinsworth's dad
Speaker 1: played basketball at UK, and in fact he was up.
Speaker 1: Collinsworth was for SEC Athlete of the Year and I
Speaker 1: think it was nineteen eighty and Kyle Macy actually won
Speaker 1: the award, but the banquet was here in Lexington and
Speaker 1: I remember Chris collins was saying it was such a
Speaker 1: throw for him to be there as he got a
Speaker 1: chance to meet his hero Nile Macy. Want to come
Speaker 1: on the best of the Big Blue sider up next
Speaker 1: to classic Thanksgiving moment from a great sitcom of several
Speaker 1: years ago. A reminder tomorrow night, we'll look back on
Speaker 1: the calendar year twenty twenty four, lots went on in
Speaker 1: UK athletics, football, baseball, basketball, some shocking news on the
Speaker 1: coaching front, and the Big Blue Nation. Welcome Mark Pope
Speaker 1: back to the Bluegrass. So we'll take a look back
Speaker 1: at all of that coming up tomorrow night as we
Speaker 1: welcome in the year twenty twenty five. Back with more
Speaker 1: of the best of the Big Bloon Insider in just
Speaker 1: a minute six thirty WLP welcome back to the best
Speaker 1: of the Big Blue and Sider as we wrap up
Speaker 1: the year a year twenty twenty four. Hope it has
Speaker 1: been a good one for you. Hope this evening remains
Speaker 1: safe for you and your family. We will wrap up
Speaker 1: with the segment that we closed during our Thanksgiving show
Speaker 1: as we look back on one of the greatest episodes
Speaker 1: in the history of sitcoms. And of course, when you
Speaker 1: talk about Thanksgiving, you've got to talk about WKRP in
Speaker 1: Cincinnati and the episode called Turkeys Away. Gave you a
Speaker 1: little history on it and presented the highlight here on
Speaker 1: the best of the Big Blue Insiders. I wanted to
Speaker 1: leave you with everybody's favorite. This is from the Turkeys
Speaker 1: Away episode of WKRP in Cincinnati. It is considered one
Speaker 1: of the most famous, revered episodes of the show, and
Speaker 1: really in all of the history of sitcoms, and in fact,
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety seven, TV Guide ranked Turkeys Away episode
Speaker 1: at number forty on its one hundred Greatest Episodes of
Speaker 1: All time. In twenty oh nine, it was moved down
Speaker 1: to sixty five. I don't know where it is now
Speaker 1: within one hundred greatest episodes, but it's got to be
Speaker 1: up there. It's got to be up there. Back in
Speaker 1: ninety seven, in the very first at the top of
Speaker 1: the list was the Mary Tyler Moore show Chuckles Bites
Speaker 1: the Dust, And you know, I don't know what's on
Speaker 1: top now. You'd have a hard time replacing that one
Speaker 1: as number one. But Turkey's Away belongs on the top
Speaker 1: one hundred list to me, forever and for all time.
Speaker 1: And you know the story. WKRP, the station in Cincinnati
Speaker 1: that featured doctor Johnny Fever and Venus fly Trap and
Speaker 1: les Nessman and Bailey Quarters. They decided they would thanks
Speaker 1: to the big guy, Arthur Carlson stage Thanksgiving promotion, right,
Speaker 1: and so Less goes to report on it in a
Speaker 1: live remote and you hear doctor Johnny Fever tossing it
Speaker 1: to Less out in the field, and what comes next
Speaker 1: is radio magic and its history.
Speaker 9: Less you're still there, Yes, Johnny, you see anything yet?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 9: No, there's quite a crowd though. Where's the big guy?
Speaker 6: I don't know where Carlson is, but we're coming to
Speaker 6: you right after this record.
Speaker 9: Okay, okay, no problem, I can have one.
Speaker 1: Okay, real close.
Speaker 6: Yes, all right, fellow babies, And now it's time to
Speaker 6: go to our live remote Man on the scene at
Speaker 6: the Pinedale Shopping Mall for the.
Speaker 7: Big WKRP Turkey giveaway.
Speaker 9: So take it away, less Ness man, this is less Ness,
Speaker 9: But you're man on the scene here at the Pinedale
Speaker 9: Shopping Center. But the excitement is mounting. We're here to
Speaker 9: witness the big wk on Rookie Thanksgiving giveaway. You got
Speaker 9: permission to be out here? What you're blocking my store?
Speaker 1: Here? Buddy?
Speaker 9: Don't you know who I am?
Speaker 1: Huh?
Speaker 3: I'm less Nessman.
Speaker 9: I won the Buckeye Newshok Award last year for.
Speaker 1: You, Bucky. Now get out of my doorway. I'm sorry, creep.
Speaker 8: Far so good.
Speaker 1: I hear hundreds of people who.
Speaker 9: Have gathered to witness what has been described as perhaps
Speaker 9: the greatest Turkey event, and Thanksgiving dang is great. All
Speaker 9: we know for sure is that in a very few
Speaker 9: moments they're going to be a lot of happy people
Speaker 9: out here. Now the crowd is the crowd is curious,
Speaker 9: but well behaved. And I think I hear something. Now
Speaker 9: the crowd is moving out into the parking area. And
Speaker 9: oh yes, I can see it now. It's a it's
Speaker 9: a Hello copter and it's coming this way. It's flying
Speaker 9: something behind it. I can't quite make it out. It's
Speaker 9: a large banner and it says heavy things kidny from wy.
Speaker 1: Hey want a site?
Speaker 9: That is, gentlemen, What a sight. The culpter seems to
Speaker 9: be circling in the parking area. Now I guess it's
Speaker 9: looking for a place to land. No, something just came
Speaker 9: out of the back of the helicopter. It's a dark object,
Speaker 9: perhaps a skydiver plumbing to you to the earth, only
Speaker 9: two thousand.
Speaker 1: Feet into the air.
Speaker 9: Second to the third, No, hirshut yet? Have these skydivers?
Speaker 9: I can't not, you can't run they are, but oh
Speaker 9: my god, they're turnkey. I'm going to get this. Oh
Speaker 9: I'm cut you to the earth.
Speaker 2: Right We're.
Speaker 1: Always gonna We're going to win.
Speaker 9: You have a hot had It's just colors running around
Speaker 9: pushing each other.
Speaker 1: Oh my it is. Oh there's your moments in there.
Speaker 9: Let me get bombs of The turkeys are hitting the
Speaker 9: ground like sets of what samans.
Speaker 1: It's like, I don't know how much longer they're the
Speaker 1: trot is running for their lives. I think I go
Speaker 1: to step in site. I can't stay up here and
Speaker 1: watch this any moments. No, I can't go in there
Speaker 1: anything like that.
Speaker 9: I don't know my division here.
Speaker 1: Johnny.
Speaker 4: Last, last, are you there?
Speaker 2: Lass?
Speaker 6: Isn't there?
Speaker 4: Thanks for that?
Speaker 3: On the spot report.
Speaker 9: Last we just tuned in.
Speaker 6: The Pinedale shopping mall has just been bombed with mill
Speaker 6: at eleven.
Speaker 1: Then you cut to the last scene where Less returns
Speaker 1: to the station, followed by Arthur Carl's scenes with the
Speaker 1: famous last line, are you okay?
Speaker 6: I don't know?
Speaker 1: The man and his two children tried to kill me.
Speaker 9: After the turkey's hit the pavement, the crowd kind of scattered,
Speaker 9: but some of them tried to attack me to gem
Speaker 9: myself into a phone booth. Then mister Carlson had the
Speaker 9: helicopter land in the middle of the parking lot. I
Speaker 9: guess he thought he could save the day by turning
Speaker 9: the rest of the turkeys loose. It's pretty strange after that.
Speaker 1: Let's come on now, tell us the rest.
Speaker 9: I really don't know how to describe it. It was
Speaker 9: like the turkeys mounted to counter attack. It was almost
Speaker 9: as if they were organized. As God is my witness,
Speaker 9: I thought turkeys could fly.
Speaker 1: Now, Believe it or not, This was based on a
Speaker 1: true story, although it's debated as to where it happened.
Speaker 1: Some people believe it happened at an Atlanta radio station
Speaker 1: w q XI. They called it Quicksie, and that the
Speaker 1: general manager character was based in part of a guy
Speaker 1: named Jerry Bloom. But Bloom's son Gary said that this
Speaker 1: was not It didn't happen at the Atlanta station, but
Speaker 1: his dad had worked at a station in Dallas in
Speaker 1: the fifties and they did a turkey drop, or actually
Speaker 1: they threw them off the back of a flatbed truck,
Speaker 1: and things did not go really well. And by the way,
Speaker 1: the famous line at the end was actually a take
Speaker 1: on something that Bloom told the Atlanta Journal Constitution in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six. He actually said, I didn't know turkeys
Speaker 1: couldn't fly, which of course inspired Arthur Carlson's famous line.
Speaker 1: But I did want to share that with you as
Speaker 1: we headed into the Thanksgiving weekend. And I thought I
Speaker 1: had heard someplace that this was based on an event
Speaker 1: that actually did happen, but wasn't entirely sure where. But yeah,
Speaker 1: the Internet's got it. Although, as we said, some believe
Speaker 1: it happened in Atlanta. But the man who worked at
Speaker 1: both stations, both the WQXI and at a station in Dallas, No,
Speaker 1: it happened in Dallas, but they did something else in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: But the turkey drop, which was actually off the back
Speaker 1: of a truck, happened in Dallas in the fifties. And
Speaker 1: by the way, WQXI and in Atlanta still exists as
Speaker 1: a Korean language station, which I thought was pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: And that'll do it for the best of the big
Speaker 1: blon Cider. As we wrap up the calendar year here
Speaker 1: on New Year's Eve, hope you have a great man
Speaker 1: or reminder. Tomorrow night, we'll look back on some of
Speaker 1: the biggest moments in UK sports from the year twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. You don't want to miss that. Tomorrow night
Speaker 1: at six o'clock right here. That's it, hoppy new Year, everybody.
Speaker 1: Good night from the garage in Lexington.
Speaker 9: As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.
Speaker 5: Baaa