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Speaker 2: Welcome back Cougar Sports one every nine ninety point three.
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you some pizza and get some Royal Army of Brank
Gear segment. We're gonna catch up with a former BYU Cougar.
Great to discuss this BYU Cougar all the Boau Cougar
football moves. With Kaleijhataki being retained and hopefully the entirety
of his staff on into the off season, they prep,
They get ready for the BYU Texas Tech matchup this
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Let's get out to the hot line. Welcome in former
b y u a d. We got val hail on
the line, vow how.
Speaker 2: You living brother?
Speaker 4: Good Ben?
Speaker 3: How are you doing doing awesome? All this well in
Cougar Country, my friend? It seems like everything is trending
in the right direction.
Speaker 5: That's absolutely right.
Speaker 4: It's it's nice to get all this behind us so
we can focus on a game coming up on Saturday.
Speaker 2: Right, Oh, man, I know it's answered much about it.
Speaker 3: Man, it feels good to to.
Speaker 2: Have our guy.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: You've been a part of these negotiations. You've been a
part of these situations before. What type of whirlwind do
you think, Brian Santiago, Shane Reevees, Keith Vorkink, Elder Gilbert
we're in when when they knew that Penn State was
swinging big for their guy, Kalani Satake.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, it's really I think this is unlike
anything b Way You've ever experienced before, and it's just
kind of.
Speaker 5: Fascinating to watch.
Speaker 4: It's so foreign what I experienced even twenty years ago.
I remember when Gary Croton came in, he brought an
agent with him, who incidentally was Tom Holmo's agent when
he was a cal Also and with Leavell, there was
no agent. You know, Lavell, had you just sit down,
come in the office.
Speaker 5: You'd work out a deal.
Speaker 4: And so when agents get involved, it makes it a
much more interesting and I would even say difficult dynamic
from the university standpoint. But the fact that all of
these people got involved and they did something unprecedented in
BYU history and coming up with a compensation package that
is one of the best in the country from what
I've heard. I don't know what it is exactly, it's
just it's amazing to see BYU get to this point.
I mean, this is the same university. You know, we
Leavell paid Doug Scoville nineteen thousand a year to come
and coach at BYU. When you know, when Doug came
back in the late seventies and when I was athletic director,
Lavelle's salary at BYU was not even two hundred thousand
dollars when I came in. And so now we've got
a coach who's one of the top paid coaches in Americas.
It shows you how far things have changed and how
far we've come.
Speaker 5: And good for Kilani for flexing.
Speaker 4: And getting this type of a deal. And I'm sure
it wasn't just for him as has been reported. You know,
I knew Kilane by doing this would be trying to
take care of his assistants and trying to get more
resources for the program. It sounded like he was successful
in getting all of that good for him.
Speaker 2: No doubt about it.
Speaker 3: Look, I mean what needs to happen in order to
get certain things like this approved. We know you know
that that BYU's athletic department is self sustaining. You know,
it's revenue comes from ticket sales, corporate sponsorships, subsidies from donors,
TV money, uh, you know, merchandising, licensing.
Speaker 2: Right, Like, there's there's a number of funnels.
Speaker 3: That booy up the athletic department and uh, you know,
and then they utilize those funds to pay their W
two employees, their FTEs, their coaches.
Speaker 2: Et cetera.
Speaker 3: It's becoming a little bit more interesting now with revenue
sharing et cetera. There, But like, how how involved do
the Barder trustees get in these situations where uh, it
seems like, you know a lot of the funds aren't
necessarily coming from the institution itself, like meaning upper campus
as a university, but like it does impact maybe public perception.
I guess we don't know how it operates from a
P and L standpoint, from from a monetary standpoint, necessarily.
Speaker 2: We don't have access to that.
Speaker 3: Could you give us a little bit of enlightenment about
how involved the border of Trustees is in to approve
such things?
Speaker 4: Well, in this particular case, I'm guessing they were very
involved because as I mentioned, this is unprecedented and even
though it's not necessarily coming from tiding funds in the church,
it's the perception issue, you know. I'm sure the conversation
is do we really want to be paying our coach
that much money? You know, when people are thinking that,
you know, we might be using the widows might to
do this, which they aren't, but people still think they
I'm sure they had the conversation and it shows the
respect that they have for Kilane that they were willing
to go this far and do this much. And you know,
it would have been catastrophic for Kilanie to leave right now.
I mean, you think about recruiting, recruit signing is today
what would have happened if he would have announced Monday
or Tuesday that he's going to Penn State. Any of
these recruits would have said, oh well, let's see maybe
not what if you took all his staff with him.
You know, BYU football would have been starting from scratch
again pretty much.
Speaker 5: You know, maybe Jay Hill.
Speaker 4: Stays and becomes the head coach, and you know, things
go on, but the disruption would have been phenomenal. And
I think they realized that. And Klane, quite frankly, has
had great success in the last two or three years
and he represents everything that the board of trustees wants
in a coach. I mean, he's doing it the right
way at BYU. So you know, hats off to them
for saying, let's go, let's do this, and for the
donors who were willing to step up and make it happen.
And that's what I understand is really driving a lot
of this. And quite frankly, you know, we get a
lot more money by being in the Big twelve than
we used to. But the way I see it, the
big difference between BYU right now and even three years
ago is the way the donors have stepped up. I mean,
it's just remarkable to see how they've come forward. Back
back when I was athletic director, We had a few
donors and they gave some money, but it was nothing
like happens now with the Silicon Slopes coming into the
valley and these other businesses primarily you know, started by
LDS people. They've just been phenomenal at supporting the program.
It's it's remarkable.
Speaker 3: Well, it's truly a new era of BYU athletics, one
that has tremendous momentum right now, tremendous investment and.
Speaker 2: You just love you love to see it.
Speaker 3: If you're a BYU fed, you love to see the
momentum right now. And look, I mean, lots of things
have changed since you've been the ad. Like you even
commented on social media that Johnny Harlen playing the national anthemon.
Speaker 2: Is electric guitar.
Speaker 3: No way the Cougar fan would have allowed that, you know,
twenty five years ago.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, it was funny because every time somebody
sang the national anthem even a little bit unique, I
would get I literally would get letters and emails and
oftentimes copied to the president of the church and the
president of the university complaining about and you know what,
in fairness, a lot of these people were like World
War two veterans, yes, and they.
Speaker 3: Were typically it's going to be the fats, right, yeah,
in godless American God bless those that are serving in
the military, and were grateful for them, no doubt.
Speaker 4: Yeah. But it was just funny, you know, because if
we had allowed something like that to happen back then, man,
all heck would break. Was kind of like when Tom Holmo,
you know, when the Cougarrettes.
Speaker 5: Played a song.
Speaker 4: It was edited, but apparently it was a song that
was had some pretty risque lyrics that were edited out
that people still wrote and complained and Tom had to
step up and say, hey, that's my bad.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: We'll you know, we'll take care of that.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: That's kind of the way it was all the time.
And what was funny is I right after he played
that thing, I turned to my son when the cougar
Rats were out dancing, and they do an amazing job,
I said, when Ernest Wilkinson was president of the university,
if they had done that routine, they had all been
expelled from school. You know, that's how far we've come.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: Back then, it was just a different era. I mean,
it was very strict and rigid and there's no way
they would allow that kind of dancing out on the
floor or out on the field. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, hopefully it's all good growth.
Speaker 3: Obviously, we want to abide by all the laws and
regulations and stay true, you know, you know, and keep
your hand to the rod, obviously, but I do think
we've made some really good progress in that regard. Well,
there's a lot of them, agree, there are a lot
of them meant to me in the athletletics world right now,
and BYU basketball, BYU football highly ranked, and when you
look at the overall momentum, like, what's the cap what's
the ceiling for BYU athletics right now, especially for its flagship.
Speaker 4: Programs, Well, you know, gosh, after considering what's been accomplished
and where we're headed and the recruiting classes we're having,
I would say the cap is that we typically ought
to have programs that are competing for a national championship.
We may not always, you know, be right at the top,
but top ten programs in the various programs at sports
football and basketball that we have, and maybe even a
few others we're already there, and some like our cross
country teams and a few others here and there. But
you know, you think that with the resources we have,
if we can continue to recruit like we have, that
should be kind of just the goal. You know, we're
going to compete for a Big twelve championship and both
sports as well as you know, be a top ten
ranked team. That doesn't seem out of the realm of
possibility given what we've accomplished lately.
Speaker 2: Val Hell Ladies and Gentlemen.
Speaker 3: Former b YU A D talking some BYU Athletics here
on your Utah ESPN Radio network. You're looking at how
BUYU is getting stiff armed in the College Football Playoff
Committee's eyes.
Speaker 2: How do you evaluate that?
Speaker 3: I get asked all the time, like why is it
that they don't want BYU and the Big Boys Club?
Is it the product on the field. It's hard to
argue their resume right now, but they're doing it. They're
just leaving the entirely, They're just keeping them fixated at eleven?
Is it religious bigotry?
Speaker 2: Is is it?
Speaker 3: You know, maybe institutional bigotry and discrimination?
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 2: You know, maybe last year I brought this up.
Speaker 3: Last year the colleg Football Playoff Committee did invite, did
bring in Boise State in SMU, and they really weren't
that competit, so they want to bring in and Alabama
was was tossed to the side. And Alabama's a perennial
over the last twenty plus years, one of the best
teams in college football, obviously led by a legendary coach.
Speaker 2: What do you make of it?
Speaker 5: Val Well?
Speaker 4: By you has always been shunned, you know, rightly or wrongly?
You know, clear back in ninety six, I remember going
with Levell in New York City. We were there for
an event and they invited us to go to the
announcement party that I can't remember CBS or somewhere so
level and I go there and and course they had
they really had no intention of inviting BYU. That's what
was so embarrassing that we knew that they weren't going
to include BYU, even though b way you deserved to
be included. And as soon as they announced it that
BYU wasn't there, all of the coaches just immediately vacated
the room, left Levell just standing there. It was really
I felt so bad for Lavell because it was really
a tremendous show of disrespect for him. They shouldn't they
knew that Bayu wasn't going to be invited there. There's
no way they were going to do that. And it
was because they didn't want to share the money. I mean,
let's be honest, this is a financial decision.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and.
Speaker 4: So you know, leavell we just kind of had to
wander out, find a taxi and find our way back home.
You know, they had brought a car over to pick
us up, but they weren't going to give us a
car going back, you know. And again in two thousand
and one, you know, we're undefeated and we're getting ready
to go. I can't remember what stage it was, but
they end up basically telling us, no, we're not in
the you're not included, and lo and behold, we go
out and lose it. It was a big distraction for
us back then.
Speaker 3: I want to pivot back to some of our original
conversation here, Val I was pulling up US Department of
Education numbers.
Speaker 2: I was trying to compare and contrast.
Speaker 3: What BY has how BYU financially has changed from an
athletic Department standpoint since about two thousand and five, if
I'm not mistaken, I was looking at those numbers and
I don't know if they're accurate, but two thousand and five,
the athletic department revenue generated about twenty million dollars.
Speaker 2: Does that sound accurate?
Speaker 4: That's yes, that's what it was when I left in
two thousand and four.
Speaker 2: Okay, right in twenty million, twenty million dollars.
Speaker 3: The most recent numbers that we have in twenty twenty
three is one hundred and thirty million dollars. Give us
some perspective here, like what's going on? What happened over
that that expansive time.
Speaker 4: Well, like I say, I think, I think fundraising has
taken off and done significant things. I think obviously in
the Big twelve now it's the rev new share is
significantly more. I think with just TV revenue, even when
we went independent, that became a lot more because we
weren't sharing it with all of the other mount West
conference people. So I think it's a combination of everything.
But I really think the fundraising aspect has been one
of the biggest things. You know, that does accounted for
that increase in revenue, and now with the Big twelve
revenue that significant as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a there's a lot happening here. Well, the
thing is the twenty twenty three they didn't they didn't
get a share of the TV money at that time.
That would have been the former deal that I think
it was during independence, which would have been I don't know,
four or five million, right which you know it's a sum,
but you know, these big, these Power four conferences, they're
going to get, you know, twenty thirty forty million dollars
in TV distribute.
Speaker 2: So we're at one thirty right now.
Speaker 3: Once you become a full member, you're looking at one
hundred and fifty hundred sixty hundred seventy one hundred and
eighty million dollars. That's a that's that's not just a
small business anymore. That's a that's a pretty that's a
that's a growing business.
Speaker 2: That's a robust set of personnel.
Speaker 3: I don't know how many employees were there when you
were in two thousand and five, howenty in two thousand
and four, two thousand five, how many ployees.
Speaker 4: I would say we had maybe about one hundred. I
would bet there's more than twice, maybe almost three times
as many now as there were. I mean, you think
about it. Levell when he started coaching at BYU in
nineteen seventy two, there were six football coaches, including Leavell
Utah and Utah State had eight on their staff at
the time. And now you know, they also had a
couple of trainers, or probably three trainers, Rod Kimball, Marv Roberson,
you know, Oli Julkinen and some of those guys. Now
they've got more basketball assistant coaches. And they had football
coaches back then. And you know, when the basketball team played,
this kind of funny because you know, all these guys
come out on the floor and I'm thinking, Man, when
I was athletic director, you had one head coach, three assistants.
I think he had a director of basketball operations then
and maybe one other person. But now I don't know,
I don't even know how many are on that staff.
Same thing with football, they've got, you know, all kinds
of people. They even got general managers. Now they got
a general manager for the program.
Speaker 5: So the size of.
Speaker 4: The staff has just grown significantly over the last few years.
And I guess that's I guess they You know, when
you joined a big conference like the Big twelve, you
kind of have to do that keep up I guess
with everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, crazy times, no doubt about it. Val Always love
chaddick with you. Always learned something from you. I know
our listeners love hearing from you. Best way to support you?
Speaker 2: What do you do? How you do it?
Speaker 3: I know you've You're still staying busy, got projects.
Speaker 2: You also wrote a book for recently.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a year ago I wrote a book called Out
of the Blue and Insiders look at the Rise of
BAU Athletics. That was a fun experience. I'm just kind
of starting the process of recording it and having it
as an audible book. So I still have some printed
copies that did quite well, and then I'm going to
put it out on audio format for those it'd probably
be I don't know if I'll get it done before
the end of the year, but right after that I
hope to have it out. I'm surprised how many people
don't really read books anymore. They listen to them, so
I thought that would be fun to get out so
people could It's just my memoirs my time in the
athletic program, and not basically during the Lavelle Edwards years
and the croaking years. You know what happened?
Speaker 2: Love that, man, It's a great book.
Speaker 3: I've read through it and I invite everyone to download it,
especially once the audible version is ready to go. You
got a great voice for it as well. Val, you
got sultry tones. Man, I'll listen to that on audible
any day of the week.
Speaker 4: Okay, all right, well Ben, it's always fun to chat
with you. Thanks for taking time to golf.
Speaker 2: All right, appreciate you. Val. Hell ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 3: Former b yu ad talking some Brigham football guys. We're
live from the Sky's Chevrolet Rocky Mountain Chevrolet Dealership here
in Provo twenty one twenty five North University Parkway, just
two blocks away from our hallowed grounds of hallowed grounds
of lebel Edwards Stadium.
Speaker 2: Stop by.
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those that are most in lead, most in need. Tis
the season to be giving, because we've been given much,
We too much must give. If you have the means,
please stop by and drop off those goods today. We
appreciate it when you do. And look the Road Home,
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Their mission is to help people step out of homelessness
and back into our community. I believe housing is the
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website okay, road home dot org. Road home dot org,
and uh find out ways you can give lift where
you stand and let's give back to our community. Let's
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More to get to is always here on your utah.
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