Speaker 1: This says, Wins and Losses with Clay Trevis play talks
Speaker 1: with the most entertaining people in sports, entertainment and business.
Speaker 1: Now here's Clay Trevis. Welcome in Wins and Losses podcast. Here,
Speaker 1: I am your fearless host, Clay Travis. Well, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be joined here momentarily by Joel Clatt. I want to
Speaker 1: tell you, guys, I want you to leave me the
Speaker 1: best possible five star reviews that you can on the
Speaker 1: Wins and Losses podcast. I'll shout out some of the
Speaker 1: best as we continue to have more and more of
Speaker 1: these weekly episodes. We need more reviews. Helps the rating
Speaker 1: helps bump us up in the podcast rankings. I'm told also,
Speaker 1: I want to be entertained by reading these things. Special
Speaker 1: bonus if you can make fun of Joel Clatt while
Speaker 1: talking about how awesome I am in that review, will
Speaker 1: continue to share those going forward. Uh and we are
Speaker 1: joined today by at Joel Clatt, one of the most
Speaker 1: awful people on the Internet. He is the lead college
Speaker 1: football analyst for uh Fox Sports, and he has the
Speaker 1: the unfortunate unfortunate, I would say, notoriety for being among
Speaker 1: my biggest hitters in all the world, Joel, thanks for
Speaker 1: joining us. I'm just a truth teller. So you know,
Speaker 1: when you're a massive hypocrite, I just call it out
Speaker 1: right on that space, all right. So speaking of being
Speaker 1: a massive hypocrite, um, you, of course are one of
Speaker 1: the greatest hypocrites in all of the land. But what
Speaker 1: we do, what we do on the Wins and Losses
Speaker 1: podcast is, uh, we try to get from how you
Speaker 1: got so and I just introduced you as the lead
Speaker 1: voice for Fox College Football. You travel around the best
Speaker 1: game Fox has in the Big Twelve, the Pack twelve,
Speaker 1: and the Big Ten every week and get to call
Speaker 1: college football games. But you're a relatively young guy. How
Speaker 1: old are you like, as we speak today in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: thirty seven years old, So you're a young guy to
Speaker 1: have the job that you have. So let's go back
Speaker 1: in time. Let's go back in time. Will will eventually
Speaker 1: work our way back up to the nineteen college football
Speaker 1: season that's about to start. But when did the question
Speaker 1: I would like to ask people who become pretty good athletes,
Speaker 1: and people may not even realize that you were a
Speaker 1: pretty good athlete, is when did you realize for the
Speaker 1: first time, Hey, I'm pretty good at playing sports. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean I always love sports, and I would say
Speaker 1: as a kid, I was always I would say, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the you know, top two or three players
Speaker 1: on whatever team I was on, kind of regardless of sport. Now,
Speaker 1: my dad was a high school of football coach. I
Speaker 1: was the youngest of four. I was the accident actually play,
Speaker 1: so I was way behind my brothers and sisters. So
Speaker 1: my whole childhood was basically just a big tag along
Speaker 1: to their sporting events. And you know, my brother was
Speaker 1: a really good player, um in football, basketball, and baseball,
Speaker 1: and I would be the ball boy on the sideline
Speaker 1: for my dad's teams, and so I was always around it.
Speaker 1: I always loved competing, whether it was whookeleball in the
Speaker 1: backyard or actually playing on team sports on my own.
Speaker 1: But I would say that I I think I knew
Speaker 1: from a pretty young age that I was always one
Speaker 1: of the better players on whatever team I was on.
Speaker 1: But I didn't really know that that I was good
Speaker 1: enough to play past high school until I would say
Speaker 1: I was a junior in high school. Um, that might
Speaker 1: be late, but but for whatever reason, I just always
Speaker 1: thought that that was for other people, you know, that
Speaker 1: was for like the greatest players. And then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, specifically baseball, I started playing really well. I
Speaker 1: started hitting a lot of home runs as a junior
Speaker 1: in high school and started getting attention from not only colleges,
Speaker 1: but from also Major league teams. And that was the
Speaker 1: first kind of whiff I got of, like, oh man,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be able to play past high school. Where
Speaker 1: did you grow up? Denver, Colorado? Just outside it's actually
Speaker 1: a town called our Vada, and our Vada is actually
Speaker 1: directly between Boulder and Denver, so I grew up very
Speaker 1: close to the University of Colorado. I grew up a
Speaker 1: huge Denver Bronco fan, and um right during the John
Speaker 1: Elway era. You know, I was born in n and
Speaker 1: he got there. So my formative years were watching the Broncos,
Speaker 1: you know, go to the Super Bowl and lose it
Speaker 1: three times. And I was a couple of Super Bowls.
Speaker 1: So uh, certainly sports shaped my entire life growing up,
Speaker 1: and in particular I was able to as a kid
Speaker 1: watch the University of Colorado win a national championship, so
Speaker 1: you know, for me, you know, that was kind of life.
Speaker 1: Be sure to catch live editions about kicked the coverage
Speaker 1: with Clay Travis week days at six am Eastern three
Speaker 1: am Pacific. We're talking to Joel Clapp, Fox College Football
Speaker 1: lead analysts, does a lot of different things for Fox. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so you you said your dad was a high
Speaker 1: school coach. What did you coach? He was a football coach.
Speaker 1: So he he was at that school, Pomona High School
Speaker 1: in our Vauta, Colorado, for over thirty years from the
Speaker 1: day it opened, and he was the head coach for
Speaker 1: a while. He was a defensive coordinator for a while.
Speaker 1: But um, yeah he was. He was always there and
Speaker 1: that was always kind of my favorite thing to do
Speaker 1: as a kid was go to the high school football
Speaker 1: games and be a ball boy on the sideline. Did
Speaker 1: you play high school football for your dad? I did, Um,
Speaker 1: but he it wasn't you know that that brings up
Speaker 1: I'm sure that everyone listening will have a very specific
Speaker 1: picture in their mind of what that means. Right. Oh,
Speaker 1: of course this guy was a coach's son. And I
Speaker 1: always pushed back on that a little bit because my
Speaker 1: experience was actually very different than what I think people
Speaker 1: predict it would have been. For instance, my dad, um
Speaker 1: was kind of a gruff guy a disciplinarian. He was
Speaker 1: a marine um. He he fought in Vietnam. He was
Speaker 1: the first lieutenant in an artillery division in the Vietnam War.
Speaker 1: And so you know, he ran our football team accordingly.
Speaker 1: You know, we had to have our uniforms washed and pressed,
Speaker 1: and our helmet shined and our shoes shine just in
Speaker 1: order to get on the bus. Um. And we were,
Speaker 1: you know, we were a very much a disciplined football team. Well,
Speaker 1: he told me, you know, when I was a junior
Speaker 1: that well, first of all, he would took on the
Speaker 1: varsity until I was a junior. And then once I
Speaker 1: was a junior, he said, you're not playing quarterback for
Speaker 1: me if there's an older kid that can that is willing,
Speaker 1: you know, to play quarterback or or can play quarterback.
Speaker 1: And so I didn't even get to play the position
Speaker 1: at quarterback until I was a senior for my dad.
Speaker 1: Which if anyone knows anything about recruiting in in high
Speaker 1: school football and college football knows that that's like, that's
Speaker 1: like two years too late. So I wasn't recruited basically
Speaker 1: at all, certainly by the big schools around. Uh. But
Speaker 1: you know, I was just a late addition to some
Speaker 1: Division two recruiting classes and got to take trips to
Speaker 1: place like South Dakota State, North Dakota State, Northern Colorado.
Speaker 1: But in large part because I only played, I only
Speaker 1: started ten games as a quarterback for my high school
Speaker 1: football team in my career. That's And what kind of
Speaker 1: office did you guys run? Did you wing it around
Speaker 1: at all? Or was it more of a kind of
Speaker 1: a tradition. No, it was not even traditional clay. It
Speaker 1: was old school. It was like do you know the
Speaker 1: old robust two tight ends, three backs in the backfield.
Speaker 1: We would run the option, we would run the ball.
Speaker 1: Of the time they had won. My dad had a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of success. They won I think something like
Speaker 1: twelve straight league titles. You want a state championship in
Speaker 1: the eighties. Who was constantly up there in the state
Speaker 1: playoffs and and they believed in this very simple system.
Speaker 1: And so there I was not very fast, six two
Speaker 1: good arms, UM slow kid trying to run the option,
Speaker 1: and I could go up for my dad's team. And
Speaker 1: at the end of the year, this is this is
Speaker 1: the only time that I feel like he budged, only
Speaker 1: because he was my father. Um, we weren't a great team.
Speaker 1: We were about a five hundred football team. And at
Speaker 1: the end of the year, he finally, for the first
Speaker 1: time in the history of the school, put a quarterback
Speaker 1: in shot gun for the last two games. And I
Speaker 1: actually sat in the shot gun and we threw the
Speaker 1: ball around a little bit my last two games of
Speaker 1: high school. But other than that, I was doing the
Speaker 1: robust like you know, reverse out thinking to the full back,
Speaker 1: run the option down the line, and I was not
Speaker 1: very good at it. So do you think that if
Speaker 1: you had been in a pro style offense in in
Speaker 1: you know, or it's certainly a spread, but there probably
Speaker 1: weren't a lot of spread offensive attacks, then if you
Speaker 1: had had that opportunity to kind of wing the football around,
Speaker 1: do you think you would have gone to play college football?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Um, yeah, that people have asked me
Speaker 1: that before, but I I really don't know. My path
Speaker 1: was so unique, lay and there was there were so
Speaker 1: many things that had to happen for me to have
Speaker 1: the journey that I did. It was it was you know,
Speaker 1: I'm so thankful that it happened the way that it did,
Speaker 1: because as we'll get into and in a moment I'm sure,
Speaker 1: as we're talking about kind of my path, I wasn't
Speaker 1: ready for that opportunity out of high school, you know,
Speaker 1: as part of the reason why I failed in my
Speaker 1: endeavor right after high school. Um, and so I'm I
Speaker 1: am eternally grateful that I didn't have the opportunity to
Speaker 1: play football right out of out of high school, and
Speaker 1: that I had an opportunity to go and be a
Speaker 1: professional and different sport, to grow up and learn an
Speaker 1: immense amount of lessons in order to put those into
Speaker 1: practice once I came back and actually went to college. So, UM,
Speaker 1: I don't I have no idea I might have had
Speaker 1: an opportunity to play, you know, but definitely not at
Speaker 1: the University of Colorado. All right, so let's go to
Speaker 1: what happens instead. You're gret your your You said, in
Speaker 1: a junior year of high school, you start to hit
Speaker 1: some home runs, you start to have some good success
Speaker 1: in high school baseball. What position are you playing and
Speaker 1: when did you start thinking, oh, man, I might get drafted.
Speaker 1: You said it was that junior year. What then happens
Speaker 1: that you move into your senior year? Okay, so I
Speaker 1: was a short stop and you know that was right
Speaker 1: in the kind of the a Ron era where the
Speaker 1: shortstop was no longer just the small middle infielder that
Speaker 1: hit for average, but you could be a power player
Speaker 1: and play shortstop. So I would play shortstop. My brother
Speaker 1: was playing college baseball at the time, and um, I
Speaker 1: started hitting a lot of home runs. Now, granted, this
Speaker 1: is in Colorado with thin air, and this is you know,
Speaker 1: with the aluminum bat, and the pitching wasn't great. But
Speaker 1: when I was hitting, you know, a home run every
Speaker 1: you know, six or seven at bats in high school.
Speaker 1: And so that's when I started to realize, like, my
Speaker 1: future is going to be in baseball? How many home
Speaker 1: runs did you hit in a season? Then in high
Speaker 1: school baseball? So so like, for instance, the summer before
Speaker 1: my senior year, I think we played games forty eight
Speaker 1: or fifty games, and I hit twenty six home runs
Speaker 1: and I had about I think hundred RBI right in there,
Speaker 1: and so so you know, I was I was hitting
Speaker 1: the ball really well, I was decent defensively, and I
Speaker 1: and then once I got into the spring of my
Speaker 1: senior year, that has kind of kept up. I think
Speaker 1: we played only eighteen or nineteen games and I hit
Speaker 1: ten home runs. So I started getting some looks, and
Speaker 1: I started getting a lot of looks from junior colleges.
Speaker 1: I started getting some looks from professional scouts and I
Speaker 1: and I thought I was going to have an opportunity
Speaker 1: to play, certainly in college, but maybe, you know, I'd
Speaker 1: get lucky and get drafted. In the meantime played. My
Speaker 1: brother actually graduated from college and signed a free agent
Speaker 1: deal with the San Diego Padres. And so he went
Speaker 1: to the San Diego Padres and was with their rookie
Speaker 1: ball team when I was the summer before my senior
Speaker 1: year and he was with the Padres. Well, because of that,
Speaker 1: they're scouts started to realize about me. Started you know, hey,
Speaker 1: this kid that Jason, my brother, was playing very well
Speaker 1: for their rookie ball team. And they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's he's got a younger brother who's basically a clone
Speaker 1: of him. And I was a little bit more powerful
Speaker 1: than Jason at the time, you know, he was a
Speaker 1: little smaller than I was. And so they're scouts specifically
Speaker 1: started really watching me a lot. And and because of that,
Speaker 1: because I was fortunate to have my brother in a
Speaker 1: professional organization, they knew about me. You know that started
Speaker 1: to garner a lot of interest. So the Rockies, who
Speaker 1: are the local team, and the Padres were very interested.
Speaker 1: I believe the Giants were the other team that were
Speaker 1: very interested. I worked out at Coors Fields for the
Speaker 1: Rockies before the draft and after my senior year. In
Speaker 1: that June draft, I was drafted in the eleventh round
Speaker 1: and it was higher than I could have possibly imagined.
Speaker 1: I was over the moon. I couldn't believe that I
Speaker 1: was taking that high. Um, it was, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of a dream come true. And then I had to
Speaker 1: decide whether I was going to go play junior college
Speaker 1: baseball or signed with Padres and playing the minor leagues.
Speaker 1: And that was a really difficult decision for me, to
Speaker 1: be quite honest with you, because, um, I knew that
Speaker 1: an education was going to be important. My dad was
Speaker 1: a teacher, my mom was a kindergarten teacher. They always
Speaker 1: stressed the importance of an education in and I I
Speaker 1: say to everybody, the decision that I made to sign
Speaker 1: with the San Diego Padres out of high school was
Speaker 1: the best worst decision that I ever made in my life.
Speaker 1: What kind of signing bonus do you get? Back then,
Speaker 1: as an eleventh round pick. So I signed for basically
Speaker 1: the equivalent of about a hundred thousand dollars, which seems
Speaker 1: like like you might as well have been ten million.
Speaker 1: Do you write a hundred thousand dollars to an eighteen
Speaker 1: year old? Is it? Yeah? So you get my dad,
Speaker 1: I mean, my dad never made at that point. This
Speaker 1: is nineteen, this is two thousand. It had been a
Speaker 1: teacher's whole life. I think he was making I mean
Speaker 1: he was at the end, and I think he was
Speaker 1: making like fifty thousand dollars a year, you know. So
Speaker 1: when they said now, part of that it wasn't all
Speaker 1: in cash. It was the equivalent of about a hundred grand,
Speaker 1: and part of that was designated towards my college education.
Speaker 1: I think it was I want to say it was
Speaker 1: forty grand or thirty five thousand of the hundred was
Speaker 1: designated just for college reimbursement. So you get that offer, like,
Speaker 1: and how long does it take you to decide I'm
Speaker 1: gonna take the you know, like I'm gonna go try
Speaker 1: my luck at major League baseball. The way I remember it,
Speaker 1: it took me a couple of days. You know. My
Speaker 1: brother was stressing to me. He had been released in
Speaker 1: the meantime, um and and so he was done with
Speaker 1: the Padres, and he was stressing to me to go
Speaker 1: to college. He was like, listen, my oor league baseball
Speaker 1: is not what it's cracked up to be. You know.
Speaker 1: You know, I know that it's more beneficial to go
Speaker 1: in as a high school draft pick rather than a
Speaker 1: college player, just because of the age. But you was
Speaker 1: stressing to me not to go. My dad was probably
Speaker 1: stressing to me at the time not to to sign,
Speaker 1: and I just I couldn't resist way. I mean, as
Speaker 1: you can imagine, right, I mean, you dream your whole
Speaker 1: life of being a professional athlete, and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden someone says, here's the opportunity, here's you know,
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand dollars to do it. Um and So,
Speaker 1: against the advice of my family, I actually decided to
Speaker 1: sign and signed with the Padres and went down and
Speaker 1: played in the rookie Ball in Peoria, Arizona. Uh that summer.
Speaker 1: So you said you're gonna go to junior college, Why
Speaker 1: not like a bigger college. What was the decision for
Speaker 1: junior college for you? Yeah? For me, it was really easy,
Speaker 1: and it's it all had to do with retaining your
Speaker 1: draft status and your own rights, because if you signed
Speaker 1: with a four year school and went there, then it's
Speaker 1: just like football, you had to be there for three
Speaker 1: years before you can go back into the draft versus
Speaker 1: you know. That's why a lot of great players actually
Speaker 1: go to junior college route because they'll get drafted out
Speaker 1: of high school. They say, you know what, I can
Speaker 1: improve that by a by a few rounds. They don't
Speaker 1: get the bonus that they want. They go to junior college,
Speaker 1: then they can be drafted the very next year. So
Speaker 1: that was the reason that I decided that junior college
Speaker 1: is going to be my route, is because I wanted
Speaker 1: to retain my ability to be drafted the very next year.
Speaker 1: All right, so you immediately go to rookie ball. I mean,
Speaker 1: so you're eighteen years old. You know, you spent your
Speaker 1: whole life in Colorado, you signed this deal, uh, and
Speaker 1: you go on and go to rookie ball. What was
Speaker 1: that like? Um? It was the most interesting thing I
Speaker 1: can possibly imagine at the time. You know, here I
Speaker 1: am from a suburban town in Denver, Colorado, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I walk into a locker room and
Speaker 1: there was probably forty five guys, and only thirteen to
Speaker 1: fifteen of them spoke English as a native language. You know,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of Dominican players in the Padre
Speaker 1: organization at the time. There were some guys from Panama,
Speaker 1: there was I mean, there were some guys from Mexico.
Speaker 1: There was Venezuela. There was a good continent gent from Venezuela.
Speaker 1: And and dude, like, I can't even tell you what
Speaker 1: a shock to the system that is, you know, to
Speaker 1: all of a sudden be thrown into that. Um, I
Speaker 1: got a great story, and I think, I think you'll
Speaker 1: love this. So this is just like some comedic relief
Speaker 1: my very first days down there. First of all, listen,
Speaker 1: I was a little nervous for whatever reason. In our
Speaker 1: high school, we didn't take showers. It just wasn't a thing, right,
Speaker 1: Like we would go home to shower after baseball games
Speaker 1: or even after football games and football practice. You just
Speaker 1: kept your your pads and your locker and you just
Speaker 1: change and you went home and shower. And so we
Speaker 1: didn't do like the big like you know what I
Speaker 1: would call the gang showers. And so that was one
Speaker 1: of the things that I like I knew it was coming,
Speaker 1: and and candidly, I was you're a little nervous about it, right,
Speaker 1: I means like the first it's like a moment of truth.
Speaker 1: And in a young man's why the first time he's
Speaker 1: gonna stroll into a gang shower And one of the
Speaker 1: first times that I ever did it. And and and
Speaker 1: this is in the spring training complex and Peoria or
Speaker 1: Arizona with the padres. I I walk in and I'm
Speaker 1: like all right, like you know, like chest up, shoulders back,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm telling myself all this stuff, like hanging
Speaker 1: the towel on the outside, walk in like you own
Speaker 1: the joint, like this is it. Here we go. So
Speaker 1: birthday suit rocking, got my shower shoes on, I'm ready
Speaker 1: to go. So I walk into the shower. And if
Speaker 1: you've ever been in one of those types of showers,
Speaker 1: it's loud, right because they're there are a bunch of
Speaker 1: other guys in there, and if they're talking or shouting
Speaker 1: or laughing or whatever, and all just kind of like
Speaker 1: reverberates because it's just like a big like cement block room,
Speaker 1: and so it's loud, it's echoing, the showers are going,
Speaker 1: there's like steam coming up you know, so it's it's
Speaker 1: like this weird scene where you can't really see what's
Speaker 1: going on, but there's a lot going on because you
Speaker 1: can hear it. And so I just started showering as
Speaker 1: quickly as I can. And and at one point, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm like washing off, and I'm and I'm rinsing off.
Speaker 1: At this point, I'm rinsing off, and so the water
Speaker 1: is kind of going over my eyes, so my eyes
Speaker 1: are closed at the time, and I just here this
Speaker 1: loud laughter coming from across the shower, and I swear
Speaker 1: it sounded like the Cookie Monster, right, and and one
Speaker 1: of the Dominicans was just laughing as loud as he
Speaker 1: possibly could. And so I quickly kind of like rubbed
Speaker 1: my eyes and opened my eyes, and I'm kind of
Speaker 1: like squinting through the steam that's still in the shower.
Speaker 1: And he's standing there with his hands on his hips,
Speaker 1: turned to his neighbor, the shower neighbor, and his neighbor
Speaker 1: is also rinting off, and he's just with his both
Speaker 1: hands on his hips, not holding anything, king on the
Speaker 1: guy next to him and laughing hysterically, a big Cookie
Speaker 1: Monster laugh. So at this time, like the guy can't
Speaker 1: feel it. I can't remember his name, but the guy
Speaker 1: can't feel it because he's in a warm shower. So
Speaker 1: finally he does the same thing I do, like rinses,
Speaker 1: you know, he kind of rubs his eyes and opens
Speaker 1: his eyes and realized that he's getting the golden shower.
Speaker 1: Neighbor and Clay all hell break loose in the shower.
Speaker 1: They start growing blows in the shower. I mean everything
Speaker 1: is swinging around and they're slippery there slipping. Like I said,
Speaker 1: things are really swinging around and there swing. Oh bro.
Speaker 1: So I immediately just like walked out and grabbed my
Speaker 1: tael and went back to my locker. And I can
Speaker 1: remember sitting at my locker and I was staring back
Speaker 1: into my locker and I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: that was the craziest thing I've ever witnessed in my life.
Speaker 1: So wait, the guys. That's always one of the great dilemmas.
Speaker 1: I think, do you break up a naked shower fight?
Speaker 1: Like the guys, like, do you step in there and
Speaker 1: try to like get between them and break the fight up?
Speaker 1: How did the fight in do you remember? And to
Speaker 1: go to the ground and in short order, so everyone
Speaker 1: just stands there until it goes to the ground and
Speaker 1: then it's over. It's like a hockey fight. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so that was your introduction to uh, to minor
Speaker 1: league baseball, to rookie ball. Yeah. So so there you go.
Speaker 1: Here I am. I'm eight teen years old, and that's
Speaker 1: my new world. I lived in a hotel that summer
Speaker 1: and experienced massive failure for the first time in my
Speaker 1: life by politically. I think I hit like to twenty
Speaker 1: that year. I can't remember the specific number because I'm
Speaker 1: tryed to It's like PTSD. I've tried to block it
Speaker 1: out of my memory. Um let the team in doubles
Speaker 1: that year, but man, it was. It was. It was
Speaker 1: a tough year. But that was my first introduction into
Speaker 1: minor league baseball. Okay, so you think though as a
Speaker 1: young kid. The one thing you have as a young
Speaker 1: kid is you think, okay, I'm just gonna get a
Speaker 1: lot better. So you finished rookie baseball. Did you ever
Speaker 1: get pete on in the shower? By the way, anybody
Speaker 1: ever do that to you? No? I did not get
Speaker 1: pete on, but rest assured like my hand was on
Speaker 1: a swivel. Yeah, not never stayed shut for long for
Speaker 1: from that time on and my entire career. Dang showers
Speaker 1: in the gang shower. Alright, So uh so you go
Speaker 1: back like and eventually you start, I mean, you get
Speaker 1: assigned to a team. Right, how many years did you
Speaker 1: play minor league baseball? And was there a moment where
Speaker 1: you were like, I just I'm never gonna be good
Speaker 1: enough at this. Because that's a tough moment for anybody
Speaker 1: to have that dream. Because when you get drafted your eighteen,
Speaker 1: you're in the eleventh round, A hundred billion percent you think, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna play major league baseball, right, I mean, there's
Speaker 1: just no doubt. I'm sure in your mind, yes, because
Speaker 1: it's a small number. Yeah, there's that great story. There's
Speaker 1: a great story, by the way, about how when you're young,
Speaker 1: like you just don't really understand probability. And they were
Speaker 1: talking about the guys who stormed the beaches of Normandy
Speaker 1: on D Day and they were like, I want you
Speaker 1: guys to look to your left and to your right,
Speaker 1: you know, like one of these guys is gonna end
Speaker 1: up dead when they storm the beaches. And every guy
Speaker 1: like looks to his left or right and he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: those poor bat you know, that poor bastard, Like you
Speaker 1: never think it's gonna be you that something bad happens.
Speaker 1: I think you're gonna beat the odds, right, And when
Speaker 1: you're young, that's what you always think. So then you're
Speaker 1: in minor league baseball, you're eleventh round pick uh, and
Speaker 1: you start to have doubts win and how long do
Speaker 1: you stay? Like what cities do you play in? Okay?
Speaker 1: So that first year, I was just in rookie ball
Speaker 1: in Phoenix. So um, I was just in the Arizona League.
Speaker 1: And that entire summer, regardless of when, what what went
Speaker 1: on because of this thought in my head of like
Speaker 1: I'm so young, I'm gonna get so much better. I
Speaker 1: led the team in doubles. You know, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: get stronger. I'm gonna lift hard this offseason, like I.
Speaker 1: I was all in and I came back to the
Speaker 1: to the next spring training and I was really strong
Speaker 1: and I was really looking forward to a big year.
Speaker 1: Um I I had lifted with an Olympic power lifter
Speaker 1: in the off season, got my legs much stronger. I
Speaker 1: came back with a lot more power, and you know,
Speaker 1: my VPS showed it. I was I was excited for
Speaker 1: that second year, and that second year, I thought that
Speaker 1: I was going to go to the Eugene team. Eugene, Oregon.
Speaker 1: What the Padres were doing that second years they were
Speaker 1: moving the rookie ball team from Arizona to Idaho Falls,
Speaker 1: and then they were moving the two short season teams.
Speaker 1: So it's gonna be Ido Falls and Eugene. Eugene would
Speaker 1: be kind of the higher A of the two short
Speaker 1: season teams, and I thought, Okay, I'm gonna progress to
Speaker 1: the Eugene team. I had a pretty good spring training
Speaker 1: and and they kept us in extended spring, which I
Speaker 1: was expecting. And extended spring was going to be the
Speaker 1: two teams that you know, we're going to be the
Speaker 1: short season single A teams. UM at the time, now
Speaker 1: I'm nineteen years old. And in that extended spring it
Speaker 1: started to go south. I started really struggling, UM, And
Speaker 1: because my identity was totally wrapped up and being a
Speaker 1: good player, I didn't know how to deal with that.
Speaker 1: And also for the first time, you know, this is
Speaker 1: a year and a half into having kind of my independence,
Speaker 1: and I also didn't know how to deal with that.
Speaker 1: So and I've been very open about this like I
Speaker 1: started really struggling with alcoholism at a at a young age,
Speaker 1: and that started directly impacting my ability to play well
Speaker 1: and and my overall psyche. And you didn't have did
Speaker 1: you haven't? You didn't have a drinking issue, you thought
Speaker 1: until you got into minor league baseball. Like I'm sure
Speaker 1: you probably drank a little bit in high school, but
Speaker 1: that's where you suddenly had the freedom and the ability
Speaker 1: to control your schedule in some way. That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, and in particular in the
Speaker 1: offseason leading into that, you know, like it became more
Speaker 1: a part of what we were doing and what I
Speaker 1: was doing. And I wouldn't say I had a problem
Speaker 1: before then, and then all of a sudden, then you
Speaker 1: start to throw in a lack of belief in yourself, um,
Speaker 1: a little bit of loss of identity, and then it
Speaker 1: became a huge issue. And I didn't have the the wherewithal,
Speaker 1: you know, as a man, to deal with that. And
Speaker 1: and so that extended spring us started going wrong and
Speaker 1: I got sent to Idaho Falls instead of Eugene, and
Speaker 1: it went on even more of a downward spiral. I
Speaker 1: had a terrible season. Um, I can just I'll tell
Speaker 1: you a quick story and I don't tell I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a funny story, but it's it's actually, in hindsight,
Speaker 1: incredibly sad that the only time I ever went for
Speaker 1: before at Idaho Falls with the Padres was because I
Speaker 1: had stayed up all night drinking rum and smoking Nicaraguan
Speaker 1: cigars with a couple of the guys on the team.
Speaker 1: And we did it just outside of the clubhouse and
Speaker 1: we just stayed there, and you know, you get done
Speaker 1: with the game late, so we did it until the
Speaker 1: sun came up. And I thought for sure I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be in the lineup the next day, Clay, And sure enough,
Speaker 1: I walked into the clubhouse at you know, two o'clock
Speaker 1: the next afternoon, and I was in the lineup at
Speaker 1: third base. I had moved to third base, and and
Speaker 1: I was so sick, like you can imagine, right you
Speaker 1: drink rum and smoked Nicaraguan cigars all night. I was
Speaker 1: so sick. And I didn't say VP because I thought
Speaker 1: if I swung the bat hard enough, I would just
Speaker 1: throw up. You were that hungover? Is that why he
Speaker 1: puts you? No? No, no, no, he I mean he
Speaker 1: didn't have any idea. And again, this is not like
Speaker 1: college or high school or anything, Like your manager doesn't
Speaker 1: care about you. That's another thing about the professional game.
Speaker 1: Like he's just putting the line up. He doesn't come
Speaker 1: say hello, he doesn't check on you, none of those things, right,
Speaker 1: Like you're just expected to be ready to play. And
Speaker 1: so that night comes around and I'm still as sick
Speaker 1: as you can possibly be, and I went up to
Speaker 1: the plate and play. God is my witness. In the
Speaker 1: back of my head. I looked at my bat before
Speaker 1: I stepped into the box, and I thought to myself,
Speaker 1: if you swing and miss, you're gonna throw up on
Speaker 1: the plate in front of everybody. That's how I mean.
Speaker 1: You've been there, right, Yeah, I've seen her against before
Speaker 1: and slept in a gutter like and again this is
Speaker 1: not This is funny, but it's also incredibly sad um.
Speaker 1: And so I took a couple of pitches until I
Speaker 1: had two strikes, hoping that you would just walk me.
Speaker 1: And then finally I'm like, I'm I've got to at
Speaker 1: least truck, I said, I'm I'm swinging. I can't just
Speaker 1: go down looking. And so I took the shortest, quickest
Speaker 1: swing I've ever taken in my entire career. Damn, it's
Speaker 1: just a single right up the middle, and it's one
Speaker 1: of those balls that you know it clears the picture
Speaker 1: because I hit it pretty well and I know it's
Speaker 1: gonna be a single. I swear I basically walked the
Speaker 1: first like it was the slowest job the first day.
Speaker 1: I know it's not a double. I get the first
Speaker 1: base for the ending ends, next step back, similar type
Speaker 1: of thing. I know I've got a swing bam line drive.
Speaker 1: Now it's to the left fielder. Kind of walked the
Speaker 1: first this whole time, I'm still sick as a dog.
Speaker 1: And finally my third at bat, I hit the ball
Speaker 1: over the second baseman's head and it's going to the
Speaker 1: right center gap, and I realized I might have to
Speaker 1: try to lay out a double. And I'm like, and
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, I took a big, deep breath coming
Speaker 1: out of the box, and I was like, do not
Speaker 1: breathe until you slide in the second. And I held
Speaker 1: that breath the entire time. Slide in the second, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, don't don't you, don't you, don't you? And
Speaker 1: I just I stood up, dusted myself off, and You're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna throw up on second base. But anyways,
Speaker 1: I ended up getting another hit that last at that
Speaker 1: That was the only time I went for for four
Speaker 1: and it was because I was so scared to swing
Speaker 1: and miss because I was gonna throw up. That's a
Speaker 1: night I went. I went back to my room that night,
Speaker 1: and I realized, like, this isn't for me. Um, something
Speaker 1: needs to change. And and the something that needed to
Speaker 1: change wasn't because I wasn't gonna make it to the
Speaker 1: big Leaves. It was because my life was spiraling out
Speaker 1: of control. And I was only nineteen years old. And
Speaker 1: so you're nineteen at that point, when do you actually
Speaker 1: throw in the towel on the minor league baseball career? Okay,
Speaker 1: so um um, I start talking to my parents about, Hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if this is for me.
Speaker 1: I think I want to go to school. So so
Speaker 1: I actually applied at the University of Colorado just to
Speaker 1: get into school in that off season, and and my
Speaker 1: dad encouraged me. He was like, give one more spring
Speaker 1: training a try, you know, and if it doesn't go well,
Speaker 1: then you can come back and go to school. Keep
Speaker 1: in mind, play None of this conversation had to do
Speaker 1: with football. It was literally just like, you know, try
Speaker 1: it out. You know that I worked on my life
Speaker 1: a little bit during that time. Colorado had had in
Speaker 1: that off season. Um I came home and that's when
Speaker 1: they won the Big twelve beat Texas and went and
Speaker 1: play in Oregon and the Fiesta Bowls, so they were,
Speaker 1: you know, ranked in the top ten in the country.
Speaker 1: I would go to the games. I was having so
Speaker 1: much fun. I was like, man, it would be an
Speaker 1: amazing just to be a student, you know, and all
Speaker 1: my friends from high school, we're just students and having
Speaker 1: a great time in college. And I missed that, and
Speaker 1: and so I thought to myself, Okay, I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: to Colorado, but I'm gonna give this one more try.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna give one more spring training and try.
Speaker 1: And I went down there and it didn't work out.
Speaker 1: You know, my head was just not in it at
Speaker 1: that point. I was pretty checked out, and so I
Speaker 1: made the decision after that spring training. So I was
Speaker 1: there for two full seasons and then a little into
Speaker 1: the next spring training before I decided to quit in May.
Speaker 1: So after spring training and extended spring training, I decided
Speaker 1: to quit, and I drove home and decided to go
Speaker 1: back to school. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports
Speaker 1: talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows
Speaker 1: at Fox Sports Radio dot com and within the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app. Search f s R to listen live.
Speaker 1: So you go back to school, We're talking to Joel
Speaker 1: clad Clay Travis is the Winds and Losses podcast. Encourage
Speaker 1: you too. If you're enjoying this conversation, check out many
Speaker 1: of the other conversations we've had as well. One a week.
Speaker 1: You can subscribe at the Winds and Losses tab in iTunes.
Speaker 1: So you are, um, you are going back to college, thinking, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll go back to college. Does Colorado have any idea
Speaker 1: about you at all? Like, how do you go about deciding, Hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, maybe I'll try and see if I
Speaker 1: can play college football. And for people out there who
Speaker 1: may not be aware, you had exhausted your eligibility to
Speaker 1: play college baseball, but you're still eligible to play college
Speaker 1: football if you so desire, And there's quite a few
Speaker 1: guys who have done this over the years. You're talented baseball,
Speaker 1: you sign it doesn't work out that well for you,
Speaker 1: and you decide, you know what, I'll go back to
Speaker 1: college and I'll play college football. How do you so
Speaker 1: you're admitted to Colorado as a regular student. I'm assuming
Speaker 1: uh yes, And and then your school is paid for
Speaker 1: by the by the major league team under your contract. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's it's a reimbursement deal. So I would have
Speaker 1: to pay per school and then hand in my receipts
Speaker 1: and ramburst up to like four grand a semester or something.
Speaker 1: I can't remember the exact thing, but that's kind of
Speaker 1: how it was working. And so in the meantime, I
Speaker 1: decided like, hey, you know, like why don't why don't
Speaker 1: I try to like walk on? You know, this is
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a fun deal. And so I
Speaker 1: went and I met with the coach who recruited from
Speaker 1: the area where my dad was a head coach. So
Speaker 1: he had been there. I had been to their football camp,
Speaker 1: you know, just as a a high school kid, just
Speaker 1: to be you know, out there and throw the football around.
Speaker 1: So I met, I went and met with him. His
Speaker 1: name was Shawn Watson, and he said, you know, he said,
Speaker 1: well this is great. You know if you're if you're coming,
Speaker 1: then you're gonna be preferred walk on and it shocked
Speaker 1: me his kind of like excitement about me coming and
Speaker 1: it didn't really register, and I was like, you know, okay.
Speaker 1: So I started working out with the team in that summer,
Speaker 1: and um, I started throwing in seven on seven and
Speaker 1: then things like that. And there were some guys, there
Speaker 1: were some older guys that were really good players at
Speaker 1: the time, you know, all big twelve type players, and
Speaker 1: they would come up to me and they were like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, like where are you from, you know where
Speaker 1: you were, you were you recruited this and that, and
Speaker 1: I would tell them my story and they were all
Speaker 1: kind of shocked. They were like, what, like, you haven't
Speaker 1: played football in three years? And I'm like no, you know.
Speaker 1: And and the last time I did it ran the
Speaker 1: option and and it was like this this eye opening
Speaker 1: thing of like oh my gosh, like I'm decent at this.
Speaker 1: I didn't play. I had no idea I ran the option.
Speaker 1: We were in the shotgun two games in my high
Speaker 1: school where I had no idea that I would have
Speaker 1: the ability to even be on the depth chart at Colorado.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until I was there and practicing in that
Speaker 1: summer that I thought to myself, Oh, this is you know,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be interesting, this is gonna be really fun. Um.
Speaker 1: And then as I got into that season and I
Speaker 1: got into college and started being a student, I loved it.
Speaker 1: Like everything I hated about being a minor league baseball
Speaker 1: player was the exact opposite about being in college and
Speaker 1: playing for the University of Colorado. Like it was amazing.
Speaker 1: You know. Instead of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for
Speaker 1: dinner every night and top ramen and cup of noodles,
Speaker 1: we were getting like full training table, Like they gave
Speaker 1: us a steak. Like one of my first nights. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my gosh, this is this is incredible, guys.
Speaker 1: The salad dressing is real. Like this is insane, you know,
Speaker 1: Like it was that type of euphoria. I loved it, Clay.
Speaker 1: And then as the season started to get under way,
Speaker 1: I you know, I didn't realize I was a decent player,
Speaker 1: but I was a decent player, and and I gravitated
Speaker 1: towards the schematics of the game. We ran a pro
Speaker 1: style offense. It's something that was kind of right up
Speaker 1: my alley, and so all of a sudden, by the
Speaker 1: time the second or third game rolled around, I was
Speaker 1: on the travel squad as a true freshman walk on,
Speaker 1: and I'll always be grateful to to Gary Barnett, who
Speaker 1: was the head coach at the time, because he really
Speaker 1: didn't care how you got there. He only cared if
Speaker 1: you played well, and so there was no politics involved.
Speaker 1: There was other true freshman quarterbacks that were recruited. They
Speaker 1: would probably I don't know what they had promised or
Speaker 1: if they had promised anything to these guys, and it
Speaker 1: didn't matter. Like I made the travel squad, and then
Speaker 1: by the end of the year, I was the third
Speaker 1: string quarterback and the two guys ahead of me were
Speaker 1: both seniors. And so during the middle of that true
Speaker 1: freshman year, um, I started to realize like, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have a chance to play and so to go
Speaker 1: from I'm quitting baseball for because I'm ruining my life
Speaker 1: and I need my degree to you know, less than
Speaker 1: a year later this epiphany of I'm gonna have a
Speaker 1: great chance to be the starting quarterback at Colorado. It
Speaker 1: was like the the most drastic switch. And I think
Speaker 1: it's something that gets lost when people just hear my story.
Speaker 1: They just think, oh, equip baseball to go back and
Speaker 1: play football, but that really wasn't the case. So my
Speaker 1: life was changed in a massive way in the positive direction. Um,
Speaker 1: you know when I made that decision to quit baseball
Speaker 1: and go back to Colorado, and it started setting me
Speaker 1: up for the rest of of what has happened since.
Speaker 1: So I want to hit on this because I think
Speaker 1: people probably find it fascinating. You were talking about how
Speaker 1: much better you were treated as a Colorado football player
Speaker 1: than as a minor league baseball player. How much better
Speaker 1: did you guys travel? You said you got on the
Speaker 1: travel squad. How much better was travel for college football
Speaker 1: compared to travel for minor league baseball. It's not even close.
Speaker 1: It's not even close. I'll just give you a couple
Speaker 1: of quick stories. Okay. So first of all, Um, when
Speaker 1: I was in Idaho Falls, we had this bus and
Speaker 1: it was straight out of Bull Durham. It was like
Speaker 1: a nineteen sixties manual transmission bus with a round and
Speaker 1: silver back and I'm talking like trade manual like and
Speaker 1: you guys would have some long ass rides, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: six seven, eight, twelve to twelve hours to medicine hat Canada.
Speaker 1: So just to give you a quick story. We're driving
Speaker 1: from Casper, Wyoming back to I to Hope Falls, and Casper, Wyoming,
Speaker 1: you've got to drive right over the Titan Mountains over
Speaker 1: these really kind of scary mountain passes to get back
Speaker 1: die to Hope Falls. And the bus driver would always
Speaker 1: on our getaway day he would get one hotel room
Speaker 1: that we would you know, retain for the day so
Speaker 1: he could sleep all day so he could drive us
Speaker 1: back all night because we didn't play day games, so
Speaker 1: we play at seven pm and then at you know, ten,
Speaker 1: ten thirty, eleven o'clock we would get in the bus
Speaker 1: in order to go back home and it was gonna
Speaker 1: be like a five or six hour ride, so he
Speaker 1: would always sleep all day in order to drive us
Speaker 1: all night. Well, this night in Casper, Wyoming, I tapped
Speaker 1: my buddy on the shoulder and I'm like, hey, isn't
Speaker 1: that our bus driver? And sure enough, our bus driver is.
Speaker 1: They're having a Michaelo Ultra and like the second oh,
Speaker 1: like just having a bere like and a dog like, hey,
Speaker 1: joining the game of baseball because that's time everybody. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, what in the world. Well, later that night,
Speaker 1: we're driving over the titons and we're, you know, winding
Speaker 1: back forth. We couldn't be going more than fifteen on
Speaker 1: some of these switchbacks up these mountains with this big
Speaker 1: manual transmission bus. And he pulls over and you can
Speaker 1: hear kind of the gravel of the shoulder and he
Speaker 1: pulls over. I'm like, great, this bus just broke down.
Speaker 1: And no, no, our bus driver decided he was tired
Speaker 1: from his mic Ultra and his and his Dodger dog
Speaker 1: and the third inning at the cass Barakis game. And
Speaker 1: he pulled a pillow down from from above him and
Speaker 1: took a nap for two hours from the side of
Speaker 1: the road, just laying on the ground. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: in his seat. So he's in the driver's lays the
Speaker 1: pillow against the window and just like leans against the window.
Speaker 1: Guys were yelling like you in Spanish. We had a
Speaker 1: Korean guy named Young jing Jung. He's yelling in Korean.
Speaker 1: We're yelling in English like come on, let's go. Dude,
Speaker 1: just slept zonked out for two hours and we sat
Speaker 1: there motionless in this manual transmission nine you know, bull
Speaker 1: Durham bus. Then you fast forward and now I'm going
Speaker 1: to Colorado, And the first road trip that we took
Speaker 1: was out to play U. C. L A At the
Speaker 1: Rose Bowl in September. That was the very first trip
Speaker 1: that we took. Well, we drive, you know, four of
Speaker 1: the most beautiful buses you can possibly take, from Boulder
Speaker 1: down to the airport in Denver. We go right onto
Speaker 1: the tarmac. There's no security. We rock. We walk right
Speaker 1: up onto the plane while all our seats are assigned.
Speaker 1: We get there are seat in our seats, there's two
Speaker 1: foot long sub sandwiches, there's gator read, there's cookies. We fly.
Speaker 1: We land in l A. There is a motor kaide
Speaker 1: for us to go to our hotel so we can
Speaker 1: beat traffic. So there's six you know, motorcycle cops traveling around.
Speaker 1: We get to the hotel. We just had two foot
Speaker 1: long sandwiches in the in the plane, but now we've
Speaker 1: got a full face spread that includes lasagna and prime
Speaker 1: rib and ice cream snicker bars for dessert. Like it
Speaker 1: doesn't even compare. I thought I had made it man
Speaker 1: when I got to that that first road trip. I
Speaker 1: remember calling my dad and I was like that, you'll
Speaker 1: never believe it. They serve gravy for the Prime Rib,
Speaker 1: you know, like that had blown my mind. I had
Speaker 1: had Mannaise sandwiches before for a spread in minor league baseball,
Speaker 1: and and here we are having prime rib for dinner. What,
Speaker 1: by the way, did you remember getting taunted in minor
Speaker 1: league baseball? Like, do you ever remember a time when
Speaker 1: you're like, I don't want to kill some guy? I
Speaker 1: always always think about low level minor league. There's always hecklers,
Speaker 1: and there had to be sometimes where you're like, because
Speaker 1: the stadiums aren't that big, where you're standing there in
Speaker 1: the on deck circle or whatever, and you really legitimately
Speaker 1: just want to turn around and murder somebody in the stands.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that feeling, Clay, You're gonna need two
Speaker 1: hours to get through all of it, because I've got
Speaker 1: story for days about minor league baseball, from the from
Speaker 1: the golden shower to the nap of the bus driver
Speaker 1: to the beer batter. Let me just tell you about
Speaker 1: the beer batter. Excuse me? So, I, um, well, first
Speaker 1: of all, we were playing in Ogden, Utah, and then Ogden, Utah.
Speaker 1: The opposing like you know, field operations team, they're like
Speaker 1: whole deal. They would choose an opposing player to be
Speaker 1: the beer batter, and if the beer batter struck out,
Speaker 1: it was ten cent beers for that happening. And you're wondering, like, wait,
Speaker 1: didn't you say Utah. That's right, Ogden, Utah the most
Speaker 1: progressive city in Utah. And and they actually did sell beer,
Speaker 1: very different than Provo, which is the most conservative place
Speaker 1: in Utah. So they did serve beer at the Ogden
Speaker 1: Osprey game. Okay, they were Ogden Osprey Nice Park, and
Speaker 1: it was always pretty full because like they did a
Speaker 1: nice job. And so there's probably, shoot, I don't know,
Speaker 1: three thousand people um at this game and they choose
Speaker 1: me as the beer batter. So I'm designated as the
Speaker 1: beer batter, and you know it right, like it comes
Speaker 1: up on the scoreboard and like people are like clapping
Speaker 1: for you. You know, you walk up there as a
Speaker 1: road player and they're like, all right, but you can
Speaker 1: do it. You can do it ten sents. You know,
Speaker 1: people are yellow like I'll share with you, I'll buy
Speaker 1: things like that. And before you go up. It's kind
Speaker 1: of funny, you know when you think like I'm gonna
Speaker 1: show these guys, I'm gonna hit a jack or something
Speaker 1: like that. Well, my first a bat like take strike one,
Speaker 1: foul ball off, good swing. Then I connect on on
Speaker 1: just like bam, and I hit it really good, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of pulled, this line drive right over the
Speaker 1: third baseman's head and it's curling. It's curling, it's curling,
Speaker 1: and it's like, is it fair? Is it foul? It's foul,
Speaker 1: but man like like I ripped it. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking to myself, Okay, I put two good swings
Speaker 1: on it. I'm good to go. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: strike out. I go back into the into the batter's box,
Speaker 1: and this dude throws me a slider on the outside
Speaker 1: and I swing and miss and the place erupts right,
Speaker 1: so like boom, strike three, Yeah, way to go. You know,
Speaker 1: like place erupts ten cent beers. Everybody hits the concourse.
Speaker 1: So now there's like from three thousand people in the stands.
Speaker 1: Now there'scause everybody hits the concourse. So now my second
Speaker 1: at bad, I go up there and now there's a
Speaker 1: little bit more buzz. You know, not only are they
Speaker 1: a little lubricated, but now they're like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: here's our guy. Come on, do it again. You can
Speaker 1: do it. Dug me a show with you, and I'm
Speaker 1: a little missed. You know, I'm a little piste off
Speaker 1: about it. And I'm like, no, you know, now, now
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hit a jack. I found a couple more
Speaker 1: balls off, sure enough, swinging miss strike three. The place
Speaker 1: goes bizonkers. I'm just like God, like, damn it, what
Speaker 1: in the world. I'm like walking back to the dugout
Speaker 1: and there was this one guy and he was standing
Speaker 1: right by the on deck circles. I'm walking back to
Speaker 1: the dugout and he was like before he runs up
Speaker 1: the stairs, and I was so piste off. Little did
Speaker 1: I know that there's a rule for the beer batter.
Speaker 1: If the beer batter takes the sombrero three strikeouts in
Speaker 1: the game as the beer batter, they give away a
Speaker 1: free beer to whoever wants it. Now it's like the
Speaker 1: sixth inning and I'm on deck and the places already
Speaker 1: on their feet like clapping in unison while I'm on
Speaker 1: freaking a day mortified. Way, I'm freaking mortified, and so
Speaker 1: I'm doing everything I can not to strike out, everything
Speaker 1: I can not to strike did you absolutely? I even
Speaker 1: before I went up, I asked my buddy, David Georgia's
Speaker 1: who was my roommate, gorgeous Georgians. And I was like, hey, dude,
Speaker 1: do you think I should fund? And he looked at
Speaker 1: me and he was like, bro, you cannot bund. He
Speaker 1: was like man, and he was like they they will
Speaker 1: burn the plate down if you fund. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: thinks a lot, you know, like here, and so I
Speaker 1: go up there play, I struck out for a third time,
Speaker 1: took the sombrero as the beer batter and the place
Speaker 1: erupted and started throwing their empty beer of plastic beer
Speaker 1: mugs on to the field. As I walked back to
Speaker 1: the home uh into the dugout, I was so mad.
Speaker 1: I was so mad, meles to say, anytime like we
Speaker 1: went and played a road game in college football, nothing
Speaker 1: was as bad as taking the sombrero as the beer
Speaker 1: battery bogged in Utah. So I didn't care what people
Speaker 1: said to me in football. And I'm oh, man, least
Speaker 1: I didn't take the sombrero. Brought that stadium to its
Speaker 1: knees and they were throwing their empty beer mugs out
Speaker 1: onto the field. Was it the same picture who got
Speaker 1: you all three times? No? It wasn't. It was a
Speaker 1: reliever by the time they I mean, I'm surprised they didn't.
Speaker 1: If it was, they would have run out and put
Speaker 1: him on his shoulders. But I mean he would have
Speaker 1: been the hero. Did you like when you come back
Speaker 1: into the dugout and like, I mean, it's mind like
Speaker 1: I would just find it impossible not to be laughing,
Speaker 1: Like how are your teammates reacting? Like they all loved?
Speaker 1: That was part of the thing that pissed me off
Speaker 1: the most. As I came in and I wasn't super
Speaker 1: fond of my manager, and this jerk said to me,
Speaker 1: he was like, well, at least somebody's happy, And I
Speaker 1: was like, hey, like, screw you. You know again, this
Speaker 1: is not like high school coach player relationship. There was
Speaker 1: no pats on the back. It was basically just like happy, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, don't screw yourself. Oh my god. So the
Speaker 1: the that that is pretty awesome, Like the beers, I mean,
Speaker 1: that is amazing. Do you think they're still allowed to
Speaker 1: do that. I don't know. I'm sure that they do.
Speaker 1: Minor league baseball games are amazing. Um. I would highly
Speaker 1: suggest that for anybody out there that has a minor
Speaker 1: league team close. Things like that gone all the time.
Speaker 1: It's it's good. I mean, that doesn't sound like good
Speaker 1: family fun, but trust me, it's good family fun. But
Speaker 1: needless to stay that season, being the beer batter and
Speaker 1: taking the sombrero, uh, led to my belief that I
Speaker 1: was not a professional baseball player any longer. Fox Sports
Speaker 1: Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation.
Speaker 1: Catch all of our shows at Fox Sports Radio dot
Speaker 1: com and within the I Heart Radio app search f
Speaker 1: s R to listen live. Alright, so back to that's
Speaker 1: amazing story. By the way, we're talking to Joel clad
Speaker 1: I'm Clay Travis. This is Wins and Losses. Back to Colorado.
Speaker 1: You come back. You're the two seniors you said are graduating.
Speaker 1: You come back as a sophomore. Do you start? When
Speaker 1: do you start your first game for Colorado? Yeah? That
Speaker 1: was and I was still a walk on at the time.
Speaker 1: You know, Gary Barnett said, hey, you know, I've got
Speaker 1: older guys that have earned a scholarship, and I know
Speaker 1: you're gonna be our starter, but you're still gonna be
Speaker 1: a walk on. So I started that season as a
Speaker 1: sophomore um as a walk on in fact, my very
Speaker 1: first game. It just goes to show you that I
Speaker 1: I started out really good and then maybe never quite
Speaker 1: equal to my first game, but my very first game
Speaker 1: as a starter, Um, we played Colorado State. They were ranked,
Speaker 1: they were favored. It was that mile high, you know,
Speaker 1: seventy six thousand people. It was a great environment. We
Speaker 1: ended up winning the game like forty two thirty five
Speaker 1: or something like that. I threw for over four hundred
Speaker 1: yards and my very first start, and I was actually
Speaker 1: named the National Player of the week. So on Monday morning,
Speaker 1: after the game, um, we're in our team meeting and
Speaker 1: that's when coach announced it to the team that like, hey,
Speaker 1: Joel won the or you know, yesterday he was named
Speaker 1: the national Player of the week. And you know, the
Speaker 1: team kind of does the whole you know, and they're
Speaker 1: giving me, you know, no guys and whatever. And right
Speaker 1: after that meeting, I actually had to walk to the
Speaker 1: bursar's office and hand them my personal check for my tuition. Wow.
Speaker 1: I always I always loved that. Now I was gonna
Speaker 1: get reimbursed. I don't want to make it sound like,
Speaker 1: oh I was paying for my own school. I was
Speaker 1: gonna get reimbursed. But at the same time, like it was,
Speaker 1: it was just one of those things that you would
Speaker 1: never think would happen, and so that happened. So anyways,
Speaker 1: I started that year, and then I ended up starting
Speaker 1: for three seasons and had the time of my life.
Speaker 1: I absolutely loved it. What does it feel like to
Speaker 1: run out onto the field? As like you talked about
Speaker 1: how you didn't really ever anticipate that when you quit
Speaker 1: baseball you would be a starting quarterback for Colorado. You're
Speaker 1: playing at Mile High. You grew up as a Denver
Speaker 1: Bronco fan, you grew up watching the University of Colorado
Speaker 1: not far away in Boulder. What's feel like to run
Speaker 1: out in front of seventy thousand people as the starting
Speaker 1: quarterback for the first time? Oh? Man, it was like,
Speaker 1: how nervous were you? What did it feel like? Oh?
Speaker 1: I can't even explain how nervous I was. You know,
Speaker 1: I can't. You know, you can't feel your feet, you
Speaker 1: can't really feel your hands. Um, I can remember, you know.
Speaker 1: I walked up to the center for my first snap
Speaker 1: and when I looked up, the JumboTron was right above me,
Speaker 1: and it was just my face and I was in
Speaker 1: my heart kind of sunk. I was like, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I'm like, am I really doing this? Um? But as
Speaker 1: time went on, you know it, it changed and Clay,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the interesting parts was I started
Speaker 1: to be one of those guys that was like ultra prepared.
Speaker 1: So I would watch a ton of film, take a
Speaker 1: ton of notes, and I was most comfortable on the
Speaker 1: field during the game. And so all week I would
Speaker 1: be nervous, and I would be, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: like wanting to prepare more and wondering, LA, what's going
Speaker 1: on there. I would have to talk to the media
Speaker 1: all day and it was candidly kind of a high
Speaker 1: anxiety time for me during the weeks of preparation. But
Speaker 1: then what I always found so fascinating is that the
Speaker 1: one time that I would relax all week was when
Speaker 1: I got to run out and get into the huddle
Speaker 1: for the first snap. It was like all the pressure
Speaker 1: and preparation were gone and you just got to go
Speaker 1: play finally. And it was that way for the rest
Speaker 1: of my career. After that first game of those nerves,
Speaker 1: every time I would walk out there, it would just
Speaker 1: be like a big sigh of relief, and it was
Speaker 1: always one of those feelings that I'll never forget, and
Speaker 1: it was one of the best feelings that I've ever had.
Speaker 1: What does it feel like? Because most people are never
Speaker 1: going to know the feeling to win in a huge
Speaker 1: rivalry game as a starting quarterback in college football and
Speaker 1: come back to the campus after the game, Like, is
Speaker 1: there inner any better? Is there any better feeling in
Speaker 1: life than having just won a huge college football game
Speaker 1: and you walk into like a party and I mean
Speaker 1: you literally are the biggest man on campus, Like, like,
Speaker 1: there's I can't imagine there's a better feeling than being
Speaker 1: the star quarterback on a team that just won a game.
Speaker 1: But we're just the quarterback, period. You don't have to
Speaker 1: be a star, just the guy who's on the team.
Speaker 1: Like you're the starting quarterback and you win. What does
Speaker 1: that feel like? Too? Is I mean, like I can't
Speaker 1: even imagine. I can certainly imagine, but it had to
Speaker 1: be I mean had to be like like feeling like
Speaker 1: you were your mythical feet figure almost right, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's it's definitely surreal and you start to and
Speaker 1: that's why I try to give these kids the benefit
Speaker 1: of the doubt when they kind of when they active
Speaker 1: full of themselves, or when they misstep on social media's
Speaker 1: because their their frame of reference of reality is so skewed.
Speaker 1: Because exactly of what you said, UM, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to get into every story because you know I'm happily married. UM,
Speaker 1: but I will say um that after the my first
Speaker 1: year starting as a sophomore, I was actually not dating
Speaker 1: my now wife. We ended up dating in college, but
Speaker 1: we were not together at the time, and so we
Speaker 1: were I was living in this house and it was
Speaker 1: me and one other of my teammates that actually went
Speaker 1: to a neighboring high school of mine, and then it
Speaker 1: was three guys that he went to high school with
Speaker 1: that I knew from childhood that didn't play so Clay,
Speaker 1: you talked about guys who hit the jackpot. They got
Speaker 1: to live with the starting quarterback, and they were just
Speaker 1: like normal college dudes. And so we were in this
Speaker 1: five bedroom house like on the Hill and Boulder, which
Speaker 1: is like a new notorious kind of part the spot,
Speaker 1: and not only would they come to the games, but
Speaker 1: they would all like this is so stupid. We went
Speaker 1: to a ball game my true freshman year, and so
Speaker 1: we had like our jerseys given to us if you
Speaker 1: go to a ball game. So I had the white
Speaker 1: jersey that that I wore as a true freshman with
Speaker 1: the Alamobile patch. My roommate used to steal it out
Speaker 1: of my closet and wear it to the game. And
Speaker 1: he would his name was his name was Brett Banks,
Speaker 1: and then he called himself Brett the Jet, and he
Speaker 1: had this blue but he had this blue blazer that
Speaker 1: with the gold buttons, like an old school blue blazer
Speaker 1: with the gold buttons, that he called the Porsche. And
Speaker 1: so he and he would introduce himself to like all
Speaker 1: the co eds as Brett the Jet, and did they
Speaker 1: want to take a ride in the Porsche? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just the worst, right, It's just the worst. And
Speaker 1: so anyways, Brett would recruit a party always, and when
Speaker 1: we would show back up after games, our house would
Speaker 1: be like shoulder to shoulder packed, like I could barely
Speaker 1: get down My room was downstairs, and I could barely
Speaker 1: get downstairs to my room to like dump my bag
Speaker 1: off because we would have been in the hotel the
Speaker 1: night before. So it was it was certainly a weird
Speaker 1: and wild time. One of the kids that we lived
Speaker 1: with it was his parents owned the house, and so
Speaker 1: he was technically the landlord, and he had his parents
Speaker 1: put a hot tub in in the living room, and
Speaker 1: so we used to come We used to come home
Speaker 1: and Brett would be in my jersey in the hot time,
Speaker 1: surrounded by a bunch of girls. I mean, because I
Speaker 1: mean a massive amount of people. Yes, they would just
Speaker 1: be I mean there was probably hundreds and hundreds, maybe
Speaker 1: thousands people at this five bedroom house. It was it
Speaker 1: was wild, but that was always the case. That is
Speaker 1: absolutely amazing. Now I've heard you tell the story for
Speaker 1: but certainly other people haven't. So you end up dating
Speaker 1: your now wife and you're playing Texas. This is one
Speaker 1: of the great stories, and like you're all hyped up.
Speaker 1: You go out to the coin flip at the middle
Speaker 1: of the field. You're about to play Texas. And is
Speaker 1: it a big twelve title game or like a huge game? No,
Speaker 1: this one, it was a pretty big game. Um, but
Speaker 1: this one was when I was a junior. So that
Speaker 1: Vince Young's first year, first year starting, So they're not
Speaker 1: gonna win the national titles this year. That that's gonna
Speaker 1: be the next year. This is two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: and they came to Boulder to play us in Boulder,
Speaker 1: and Mac Brown used to rotate captains, so he would
Speaker 1: have four new captains every week, whereas we were always
Speaker 1: the same for for our team. So we would always
Speaker 1: go out for the coin flips. And I never paid
Speaker 1: much attention to the opposing offense at all. I didn't
Speaker 1: I didn't have had no idea who the other players were.
Speaker 1: I mean maybe the star quarterback or whatever, but I
Speaker 1: didn't really know or care. So I went out to
Speaker 1: the coin flip and Sarah and I were dating at
Speaker 1: the time and and and pretty serious um at the time.
Speaker 1: And she was from Highlands Ranch Call, Colorado, and went
Speaker 1: to high school and Highlands Ranch, Colorado. And so we
Speaker 1: go out to the coin flip, and since the game
Speaker 1: is in Boulder, Mac made one of the kids from
Speaker 1: Colorado who was on Texas a captain. Well he had
Speaker 1: also gone to Highlands Ranch High School. And so we
Speaker 1: get out there for the coin flip, and this guy
Speaker 1: who was an offensive lineman named Casey stuttered, and I
Speaker 1: had no idea who he was, and so he says
Speaker 1: to me. The first thing he says is we're shaking
Speaker 1: hands even before the coin is flipped. And he was like, hey,
Speaker 1: how's Sarah? And I thought that he may be like
Speaker 1: read an article or something of that talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: because it was publicized that I was, you know, I
Speaker 1: had this girlfriend or whatever. People can find that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff, and I thought he had found it and
Speaker 1: was like talking trash, and so I lost it on him,
Speaker 1: like midfield before the game, I was like, you, son
Speaker 1: of the I started laying into him. I was like you,
Speaker 1: you know, like you're a piece of crap. This and
Speaker 1: that and the and the official who I always had
Speaker 1: good relationship with because the white hat and the quarterback
Speaker 1: always have to know each other and we're always talking
Speaker 1: with each other. He was like Joel, Joel, like calm,
Speaker 1: calm down, what are you doing. I'm like, there's so
Speaker 1: you know the my my teammates are like, what's happening
Speaker 1: right now? And he he looked shocked. I was like,
Speaker 1: why does this guy look like a deer in the
Speaker 1: headlights right now? He's gonna talk crap? And then he's
Speaker 1: you know, he's all upset that that I'm going off
Speaker 1: on him. And so we go and get through with
Speaker 1: the coin flip and everything go through the game. We
Speaker 1: we get the there are a great team. Obviously we
Speaker 1: get the I'm super piste and later that night I'm
Speaker 1: sitting there with with my now wife Sarah and I
Speaker 1: and I remember this story and I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: how about this? And I would always like rant to
Speaker 1: her about the games, and I was like, oh, and
Speaker 1: how about this. Some idiot on the other team named
Speaker 1: Casey Stuttered asked about you at the coin flip and
Speaker 1: I was like, I was so piste off I went,
Speaker 1: and she goes, oh, how is Kathy. I felt like
Speaker 1: such an idiot. They were high school friends. That is amazing.
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen that guy since? Yeah, I've seen him.
Speaker 1: His dad played for the Broncos at one point, so
Speaker 1: he's been back in Colorado since so when I still
Speaker 1: lived there, and I remember the first time I saw him.
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, man, I need to apologize about
Speaker 1: that coin flip. And he starts howling, laughing, and he
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I realized something was off when you
Speaker 1: got so piste and oh but just hit her reaction.
Speaker 1: I wish you could have seen her reaction because I'm
Speaker 1: gruff and mad and telling, you know. And then this
Speaker 1: kid in the offensive line name Casey Stuttered. She just
Speaker 1: interrupted me right away, house Casey like as soft and
Speaker 1: sweet as she possibly can. I was so pissed. Uh.
Speaker 1: Speaking of which, so you continue there. I want to like,
Speaker 1: you took some amazing hits and I see them all
Speaker 1: the time because you know, we'll end up tagged on
Speaker 1: each other when we're going back and forth on Twitter
Speaker 1: and there's a there's a lot of gifts out there
Speaker 1: of you just getting lit up. What is the most
Speaker 1: common one that you get sent and what was the
Speaker 1: worst hit you ever took while you were playing quarterback
Speaker 1: at Colorado? The worst one, um is actually one that's
Speaker 1: not a yet, But the one I get sent the
Speaker 1: most is the one from the Big twelve championship game
Speaker 1: at oh five Texas is undefeated on the way to
Speaker 1: the national championship game. That was my last game at
Speaker 1: the University of Colorado. My last play knocked me out,
Speaker 1: put me into hospital. I think his name is Drew Kelson,
Speaker 1: and that son of a be personally sends it to
Speaker 1: me on Twitter. Drew Kelson actually from his account, always
Speaker 1: sends me the video and he and he just says
Speaker 1: like what up, bro, And I'm just like, you know,
Speaker 1: like get over it. So that one gets sent to
Speaker 1: me a lot that John Beason hit from Miami in
Speaker 1: which John Beeson collected a bounty from Nevin Shapiro in that,
Speaker 1: and that's why he goes He goes completely after you.
Speaker 1: Like it. You're trying to like you're totally out of
Speaker 1: the play, and he just goes after you to hit you,
Speaker 1: which later makes sense because he's getting a bounty. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: five yards behind a guy. It was like a fumble
Speaker 1: and it was a fumble return. I'm chasing after the guy.
Speaker 1: He's five yards ahead of me, and clearly I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna catch him and beaton. He basically supplexed to me
Speaker 1: on the like lifts me up over his shoulder and
Speaker 1: like slams me on the ground. Then he starts going crazy,
Speaker 1: jumping up and down. It's like h Richer. And later
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, that makes sense. You were one of
Speaker 1: the bounties in the Nevin Shapiro case. That's right. The
Speaker 1: only thing that pisses me off is that Chris Ricks
Speaker 1: had a higher bounty than I did. Oh that's pretty funny. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so you finish your career all right, and did
Speaker 1: you think you had any chance at the NFL at all?
Speaker 1: By the time you're done. Um, yeah, you know, an
Speaker 1: outside shot at it. Um. Obviously, my concussion history did
Speaker 1: not help, so I was I was pulled from the
Speaker 1: Senior Bowl and I was pulled from the Combine, which
Speaker 1: didn't help my my chances. But I went undrafted to Detroit,
Speaker 1: New Orleans, earned contracts in both of those places, went
Speaker 1: to training camp with Detroit. My heart was just never
Speaker 1: quite in it because of the head injury deal and
Speaker 1: the way that everything ended in Colorado. And so that
Speaker 1: kind of ended, and that was all right with me. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I had a great time in those training camps,
Speaker 1: and I was probably the type of guy that could
Speaker 1: have been a backup for a while. I don't think
Speaker 1: I would have ever been a starting quarterback by any means,
Speaker 1: but I could have been a backup, one of those
Speaker 1: guys that knows the playbook doesn't threaten the starter. It's
Speaker 1: been a backup for you know, any number of years.
Speaker 1: But it just wasn't. It wasn't in the carts for me,
Speaker 1: and that's fine, um, And and candidly it's it worked
Speaker 1: out for the better because once I got out of
Speaker 1: football and came back to Colorado, I was able to
Speaker 1: kind of move forward in my career. And at first
Speaker 1: I thought that was going to be an investment banking.
Speaker 1: I was an economics major Clay and I got a
Speaker 1: job with a small read in Denver, and I would
Speaker 1: raise the equity sections of speculative real estate projects. And
Speaker 1: this is like in two thousands, six and seven, right
Speaker 1: before the market crashed. And so needless to say, we
Speaker 1: raised some money for some spec homes that totally folded,
Speaker 1: and that company totally folded. And so here i am,
Speaker 1: like two years out of college and I'm jobless. I'm married,
Speaker 1: I'm jobless. I no way, And and in the meantime,
Speaker 1: I had been asked by Fox Sports Rocky Mountain, the
Speaker 1: local regional sports network, to fill in on some high
Speaker 1: school football games because they knew I was in town
Speaker 1: and they had done the magazine show for the University
Speaker 1: of Colorado, and I had done the magazine show obviously
Speaker 1: several times, being the quarterback there, and so once they
Speaker 1: realized I was in town, they were like, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: we need to fill in for this high school football game.
Speaker 1: And so I did that a couple of times, and
Speaker 1: they always encouraged me, like, hey, you should do that
Speaker 1: more So while I had this job in investment banking,
Speaker 1: I was also on the side doing these small broadcasting
Speaker 1: gigs and didn't have a broadcasting background or anything. Well,
Speaker 1: in the meantime that started to kind of grow to
Speaker 1: the point that once I lost that job in the
Speaker 1: real estate company and that company folded, my wife and
Speaker 1: I decided like, hey, let's give broadcasting a shot and
Speaker 1: maybe you could make this an actual living And that
Speaker 1: was in two thousand and eight, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: here here we are eleven years later. All right, so
Speaker 1: you decided to take and make an actual shot of
Speaker 1: it in two thousand eight, what do you do from there?
Speaker 1: Like you call these high school games. I'm assuming you
Speaker 1: do a pretty good job calling my school games, But
Speaker 1: then how do you advance that beyond doing an occasional
Speaker 1: football game. So and this is maybe you know, we've
Speaker 1: told some funny stories and everything, and I'm hopefully people
Speaker 1: are entertained, but if they wanted to get anything from
Speaker 1: actual wins and losses perspective about you know, career management
Speaker 1: or or career arc one of the things that my
Speaker 1: wife really encouraged me to do was two things. Network
Speaker 1: really well and also make your intentions known to your bosses.
Speaker 1: So the first guy that ever hired me for those
Speaker 1: high school football games, he used to ask me like, well,
Speaker 1: what do you want to do, And I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I'd love to do college football, you know, And I
Speaker 1: always tell him flat out that's what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: That was the job I was trying to get. So
Speaker 1: when things came up that I didn't know about, but
Speaker 1: that he did, he actually put me up for those jobs.
Speaker 1: And one of those jobs was that he sent a
Speaker 1: tape unbeknownst to me, down to Dallas to Fox Sports
Speaker 1: Southwest for me to be on their studio show for
Speaker 1: the Big twelve package of FS and Southwest games. And
Speaker 1: they called me and said, hey, Ken Miller. Ken Miller
Speaker 1: was his name, This executive in Denver, and Ken Miller
Speaker 1: sent us your tape. We want you to be on
Speaker 1: our studio. And so the fact that that Sarah encouraged
Speaker 1: me to be honest about my intentions and to also
Speaker 1: you know, network well throughout my time with those executives
Speaker 1: paid off in a huge way because Ken on my behalf,
Speaker 1: got me another gig without me even knowing it. And
Speaker 1: he did that because he wanted to see you know
Speaker 1: me kind of grow and flourish and and FUS in
Speaker 1: Rocky Mountain didn't have high school football game. So I
Speaker 1: go down there and I do the studio show, you know,
Speaker 1: Halftimes pre games for FS in Southwest and this is
Speaker 1: in now two thousand and nine. Well, I did the
Speaker 1: same thing with their executives. They would say like, well,
Speaker 1: what do you want to do, and I would say,
Speaker 1: I want to call college football games. And so when
Speaker 1: the opportunity came up, there was a pay per view
Speaker 1: game that Fox Sports was going to produce, but there
Speaker 1: was gonna be between Nebraska and Kansas State and this
Speaker 1: is in the Ron Prince area era with Josh Freeman
Speaker 1: at quarterback and then domin Kin Sue was a tackle
Speaker 1: for the Cornhuskers. And so they let me go and
Speaker 1: call that game. Well, as I started getting more experienced,
Speaker 1: they said they thought, well, you're probably you know, I
Speaker 1: want to do these games. You're really good at these games.
Speaker 1: And that's what they told me, and we're gonna give
Speaker 1: you a package of games. So by two thousand and ten,
Speaker 1: I had a package of college football games on FS
Speaker 1: and Southwest. And that's when Clay Eric Shanks saw a
Speaker 1: game that I was that I was on and it
Speaker 1: was a Texas Tech versus Kansas State game, nondescript game,
Speaker 1: and there was a kickoff return by Tyler Lockett. If
Speaker 1: you remember this, I believe it was Tyler Lockett. It
Speaker 1: was a Kansas State player, one of their good returners.
Speaker 1: And and I made the comment because I had always
Speaker 1: heard this in special teams meetings and just growing up,
Speaker 1: you know, being around football, is that one of the
Speaker 1: things that you have to have as a returner is
Speaker 1: that you've got to be decisive. Right. You can't, as
Speaker 1: they would say, you can't wonder where you're going, like
Speaker 1: you've got to pick a whole direction and go. You
Speaker 1: gotta be decisive with where you're headed. And I said
Speaker 1: that on the air, and for whatever reason, you know,
Speaker 1: Eric Shanks, who's the president now and and CEO of
Speaker 1: Fox Sports, he heard that and he thought, boy, I've
Speaker 1: never heard that before. And he had been around sports
Speaker 1: television for a long time and he thought it was
Speaker 1: unique and he thought it was interesting, and that put
Speaker 1: me on his radar. And once I was on his radar,
Speaker 1: everything else started to fall into place, and I started
Speaker 1: getting bigger packages within Fox. They moved me out to
Speaker 1: l a once FS one started, and and that was
Speaker 1: that natural progression, and that's kind of how it happened.
Speaker 1: But by no means that I set out in this
Speaker 1: you know business and and sat and I never sat
Speaker 1: in a in a college classroom and thought I want
Speaker 1: to be a broadcaster. It was literally born out of necessity.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a job. It was the only thing
Speaker 1: that I could earn a few dollars at at the time,
Speaker 1: as I was unemployed. And then it's worked out from there.
Speaker 1: What were you making doing those high school games? I
Speaker 1: think I think they paid me a hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: five dollars or maybe it was two hundreds too, know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't two hundred, it was a hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: five dollars. And then even when you're doing I bet
Speaker 1: Fox Sports Southwest, you're not making very much money doing
Speaker 1: those either, right, No, So I would go down for
Speaker 1: the weekend and for all day Saturday. I think they
Speaker 1: gave me. I think it was for the for a Saturday,
Speaker 1: and it was just a day rate, and it was
Speaker 1: just the you know, twelve Saturdays a year. In the meantime, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and in the meantime I had actually gotten a local
Speaker 1: radio show, and and that radio show was on like
Speaker 1: the worst station that you could possibly be on. No
Speaker 1: one listened to it, you know, the finances were all bad,
Speaker 1: and and so they agreed to have me a part
Speaker 1: of their afternoon drive show. And we agreed on sixteen
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a year, and I was like, okay, you know,
Speaker 1: and you couple that was the big twelve Saturdays and
Speaker 1: maybe some games here and there, and you know, maybe
Speaker 1: I could make thirty grand this year. That's not all right,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be great. And so the problem was
Speaker 1: is that they wouldn't go after their vendors well enough,
Speaker 1: and they weren't making any money, so they never actually
Speaker 1: paid me that sixteen dollars or whatever we agrede to.
Speaker 1: So I would get checks every two weeks, just personal
Speaker 1: checks for like two or the next week would be
Speaker 1: like three and fifty dollars, and I would bring him
Speaker 1: home and look at Sarah and she'd be like, is
Speaker 1: this it? And I'd be like, yeah, I mean, like
Speaker 1: this is it? And play So much credit for everything
Speaker 1: that I've been able to accomplish goes to my wife,
Speaker 1: because I asked her so many times babe, I can
Speaker 1: be a coach tomorrow in college football, and she would
Speaker 1: always say, no, you're really good at this. This is
Speaker 1: gonna work out. And if it wasn't for her and
Speaker 1: her confidence in me during those times when I was
Speaker 1: making three every two weeks, there's no way I'd be
Speaker 1: in this business. I also think of one picking the
Speaker 1: right spouse is incredibly important. You gotta win there and
Speaker 1: no matter what you do. But I always like to
Speaker 1: ask a money question because I feel like, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure you see this now too, so many people expect
Speaker 1: immediate returns, and in order to be successful in most things,
Speaker 1: you have to grind. For a long time, I've talked
Speaker 1: about how much I wrote before I made anything for
Speaker 1: what I was writing, and before that led into radio
Speaker 1: or TV. And I feel like there's so many people
Speaker 1: out there, a lot of young who are listening right now,
Speaker 1: that expect that instant gratification, and our industry doesn't really
Speaker 1: provide it. No, it doesn't. And and I completely agree
Speaker 1: with you, I think, and I'm gonna relate it to
Speaker 1: not only people in general, but more specifically ex athletes.
Speaker 1: Um and I find this every time I talk with
Speaker 1: former teammates or guys that get done playing whether it's
Speaker 1: college or in the NFL, They've excelled at such a
Speaker 1: high level and for them, you know, toiling in the
Speaker 1: bottom of an industry right now would feel like going
Speaker 1: back to little league football. And and in their mind,
Speaker 1: they're like, I'm not gonna do that. I'm above that.
Speaker 1: And I think that we have way too much entitlement
Speaker 1: going on in in the professional landscape of our country.
Speaker 1: You are not entitled to anything anything. You have to
Speaker 1: work diligently for next to nothing early in order to
Speaker 1: get to where you're going. Because this is the dirty
Speaker 1: secret that no one wants to tell those people. And
Speaker 1: and they tend to be young, and I don't want
Speaker 1: to group them just as young people. But though that
Speaker 1: group of people that is entitled and refuses to do
Speaker 1: that toil Clay, no one tells them You're not worth
Speaker 1: anything yet, your work is not worth anything yet I
Speaker 1: wasn't good enough to make more money at that point.
Speaker 1: You know why, because advertisers or because people, you know,
Speaker 1: people weren't watching enough of it, so advertisers wouldn't pay
Speaker 1: an x amount of dollars. I couldn't command more money
Speaker 1: than the company was bringing in based on my show.
Speaker 1: You know, that's just that's just a preposterous sentiment to
Speaker 1: think that you are worth something that you are not.
Speaker 1: You know, you you've got to be realistic about what
Speaker 1: your value is and how to build that value. That
Speaker 1: sounded doomsday. I'm not. I'm not trying to throw anybody
Speaker 1: under the bus. I'm just saying like, at times, you've
Speaker 1: got to understand that in order to get where you're going,
Speaker 1: you gotta grind. You have to grind. I just you know,
Speaker 1: when I started out kick as a website, first of all,
Speaker 1: I wrote for years and years making virtually nothing, practicing
Speaker 1: law full time, grinding away on articles, whether people like
Speaker 1: them or not. I started a website thinking, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: going to be able to bring in a lot of
Speaker 1: other people who want to do what I do. It
Speaker 1: was amazing to me how few people would write even
Speaker 1: one article for free, or who would put in the
Speaker 1: time to write. Nobody was virtually willing to put in
Speaker 1: time to write five or ten or a hundred like
Speaker 1: I did. Before. I worried about any kind of compensation,
Speaker 1: just worried about getting better. Um And I think that's
Speaker 1: the story certainly of the sports media industry is you
Speaker 1: gotta be able to put your head down and not
Speaker 1: really focus on what you're getting right now. And I'll
Speaker 1: give my wife credit the same kind of credit that
Speaker 1: you gave your wife. Like she recognized the talent and said,
Speaker 1: keep doing this, you know, even while I'm practicing lawfull time.
Speaker 1: And so when I decided to take off and write
Speaker 1: a book about going around to all twelve SEC football
Speaker 1: stadiums because I love college football, she encouraged it. I
Speaker 1: feel like there are a lot of people out there
Speaker 1: that will discourage their services who are talented in something
Speaker 1: because they're so worried about the right now as opposed
Speaker 1: to the what could be and believing in the future
Speaker 1: is a big part of any kind of success, I think,
Speaker 1: and I think that that's that's really kind of the
Speaker 1: story of this Wins and Losses podcast. Well, not only that,
Speaker 1: but but you can go back to the Gladwellian theory
Speaker 1: of the ten thousand hours. Yeah, no, no one, No
Speaker 1: one is great at what they do just because they
Speaker 1: tell you they are. You know, you're you're great at
Speaker 1: what you do because you practiced it thousands and thousands
Speaker 1: of times. She always knew my wife and I always
Speaker 1: knew that that radio show that that paid me basically
Speaker 1: zero dollars was instrumental in helping me learn how to
Speaker 1: develop arguments talk for three hours at a time. You know,
Speaker 1: I I used to stumble on my words quite a
Speaker 1: bit when I first started doing high school of football games,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't as clean on camera that radio show
Speaker 1: that nobody listened to that I made no money for
Speaker 1: every single day for three hours, That's what got me
Speaker 1: my jobs afterwards. I was so much better after that.
Speaker 1: If I would have said, no way, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: do that because you aren't paying me, I would never
Speaker 1: be where I'm at right now because I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: developed the skills necessary in order to be where I'm
Speaker 1: at right now. SOX Sports Radio has the best sports
Speaker 1: talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows
Speaker 1: at Fox Sports Radio dot com and within the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio apps search f s R to listen live.
Speaker 1: You also don't know another big lesson here, and we're
Speaker 1: talking to Joel Klatt Wins and Lost his podcast. You
Speaker 1: can follow him on Twitter at Joel Klatt. Subscribe if
Speaker 1: you're enjoying these conversations. If you like this one, you'll
Speaker 1: probably like others as well. You also never know when
Speaker 1: somebody's watching because you're calling the game. That is, It's
Speaker 1: not like you were calling Michigan, Ohio State at the time,
Speaker 1: where there's ten million people watching it or whatever the
Speaker 1: number is. You're calling a relatively anonymous Big twelve game
Speaker 1: and Eric Shanks, who's the president of Fox Sports, happens
Speaker 1: to be watching and he's got his antenna up trying
Speaker 1: to find young talent all the time because of the
Speaker 1: industry that we're in. Boom. He suddenly recognizes that you
Speaker 1: you're on his radar, and that leads to you have
Speaker 1: an opportunities which is where we met for the first time,
Speaker 1: which is in two thousand thirteen when they were doing
Speaker 1: all the auditions for FS one. I was one of
Speaker 1: the panelists. You were one of the host and this
Speaker 1: is credit to you. I thought you were a professional
Speaker 1: TV guy by that point, as opposed to a former athlete,
Speaker 1: which I think is the best thing you can honestly
Speaker 1: tell someone who has a background in athletics is you're
Speaker 1: good enough at what you're doing that the background in
Speaker 1: athletics almost doesn't even factor in well. And that was
Speaker 1: another thing that I feel like I would be remiss
Speaker 1: if I didn't at least touch on quickly in in
Speaker 1: this podcast, which was the fact that um, I did
Speaker 1: not pigeonhole myself into a corner. You know, I could
Speaker 1: have said, I'm just a football analyst. That's all I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do. Don't ask me to do other things, you know.
Speaker 1: The Fox Sports Rockey Mountain people asked me to be
Speaker 1: an analyst for the Colorado Rockies on their pre and
Speaker 1: post game show because of my minor league baseball background,
Speaker 1: and I did that even though it was somewhat uncomfortable
Speaker 1: because I had never played major league baseball. They asked
Speaker 1: me then to be the host of that same baseball
Speaker 1: pre and post game show. I had never hosted anything
Speaker 1: a day in my life, but I did it, you know,
Speaker 1: because because I knew that being versatile was going to
Speaker 1: pay off in the end. The only reason that FS
Speaker 1: one asked me to come out to l A and
Speaker 1: be a part of the launch of FS one was
Speaker 1: because I had that background as a host for fs
Speaker 1: N Rocky Mountain, which was then Roots Sports, hosting the
Speaker 1: Rockies pre and postgame shows, which Clay I had never
Speaker 1: done before before that season. So all of these doors
Speaker 1: opened up because I didn't pigeonhole myself. I networked well
Speaker 1: and I was willing to make three every two weeks
Speaker 1: doing a radio show. No one ever listened to those.
Speaker 1: Those are the winds. You know. The wind is not
Speaker 1: when Fox says, hey, we want you to be our
Speaker 1: lead announcer with with Gus Johnson for Michigan Ohio State.
Speaker 1: That's great. You know, that's the gravy, and that's the
Speaker 1: frosting of and and the reward of all the hard work.
Speaker 1: The winds came far before that, when you were willing
Speaker 1: to do the work necessary in order to get better,
Speaker 1: in order to get more opportunities, in order to be
Speaker 1: seen more people, in order to have more opportunities than
Speaker 1: even after that. In order to take advantage of those
Speaker 1: opportunities to get the jobs that we want, you also
Speaker 1: have to be willing to do things that make you
Speaker 1: uncomfortable and that you're not really prepared for. I'll give
Speaker 1: you an example. I had never done a highlight on
Speaker 1: television in my life. I had never even set at
Speaker 1: the desk before. And then in the first year of
Speaker 1: FS one, they set me down at the table and
Speaker 1: they said during a halftime show. Hey, you've got this highlight.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know there was a television screen in
Speaker 1: the desk, Like, I had never even set at the
Speaker 1: desk before. We're on live television doing a highlight. We
Speaker 1: did the Fox College Football Kickoff Show. I had never
Speaker 1: been in a television studio before we started that first
Speaker 1: year on the Fox College Football Kickoff Show. That's a
Speaker 1: great point, you know, that's a that's a great point.
Speaker 1: I had never read a teleprompter before I came out
Speaker 1: to l A. Yeah, you know, there's there's things like
Speaker 1: that are literally In fact, this last year, they asked
Speaker 1: me to do golf. Yeah, and you've done mentioned that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I jumped at the opportunity. And the reason is is
Speaker 1: because I know that versatility is valuable, and the more
Speaker 1: things that I can do, the more valuable I am
Speaker 1: the Fox Sports and and I could have said no, no,
Speaker 1: I've made it. You know, I've got my lead college
Speaker 1: football gig. But I was anxious and nervous about going
Speaker 1: and interviewing these golfers, you know. And and I had
Speaker 1: never asked people questions on TV before. I'm not a journalist.
Speaker 1: I'm not a reporter. And and here I am at
Speaker 1: the US Open, you know, sitting there in my suit
Speaker 1: with brooks Kepka and Tiger Woods and and the like
Speaker 1: and Justin Rose asking them about their round. Certainly uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: but something that I was prepared for by all the
Speaker 1: times in the past when I had put myself in
Speaker 1: those uncomfortable situations and learned how to do it on
Speaker 1: the fly. Um, what's next? So college football season? Now
Speaker 1: we're getting close by the time a lot of people
Speaker 1: listen to this, I got you on because officially kicks off.
Speaker 1: How much do you still get excited for the start
Speaker 1: of college football seven season? Even now at thirty seven
Speaker 1: and now that you've called a lot of games and
Speaker 1: been to a lot of places, how much does it
Speaker 1: still for you when you're in a stadium and kickoff
Speaker 1: is nearing? How exciting is that still for you? Like,
Speaker 1: I can't I can't even tell you how exciting it is.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's similar to a kid at Christmas Clay,
Speaker 1: And I know that's cliche, but it's absolutely true. I
Speaker 1: love it. I absolutely love it. I am you know.
Speaker 1: I hope that this is not because I'm getting a
Speaker 1: little older, and I know I'm still somewhat young. But
Speaker 1: I don't want to be a cromudgeon. But I also
Speaker 1: I fear where we're at in the sport. You know,
Speaker 1: if we continue to just have Clemson and Alabama be
Speaker 1: the only two factors in the sport, I don't think
Speaker 1: that that's good for us long term. I don't want
Speaker 1: to hate on greatness, but I do think that we
Speaker 1: need some others, and more importantly, the start coaches like
Speaker 1: Lincoln Riley, maybe Ryan Day, Maybe it's Jim arbas Here,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, you know, maybe it's Kirby Smart. We
Speaker 1: need some of these guys to rise up and rival
Speaker 1: Dabbo and Um and Nick Saban, and I think that
Speaker 1: we need that this year. So I not only get
Speaker 1: excited just for the start because it's like Christmas, but
Speaker 1: I also get excited and anxious because I think that
Speaker 1: there are really important storylines for the help of the
Speaker 1: sport long term. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports
Speaker 1: talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows
Speaker 1: at Fox sports Radio dot com and within the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app search f s R to listen live.
Speaker 1: Now it's pretty fascinating. Well, you're gonna be on with
Speaker 1: us weekly during college football season for people who listen
Speaker 1: to the out Kick the Coverage show. I'll close with
Speaker 1: this and we're talking to Joel Clad. You can follow
Speaker 1: him on Twitter at Joel Clad. This is the Wins
Speaker 1: and Losses podcast. How much do you hate me? Um?
Speaker 1: Words can't describe how much hey, I have for you.
Speaker 1: And and as Dave Chappelle Apthlete says, if you have
Speaker 1: hate your heart, let it out. There you go. That
Speaker 1: is Joel Klatt letting his hate out for me. And
Speaker 1: by the way, I got an idea for you. And
Speaker 1: Dub is taping this right now. Dub is on the show,
Speaker 1: the radio show we need to have every week. I
Speaker 1: don't understand. Here's what I don't understand. I basically I
Speaker 1: mainly hate you for one subject. And I feel like
Speaker 1: you you know why, and you deep down you agree
Speaker 1: with me. The Greg Ciano not being the head coach
Speaker 1: of Tennessee debate right right? What what you did was wrong?
Speaker 1: Now you can you cannot want him as the coach,
Speaker 1: just like I'm sure there are a lot of people
Speaker 1: that didn't want Brett Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court justice,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't justify the way that they tried to
Speaker 1: go about it. Um. I wish that Tennessee had been
Speaker 1: I knew the analogy. I wish that Tennessee had been
Speaker 1: smart enough not to draw somebody in that This stinction
Speaker 1: that I would make, This is the distinction that I
Speaker 1: would make between Brett Kavanaugh and Greg Ciano. Unless you're
Speaker 1: a died in the wool hardcore Penn State conspiracy theorist.
Speaker 1: I think most people believe that what Jerry Sandusky did
Speaker 1: was a crime, right, That's why he was in prison.
Speaker 1: The jury convicted, right, there's no doubt. I mean, there
Speaker 1: there's a tiny segment of like Penn State truthers that
Speaker 1: is like, oh, there's nothing to this, this is all
Speaker 1: made up, Like because I hear from him all the
Speaker 1: time on Twitter, right, And there's a tiny subset of
Speaker 1: the population nine nine percent whatever you want to say
Speaker 1: of people is aware that something awful went on at
Speaker 1: Penn State and Jerry Sandusky's no. The distinction I would
Speaker 1: make with Brett Kavanaugh is, we don't know that anything
Speaker 1: ever improper happened in his life at all. In fact,
Speaker 1: all of the evidence would suggest that nothing happened at all.
Speaker 1: So the distinction that I would draw, Yeah, the distinction
Speaker 1: that I would draw is no that but we just
Speaker 1: let me just finish the distinction. The distinction is we
Speaker 1: know something awful happened at Penn State, So not wanting
Speaker 1: somebody who was connected to it in any way, even
Speaker 1: if he didn't do anything wrong, and there's disputes about
Speaker 1: all these things and all of those associational values, not
Speaker 1: wanting somebody connected to something that we know happened that
Speaker 1: was awful is different than somebody's saying making an allegation
Speaker 1: in the Brett Kavanaugh case, which it appears like never
Speaker 1: really happened if you really look at all the evidence,
Speaker 1: and certainly nobody would convict that there was a crime
Speaker 1: that occurred. So there's a distinction there. Um. So that's
Speaker 1: that's like if Brett if Brett Kavanaugh, let me just
Speaker 1: say this, if Brett Kavanaugh had been a student manager
Speaker 1: on Penn State's football program, and somebody in court testimony
Speaker 1: had said, hey, he went he heard about something awful
Speaker 1: that happened, he witnessed something, and even if he was
Speaker 1: never charged with it, I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: would say, I don't know if I want that guy
Speaker 1: sitting on the Supreme Court doesn't mean that he doesn't
Speaker 1: deserve to have a job, doesn't mean that he can
Speaker 1: deserve to have all sorts of things in his life.
Speaker 1: Clearly has not committed a crime or been charged with one,
Speaker 1: but just the connection itself is so bad you don't
Speaker 1: want to have it associated with the program. However, however,
Speaker 1: you made that connection way way too closely than just like, oh,
Speaker 1: he was somehow some way related in the outside way
Speaker 1: story to it. And that's the problem then, And because
Speaker 1: here's here's the problem. The only link is actually an
Speaker 1: incredible and incredibly discredited witness that mentions it only in
Speaker 1: the civil suit, not in the actual uh not in
Speaker 1: the actual court case, but in the civil suit. And
Speaker 1: it's actually been discredited by two or three different eyewitnesses.
Speaker 1: So that's that was My problem is that you kind
Speaker 1: of the submarine de man's character, which now has affected
Speaker 1: his live blihood moving forward because you didn't want him
Speaker 1: as the head coach. My whole position is fine, you
Speaker 1: don't want him as the head coach, that's fine, but
Speaker 1: you don't tie him to that in a roundabout way,
Speaker 1: even though there's direct evidence to the contrary. I would
Speaker 1: say this Tennessee Blew that because they should have. Look,
Speaker 1: if I am involved in the vetting of a candidate
Speaker 1: at all, if they had called me and they had said,
Speaker 1: how do we roll this out? I could have walked
Speaker 1: him through it. Right. I'm pretty good at pr I'm
Speaker 1: pretty good at figuring things out. That Greg Siano was
Speaker 1: the target for a total distrust that existed and and
Speaker 1: I think has kind of dissipated now that Phil Fulmer
Speaker 1: is in charge between the management of the Tennessee Athletic
Speaker 1: Department and the university as a whole and its fan
Speaker 1: base that led to Butch Jones, that led to former
Speaker 1: being fired, Lane Kiff and Derek Dooley. It was an
Speaker 1: incompetent regime. And if the regime had been competent, people
Speaker 1: would have been more inclined to give them the innefit
Speaker 1: of the doubt and the real story here. And you know,
Speaker 1: this is everything blew up on Tennessee's face because Dan
Speaker 1: Mullin got the Florida job, because suddenly Chip Kelly walked
Speaker 1: away from Florida, because you see l A made the
Speaker 1: play to get him. Right, Dan Mullin would be the
Speaker 1: coach at Tennessee right now. And I think they were
Speaker 1: totally anticipating that and suddenly they had to swivel to
Speaker 1: Siano and I just don't think they were prepared. Now,
Speaker 1: and all of that can be true, Here's here's the difference,
Speaker 1: and I'll make another distinction. Every word of what you
Speaker 1: just said can be true. But that still doesn't give
Speaker 1: anybody grounds to submarine a man's character falsely. I think
Speaker 1: that Tennessee should have never hired Greg Ciano. I maintained
Speaker 1: I did nothing wrong. Joe Clatt hates me forever for
Speaker 1: doing it. Joel, I will talk to you again soon.
Speaker 1: This has been the Wins and Losses podcast, and you
Speaker 1: just took an el and big win. Big win for
Speaker 1: me there, Uh, I appreciate Uh. That is Joel clad
Speaker 1: Go fall on Twitter and tell him how awful of
Speaker 1: a human being he is. At your like at Joel
Speaker 1: Clatt on Twitter. We'll be talking a lot during the
Speaker 1: college football season. I hope people enjoyed it. Thanks for
Speaker 1: the time, my man. We'll talk to you again soon. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: this has been Wins and Losses. Clay Travis. If you
Speaker 1: enjoy this, go give us five stars. Rate us. Tell
Speaker 1: Joel Klatt he took the l that he's the beer batter,
Speaker 1: tag him on Twitter and also, by the way, uh,
Speaker 1: we do want you guys to rate this podcast five stars.
Speaker 1: I'll read some funny ones as we continue. If you
Speaker 1: enjoyed this, you'll probably enjoy some of the other ones
Speaker 1: as well. Appreciate y'all, thanks for hanging. This has been
Speaker 1: Wins and Losses. I'm Clay Travis, He's Joel Clatt, and
Speaker 1: this is the Wins and Losses Podcast.