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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome in. I'm gotlie Bean. This is the All

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Speaker 1: Ball podcast, all basketball, just all sports, all the time.

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Speaker 1: Welcome in. UM, You're gonna really love my guests. Journey's

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Speaker 1: name is Phil Hickey. He started four years at Notes

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Speaker 1: tre Dame. He's an unbelievable personal story of overcoming adversity

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Speaker 1: while in college and now he's out in the world

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Speaker 1: as a marketer. And if you love the Angry Birds franchise,

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Speaker 1: you'll love what he's done. Is he's all grown up

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Speaker 1: from his days as a wee youngster in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania.

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Speaker 1: I want to give you a little bit of hoop stuff, um,

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Speaker 1: in terms of up to date hoop stuff, before we

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Speaker 1: get to my guest, Phil Hicky. The first thing is

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Speaker 1: the upcoming NBA Draft. It is, in fact a total

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Speaker 1: crap shoot, right, And having talked to some of these

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Speaker 1: gm s, it's kind of fascinating to me on how

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Speaker 1: many are like you know, I don't know necessarily know

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Speaker 1: if have enough data. It's like, one of the things

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Speaker 1: that we get from the n c A tournament that

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Speaker 1: so many people under value is the ability to see

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Speaker 1: these guys play at a higher level, higher level of intensity,

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Speaker 1: often against other players as opposed to you know, kind

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Speaker 1: of the regular season game where you're seeing some of

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Speaker 1: these one and done kids barely play. I guess it helps,

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Speaker 1: you know, the couple of players that went and played overseas.

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Speaker 1: But even that was a long time ago. And I

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Speaker 1: mean think about it, it's been since what like early February,

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Speaker 1: really February, right, um, since we've gotten a chance, uh

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Speaker 1: to see Mellow Ball play when he was in Israel,

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Speaker 1: obviously in Israel in Australia. The interesting thing about Mello Ball,

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Speaker 1: and there's a lot of chatter about him. He's a

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Speaker 1: he's long, he can really pass um shooting is not good.

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Speaker 1: And I think look some of the things that his

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Speaker 1: brother has accomplished, although he has not lived up to

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Speaker 1: the number two overall draft pick, I think helps him.

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Speaker 1: He's bigger than his brother. He's a I think a

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Speaker 1: probably a better game pastor than his brother. He better

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Speaker 1: playing pick and roll than his brother. Never played pick

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Speaker 1: and roll before you get in the NBA. Um and

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Speaker 1: his brother has made himself into a tremendous athlete and

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Speaker 1: into a tremendous defender. And so the thought is that

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Speaker 1: though Mellow doesn't play any defense, right now when he

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Speaker 1: gets the league, well he probably will he. I guess

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Speaker 1: the shooting gives me pause because while the brother a

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Speaker 1: Lonzo has improved athletically, the shooting just hasn't gotten better.

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Speaker 1: And if you look at when he played in Australia,

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Speaker 1: he didn't shoot the basketball well, you know, mid twenties

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Speaker 1: from three, mid thirties from the field. And this is

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Speaker 1: the guy that you just kind of breakaway layups, granted

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Speaker 1: playing against men, but and there are many that believe, well, listen,

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Speaker 1: if you improved the shot selection, you've got the space

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Speaker 1: of an NBA court. I don't know, there's pretty good space.

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Speaker 1: And when you play in Israel, when you play in Australia, Uh,

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Speaker 1: I'm surprised if people want to convince themselves of that.

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Speaker 1: I just I'd be very very cautious if a kid

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Speaker 1: isn't competitive defensively at all, making him the number one

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Speaker 1: overall pick, and I think that I think the Warriors

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Speaker 1: pick is uh is very much up in the air.

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Speaker 1: I know that guys like Isaac Accorro, who's as a

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Speaker 1: great kind of culture passion to the guy, it's gonna

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Speaker 1: take a special fit to the Warriors because they want

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Speaker 1: to win and win now. Don't be surprised if to

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Speaker 1: get an asset they trade down or they take a

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Speaker 1: guy who they think that's their culture, maybe better than

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Speaker 1: how highly rated a player is. Um there's thoughts that

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Speaker 1: a Wiseman, James Wiseman, because they need size and need

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Speaker 1: length and they need versatility. Maybe, but I'm not sold

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Speaker 1: and neither are they that he can help them play

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Speaker 1: right away. So whoever they're picking, they're not expecting to

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Speaker 1: help them play for two years, maybe even three years. Granted,

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Speaker 1: what's interesting is there'll be no summer league, but there could,

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Speaker 1: and there there could very little ramp up. Right you

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Speaker 1: get draft in November, you could play in December. I'm

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Speaker 1: not sure you're gonna get much out of this rookie

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Speaker 1: class if you're a playoff team at all, So that

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Speaker 1: needs to be factored in, especially if you're a team

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Speaker 1: like the Warriors, who have great expectations of themselves coming

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Speaker 1: off a year in which they kind of packed it

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Speaker 1: in for a year. As for the NBA coming back early,

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Speaker 1: I think they have to. They have to find a

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Speaker 1: way to get this thing wrapped up to where they

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Speaker 1: have the finals back on time. One they want to

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Speaker 1: be at the Olympics with maybe not all of their stars,

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Speaker 1: but a better allotment of stars. Whereas the initial pime

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Speaker 1: was to forget about the Olympics. They need that for

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Speaker 1: the business side. They also need to be playing on

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Speaker 1: Christmas Day for the business side. Granted, that need to

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Speaker 1: get people in the stands, and that's something that's completely

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Speaker 1: out of their control at this at this particular moment,

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Speaker 1: but I do believe that the NBA needs to and

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Speaker 1: will get on the floor in December. All right, let's

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Speaker 1: get to my conversation with with Bill Hickey. Um. One

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Speaker 1: of the things that comes up is mental health. And

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Speaker 1: it's really interesting how different we assess somebody's shooting difficulties

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Speaker 1: somebody's personal mental health. Uh. In this case, Phil had

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Speaker 1: a fear of flying. Obviously, I've had my own kind

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Speaker 1: of personal issues with depression or another week. I've heard

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Speaker 1: Mark Titis talked about that extensively in his book on

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Speaker 1: his podcast as well. I mean, these are things that

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Speaker 1: when I was playing in college basketball twenty years ago,

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Speaker 1: somebody discussed, right, you had the hips or you're scared

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Speaker 1: of something, and you got over it and we worked

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Speaker 1: with you on I think you love this conversation, Phil,

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Speaker 1: heck you, by my estimation, outstanding player, Okay, gigantic body,

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Speaker 1: huge hips, big soft hands. Um. I think I think

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Speaker 1: had had we had a little bit more evolved training

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Speaker 1: program at Notre Dame, I think you would have been

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Speaker 1: a little more twitchy and had we played a little

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Speaker 1: bit different style like this. To Do was a a

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Speaker 1: center who could score in the low post. He also

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Speaker 1: had great hands, so he catch and finish. He just

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Speaker 1: it took him a while to develop any sort of explosiveness. Um.

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Speaker 1: So that is because the toe injury that he suffered

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Speaker 1: before he got to college. But take a list of

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Speaker 1: my conversation with a man, Phil Hicky, graduate of the

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Speaker 1: University of Notre Dame. All right, let's welcome in. He's

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Speaker 1: a pride of Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. He's the one and only

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Speaker 1: Phil Hickey. Phil, How are you good? Okay? So? Um my, uh,

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Speaker 1: I think we like we should go back to our

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Speaker 1: early days at Notre Dame. Right where you were this giant,

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Speaker 1: teddy bear of a guy who everybody loved, not because

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Speaker 1: you're a nice guy, but because your dorm room at

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Speaker 1: Dylan Hall was the home of forties at four Right,

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Speaker 1: like I'm not. I don't know if it was an

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Speaker 1: n c A violation, and I think I believe we've

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Speaker 1: passed the statue limitations. But what what do you recall

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Speaker 1: about how you became the hub for all the the

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Speaker 1: drinking of forties at four o'clock on a Friday at

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Speaker 1: Notre Dame. I have no idea, but I think it

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Speaker 1: wasn't performance enhancing either. I think it was just I

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Speaker 1: think we probably had one extra square foot than all

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Speaker 1: the other dorm rooms because I think they were about

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Speaker 1: ten square feet apiece and we had one that was

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Speaker 1: eleven or twelve square feet. So in college terms, that

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Speaker 1: means you can fit about four more people in that room, unless,

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Speaker 1: of course they're with you because you're bigger dude, and

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Speaker 1: so you needed the extra space. Um, you know, I get.

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Speaker 1: I think now that I'm that we're older, it's like,

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Speaker 1: man one, I do wish that they let us room

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Speaker 1: together when we were freshmen. And I also wish that

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Speaker 1: I was able to articulate things like what was it

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Speaker 1: like for you? Like you first, you're from a small town,

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Speaker 1: you show up at a place like Notre Dame. What

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Speaker 1: was what? What? What do you what do you recall

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Speaker 1: was like for you when you first got there, Yeah exactly, Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: the rooming rooming rules have certainly changed over the years,

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Speaker 1: but um yeah, showing up it was pretty pretty amazing, right.

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Speaker 1: It's this beautiful campus. It's out of everywhere I was looking.

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Speaker 1: It was the farthest one from my home. You know,

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Speaker 1: I grew up with a single mom um, so you know,

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Speaker 1: there were there were those kind of difficulties, you know,

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Speaker 1: I guess growing up always dreaming of going somewhere big

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Speaker 1: and getting out of the town and you know, to

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Speaker 1: the big city. This wasn't quite the big city, but

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Speaker 1: it was definitely the big, big media capital. Um. You know,

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Speaker 1: it was just kind of raising lack of questions, can

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Speaker 1: I make it here? You know? And I think, you know,

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Speaker 1: it drives down to the very first day being a

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Speaker 1: noted dame. And I remember stopping up at the office

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Speaker 1: and coach the only coach that was there was coach

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Speaker 1: Terry Tyler, and you know, he was what three years

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Speaker 1: out of the league maybe at that point, and uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, I had never shot around in the Joy Center.

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Speaker 1: He's like, oh, let's go shoot a couple of shots,

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Speaker 1: which is probably a violation at this point, but who

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Speaker 1: knows what n c A rules. But I remember remember

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Speaker 1: just shooting a couple of shots, going to you know,

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Speaker 1: going to the foul line, you know, taking a look

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Speaker 1: at the place, kind of thinking this is going to

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Speaker 1: be my home for the next four years. And I

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Speaker 1: remember maybe the third or fourth foul shot, I shot

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Speaker 1: it and Terry was in a nice you know, notre

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Speaker 1: Dame Polar shirt, some tucked in khaki pants, you know,

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Speaker 1: his his his dress shoes, and it hit the front

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Speaker 1: of the ram, bounced straight up. He goes off the

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Speaker 1: fat and just dunks it. And my my reaction was like,

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Speaker 1: holy shit, if this is if this is what our

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Speaker 1: coaches can do, I mean, what, what's n c A

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Speaker 1: Division one going to be? Like, here's what I remember

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Speaker 1: about coach Tyler. Okay, there's I have a couple of

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Speaker 1: regulations of him. Okay. One was Thanksgiving at his house

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Speaker 1: amazing and he had like he had like a condo

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Speaker 1: and he was newly married, and I remember all the

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Speaker 1: freshman that's where he went over and the food was amazing.

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Speaker 1: But it was more like I's like one of my

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Speaker 1: top five memories of all my college experiences, right, is

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Speaker 1: that like we were kind of all together. Right. We

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Speaker 1: had Gary Bell, who was this super loud, arrogant dude

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Speaker 1: from Chicago. Right, you had and Tony Weisch who's like

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Speaker 1: the nicest guy ever from upstate New York, and you

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Speaker 1: from tiny Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, and me from southern California, and

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Speaker 1: like this the the brotherhood of all kind of being together.

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Speaker 1: I remember eating and then we were like watching football

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Speaker 1: and everybody like fell dead out of sleep, and then

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Speaker 1: somebody woke somebody up and hey, we got another practice.

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Speaker 1: But but it was just he was just it was

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Speaker 1: so cool and right, like you had a mixture of cultures.

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Speaker 1: It was like my first like like when you grew

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Speaker 1: up in southern California and you playing basketball and travel

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Speaker 1: around the country like I always my teams were always

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Speaker 1: either half or mostly black anyway, So it wasn't like

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Speaker 1: I wasn't around black people. But to be to mix

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Speaker 1: those kind of cultures to me, I don't know that

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Speaker 1: that was like a special memory to me. I was like, man,

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Speaker 1: this is like this is super cool to be nobody

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Speaker 1: like practicing, especially the second time. But it was just

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Speaker 1: the idea of being around coach Tylie was so cool.

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Speaker 1: And the mixing and the cultures and finding out that

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Speaker 1: people eat different stuff for the same holiday. For I mean,

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Speaker 1: I remember that. I think that's the first time I

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Speaker 1: ever had some soul food. I mean there was amazing

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Speaker 1: call it grains, a few other things that were that

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Speaker 1: were amazing, and uh yeah, that was a great memory.

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Speaker 1: It also felt like a refuge from you know, being

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Speaker 1: a freshman going through to you know, two days and

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Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff, and it just felt like

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Speaker 1: a little vortex into a place where we could relax

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Speaker 1: a bit and kind of be ourselves. And you went

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Speaker 1: through the opposite of me and and an Tony Weish

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Speaker 1: went through Like I gained I think seventeen pounds from

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Speaker 1: when I got there to our first game. Antony Wish

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Speaker 1: had never lifted before, so he like couldn't shoot for

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Speaker 1: like remember he couldn't like even hit the rim. He

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Speaker 1: was about five feet off on a ten foot shot. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you were trying to trim up your body, like like

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Speaker 1: that's hard in college? What what was that? Like? Man?

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Speaker 1: That was that was hard? I mean that's all you know.

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Speaker 1: That started the summer of my you know, really really

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Speaker 1: the spring and summer of my senior year kind of

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Speaker 1: getting on that process and just learning to eat differently,

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Speaker 1: the kind of work my audio, a bit harder to

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Speaker 1: really concentrate on things, you know, a lot more running

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Speaker 1: than I was used to. I mean, there were a

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Speaker 1: couple of extra things that helped me out. No dame was.

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Speaker 1: I failed the swim test if you remember that, because

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Speaker 1: you couldn't do a backstroke. So I was doing extra

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Speaker 1: swimming laps at eight eight in the morning before every class,

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Speaker 1: so that that helped in. And you know, they're just

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Speaker 1: the level of conditioning, but it was it's a it's

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Speaker 1: a hard change. I mean it worked. I mean they

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Speaker 1: have some you know, I was only one not taking away.

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Speaker 1: Everyone else was to remember those were the way days

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Speaker 1: where everyone was taking away and then drinking these pre

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Speaker 1: teen gatorloading way that was that was the bed, that

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Speaker 1: was the breakfast of champions back then. So so yeah,

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Speaker 1: so I you know, I was focusing on that, you know,

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Speaker 1: and you know, I don't know if you remember, but

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Speaker 1: I also before my senior year, I had that lawn

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Speaker 1: bore accident, which was just insane kind of mowing the

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Speaker 1: lawn outside and it was a wet day, slipped a

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Speaker 1: little bit and the blade hit my big toe and

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Speaker 1: shattered it into what the doctor said, you know, it

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Speaker 1: looked like Rice christpy. So that had to be fused.

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Speaker 1: So I have just one bone in my right pet

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Speaker 1: so so that also helped. That had to change my

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Speaker 1: diet because I couldn't exercise for I had no idea.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that was that was Yeah, that wasn't That

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Speaker 1: was insane. So that was an unlucky moment. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it was pretty It was scary actually, because you know,

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Speaker 1: calling up coach McLoud and the team and saying I

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Speaker 1: might not I don't know what this means. The first doctor, Okay,

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Speaker 1: we gotta gotta get to the doctor. Check that out.

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Speaker 1: Check out the toes exactly. And and and the first

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Speaker 1: doctor told me I never played basketball again. So it

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Speaker 1: was you know, and then we went down to a

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Speaker 1: bigger city, you know, I think we went to the

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Speaker 1: Penn State Orthopedics and they're like, hey, we can fix this.

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Speaker 1: It's just gonna take some work. So yeah, yes, well

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Speaker 1: what what what what you should have got was you

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Speaker 1: should have got like, listen, he can't do conditioning. You

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Speaker 1: can't do like a court conditioning. You can't run to

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Speaker 1: water the way that John run to water. Um. I

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Speaker 1: tweeted about this the other day. I remember coach McLeod

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Speaker 1: hows where jock straps? Right? Or we were supposed to

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Speaker 1: wear jock can't forget it, can't forget okay, so let

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Speaker 1: me kind of set the set the table. So John

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Speaker 1: McCloud had us. Among the things we had to do,

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Speaker 1: we had to get taped every day and he would

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Speaker 1: actually feel inside your socks sometimes to make sure you

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Speaker 1: were taped. We had to wear suits and ties on

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Speaker 1: the road, and we were supposed to wear jock straps,

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Speaker 1: and you know, after a while I was like, I

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Speaker 1: don't strap. It was terrible. And we used to to

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Speaker 1: get hype for practice. Sometimes we do like two line

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Speaker 1: lamps and everybody go ahead and throw it down, big fellow.

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Speaker 1: All right, Phil, here we go, here we go, here,

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Speaker 1: we go to her name, right, and so you know

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Speaker 1: you're going in the layup lines and Gary Bell straight

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Speaker 1: at the back surgery is like doing three sixties, Like, uh,

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Speaker 1: didn't you just hurt your back? Anyway? Calls us in

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Speaker 1: and starts checking randomly drop straps and I believe you

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Speaker 1: got caught. Is that accurate that you didn't have a

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Speaker 1: jot I got caught somehow he had heard of someone

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Speaker 1: someone someone worked on me, or or there was a

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Speaker 1: recording device in the in the locker our tiny, tiny

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Speaker 1: locker room, one or the other. But not only did

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Speaker 1: he catch, but he checked three or four times. He

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Speaker 1: checked every part of my body to see if I

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Speaker 1: was hiding it or if Remember his moves were super deliberate,

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Speaker 1: and they were very like kind of hard, but like

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Speaker 1: you know, it was just it was one of the

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Speaker 1: most awkward moments of my life. But I wore jock

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Speaker 1: straps after that. I didn't want that again. It was

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Speaker 1: I mean, it was the t s A tell people,

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Speaker 1: you tell people this now and like, look, we didn't

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Speaker 1: go to school in the nineteen seventies, right we I

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Speaker 1: finished two if it's in exactly and they're like you wait, what,

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Speaker 1: like yes, still exists? I mean do kids even know

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Speaker 1: what a jock strap is anymore? No? I had. I

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Speaker 1: was telling my son's story and he's like, what are

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Speaker 1: they because now because that was when no, no, I don't,

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Speaker 1: I don't think so I don't. I don't. I don't

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Speaker 1: to be baseball get your might still wear or something

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Speaker 1: like that. Maybe, So the most remarkable thing about you

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Speaker 1: and don't want to get to what you're doing now.

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Speaker 1: Um and uh is that during our freshman year early on,

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Speaker 1: And I think the first time I noticed was when

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Speaker 1: we flew to Cincinnati. We played Xavier and the Old

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Speaker 1: Cincinnati Gardens and you were really really uncomfortable flying. And

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Speaker 1: you know, like nineteen year old Doug Gottlieb is like,

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Speaker 1: check out, Phil, he's shutting his ass off, right. Four

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Speaker 1: year old Doug Gottlieb is like, uh, yeah, that's actually

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Speaker 1: like a phobia, like legit fear phobia, obviously knowing what

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Speaker 1: you get went through. So, um, We're we go to

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Speaker 1: Villanova on January second, the ranks, second the country, and

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Speaker 1: I remember a lot of things about that game, mostly

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Speaker 1: that we were gonna We're gonna leave Alvin Williams. I

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Speaker 1: was guarden al Williams. You had times you had the

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Speaker 1: car to either Chuck Cornegee or or Jason Lawson. Right there.

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Speaker 1: We had monsters, right, they had Airic Keeber's the great

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Speaker 1: shooters like six five, and they had carry kittles and

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Speaker 1: they're like, all right, their weak link shooting wise is

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Speaker 1: Alvin Williams. So Doug. Every time they get the ball

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Speaker 1: down low, you go double. Every time one of their

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Speaker 1: guards puts the ball on the floor, you go help.

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Speaker 1: Let's leave out Williams and first four possessions. I felt like,

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Speaker 1: wa and he has three threes and has an open

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Speaker 1: two and he's got eleven points at the first TV

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Speaker 1: time out and I go over to Fran McCaffrey recruiter

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Speaker 1: us both and I was like, we're gonna let him

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Speaker 1: get eighty tonight or are we gonna like guard him? Right?

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Speaker 1: So we gotta ask kick on ESPN two on January second,

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Speaker 1: and we're in Philadelphia and we go to the airport. Okay,

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Speaker 1: do you let me tell my recollection over your Yeah? Okay,

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Speaker 1: So my recollection is we're all in our coach and

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Speaker 1: ties Parkers over the top and uh Pat Gearty, who

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Speaker 1: was a sophomore, was like our leader was and like

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Speaker 1: you know, was just the greatest, smartest, nicest guy. He

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Speaker 1: comes over and he's like, bro, you you gotta get

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Speaker 1: your boat in the plane. And I was like, what

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Speaker 1: are you talking about. He's like phil Phil said, he's

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Speaker 1: not getting the plane. I was like, right, So we

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Speaker 1: go when we're talking to you and you're clearly uncomfortable

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Speaker 1: when you're you're very shy at times to the time

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Speaker 1: you're looking down you're like, I'm not getting that plane,

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Speaker 1: Like come on, dude, you gotta we gotta go home,

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Speaker 1: like we got a game in like three days, like

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Speaker 1: my kid on the plane. So then who comes over

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Speaker 1: and he's like, hey boy, like we gotta like the

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Speaker 1: plane hadn't yet opened up the doors. So I walk

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Speaker 1: over to Fran McCaffrey knows, like Franny, Phil says he's

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Speaker 1: not getting on the plane, and I believe him, and

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Speaker 1: he's like, you know, Fran comes over and he's like, yo, Phil,

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Speaker 1: what's up? Man? What's up? You know he saw sports

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Speaker 1: the last night I got They've got turned around like

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Speaker 1: all hey man, I got getting that plane. So somehow

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Speaker 1: word filters down again to John McCloud and like he

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Speaker 1: just he I want to make sure that people who

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Speaker 1: watch this listen to us. I don't think he had

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Speaker 1: a mean bad bone in his body. There was just

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Speaker 1: a certain like not necessarily rigid, But I don't know

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Speaker 1: if he understood all the things going on for you,

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Speaker 1: Like I don't necessarily know all the things that were

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Speaker 1: going on with you, Like you said single mom, small town,

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Speaker 1: so losing weight, fighting for minutes. Practices were like brutally

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Speaker 1: brutally physical. It's hard to get minutes. We weren't very good,

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Speaker 1: like all of these things kind of culminating at once, right,

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Speaker 1: it's your mind's kind of spinning you at grades, like

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Speaker 1: I was doing shitty in school, and you know, like

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Speaker 1: his whole thing is he comes up to you and

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Speaker 1: he's like horror, dimpic fellow, Okay, okay, okay, how we're doing.

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Speaker 1: We're doing all right, we're going to get on that plane.

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Speaker 1: And you just like looked at him like he looked up, coach,

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Speaker 1: I'm not getting Oh if you listen, we're going, we're doing,

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Speaker 1: We're going. We gotta get back on that plane, were

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Speaker 1: the coach, I'm not getting that plane. Like you can

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Speaker 1: all go. You gotta get home. I'm not fun. And

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00:20:06,640 --> 00:20:08,879
Speaker 1: then some somebody scrambled and like called your mom and

388
00:20:09,000 --> 00:20:11,240
Speaker 1: she turned around and drove from like Wellsboro picked you

389
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Speaker 1: up as like a four hour drive or something something crazy. Right,

390
00:20:13,640 --> 00:20:16,879
Speaker 1: So okay, you now you go, yeah, yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: that's basically how it happened. I mean I think, you know,

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Speaker 1: looking looking back at it, you know it's a combination

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Speaker 1: of of a lot of things, right. I mean I

394
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Speaker 1: think I looking back with a clear conscience and the

395
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Speaker 1: kind of lens of of you know, mental health awareness,

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Speaker 1: I think that that the broken toad started giving me

397
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Speaker 1: a bit of anxiety if I think about it, because

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, when you're a senior in high school,

399
00:20:40,080 --> 00:20:42,200
Speaker 1: you're going to do one. You feel like you're indestructible

400
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Speaker 1: and nothing can stop you, and all of a sudden,

401
00:20:44,400 --> 00:20:46,760
Speaker 1: out of nowhere, this bad thing happens, right, and and

402
00:20:46,840 --> 00:20:50,880
Speaker 1: then the combination of I mean, losing to this day

403
00:20:50,960 --> 00:20:53,720
Speaker 1: still makes me sick, like it makes me physically sick.

404
00:20:53,880 --> 00:20:56,480
Speaker 1: I'm a bear. I can't talk to anyone. I feel terrible.

405
00:20:56,520 --> 00:20:59,639
Speaker 1: I'm disappointed myself. And we were taking elves left right,

406
00:20:59,680 --> 00:21:01,360
Speaker 1: and said or I mean that Big East was full

407
00:21:01,400 --> 00:21:04,159
Speaker 1: of Alan Iverson's carry kittles. I mean I think that,

408
00:21:04,320 --> 00:21:07,719
Speaker 1: you know, Boston College was amazing rail AND's at Connecticut, right,

409
00:21:07,720 --> 00:21:09,720
Speaker 1: I mean, and we're trying to play man, you know

410
00:21:10,000 --> 00:21:12,639
Speaker 1: the thing you messed about the Alvin the Alvin stories,

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Speaker 1: Like we played man to man. We didn't play any zone.

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Speaker 1: So we were I mean two games with two games

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00:21:17,680 --> 00:21:23,640
Speaker 1: that played zone yeah, Georgeorgetown both times, right, and we yeah, exactly,

414
00:21:23,720 --> 00:21:25,720
Speaker 1: but um, but yeah, so it's a mixture of that stuff.

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00:21:25,720 --> 00:21:28,360
Speaker 1: And then and then we talked about Cincinnati. I remember

416
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Speaker 1: we beat Xavier. I think I had some foul shots

417
00:21:30,480 --> 00:21:32,000
Speaker 1: at the end or near the end. Did you hit

418
00:21:32,080 --> 00:21:33,880
Speaker 1: you stepped up, younutt it up and hit two big

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Speaker 1: free throws. Yeah, and then we we I flew back.

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Speaker 1: We flew back after that for Christmas, and I had

421
00:21:39,359 --> 00:21:41,480
Speaker 1: a super bumpy play as bumpy as it could be,

422
00:21:41,680 --> 00:21:43,960
Speaker 1: kind of where the wings are going left right, and

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Speaker 1: you know, I remember having some books that flew out

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Speaker 1: into the middle and I was burnt. I got off

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00:21:50,119 --> 00:21:52,440
Speaker 1: that plane and you know, put on a smiley face,

426
00:21:52,520 --> 00:21:54,399
Speaker 1: but I was burnt between all of that and that

427
00:21:54,600 --> 00:21:56,920
Speaker 1: last flight, and and it just carried over and I

428
00:21:57,000 --> 00:21:59,520
Speaker 1: just kept thinking about that, you know, the whole Christmas break.

429
00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:01,480
Speaker 1: And you know, when you build something up into your house,

430
00:22:01,680 --> 00:22:03,480
Speaker 1: it's very hard to kind of break it down. And

431
00:22:03,880 --> 00:22:05,919
Speaker 1: you know, there were to be honest, back then, there

432
00:22:05,960 --> 00:22:08,199
Speaker 1: weren't a lot of resources for things like that. They

433
00:22:08,240 --> 00:22:10,320
Speaker 1: weren't help. I mean, you know, in the end, we

434
00:22:10,400 --> 00:22:11,840
Speaker 1: can get to that, but but that, I mean, that

435
00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:14,960
Speaker 1: was basically your story spot on and Coach. You know,

436
00:22:15,080 --> 00:22:17,600
Speaker 1: I think Coach handled it pretty gracefully. My mom came,

437
00:22:17,680 --> 00:22:19,920
Speaker 1: we figured it out over Christmas break. I came back,

438
00:22:20,560 --> 00:22:23,320
Speaker 1: worked on it, figured it out. And people are such assholes.

439
00:22:23,359 --> 00:22:26,480
Speaker 1: People are such assholes though, Like I remember, uh that

440
00:22:26,680 --> 00:22:30,480
Speaker 1: they drove you to the Georgetown King Yeah, and we

441
00:22:30,600 --> 00:22:32,560
Speaker 1: come out, we come out to warm up and they're

442
00:22:32,600 --> 00:22:35,879
Speaker 1: throwing paper airlines at you. And I was like and

443
00:22:35,960 --> 00:22:38,320
Speaker 1: I was just like, you guys are like because and

444
00:22:38,359 --> 00:22:41,720
Speaker 1: again part of it is we were friends and like

445
00:22:41,880 --> 00:22:44,640
Speaker 1: you're one of the nicest, sweetest, most genuine people I've

446
00:22:44,720 --> 00:22:49,920
Speaker 1: ever met, and so like it hurt me and I'm like, hey, assholes,

447
00:22:49,960 --> 00:22:51,360
Speaker 1: do you know how hard it is for the guy

448
00:22:51,440 --> 00:22:53,800
Speaker 1: even to get like he's so embarrassed by this and

449
00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:56,560
Speaker 1: there's you know, there's nothing, it's just he's just afraid

450
00:22:56,600 --> 00:22:59,080
Speaker 1: to fly like it had like John Madden wouldn't fly, right,

451
00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:03,560
Speaker 1: and uh, but you did, ultimately, even in that year,

452
00:23:03,840 --> 00:23:10,120
Speaker 1: overcome it, right and yeah yeah, and then like you've

453
00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:13,280
Speaker 1: lived overseas, like it's not just you didn't just overcome

454
00:23:13,320 --> 00:23:14,960
Speaker 1: it wasn't like this I'll take one flight or just

455
00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:17,520
Speaker 1: do it for basketball like you lived, worked and I

456
00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:20,840
Speaker 1: think met your wife overseas, right, correct, correct, So it

457
00:23:20,960 --> 00:23:23,120
Speaker 1: was important. It's an important turning point in my life.

458
00:23:23,160 --> 00:23:27,439
Speaker 1: And it's like you know, and coach Coach McLeod was right,

459
00:23:27,520 --> 00:23:29,800
Speaker 1: like there's sometimes to get where you want to go,

460
00:23:29,960 --> 00:23:31,760
Speaker 1: there's things you got to overcome. And you know it

461
00:23:31,960 --> 00:23:34,919
Speaker 1: was for me it was more of an analytical thing.

462
00:23:34,960 --> 00:23:38,639
Speaker 1: I've you know, we broke it down, you know, the

463
00:23:38,720 --> 00:23:42,200
Speaker 1: mental health aspect of things weren't It wasn't cool to

464
00:23:42,280 --> 00:23:44,840
Speaker 1: have mental health issues back then, you know, it just

465
00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:47,879
Speaker 1: everyone was, especially man were the silent kind of holding

466
00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:50,480
Speaker 1: in type. And you know now everybody's got seeing a

467
00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:54,800
Speaker 1: you know, seeing a seeing a psychologist or consultant or

468
00:23:54,880 --> 00:23:56,879
Speaker 1: something like that. Life coach. But um, but yeah, I

469
00:23:56,920 --> 00:23:59,520
Speaker 1: got over I remember we went in you know, skip

470
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:01,560
Speaker 1: and I went to we went to the South Bend Airport.

471
00:24:01,680 --> 00:24:04,119
Speaker 1: We met with the pilots. They explained everything of how

472
00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:07,000
Speaker 1: flight works, all the science behind it, all the physics

473
00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:09,639
Speaker 1: behind it, and it was pretty enlightening. And while there

474
00:24:09,680 --> 00:24:11,879
Speaker 1: were assholes that were giving me a hard time, I

475
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:14,680
Speaker 1: was receiving crazy amounts of fanmail, both to my own

476
00:24:14,760 --> 00:24:19,800
Speaker 1: house and and stuff of people saying, like pretty inspirational stuff.

477
00:24:19,840 --> 00:24:21,760
Speaker 1: I had the same problem. This is how I overcame it.

478
00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:24,719
Speaker 1: Hanging there, you'll get it, and you know I received

479
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:26,640
Speaker 1: you know, it felt like I was being recruited again.

480
00:24:26,680 --> 00:24:28,640
Speaker 1: I was. I got like two thousand letters or something,

481
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:32,800
Speaker 1: nuts um books books on it, you know, people saying

482
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:34,600
Speaker 1: give me a call sometime, I'll tell you how I

483
00:24:34,680 --> 00:24:36,120
Speaker 1: dealt with it. So, I mean, there was a good

484
00:24:36,119 --> 00:24:38,359
Speaker 1: part of humanity and that was super helpful. And I

485
00:24:38,400 --> 00:24:40,560
Speaker 1: remember my first flight back, but it wasn't a terrible one.

486
00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:45,240
Speaker 1: We took the Pistons team plane somewhere right Uh that

487
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:46,760
Speaker 1: was and then I was like, hey, this this is

488
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:50,040
Speaker 1: actually that bad. You know, New York. We took it

489
00:24:50,080 --> 00:24:52,000
Speaker 1: to New York. We flew in, we flew in to Teterboro,

490
00:24:53,520 --> 00:24:55,760
Speaker 1: and they would and they were they would tell you like,

491
00:24:55,840 --> 00:24:59,200
Speaker 1: all right, Phil, we're banking to the right. That was helpful,

492
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:03,840
Speaker 1: though it was it was you know, here's here's what's fascinating. Okay.

493
00:25:03,920 --> 00:25:06,239
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you know this, but if

494
00:25:06,320 --> 00:25:12,400
Speaker 1: you go back, uh before uh in the preseason add

495
00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:14,480
Speaker 1: more White, the other point guard was kicking my ass

496
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:18,359
Speaker 1: and I was I was like, like I was I

497
00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:20,200
Speaker 1: only went to Notre Dame because when I just I

498
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:23,359
Speaker 1: thought it was gonna be awesome. I liked everybody. I

499
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:25,200
Speaker 1: thought it was going to the NBA. I was gonna

500
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 1: start for four years, right, and this guy's just killing

501
00:25:28,560 --> 00:25:31,640
Speaker 1: me every day in practice, and like everything we did

502
00:25:31,840 --> 00:25:34,520
Speaker 1: emphasize what I didn't do well, Like I was good

503
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:37,600
Speaker 1: in the full court. We played all half court basketball.

504
00:25:37,640 --> 00:25:40,240
Speaker 1: I can practice. It was half court basketball. Twenty six

505
00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:42,480
Speaker 1: seconds of the shot clot I'd never run a motion

506
00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:44,520
Speaker 1: offense in my life. I've never done. And I'm just

507
00:25:44,600 --> 00:25:47,639
Speaker 1: getting screened and screened and screened. Right and add more,

508
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:49,639
Speaker 1: White had this really good mid range jump shot, like

509
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:52,320
Speaker 1: I had no mid range jump shot. Right, every ball

510
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:54,359
Speaker 1: screaming ram was to somebody's right hand. I can only

511
00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:56,440
Speaker 1: shoot going to my left hand, like literally everything. So

512
00:25:56,480 --> 00:25:58,480
Speaker 1: I went into fran McCaffrey's office and I just started

513
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 1: bawling like a baby, like you talk up mental health,

514
00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:03,600
Speaker 1: like I was seriously clinically depressed. The sun hadn't come

515
00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:05,360
Speaker 1: out in the month I tracked it in my room

516
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:08,960
Speaker 1: in October. The sun did not come out October November

517
00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:11,760
Speaker 1: didn't come out one time. One time did I see

518
00:26:11,800 --> 00:26:14,600
Speaker 1: the sun and like I was just I didn't feel right.

519
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:17,160
Speaker 1: I felt off. I started bawling like a baby again,

520
00:26:17,240 --> 00:26:19,359
Speaker 1: Like now you'd go see a shrink instead. It was

521
00:26:19,920 --> 00:26:21,600
Speaker 1: Fran calling me every night, checking out of me. Are

522
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:23,600
Speaker 1: you doing you okay? Like I'm all right. You know,

523
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:26,400
Speaker 1: I kind of want to go home. You know, it's like, well,

524
00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:28,760
Speaker 1: you can't go home. You gotta go practice tomorrow. Like okay,

525
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:30,960
Speaker 1: you know that's what I'll do. And you know, I

526
00:26:31,040 --> 00:26:33,520
Speaker 1: had obviously my own issues manifest themselves, I think kind

527
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:35,760
Speaker 1: of later on that year. But it's it's interesting on

528
00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:39,160
Speaker 1: how like we were. We were still not really evolved,

529
00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:43,080
Speaker 1: and it was a very it was. It was everything

530
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:45,239
Speaker 1: about It was a little arcane when you look at

531
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:47,880
Speaker 1: it now through the lens of two thousand twenty, for sure,

532
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:51,760
Speaker 1: for sure. And yeah, I remember Friend always telling me like, hey,

533
00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:53,520
Speaker 1: make sure you stopped by Dudge room and make sure

534
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:58,000
Speaker 1: he's coming practice. I didn't. I used to. I used

535
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 1: to do this thing where my room faced the south

536
00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:02,920
Speaker 1: quad and I would open up the window. I'd stick

537
00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:05,840
Speaker 1: my hand out, not going not going to class today,

538
00:27:08,119 --> 00:27:10,360
Speaker 1: not not not doing not doing that, and then you'd

539
00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:12,080
Speaker 1: come walking by with your big park On. You're like,

540
00:27:12,320 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 1: let's go, um, okay, so how would you how would

541
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:23,359
Speaker 1: you characterize your career not to day, solid solid, right?

542
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:26,440
Speaker 1: You know, I think I it was interesting. Um, you know,

543
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:28,920
Speaker 1: did we get enough wins that I would like? No?

544
00:27:29,320 --> 00:27:32,000
Speaker 1: I mean, you know that was ran I T contenders.

545
00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:33,920
Speaker 1: We played with some good people. I mean I think

546
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:36,440
Speaker 1: you know, I end up near a thousand points and

547
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:40,399
Speaker 1: you know how remind me rebounds and um, you know,

548
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:42,680
Speaker 1: block shots and things like that. You know, and it

549
00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:46,119
Speaker 1: was a great experience. I'm glad. I wouldn't I wouldn't

550
00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:48,439
Speaker 1: change it for anything. You know, I would have definitely

551
00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:50,720
Speaker 1: tried to plead our case to play a little a

552
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:52,320
Speaker 1: little bit more zone. I think that could have made

553
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:54,760
Speaker 1: the difference of three or four wins a year. Um,

554
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:58,000
Speaker 1: just weird, just that you know, I'll match athletically, and

555
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:00,280
Speaker 1: you know, it reminds me of a good way on

556
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:04,200
Speaker 1: that is playing in the Big East tournament one year,

557
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:07,520
Speaker 1: I got a terrible foul call on me, and UM

558
00:28:08,800 --> 00:28:10,840
Speaker 1: turned to the ref and like what was that? He's like,

559
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:14,080
Speaker 1: I either had to call that and you're guarantee, who

560
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 1: do you think should take the foul? It's like, all right,

561
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:19,840
Speaker 1: because we knew if Pat gets four foulsies coming out,

562
00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:21,280
Speaker 1: we're not going to zone, you know what I mean.

563
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 1: But um yeah, you know I loved it. I love

564
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:26,320
Speaker 1: the campus. You know, there were a lot of there

565
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:28,640
Speaker 1: was a ton of turnover. I think we were kind

566
00:28:28,680 --> 00:28:32,439
Speaker 1: of that, you know, Antony and I sticking out four

567
00:28:32,560 --> 00:28:35,560
Speaker 1: years of our class. You know, kind of the glue

568
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:38,240
Speaker 1: that kind of allowed allowed more people to came. You know,

569
00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:40,480
Speaker 1: we started to get the Troy Murphy's and the Matt

570
00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:43,520
Speaker 1: Carroll's and stuff after that. Um so, so it was

571
00:28:43,680 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 1: it was kind of it was a transition from what

572
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:48,360
Speaker 1: the early nineties were to what Mike Bray's built now.

573
00:28:48,480 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 1: But um, but enjoyed it. Gave me a ton of opportunities,

574
00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 1: got to play overseas for a lot of years. So,

575
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:58,320
Speaker 1: um yeah, no regrets. I was just I'll just say this.

576
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 1: I apologized to and I've done this fran I did

577
00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:05,360
Speaker 1: to coach McCloud before he passed because and this is

578
00:29:05,480 --> 00:29:07,720
Speaker 1: it is the arrogant me, right because David Lalazarian came in.

579
00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:09,880
Speaker 1: He's my high school teammates, all my best friends. He

580
00:29:09,960 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 1: comes in the next year. If I don't get in trouble.

581
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:16,520
Speaker 1: I don't leave. David stays, you know, And there's no

582
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:19,840
Speaker 1: disrespect to Jimmy Dillon who replaced me, or Martin Nigglesby,

583
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:23,040
Speaker 1: who ended up ultimately coming in and being the point guard. Um,

584
00:29:23,600 --> 00:29:25,160
Speaker 1: but I think we make dns trem. I think we

585
00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:28,280
Speaker 1: accomplish all of our goals. And I didn't want to leave.

586
00:29:28,920 --> 00:29:31,240
Speaker 1: Didn't our first Our first year didn't go well and

587
00:29:31,280 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this is this place for me anyway?

588
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:35,320
Speaker 1: But I was going to come back and stick it out.

589
00:29:35,640 --> 00:29:37,760
Speaker 1: And I think ultimately, you know that second third year

590
00:29:37,800 --> 00:29:40,360
Speaker 1: it always ends up being better. But I apologize to

591
00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:43,120
Speaker 1: because I screwed it up for everybody. Um, no worries.

592
00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:45,440
Speaker 1: Ship happens. Man. You know you know I support you

593
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:48,720
Speaker 1: and and and have some talks for people don't support you.

594
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:51,440
Speaker 1: I think it's ridiculous. It's I mean, it's people are

595
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:53,840
Speaker 1: people are stupid. But you know, you know you're nineteen

596
00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:55,440
Speaker 1: year oh kids from comfort. I don't even know how

597
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:58,400
Speaker 1: you're coming from having sushi the most people never been

598
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 1: here in sushi at that point and noted him. You

599
00:30:00,320 --> 00:30:03,600
Speaker 1: know you're coming from warm weather too, maybe the shittiest

600
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:06,040
Speaker 1: weather in America. You know it's it's uh and and

601
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:09,880
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's difficult and difficult. I don't there's certain

602
00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:11,520
Speaker 1: things I dug about it. I mean there's something and

603
00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:15,680
Speaker 1: like I I truly believed year two, year three, year four,

604
00:30:15,800 --> 00:30:17,840
Speaker 1: like I would have just loved it. They're just culturally,

605
00:30:17,880 --> 00:30:19,800
Speaker 1: like I've never been a private school, I know anything

606
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:23,480
Speaker 1: about the religion. You know, school is really really hard,

607
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:25,840
Speaker 1: Like I you know, every you think you're smart because

608
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:28,520
Speaker 1: you get another dame and they're like, oh my god, everybody,

609
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:33,160
Speaker 1: here's a genius. It really was, and the expectations. I

610
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:35,880
Speaker 1: remember being at the Big East Tournament and having to

611
00:30:36,120 --> 00:30:39,480
Speaker 1: overnight mail my final, my final from New York because

612
00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:42,040
Speaker 1: they were there were zero exceptions on the academic front,

613
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:45,520
Speaker 1: you know, which which like now like I actually respect

614
00:30:45,560 --> 00:30:47,480
Speaker 1: and like about the school, like even the fact that

615
00:30:47,560 --> 00:30:51,840
Speaker 1: they they could have like I begged and pleaded to

616
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:53,880
Speaker 1: a couple of the kids who I stole from and

617
00:30:53,960 --> 00:30:56,320
Speaker 1: they could have, you know, let it go, but they

618
00:30:56,360 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 1: were just like, no, that's just not who we are,

619
00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:02,000
Speaker 1: which I like again twenty years later, I we totally respect,

620
00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:04,320
Speaker 1: but at the time I was like, man, that's that's

621
00:31:04,360 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 1: not's not right, right, that's not fair, And you know,

622
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 1: I do think that for the most part. I know

623
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:13,640
Speaker 1: that there are some parts there's some hypocrisy to Catholicism

624
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:16,959
Speaker 1: and values in Christianity and etcetera. But as far as

625
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:20,760
Speaker 1: that's concerned, I actually really admire that about the school. Yeah, yeah,

626
00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:23,400
Speaker 1: And you know, those experiences make you who we are today, right,

627
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:27,800
Speaker 1: And you've you've the flying incident, this incident, it's made

628
00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:29,920
Speaker 1: you who you are and you've overcome and you've probably

629
00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:32,080
Speaker 1: become more successful than you would have been if that

630
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:35,520
Speaker 1: had happened, you know, probably. So you get done playing

631
00:31:35,920 --> 00:31:39,040
Speaker 1: and what happens then you end up playing at Notre Dame.

632
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:41,520
Speaker 1: At Notre Dame, you've done playing at Notre Dame, coach,

633
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 1: coach calls me like remedia for the season, tells me

634
00:31:44,280 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 1: he's gonna, you know, being replaced. Matt Doherty comes in.

635
00:31:48,440 --> 00:31:50,800
Speaker 1: Um so, so I'm also lost with that because I'm

636
00:31:50,840 --> 00:31:53,040
Speaker 1: not sure, like what's going on with this team, Like

637
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 1: the team's in a bit of limbo. There's no trainings.

638
00:31:55,640 --> 00:31:59,720
Speaker 1: You know, I'm kind of practicing for Portsmith, um you know,

639
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:02,280
Speaker 1: aiming of still playing carry on and you know, go

640
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 1: to port Smith. Didn't go amazingly. Well we didn't have

641
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:09,640
Speaker 1: a really good team. Um. Uh. And you know I

642
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 1: was thinking, okay, well what what um, you know, what's next?

643
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 1: And uh and you know, I think I got invited

644
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:19,880
Speaker 1: to the I got invited to the free agent camp

645
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:23,680
Speaker 1: for the Pacers that summer. Um walk in, you know,

646
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:25,880
Speaker 1: talking about a small kid from wellesbro walk in and

647
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 1: and most most people have their assistant coaches Larry Bird's

648
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:34,120
Speaker 1: coaching it, Rick Carlile's um. You know, you have people

649
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:36,720
Speaker 1: fighting for contracts like Austin Crochier. That's you know, a

650
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 1: third year veterans still playing the freak agent camp comes

651
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:43,840
Speaker 1: in unbelievably in shape, just killing people. You had Al Harrington,

652
00:32:44,120 --> 00:32:47,640
Speaker 1: you had um Jeff Foster who played many years for them.

653
00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:51,000
Speaker 1: You basically had the whole roster except for the starting five.

654
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 1: So I mean it was an amazing experience. There was

655
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:55,600
Speaker 1: no room for me. Not not that I would have

656
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:57,520
Speaker 1: made it anyway if I was different, but um, great

657
00:32:57,600 --> 00:33:00,360
Speaker 1: learning experience. And also realized, like my god, all right,

658
00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:02,360
Speaker 1: here's here's what the next levels like. So you know,

659
00:33:02,440 --> 00:33:05,560
Speaker 1: when when it worked out, ended up signing in this.

660
00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 1: I went over to France for a month pre internet days,

661
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:12,360
Speaker 1: you know, calling mom was you know, ten dollars in

662
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:15,600
Speaker 1: a pay phone a minute. Um. And I was there

663
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:17,520
Speaker 1: for about six weeks and they gave me a hundred

664
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:20,080
Speaker 1: bucks is for my meals. And I was like, all right,

665
00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:21,760
Speaker 1: this isn't working. Get me out of here. They're like, oh,

666
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 1: we's a town called Beauvais, a little bit north of

667
00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:29,480
Speaker 1: it was a prob prob so they were good. Um,

668
00:33:29,960 --> 00:33:32,040
Speaker 1: and I just called my agent. I'm like, I gotta

669
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:34,400
Speaker 1: get out of here. A guy named David Marabella, who

670
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:37,000
Speaker 1: was a great agent. Um. Now he's running. He's running

671
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:40,240
Speaker 1: don Bosco kind of prep prep stuff in northwestern Indiana

672
00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:44,160
Speaker 1: now and uh and we we go there. I come back,

673
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, well that didn't work. And that

674
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:48,360
Speaker 1: was a terrible experience. It actually cost me money to

675
00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:49,960
Speaker 1: be there, you know, and when you have no money

676
00:33:50,040 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 1: to begin with out of college. So I'm like this,

677
00:33:52,160 --> 00:33:54,600
Speaker 1: somehow the economics of basketball it's not working. And then

678
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:56,720
Speaker 1: I get uh, so it's late in the year and

679
00:33:56,960 --> 00:33:58,960
Speaker 1: think about going overseas again, and then I get a

680
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:01,960
Speaker 1: call to come try out for this a new league

681
00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:04,040
Speaker 1: called the IBL, which was kind of taking the mantle

682
00:34:04,080 --> 00:34:06,200
Speaker 1: of the C b A and when played for a

683
00:34:06,280 --> 00:34:09,400
Speaker 1: team called the Cincinnati Stuff coached by Jovi Wright and um,

684
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:13,239
Speaker 1: uh you know we had who had Scott Spinelli was

685
00:34:13,320 --> 00:34:17,360
Speaker 1: this is a coach Greg Horrenda, A bunch of guys.

686
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:20,040
Speaker 1: Uh and you know, and we put a team together

687
00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:21,680
Speaker 1: there and we had a great team. We had you know,

688
00:34:22,080 --> 00:34:25,600
Speaker 1: I think your boy Tremaine folks. We had you know,

689
00:34:25,680 --> 00:34:29,440
Speaker 1: Lenny Brown from Xavier. We had Melvin Levitt and Damon

690
00:34:29,480 --> 00:34:33,719
Speaker 1: Flint from Cincinnati, Wayne Turner from Kentucky. Uh, Sumila Samaki

691
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:37,279
Speaker 1: do you remember that guy played for while Chris Kingsbury

692
00:34:37,400 --> 00:34:39,799
Speaker 1: and Iowa legend from Cincinnati. We had a good team.

693
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:42,680
Speaker 1: And but you know, I hated it. It was everyone

694
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:45,800
Speaker 1: was trying to get a ten day contract. You know.

695
00:34:45,920 --> 00:34:47,719
Speaker 1: It was we we won. We I think we're forty

696
00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:49,800
Speaker 1: one in twent years something with the best record in

697
00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:51,759
Speaker 1: the league. But it just wasn't fun. It wasn't what

698
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:54,719
Speaker 1: I thought basketball would be. Um. So I made it

699
00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:57,960
Speaker 1: through that year, decided what's next and then uh and

700
00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:00,720
Speaker 1: then got a call to to go play in Finland

701
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:03,400
Speaker 1: on seven days notice, Like, hey, peck of bags, you

702
00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:05,520
Speaker 1: got this thing, you got to leave now? And uh

703
00:35:06,120 --> 00:35:07,880
Speaker 1: and when did that and then ended up playing in

704
00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:10,040
Speaker 1: Europe and really love love the experience and love the

705
00:35:10,040 --> 00:35:12,120
Speaker 1: back the basketball is more my style in Europe, to

706
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:14,960
Speaker 1: be honest. No, well I think, well, you look, your

707
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:18,200
Speaker 1: experience in the minor leagues is anybody's anybody who I believe,

708
00:35:18,280 --> 00:35:21,080
Speaker 1: like I don't know it loves how you're supposed to

709
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:22,840
Speaker 1: play basketball is the same as mine, right Like you

710
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:24,759
Speaker 1: just and I tell people this all the time, like, well,

711
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:25,840
Speaker 1: you know, if you don't make the league, you go

712
00:35:25,920 --> 00:35:27,799
Speaker 1: to the G league, Like you do understand the minor

713
00:35:27,840 --> 00:35:31,200
Speaker 1: league basketball is the worst, like literally the worst. Forget

714
00:35:31,200 --> 00:35:33,680
Speaker 1: about the money and the and the place you play.

715
00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:36,319
Speaker 1: It's just like it's a it's when you come from

716
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:38,799
Speaker 1: college where all you're doing is playing for each other

717
00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:42,160
Speaker 1: and for your school, and now the only thing you're

718
00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:45,520
Speaker 1: playing for is for to get somewhere else. It goes

719
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:49,080
Speaker 1: counter to everything you know and everything you should play for,

720
00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:52,520
Speaker 1: right Like that's kind of so that's the thing. Like

721
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 1: I just I remember being I was in the A B. A.

722
00:35:55,760 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 1: I was in that IBL with the Salina Rattlers, ye

723
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:01,840
Speaker 1: where I went to Russia. That was the like the

724
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:05,160
Speaker 1: following year from you, Um, but I remember being the

725
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:07,480
Speaker 1: A B A and we had this unbelievable team in

726
00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:10,319
Speaker 1: Jamal Thomas, and we had always we're playing against all

727
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:13,120
Speaker 1: these Derrek Martin and said Seballos and all these guys

728
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:14,480
Speaker 1: that just all they want to do is get back

729
00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:16,880
Speaker 1: to the NBA. And it was like they were simply

730
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:19,799
Speaker 1: playing so that the box score would look good. If

731
00:36:19,840 --> 00:36:22,360
Speaker 1: you sent clips of them, you know, shooting and scoring,

732
00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:25,239
Speaker 1: it would look good. Nothing really mattered. The final score

733
00:36:25,280 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 1: did not matter where to me, like the score was

734
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:35,600
Speaker 1: all that matter, does it? Yeah? Okay, so so Finland.

735
00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:38,880
Speaker 1: You land in Finland? What what's what city do you

736
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:42,160
Speaker 1: live at Land? I lived in Helsinki, so actually where

737
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:44,360
Speaker 1: the airport is, so there's a greater area. How Sinky

738
00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:46,560
Speaker 1: Vonta ESPO and I was playing in the team in

739
00:36:46,640 --> 00:36:51,799
Speaker 1: Vonta near the airport. Um, interesting, country is already winter

740
00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:55,239
Speaker 1: when I arrived in August, pretty much days where I mean,

741
00:36:55,480 --> 00:36:59,000
Speaker 1: if we thought South Bend was bad weather, how Sinky says,

742
00:36:59,040 --> 00:37:02,719
Speaker 1: hold hold my beer, you know, uh, you know, very

743
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:05,640
Speaker 1: quiet people. Um didn't know much about it. Knew a

744
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:07,719
Speaker 1: little bit about Sweden. We had exchanged from Sweden, so

745
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:10,120
Speaker 1: a little bit about the Nordics. You know, I remember

746
00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:12,880
Speaker 1: going to the first day of workouts and um, Hanna

747
00:37:12,960 --> 00:37:15,719
Speaker 1: Metal was was working out with the team. Um, you know,

748
00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:18,799
Speaker 1: obviously he had a great, great utah And I don't

749
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:20,480
Speaker 1: know if he was playing with the Hawks set year,

750
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:22,920
Speaker 1: if he was playing in one the bigger European countries,

751
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:25,040
Speaker 1: but his best friend was on our team, and so

752
00:37:25,239 --> 00:37:27,560
Speaker 1: there was that familiarity and you know, talking to them

753
00:37:27,680 --> 00:37:30,600
Speaker 1: and kind of learning it. But it was it was

754
00:37:30,680 --> 00:37:33,520
Speaker 1: massively different, and I learned a lot that first month

755
00:37:33,600 --> 00:37:37,120
Speaker 1: on just how to play, how to you know, first

756
00:37:37,160 --> 00:37:41,200
Speaker 1: time I've ever seen the eurostep, just contemplating that, and

757
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:42,719
Speaker 1: then I like, how do I do that? Is? How

758
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:44,319
Speaker 1: to travel? Is it not to travel? How do they

759
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:48,880
Speaker 1: get away with it? Um? You know, just just just

760
00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:51,000
Speaker 1: you know a lot of pliometrics the first time, you know,

761
00:37:51,040 --> 00:37:53,480
Speaker 1: if you remember, coach McLeod never would allow us to

762
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:55,800
Speaker 1: do squads or cleans or any of those things. And

763
00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:57,560
Speaker 1: the first time I've done those in my life. And

764
00:37:57,680 --> 00:37:59,520
Speaker 1: and it actually helped quite a bit, you know, I

765
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:01,919
Speaker 1: think we we learned to do that right. But but yeah,

766
00:38:02,040 --> 00:38:05,920
Speaker 1: crazy language, crazy time basketball was kind of like a

767
00:38:06,640 --> 00:38:10,239
Speaker 1: low D one, you know, kind of high D two level.

768
00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:13,759
Speaker 1: But um, but with men um you know and create

769
00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:16,040
Speaker 1: you know, no flying all all bus rides in the

770
00:38:16,040 --> 00:38:17,719
Speaker 1: middle of nowhere. But yeah, it was it was. It

771
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:21,240
Speaker 1: was absolutely crazy. And you know, if if we're homestick

772
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:23,200
Speaker 1: going to college, the first week there was, you know,

773
00:38:24,200 --> 00:38:26,560
Speaker 1: incredibly homesick. But it got over it learned a lot

774
00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:28,319
Speaker 1: and and kind of went on to play other places

775
00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:31,920
Speaker 1: in Europe after that, Um, did you develop Angry Birds?

776
00:38:33,120 --> 00:38:36,400
Speaker 1: I didn't myself, So so that is a finished company.

777
00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:40,960
Speaker 1: Um yeah, a billion quick on the on the rest

778
00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:43,520
Speaker 1: of Europe. So after you'll enjoy this one. After there,

779
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:45,560
Speaker 1: I went to London. We were the worst team ever

780
00:38:45,640 --> 00:38:48,239
Speaker 1: in the history of the EuroLeague. Oh and six team

781
00:38:48,840 --> 00:38:52,040
Speaker 1: which team? Uh, the London Towers. So we're in a group.

782
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 1: We're in a group with Barcelona. We were in a

783
00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:59,440
Speaker 1: group with Kinder Bologna that had Marco Yarich, Nobly Rochard

784
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:03,240
Speaker 1: Griffin if uh, David Anderson, but I mean the teams

785
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:05,719
Speaker 1: were stacked. But uh, but that was a big boon

786
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:07,440
Speaker 1: by the guy who ran that. I think he just

787
00:39:07,520 --> 00:39:10,360
Speaker 1: took the sponsor money and barely paid anything for us.

788
00:39:10,400 --> 00:39:12,359
Speaker 1: So so that was that was interesting. Then I went

789
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:16,640
Speaker 1: to Slovenia, loved that great basketball. Former Yugoslavia basketball fit

790
00:39:16,719 --> 00:39:19,200
Speaker 1: me really well, and then kind of kind of got

791
00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:21,120
Speaker 1: hurt my knee and went back to Finland and that's

792
00:39:21,120 --> 00:39:24,480
Speaker 1: where I did. Uh. I was on scholarship again. They

793
00:39:24,520 --> 00:39:27,000
Speaker 1: offered me a contract to do my NBA for two

794
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 1: years and play for that team and did that kind

795
00:39:29,560 --> 00:39:32,160
Speaker 1: a job at Nokia. You know, mobile phones. You get

796
00:39:32,160 --> 00:39:34,440
Speaker 1: a job in Nokia. What years of this is two

797
00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:38,360
Speaker 1: thousand five six maybe? Okay, so this is after like

798
00:39:38,560 --> 00:39:41,480
Speaker 1: my first cell phone was two thousand. It was in Nokia.

799
00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:46,280
Speaker 1: Everybody had those Nokia little phones. Company was the company

800
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:48,919
Speaker 1: was hot as can be. What was your first job there? Yeah,

801
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:53,040
Speaker 1: my first job was a h Mark inbox marketing manager,

802
00:39:53,120 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 1: so just making sure that people that opened the box

803
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:58,320
Speaker 1: had a good experience from the CD ROMs to the

804
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:01,080
Speaker 1: the pamphlets, what the box looked like, all that kind

805
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:04,560
Speaker 1: of stuff. And then kind of moved into events, launched

806
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:08,880
Speaker 1: the first the first one megapixel mobile phone, and kind

807
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:12,160
Speaker 1: of went to the first smartphones, um and then worked

808
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:14,160
Speaker 1: on a little bit of Engage, which was the first

809
00:40:14,239 --> 00:40:18,400
Speaker 1: gaming system on mobile phones. Pretty awesome, Yeah, it was,

810
00:40:18,520 --> 00:40:20,520
Speaker 1: I mean it was way ahead of its time. Wait,

811
00:40:20,640 --> 00:40:24,120
Speaker 1: wait ahead of it, ah, I have I have so

812
00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:29,520
Speaker 1: many questions. White black, white, BlackBerry die. BlackBerry died because

813
00:40:29,560 --> 00:40:31,560
Speaker 1: it just didn't advance, right, I mean, it was just

814
00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:34,600
Speaker 1: an email solution on on a device, and every everyone

815
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:37,840
Speaker 1: else figured out how to make that same email solution,

816
00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:40,440
Speaker 1: especially touch screens got bigger and you had enough room

817
00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:44,280
Speaker 1: for your fingers. So, um, I heard they still exist,

818
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:46,440
Speaker 1: they're bought by the Chinese and they still run some

819
00:40:46,600 --> 00:40:50,279
Speaker 1: kind of things in India. Okay, so then what do

820
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:52,640
Speaker 1: you do now? So yeah, so what I do now?

821
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:55,600
Speaker 1: I basically after that, there was a little company, Rovio

822
00:40:55,680 --> 00:40:57,839
Speaker 1: and Angry Birds, right, you know, three Doors Town from

823
00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:00,520
Speaker 1: US played the game, got super addictive, down a flight

824
00:41:00,600 --> 00:41:03,839
Speaker 1: to London like this is incredible. Reached out to them,

825
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:06,400
Speaker 1: did some work with them at Nokia and they were

826
00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:08,920
Speaker 1: pretty small at that point, and they said, uh, hey,

827
00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:10,640
Speaker 1: when when we grow a little bit and we have

828
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:13,120
Speaker 1: enough money for some marketing, we'll we'll we'll look at

829
00:41:13,160 --> 00:41:15,960
Speaker 1: you when you know, met the team and worked there

830
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:19,359
Speaker 1: for for four years, kind of headed up Angry Bird

831
00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:21,800
Speaker 1: Space and Angry Bird Star Wars, you know, working with

832
00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:24,800
Speaker 1: Lucas Film and spending some time out there and working

833
00:41:24,880 --> 00:41:27,480
Speaker 1: with NASA, hanging out at the you know, I mean

834
00:41:27,600 --> 00:41:30,680
Speaker 1: NASA was totally crazy, the you know, admit head administrator.

835
00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:33,360
Speaker 1: NASA wanted, you know, education science to be cool and

836
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:37,080
Speaker 1: fun and make a comeback. And yeah, they're just absolutely

837
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:40,319
Speaker 1: amazing experiences. And have you ever had that moment where

838
00:41:40,320 --> 00:41:43,799
Speaker 1: you're like, Okay, I went to Notre Dame from Wellsboro, Pennsylvania,

839
00:41:44,239 --> 00:41:47,080
Speaker 1: and I was overwhelmed. Then now I'm at NASA and

840
00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:51,280
Speaker 1: Lucas Films. Yeah, yeah, and yet setting from jet setting

841
00:41:51,320 --> 00:41:54,040
Speaker 1: from Finland to London to l A to Houston to

842
00:41:54,239 --> 00:41:56,759
Speaker 1: to wherever. Have you ever had that moment? Definitely had

843
00:41:56,800 --> 00:41:59,400
Speaker 1: that moment multiple times. You know, sometimes you gotta pinch yourself.

844
00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:01,080
Speaker 1: And there was a lot fun and we're doing really

845
00:42:01,160 --> 00:42:04,080
Speaker 1: interesting things and and learn everything from Rovio. And then

846
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:06,640
Speaker 1: two of my colleagues started a company called Seriously Digital

847
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:09,000
Speaker 1: Entertainment and we have a game called Best Fiends, and

848
00:42:10,239 --> 00:42:13,080
Speaker 1: we basically thought we could, you know, learn what we

849
00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:15,399
Speaker 1: did from you know, because Angry Birds wasn't just a game,

850
00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:17,279
Speaker 1: it was a brand, it was a lifestyle and it

851
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:20,080
Speaker 1: was the first movie movie. Yeah, and it came from

852
00:42:20,320 --> 00:42:22,759
Speaker 1: your pocket right, and so we thought we could, you know,

853
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:26,200
Speaker 1: we could build Hollywood's And that didn't come deliberately. They

854
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 1: just made some good decisions along the way. But we

855
00:42:28,080 --> 00:42:30,239
Speaker 1: thought there was an opportunity to build that out of

856
00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:33,440
Speaker 1: from scratch and think about how to build an IP

857
00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:35,920
Speaker 1: on the phone that could become a movie, could become shorts,

858
00:42:35,920 --> 00:42:39,160
Speaker 1: could become products, could become a game. And Best Fiends

859
00:42:39,239 --> 00:42:40,800
Speaker 1: did that and we've built it up. It's kind of

860
00:42:40,880 --> 00:42:43,239
Speaker 1: a it's currently now a kind of iPhone classic game.

861
00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:46,640
Speaker 1: It's a puzzle game, you know, Candy Crush meets Pokemon maybe,

862
00:42:46,719 --> 00:42:50,560
Speaker 1: and and we were purchased by Israeli company last year

863
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:54,520
Speaker 1: UM called Playtika and it's been wonderful. They've been great.

864
00:42:54,600 --> 00:42:58,600
Speaker 1: So okay, it's a long way, a long way from

865
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 1: Wales ropa to say, the lead best food in Finland

866
00:43:02,640 --> 00:43:05,719
Speaker 1: is what best food in Finland is called salmon soup,

867
00:43:06,400 --> 00:43:10,120
Speaker 1: and so everything there is hardy um. Number two would

868
00:43:10,160 --> 00:43:13,279
Speaker 1: be reindeer and leaning berries over over mashed potatoes. But

869
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:18,000
Speaker 1: salmon wait wait wait, really reindeer like true reindeer, true reindeer, Rudolph.

870
00:43:18,160 --> 00:43:21,640
Speaker 1: They always joke about it, so they cook Rudolf many ways.

871
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:25,040
Speaker 1: There's a blue cheese and reindeer pizza that you can have,

872
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 1: but but the traditional way is kind of slow cooked over,

873
00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:31,520
Speaker 1: you know, in a gravy in a in a saute

874
00:43:31,719 --> 00:43:34,960
Speaker 1: for for for twenty four hours and then set over

875
00:43:35,080 --> 00:43:40,120
Speaker 1: mashed potatoes. What's the next big game? The next big game?

876
00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:43,440
Speaker 1: That's a good question. I mean everything is moving to

877
00:43:44,480 --> 00:43:47,759
Speaker 1: pevers p and being able to talk and communicate and

878
00:43:47,880 --> 00:43:51,120
Speaker 1: have a social group through that. So it's hard to tell. I.

879
00:43:51,200 --> 00:43:53,080
Speaker 1: I it's hard to tell the next new game because

880
00:43:53,120 --> 00:43:56,160
Speaker 1: everyone's being that the winners are becoming bigger and the

881
00:43:56,200 --> 00:43:59,800
Speaker 1: losers are becoming you know, bigger losers to be on

882
00:43:59,880 --> 00:44:01,440
Speaker 1: a U And it's kind of like what's going on

883
00:44:01,520 --> 00:44:03,759
Speaker 1: in tech right now. So so I don't know. I

884
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:06,239
Speaker 1: think people aren't investing so much in new games as

885
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:09,560
Speaker 1: they are kind of adding content and experiences to current games.

886
00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:13,480
Speaker 1: Pretty amazing, um, pretty cool though, right, like all the

887
00:44:13,560 --> 00:44:15,919
Speaker 1: things you've done, all the places you've been, and here

888
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:17,800
Speaker 1: you are getting a chance to do all this stuff

889
00:44:17,840 --> 00:44:22,080
Speaker 1: with games like right, like pretty amazing life. Oh, it's

890
00:44:22,080 --> 00:44:24,960
Speaker 1: funny when your your parents told you stop playing video again,

891
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:27,480
Speaker 1: stop playing that Nintendo you you'll never be able to

892
00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:29,279
Speaker 1: do that. When you're older. You gotta study and then

893
00:44:29,400 --> 00:44:31,920
Speaker 1: here I am. That's what I do all day. I

894
00:44:31,960 --> 00:44:34,880
Speaker 1: can't complainty amazing, pretty amazing stuff. Let's get together and

895
00:44:34,960 --> 00:44:38,400
Speaker 1: break bread outside of this. I appreciate your time, love,

896
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:40,879
Speaker 1: I love your journey, and we gotta do that soon. Yeah,

897
00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:43,640
Speaker 1: I would love that. All right, thanks? Great, great catching up?

898
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:49,000
Speaker 1: Thank you? Phil? All right speak soon? Well, it was

899
00:44:49,080 --> 00:44:51,880
Speaker 1: it was great, right, I mean, he's just an interesting

900
00:44:52,080 --> 00:44:55,600
Speaker 1: and fascinating guy. Who Now, anytime you download a video game,

901
00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:57,840
Speaker 1: if we thinking, I wonder if Phil Hicky is marketing

902
00:44:57,920 --> 00:45:02,279
Speaker 1: this thing, right, I will, I will? Um just one

903
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:04,840
Speaker 1: thought on college basketball, which I find to be interesting.

904
00:45:04,880 --> 00:45:06,359
Speaker 1: By the way, you can catch the Doug Gotlip Show

905
00:45:06,440 --> 00:45:09,560
Speaker 1: daily three to six Eastern, twelve to three Pacific on

906
00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:11,960
Speaker 1: your I Heart radio app or on your Fox Sports

907
00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:18,000
Speaker 1: radio station. Um. The Orlando pod is out right, the

908
00:45:18,160 --> 00:45:21,879
Speaker 1: Orlando Bubble is out. There's there's a lot of different things. One,

909
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:24,960
Speaker 1: there's the concerns about COVID. There's the testing and the

910
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:28,200
Speaker 1: protocols and different states and schools coming from different states

911
00:45:28,239 --> 00:45:30,400
Speaker 1: and different sorts of travel, and there's all kinds of

912
00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:36,560
Speaker 1: restrictions There's also it's really expensive. Bubbles are really expensive.

913
00:45:36,719 --> 00:45:40,239
Speaker 1: And though these tournaments are willing to cover a good

914
00:45:40,239 --> 00:45:43,240
Speaker 1: amount of the costs, and ESPN and Fox and CBS

915
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:46,000
Speaker 1: Sports trying to cover some of the costs, the fact

916
00:45:46,120 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 1: is that there is no revenue right now for college

917
00:45:49,719 --> 00:45:53,919
Speaker 1: sports college basketball, you're simply, you know, handing out money

918
00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:57,560
Speaker 1: to have players on campus, to have all of these

919
00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:01,520
Speaker 1: protocols in place without then on conference games. Remember those

920
00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:04,320
Speaker 1: are were the small programs make the money, and the

921
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:07,560
Speaker 1: big programs fill up their gym and also make additional

922
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:13,120
Speaker 1: revenues for the radio rights, for parking, for season tickets, etcetera, etcetera.

923
00:46:13,239 --> 00:46:16,239
Speaker 1: Like those are those are big money makers anytime they

924
00:46:16,320 --> 00:46:19,680
Speaker 1: open the gates. And without those, boy, I wonder what

925
00:46:19,760 --> 00:46:22,520
Speaker 1: happens to low major basketball. I wonder what happens to

926
00:46:22,600 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 1: mid major basketball. And I wonder what happens to high

927
00:46:24,719 --> 00:46:27,799
Speaker 1: major basketball. And as much as we think we're less

928
00:46:27,800 --> 00:46:30,719
Speaker 1: than a month away from the season tipping off, like

929
00:46:31,239 --> 00:46:33,600
Speaker 1: Cal can't practice for two weeks, how are they going

930
00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:35,600
Speaker 1: to play in four weeks? How's that going to happen?

931
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:39,920
Speaker 1: Other programs are without any question, going to have to

932
00:46:40,320 --> 00:46:41,799
Speaker 1: going to have to take a break. I mean, if

933
00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:45,200
Speaker 1: football programs are missing football games and having to shut

934
00:46:45,239 --> 00:46:48,080
Speaker 1: down football practices when you got fifteen kids in a

935
00:46:48,120 --> 00:46:50,040
Speaker 1: basketball program, somebody's gonna get sick and they're gonna have

936
00:46:50,080 --> 00:46:54,520
Speaker 1: to shut things. My guess is and look, this is

937
00:46:54,560 --> 00:46:56,399
Speaker 1: why it was smart for college basketball. Say we'll start

938
00:46:56,440 --> 00:46:59,759
Speaker 1: during Thanksgiving break because almost all these schools, everybody goes

939
00:46:59,800 --> 00:47:02,000
Speaker 1: home if they're not already home for Thanksgiving break, and

940
00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:05,000
Speaker 1: they don't come back until whenever we start school if

941
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:07,560
Speaker 1: the school starts in person in January, so you're already

942
00:47:07,680 --> 00:47:10,879
Speaker 1: in some sort of bubble. Now remember in basketball, you're

943
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:13,120
Speaker 1: in a bubble anyway. Everybody goes home for Christmas break,

944
00:47:13,200 --> 00:47:17,120
Speaker 1: you stay. It doesn't matter. Now it's Thanksgiving break. So

945
00:47:17,440 --> 00:47:21,200
Speaker 1: I don't know when college basketball starts, but my guests

946
00:47:21,239 --> 00:47:24,200
Speaker 1: would be closer to December than it is Thanksgiving. I

947
00:47:24,239 --> 00:47:27,120
Speaker 1: can only tell you that that seems to be the chatter.

948
00:47:27,320 --> 00:47:32,520
Speaker 1: Everybody is uh is cautiously optimistic. There is an amount

949
00:47:32,520 --> 00:47:35,480
Speaker 1: of pessimism. We'll see what happens after the election, if

950
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:38,040
Speaker 1: anything changes in terms of the course of action of

951
00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:41,680
Speaker 1: the of the state and local governments. But it's really

952
00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:45,240
Speaker 1: curious that we're operating on this assumption that that games

953
00:47:45,280 --> 00:47:48,400
Speaker 1: are going to be played in one month, when, for example,

954
00:47:48,640 --> 00:47:52,440
Speaker 1: Cal that's a major college conference program, won't be able

955
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:55,480
Speaker 1: to practice for two weeks. In addition to which, what

956
00:47:55,560 --> 00:47:59,040
Speaker 1: will basketball look like more practicing. So I do think

957
00:47:59,120 --> 00:48:01,919
Speaker 1: that there will be good offense and and you will

958
00:48:01,960 --> 00:48:04,320
Speaker 1: have a really good sense of what a coach is

959
00:48:04,320 --> 00:48:07,000
Speaker 1: trying to accomplish. But without the games, like when you

960
00:48:07,080 --> 00:48:09,320
Speaker 1: go from practice to game, anybody who's played, you know,

961
00:48:09,400 --> 00:48:11,840
Speaker 1: there's just a different level of intensity, the likelihood of

962
00:48:11,880 --> 00:48:14,000
Speaker 1: soft tissue injuries. Now we may not we wan't have

963
00:48:14,080 --> 00:48:16,360
Speaker 1: the contact injuries of football, but you look at the list,

964
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:19,040
Speaker 1: the litany of injuries in the National Football League and

965
00:48:19,760 --> 00:48:23,399
Speaker 1: you start to go, man, I don't know. I don't

966
00:48:23,440 --> 00:48:26,920
Speaker 1: know for a college athlete, how many guys break down it.

967
00:48:27,600 --> 00:48:31,040
Speaker 1: It is a it's a fascinating world to me. Last thing, Um,

968
00:48:31,239 --> 00:48:34,440
Speaker 1: I had Nate Bjorkan on my radio show. You can

969
00:48:34,480 --> 00:48:37,560
Speaker 1: download that podcast type in dugoutlic show Nate Yorkin. You

970
00:48:37,600 --> 00:48:42,920
Speaker 1: can hear like amazing tale. And I think, remember the

971
00:48:43,040 --> 00:48:45,520
Speaker 1: NFL two years ago, you had these copycats. Anybody who

972
00:48:45,600 --> 00:48:48,480
Speaker 1: knew Sean McVeigh got a job. And now you start

973
00:48:48,560 --> 00:48:51,239
Speaker 1: to see where it's Frank Vogel and Erik Spoelster, both

974
00:48:51,280 --> 00:48:53,720
Speaker 1: guys who kind of came up through the ranks. Spulster

975
00:48:53,880 --> 00:48:57,200
Speaker 1: video guy. Vogel video guy climbed through the ranks obviously

976
00:48:57,280 --> 00:49:00,200
Speaker 1: Vogel this is his third stop, successful in the Anna,

977
00:49:00,320 --> 00:49:02,560
Speaker 1: not so much in Orlando, wins the championship in his

978
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:06,279
Speaker 1: first year with the l A Lakers. Um Spoelstra has

979
00:49:06,320 --> 00:49:09,640
Speaker 1: been to several NBA finals, obviously one championships in two

980
00:49:09,719 --> 00:49:12,719
Speaker 1: of them with Broun, and now has been to I

981
00:49:12,760 --> 00:49:16,360
Speaker 1: think what five NBA finals altogether. Both are really well respected.

982
00:49:16,719 --> 00:49:19,840
Speaker 1: And then you look whether it's Um you know, Silas

983
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:23,200
Speaker 1: gets the Rockets job and Nate Jorker in get the job.

984
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:26,279
Speaker 1: You say, Okay, the grinders are getting opportunities. I think

985
00:49:26,360 --> 00:49:28,960
Speaker 1: the difference is, and this is a good thing. The

986
00:49:29,120 --> 00:49:33,479
Speaker 1: difference is that so oftentimes playoff teams, when they hire

987
00:49:33,560 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 1: a coach, would hire a guy with experience, much like

988
00:49:37,520 --> 00:49:40,440
Speaker 1: the Philadelphia seventy years they hired Doc Rivers. Much like

989
00:49:40,560 --> 00:49:43,359
Speaker 1: the l A Lakers they hired Tyler. It doesn't mean

990
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:46,200
Speaker 1: those are bad hires, but those are more the traditional

991
00:49:46,320 --> 00:49:48,160
Speaker 1: hires for a playoff team. You can't play in the

992
00:49:48,160 --> 00:49:50,480
Speaker 1: playoffs unless you've won the playoffs as a coach, right,

993
00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:52,440
Speaker 1: how can you win a championship if you haven't won

994
00:49:52,480 --> 00:49:54,480
Speaker 1: the championship or competer for a championship as a coach.

995
00:49:55,440 --> 00:49:57,960
Speaker 1: I think the big change in the NBA is that

996
00:49:58,120 --> 00:50:02,040
Speaker 1: you're given qualit all the opportunities. Paciers are a good team,

997
00:50:02,760 --> 00:50:05,839
Speaker 1: good team, they're not great, and Victor Oladipo didn't look

998
00:50:06,120 --> 00:50:09,279
Speaker 1: healthier right in Orlando, but they're a playoff team. You're

999
00:50:09,280 --> 00:50:11,359
Speaker 1: given Napi York and his first team as a playoff team.

1000
00:50:11,719 --> 00:50:15,160
Speaker 1: That's a hell of an opportunity. You're giving silas a

1001
00:50:15,280 --> 00:50:19,800
Speaker 1: playoff team in UM in Houston, that's a hell of

1002
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:23,400
Speaker 1: an opportunity. Now are there challenges that go with it? Absolutely?

1003
00:50:24,120 --> 00:50:26,800
Speaker 1: The Houston Rockets are wired for a style of basketball.

1004
00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:29,640
Speaker 1: I don't know if you can rewire, and I don't

1005
00:50:29,680 --> 00:50:32,480
Speaker 1: think you can get out of Russell Westbrooks contract, and

1006
00:50:32,920 --> 00:50:34,640
Speaker 1: I don't know if you can get James Harden to

1007
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:38,239
Speaker 1: compete defensively and you got your working on a new

1008
00:50:38,320 --> 00:50:41,920
Speaker 1: GM and a new style. It's very, very difficult. But

1009
00:50:42,040 --> 00:50:44,319
Speaker 1: I do at least like the fact that young head

1010
00:50:44,320 --> 00:50:46,480
Speaker 1: coaches are not just getting the dregs of the league

1011
00:50:47,120 --> 00:50:49,880
Speaker 1: where it becomes confirmation bias. And college coach used to

1012
00:50:49,920 --> 00:50:52,000
Speaker 1: have this all the time. College coaches could only get

1013
00:50:52,040 --> 00:50:54,239
Speaker 1: the bad jobs, and so they get to an NBA

1014
00:50:54,520 --> 00:50:58,000
Speaker 1: job and they, you know, do decently and all of

1015
00:50:58,000 --> 00:50:59,319
Speaker 1: a sudden you'd run them out of time, like, well

1016
00:50:59,360 --> 00:51:01,680
Speaker 1: they didn't win much what Okay, nobody wins with those

1017
00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:05,040
Speaker 1: bottom jobs. That's why they're available to begin with. And

1018
00:51:05,120 --> 00:51:07,759
Speaker 1: then we turned to the Okay, the developmental coach with

1019
00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:12,160
Speaker 1: the developmental team. Now we've we've we've gotten these kind

1020
00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:16,400
Speaker 1: of developmental coaches that have risen through the ranks that

1021
00:51:16,480 --> 00:51:20,480
Speaker 1: are unifiers, you know, the higher quality staffs. They work

1022
00:51:20,560 --> 00:51:23,759
Speaker 1: with the front office, they work together, they use analytics,

1023
00:51:24,120 --> 00:51:27,040
Speaker 1: and those are the guys now getting opportunities to coach

1024
00:51:27,080 --> 00:51:28,320
Speaker 1: with the big boys. And I think it's gonna be

1025
00:51:28,400 --> 00:51:32,120
Speaker 1: fascinating to see exactly how they do. All right, uh my,

1026
00:51:32,200 --> 00:51:34,160
Speaker 1: thanks to Phil Hicky for joining me. My thanks to

1027
00:51:34,200 --> 00:51:39,279
Speaker 1: you for downloading, subscribing, and rating and listening to All

1028
00:51:39,360 --> 00:51:39,560
Speaker 1: Ball