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Speaker 1: Hey, this is Andy and Samantha. I'm welcome to step

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Speaker 1: I never told your production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: And today for feminists around the world, we are going

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Speaker 2: down a different route. We are doing the sportsball thing.

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Speaker 2: I'm being facetious, y'all. I know many film people love sports.

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Speaker 2: I'm just not one of those people. So I'm making

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Speaker 2: fun of myself when I say this. But we're talking

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Speaker 2: about a Korean basketball player that I stumbled upon, Yes,

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Speaker 2: thanks to TikTok, and it's from next Shark is the site.

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Speaker 2: I don't follow them, but it popped up. I was like,

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Speaker 2: look at this. I've gotten a lot of Korean soccer

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Speaker 2: coming at my way and I've been very happy about it,

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Speaker 2: so I think this is why I got this as well.

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Speaker 2: But this player is actually from South Korea but played

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Speaker 2: in the US, and we're talking about Unjung e k

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Speaker 2: or e j Ok as ever. Everybody else calls her

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Speaker 2: and Minnie also referred to her, including the Sports Illustrated

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Speaker 2: at the time, as the Korean Magic Johnson. She was

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Speaker 2: so good and Annie, just sit back because I'm gonna

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Speaker 2: tell you all about her, okay, because I found it fascinating,

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Speaker 2: and also it's hard to translate to what I found

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Speaker 2: on TikTok onto writing, Yeah, that's what we do, because

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Speaker 2: you know, it's a little different the video version versus

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Speaker 2: us talking about it on audio version, I guess because

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Speaker 2: you get to see all the highlights and those scripts

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Speaker 2: that write through it. But yeah, So Next Shock did

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Speaker 2: feature her as one of the probably best female basketball

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Speaker 2: players ever that not many people know about, and the

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Speaker 2: fact that she's Korean. She was like five six at

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Speaker 2: the time, so I was a little bit taller than me,

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Speaker 2: but whatever, And she came into the US in the

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Speaker 2: nineteen eighties. Again, I was really shocked. I was like, really, like,

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Speaker 2: Korean people have been infiltrating a lot of American sports

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Speaker 2: and I love to see it, and just like European

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Speaker 2: sports in itself, and it's been fascinating to see who

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Speaker 2: those who have actually been able to cross over into

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Speaker 2: Western fame. But she is one of those, and especially

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Speaker 2: as a woman in basketball, I was like, what, so of

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Speaker 2: course I had to go down this route. So she's

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Speaker 2: originally from gimj, South Korea, and EJLK started playing basketball

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Speaker 2: around the age of ten in the fifth grade, and

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Speaker 2: her mother would actually sneak her to practices after realizing

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Speaker 2: how good she was, and was telling her father, who

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Speaker 2: didn't approve of women in sports, very old school, that

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Speaker 2: she was going to piano lessons and she was so good.

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Speaker 2: She and her high school team when she was a senior,

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Speaker 2: was featured on national television, where her father watched her

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Speaker 2: for the first time and actually admit it of like, yeah, okay,

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Speaker 2: you're good. And I could see this like just the

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Speaker 2: Korean like mm okay, I get it, like that's that level,

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Speaker 2: and knowing that she's actually really good at something like this,

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Speaker 2: and again she was so good that she and her

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Speaker 2: team were flown to the US to do exhibition games

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Speaker 2: in both LA and Jacksonville, Florida. Which why does Jacksonville

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Speaker 2: get these random things like this? I'm like, that's such

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Speaker 2: an odd place to be. I don't even does Florida

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Speaker 2: have a I'm saying this, does Florida have a basketball team?

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Speaker 2: Like an actual like a like of course, the colleges

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Speaker 2: have different teams, so I'm not like making fun of that,

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Speaker 2: but like, you know, Atlanta Hawks, we have that, like

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Speaker 2: the national teams they go different places. They don't even

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Speaker 2: have so I'm really kind of like, wait, what to

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Speaker 2: be fair, she was in high schools, but that level

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Speaker 2: of like, huh, that's an interesting place to have that, Okay,

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Speaker 2: But she went to Jacksonville, Florida. I wonder what she

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Speaker 2: thought of that in the nineteen eighties. Anyway, and because

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Speaker 2: of her reputation, she was soon picked up by Northeast

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Speaker 2: Louisiana University, where she garnered even more attention for her

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Speaker 2: skills and abilities. It was also noted in the next

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Speaker 2: Shark video that she had a very specific move which

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Speaker 2: was like the shot fake behind the back pass, and

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Speaker 2: they even mentioned saying that many other people felt that

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Speaker 2: Michael Jordan and Larry Bird was influenced by that because

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Speaker 2: they used that shot as well. That was part of

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Speaker 2: their signature as well. So I'm like, interesting, this little

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Speaker 2: Korean lady influenced Michael Jordan and Larry Bird. Who I

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Speaker 2: knew they were my time timeframe. Of course, everybody knows

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Speaker 2: who Michael Jordan is, but you know what I mean,

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Speaker 2: and Larry Bird. But anyway, but her playing was incredible

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Speaker 2: and so well known throughout the States. And here's some

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Speaker 2: quotes from a twenty fourteen article from charactermedia dot com.

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Speaker 2: Ej is the best female point guard i've ever seen,

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Speaker 2: said Brown, who coached Sikill O'Neil at LSU in the

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Speaker 2: early nineties. I don't mean to embellish this, but she's

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Speaker 2: a female Pete Maravich. They had eyes all around their head.

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Speaker 2: Great players perceive things that aren't there. They diagram plays

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Speaker 2: and know it in their heads and make that pass

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Speaker 2: Tuesday this later. She was a phenom. I tell you

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Speaker 2: she had it all and I was kind of one

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Speaker 2: of the many players you talked about it, and then

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Speaker 2: it talks about specific games that she played, it says.

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Speaker 2: With Three hours ago before tip off, the line outside

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Speaker 2: Ewing Coliseum on the campus of Northeast Louisiana University circles

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Speaker 2: around the arena. An anti crowd of seven thousand equally

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Speaker 2: waited to enter for the biggest and most anticipated game

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Speaker 2: of March Madness basketball in the school's history. The Lady

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Speaker 2: Indians were about to take on their longtime rivals Louisiana

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Speaker 2: Tech in the NCAA Midwest Regional Championship game for a

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Speaker 2: berth in the nation's Final four. As the game got underway,

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Speaker 2: fervent chance of EJ EJ from the crowd reverberated inside

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Speaker 2: the arena at ear drum splitting levels as fans showed

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Speaker 2: their appreciation for the NLU's star player. EJ short for

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Speaker 2: Eun Johani, the junior point guard who only came to

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Speaker 2: the US from Gimbee, South Korea, three years later, had

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Speaker 2: earned a specials place in the heart of these fans.

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Speaker 2: Every day on campus. EJ was the talk described Gene point,

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Speaker 2: the radio play by play man for NLU's basketball game

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Speaker 2: in the nineteen eighties, The fans couldn't get enough of her,

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Speaker 2: so like the team was loved and apparently before the year,

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Speaker 2: her freshman year that came on, they were their game

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Speaker 2: stats were twelve, twelve and twelve, so not doing well.

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Speaker 2: And this is the first time they were so good

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Speaker 2: that they could make it to the final four. I

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Speaker 2: believe a lot of controversy happened where she wasn't They

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Speaker 2: weren't able to make it, something about recruiting, illegal recruiting.

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Speaker 2: But she was so good that everyone had like banners

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Speaker 2: for her, loved her. There was newspaper articles. They knew

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Speaker 2: in Louisiana who she was, and she actually talked about it.

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Speaker 2: In the same interview, she says it was unbelievable says

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Speaker 2: the star lu point guard now fifty one, So this

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Speaker 2: was twenty fourteen and now ej Oak her married name,

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Speaker 2: recalling that momentous game twenty nine years ago. Everybody was

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Speaker 2: pulling for me. Our fans really loved the way I

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Speaker 2: played basketball. I was always ready to play Louisiana Tech

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Speaker 2: so that I can make our fans happy when we

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Speaker 2: beat them. It meant so much for them. And apparently

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Speaker 2: after her game, the coach Louisiana Tech coach like was like,

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Speaker 2: I'm going to be so happy when you graduate, Like

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Speaker 2: I actually said that to her face, like I'm going

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Speaker 2: to be so excited when you graduate, you know, understandably

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Speaker 2: so so she was making huge plays, making huge deals.

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Speaker 2: You can now watch YouTube clips of her playing, and

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Speaker 2: I watched a little bit. I was like, oh my god,

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Speaker 2: she was so good. She does so well. Say this

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Speaker 2: is the person who can't get off the ground, like

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Speaker 2: when I see Korean representation, Okay, good on you. And

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Speaker 2: as in fact, there was another article on twenty twenty

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Speaker 2: two from Basketballnetwork dot net who says the same thing

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Speaker 2: that I did, and like, why didn't we know about

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Speaker 2: this person? They said Unjong e k was truly ahead

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Speaker 2: of her time, there was still no professional league for women.

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Speaker 2: After she graduated from the US, she had to go

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Speaker 2: to Sweden and Italy to explore opportunities, and she won

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Speaker 2: MVPs in her stint there. Just the impact she could

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Speaker 2: have had if she had played the era of social media,

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Speaker 2: Oak's story was a perfect recipe for a Netflix docuseries,

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Speaker 2: And yeah, that was kind of the consensus, like if

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Speaker 2: social media was around at that time, she would have

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Speaker 2: been on fire and she would have been so well known,

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Speaker 2: and she got so many awards even without social media

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Speaker 2: or any of that fame. She was the fourth time

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Speaker 2: SLC Player of the Year and she was also the

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Speaker 2: three time All American, which apparently no other player today

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Speaker 2: to this day has ever gotten bad. So even men

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Speaker 2: have not gotten that. So her accolades are pretty big.

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Speaker 2: Those are just two of them. There's so many more

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Speaker 2: she'd gotten. She was a coach for thirty years and

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Speaker 2: apparently she's currently a head coach in the Solarrall State

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Speaker 2: University for the women's basketball team even today, so she's

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Speaker 2: still there. She's still doing her thing and apparently using

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Speaker 2: her gift and knowledge in this game that I know

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Speaker 2: very little, very little about but I know when I'm

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Speaker 2: supposed to be impressed.

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Speaker 1: Annie, and impressed you are.

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Speaker 2: I am so good on you, ej Elk and thank

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Speaker 2: you for your contribution.

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Speaker 1: Yes, that's such a great story. I hadn't heard of her.

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Speaker 1: Very very cool.

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Speaker 2: Well.

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Speaker 1: As always, listeners, If you have any more information any

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Speaker 1: other things in this realm that we should talk about

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Speaker 1: check out, please let us know. You can email us

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Speaker 1: Stuff Media mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can

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Speaker 1: find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts, or on

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Speaker 1: have a tea public store and we have a book

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Speaker 1: that you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks

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Speaker 1: as always to our super producer Christine or executive producer

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Speaker 1: Maya and your contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to

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Speaker 1: you for listening. Stuff I Never Told You is production

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Speaker 1: of my Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,

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