Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome in.
Speaker 2: I'm Doug Gottlieb, and you are listening to All Ball,
Speaker 2: and I find our next guest or our next couple
Speaker 2: of pods to be perfect for, among other things, this
Speaker 2: time of year, you know, one of the things that
Speaker 2: you're hearing or you're actually seeing as I'm watching highlights
Speaker 2: from the NBL, which of course you're going down to
Speaker 2: Australia and parts of New Zealand, or some of these
Speaker 2: young basketball players instead of playing college basketball or overtime
Speaker 2: Elite or the G League ignite, they're they're taking their
Speaker 2: talents down there and using that as a prep to
Speaker 2: the NBA. I find it fascinating to see so many
Speaker 2: avoiding the college experience. Now, there's a lot that goes
Speaker 2: into the college experience. There's a lot that goes into
Speaker 2: or why I think college athletics, college basketball in particular
Speaker 2: is still in incredibly valuable for so many, even the
Speaker 2: most talented athletes. And the argument that well, they're not
Speaker 2: getting paid, that argument has been made moot. But why
Speaker 2: not bring on a guest who's experienced the life of
Speaker 2: late bloomer athletically, a late bloomer in basketball who went
Speaker 2: through the college process who played some in the NBA
Speaker 2: but really made it a name for himself playing overseas,
Speaker 2: and what that is entirely like, what that lifestyle is like,
Speaker 2: and what the lifestyle is like of making it to
Speaker 2: the NBA in the juxtaposition of the two. Pat Burke
Speaker 2: is going to be my guest the next couple podcasts.
Speaker 2: Pat's the first ever Irish born player to play in
Speaker 2: the NBA. Of course, he grew up mostly in the States,
Speaker 2: and you'll get to hear his story. There's a lot
Speaker 2: in this right It's the story of a kid late
Speaker 2: to basketball, the story of a kid who was finally
Speaker 2: coached the right way for his personality, for his mentality,
Speaker 2: for his development. The story of a guy who didn't
Speaker 2: believe him in himself many times over and then when
Speaker 2: he did, maybe got a little bit too full of himself.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of meat on this boat. Here's part
Speaker 2: one with former European basketball star and of course played
Speaker 2: with the Orlando Magic and the Phoenix Suns. The graduate
Speaker 2: of the University of Auburn at Burke. Pat, Let's let's start, okay,
Speaker 2: So you know when you when anybody like Google searches you,
Speaker 2: that doesn't remember he's to play, like, oh, well he's Irish,
Speaker 2: but you actually, you know, born in Ireland, but played
Speaker 2: played high school basketball in the States, and of course
Speaker 2: went to school at Auburn. Give me the give me
Speaker 2: the true picture of born raised, what your early childhood
Speaker 2: life was like.
Speaker 3: So my family left Ireland when I was four. We
Speaker 3: moved to Cleveland, Ohio, and like I'd say, like any
Speaker 3: typical Irish culture or any any immigrant family that comes in,
Speaker 3: I think we were a little shy to go into
Speaker 3: sports right away. And I think my I said, my
Speaker 3: initial organized sports experience was I was sitting in our
Speaker 3: kitchen in Cleveland and my aunt, my dad's sister, actually
Speaker 3: brought my cousin David into the kitchen with him, and
Speaker 3: then she just started talking about and signed them up
Speaker 3: for ice hockey. And I can just remember like the
Speaker 3: room went completely quiet, Like my dad like looked up
Speaker 3: from probably his little cup of tea, like what are
Speaker 3: you talking about? Like how are we going to get
Speaker 3: involved in ice hockey? And so then the next focus
Speaker 3: was my aunt Patricia asked me, She said, pat would
Speaker 3: you like to play? And I looked up at my
Speaker 3: parents and they said, you know, you can if you want.
Speaker 3: And I went and started playing ice hockey for and
Speaker 3: they started playing for about eight years.
Speaker 2: Amazing. What you know, it's your family, you know, and
Speaker 2: you immigrating over here. It's almost like a throwback to
Speaker 2: the stories of like my grandparents and great grandparents. In
Speaker 2: terms of your experience. What is that experience like of
Speaker 2: being an immigrant family in Cleveland, Ohio? Shoot me the
Speaker 2: picture of your childhood, because I'm my mind is going
Speaker 2: in different places. I wonder what it's like.
Speaker 3: So I let you say. The menu was completely Irish.
Speaker 3: A lot of Irish stew a lot of shepherds by
Speaker 3: we stayed, I'd say, unto ourselves, a lot of Irish family.
Speaker 3: So family, get toghere.
Speaker 2: It was where in Cleveland side I grew.
Speaker 3: I grew up in really three towns from Bay Village,
Speaker 3: Rocky River, and Avon Lake, so west side of Cleveland.
Speaker 3: My dad got into you know, construction, landscaping. He opened
Speaker 3: up a you know a number of different businesses at
Speaker 3: that time. I remember anything that was going on in school,
Speaker 3: bake sales. My mom was bringing it, not chocolate chip
Speaker 3: cookies like all the other American kids. We had scones.
Speaker 3: A lot of kids going you know, what the hell
Speaker 3: are those? Yeah, just very Irish, you know. As a
Speaker 3: kid just going back and forth to Ireland. Vacations were
Speaker 3: not you know, going out west, not going to Hawaii,
Speaker 3: not going to California, not going to Florida. We were
Speaker 3: going back to Ireland pretty much every vacation. We had
Speaker 3: to go visit family. When relatives came over, we all
Speaker 3: got in the car, you know, met them at the
Speaker 3: gate as soon as they got out. It was just
Speaker 3: all the aunts and uncles and my parents. I remember
Speaker 3: looking at my grandparents their uncles coming over and just
Speaker 3: worrying if they brought over Irish sausages and making and
Speaker 3: all that good stuff on their carry on. So yeah,
Speaker 3: so a lot of it was you know, we joined
Speaker 3: Irish heritage clubs, so a lot of the culture was
Speaker 3: not just reinforced through getting together, but through music and
Speaker 3: just celebrating you know, Irish heritage. Even sports, if people
Speaker 3: don't know, a lot of Irish sports is really onto
Speaker 3: itself as well. All the most popular sports are in
Speaker 3: the Gaelic Athletic Association. There's the Irish football, which is
Speaker 3: much different than American football, and then hurling and so
Speaker 3: whenever they have the all Ireland like the it would
Speaker 3: be like the epitome of the Super Bowl for the
Speaker 3: United States. I remember at that time, VHS tapes would
Speaker 3: show up, and they were different versions of VHS. So
Speaker 3: I remember, like we go down into my uncle's basement
Speaker 3: like a television was turned upside down with some sort
Speaker 3: of connection to see a scrambled black and white video
Speaker 3: of someone's scoring a goal from my dad's county or something,
Speaker 3: and everyone's screaming. So yeah, so it was. It was
Speaker 3: probably a lot a lot more different than most of
Speaker 3: my friends in our neighborhood and what we experienced.
Speaker 2: It's interesting the hockey element because when you became widely
Speaker 2: considered the best center in Europe, right, you know, later
Speaker 2: on in life, a lot of it was about your
Speaker 2: moved exception. Well, and it's interesting because a lot of
Speaker 2: the I don't want to get into this kind of
Speaker 2: a little bit further, a lot of the reason European
Speaker 2: bigs have kind of taken over. I think there's a
Speaker 2: lot of different reasons, but one is, as you know,
Speaker 2: play soccer for practice, right in terms of agility, how
Speaker 2: much do you think the hockey helped you in terms
Speaker 2: of your basketball and your movement for man your size.
Speaker 3: I'd say, well, a lot of the So let's just
Speaker 3: say there's the tactical and the technical. So the technical
Speaker 3: side of things I played as a kid, so I
Speaker 3: probably didn't study tapes or anything on any greats like
Speaker 3: Wayne Gretzkiray thing. So the tactical side of things would
Speaker 3: have been, you know, understanding, you know where to be
Speaker 3: on defense, uh, you know, again, supporting the team, knowing
Speaker 3: how to play even I mean the terminology wasn't help side,
Speaker 3: but understanding, you know, kind of the the different spart
Speaker 3: the different parts of strategy inside of the game would
Speaker 3: have been. But again is on the on the physical side,
Speaker 3: you know, yes I had size, but I remember the
Speaker 3: transition into basketball, different muscle groups. You know, there was
Speaker 3: no vertical jump there. It was just you know, flat,
Speaker 3: just not being able to barely touch the rim at
Speaker 3: the time and realizing that. You know, I did bring
Speaker 3: a competitive nature and it was very physical, but again,
Speaker 3: five fouls right away in a game is not gonna
Speaker 3: contribute to someone staying on the floor and actually developing
Speaker 3: into a standout player right away.
Speaker 2: So when did you make the transition to basketball? How
Speaker 2: old were you.
Speaker 3: So I was around fourteen. I had a huge growth
Speaker 3: spurt in one summer. I remember I moved from when
Speaker 3: we were just sharing earlier. I moved from Rocky River
Speaker 3: Davon Lake. And during that summer, I remember, you know,
Speaker 3: I was I was just a hockey fanatic. I played spring, summer,
Speaker 3: winter fall leagues all the time. And during that growth spurt,
Speaker 3: I remember my mom just we went into you know,
Speaker 3: at the time, in those communities, you'd have equipment swaps,
Speaker 3: and so you'd find someone in the neighborhood who had
Speaker 3: their garage and they would, you know, you bring your skates,
Speaker 3: your helmet, your you know whatever you were not fitting anymore,
Speaker 3: and you'd put your stuff on the table and you'd
Speaker 3: exchange it for the next size up. And all my
Speaker 3: stuff was at the end of the table, and so
Speaker 3: there was no more exchange. And so then I remember
Speaker 3: my mom was like, well, we got to figure out
Speaker 3: something else. And initially then for that summer I found
Speaker 3: out I grew seven inches. So I went from eighth
Speaker 3: grade leaving at five ten and then moving into this
Speaker 3: new town and you know, understanding the sports, of course,
Speaker 3: it creates an opportunity for you to meet friends. My
Speaker 3: mom wanted me to join other sports even though hockey
Speaker 3: was not going to be on the future plans. So
Speaker 3: I decided I wasn't going to play, and I stayed
Speaker 3: the whole summer inside my basement just playing video games
Speaker 3: with my brothers, and I grew at seven inch. I
Speaker 3: went from you know, from five ten to six five
Speaker 3: in one summer, and then she signed me up for
Speaker 3: a mayor and football.
Speaker 2: So what video games? That's not just the most important.
Speaker 3: Yeah thing, right, like just block graphics. It was like
Speaker 3: Nintendo at the time, so everything.
Speaker 2: Natarium. I'm trying to think, because when Nintendo came out, right,
Speaker 2: it was Super Mario Brothers, Zelda. But then you also
Speaker 2: had like Double Dribble, Techno Bowl, RBI Baseball. But again
Speaker 2: you know your immigrant family, you're playing hockey course, uh
Speaker 2: with Blades of Steel was the first big hockey game,
Speaker 2: which was amazing. It was a great game.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, so a lot of a lot of those
Speaker 3: type games, you know, like at Christmas you'd get you know,
Speaker 3: it just fitted with hockey gear, hockey theme stuff. So like, yeah,
Speaker 3: the video games, you know, again with Super Mario Brothers.
Speaker 3: Just basically I was a kid. I didn't have an
Speaker 3: extreme focus on one thing, so I probably played you know, Metroid,
Speaker 3: all types of yeah, yeah, all those games. Yeah. My
Speaker 3: brothers and I would just battle it out.
Speaker 2: So now you're gonna playotball and you're this gangly there's
Speaker 2: no one grows seven inches and it's completely coordinated right away,
Speaker 2: that's right. How did football go your freshman year?
Speaker 3: It did not go well? So I showed up two
Speaker 3: weeks late for the conditioning, you know, new kid. So
Speaker 3: I remember I went into the high school office signed
Speaker 3: up for the sport, and then they gave me the
Speaker 3: equipment the day one. So I'm putting on all this
Speaker 3: gear I've never put on before. I'm walking across the
Speaker 3: parking lot over to this shady oak tree where all
Speaker 3: the guys are, you know, they're the rest period between
Speaker 3: the two days. And this guy comes up and he's like, whoa,
Speaker 3: you know, how tall are you? Like you're huge? And
Speaker 3: I remember, now in eighth grade I had left I
Speaker 3: was five ten, so I'm mentally still thought I was
Speaker 3: five to ten. So as I come up to them,
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm five ten and these guys are like, dude,
Speaker 3: there's something wrong with this guy. You know, what the hell,
Speaker 3: what's he talking about. So this guy comes out, He's like,
Speaker 3: can't be five ten, I'm six two, and I'm looking
Speaker 3: up at you, and I'm like, I don't feel any different,
Speaker 3: you know. So it was just it was, you know,
Speaker 3: really being closed minded about the fact that, you know,
Speaker 3: I was still the same kid. And so then I
Speaker 3: remember after that practice, I went home checked my height,
Speaker 3: you know, just to found a little spot in the
Speaker 3: in the kitchen, and measures found out that I grew
Speaker 3: seven inches. Went up to my mom, she was in
Speaker 3: the kitchen, probably making scones or tea or something, and
Speaker 3: I said, Mom, I'm six five and she turned she
Speaker 3: was just like, oh Jesus, look at you, you know.
Speaker 3: And so then she was all on my aunts and
Speaker 3: uncles and relatives in Ireland and just saying like, he's
Speaker 3: six ' five. And so at that point I finished
Speaker 3: the football season. I started the first year of you know,
Speaker 3: my first days of school. I remember walking in and
Speaker 3: the world had an influence on me. Then it's just like, hey,
Speaker 3: you know what, you should play basketball. Everybody kept telling me,
Speaker 3: but I didn't go out. That freshman year had a
Speaker 3: lot of you know, lack of confidence, like you said,
Speaker 3: like your your motor skills are off, You're just not
Speaker 3: feeling yourself. And then the next year I was six seven,
Speaker 3: so then starting at starting that again. That next year,
Speaker 3: I was like, this is impossible that you know, I'm
Speaker 3: six seven. So then but where let's say my freshman year,
Speaker 3: you know, let's say ten people during the day kept
Speaker 3: telling me you should play basketball. By the time I
Speaker 3: was six seven. The sophomore year, it was like twenty
Speaker 3: people were telling me. So then I had the I guess,
Speaker 3: the courage with everyone telling me I should go out.
Speaker 3: I went and tried it out.
Speaker 2: Now, how did you play basketball before?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: Not? What is that? What is that experience? Like that
Speaker 2: learning curve?
Speaker 3: Like I'll tell you this. I'll tell you this, Doug.
Speaker 3: Every time I walk into the gym and I walk in,
Speaker 3: I talked to kids, all right, I just I'm just
Speaker 3: about to walk into a camp, I get the same feeling.
Speaker 3: I look out at the floor, and that first day
Speaker 3: ever looking out, I remember I was watching, you know,
Speaker 3: kids that have been practicing all their lives. So you'm
Speaker 3: watching all this between you know, the legs, dribbling behind
Speaker 3: the back, shooting threes with good form, and I still
Speaker 3: see it today, and I remember being the kid in
Speaker 3: the doorway going what am I doing? Like I don't
Speaker 3: know how to do any of this stuff? And so
Speaker 3: I went out there. I just you know, I was
Speaker 3: shooting two handed. There was no development of anything. You know,
Speaker 3: I understood, of course, put the ball in the metal cylinder,
Speaker 3: but everything was outside of that. I was just so
Speaker 3: far beyond any understanding of how to play the game
Speaker 3: with the skill.
Speaker 2: So how did you how did you pick it up?
Speaker 2: Like what was what was the process by which you
Speaker 2: went to go from there to being a Division one
Speaker 2: stoship athlete.
Speaker 3: So my first I always tell people I had two coaches,
Speaker 3: and I think the Good Lord put them in a
Speaker 3: certain order for me. My first coach that sophomore year
Speaker 3: JV basketball, he you know I made the team. It
Speaker 3: was like every day he told me, you know who
Speaker 3: I wasn't who I was never going to be, just autocratic,
Speaker 3: just you know, righteously telling me, you know you did
Speaker 3: this wrong, you're doing this. And before before long I
Speaker 3: was didn't even know, but behind my back, I just
Speaker 3: the joke of the team. And even on the first
Speaker 3: before the very first game, he went around he was
Speaker 3: telling everybody their roles. He's like, you know, hey, you know, Fred,
Speaker 3: You're you're a point guard. You're going to control the
Speaker 3: tempo of the game. You're gonna be our communicator. You're
Speaker 3: gonna echo everything that I need to say to the guys.
Speaker 3: And they go down the line. You're you know, you're
Speaker 3: a three point shooter. You're gonna be the sniper of
Speaker 3: the team. And he's still on the power forward and
Speaker 3: I was sitting there nervously at the end of this conversation.
Speaker 3: I'm like, what's he going to say to me? And
Speaker 3: by the time he got to me, my hands are
Speaker 3: sitting there sweating, and he just stops and he's pouring
Speaker 3: at me and he says, uh, Pat, I never want
Speaker 3: to see you dribble the ball. And at that point,
Speaker 3: you know, I always tell kids that, like, you know,
Speaker 3: the biggest fear kids have is not fitting in. And
Speaker 3: I remember at that point I wasn't looking good, feeling good,
Speaker 3: or feeling safe, and I was done. I was like,
Speaker 3: I'm done with basketball. And the saving grace that I
Speaker 3: didn't have to quit is I got I got home
Speaker 3: shortly after that couple of weeks, and I remember my
Speaker 3: dad was coming in from a cold Cleveland winner and
Speaker 3: we're at the kid We're at the enter table. I'm
Speaker 3: the youngest of six, so myself, my next older brother, Nile,
Speaker 3: We're sitting at our kitchen table. My dad said to
Speaker 3: my mom, Nile myself, he said, would you guys consider
Speaker 3: moving to Florida? And I was like, I will pack
Speaker 3: my bags right now, like I'm so done. I just
Speaker 3: don't want to be in this situation anymore. And so
Speaker 3: we moved shortly after that. Halfway through that JV basketball season,
Speaker 3: moved down to Cape portl Florida. I walked into school
Speaker 3: thinking basketball was so far removed, never had to go
Speaker 3: through that embarrassment again. As soon as I walked in
Speaker 3: the door at six seven, I think the first kid
Speaker 3: that saw me was like, whoa, I'll tell you and
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm six seven. And he just ran down
Speaker 3: the hall and he was like, we're gonna win the
Speaker 3: state championship and I was like, no, don't know. And
Speaker 3: it just spread, It spread like wildfire, like every class
Speaker 3: people thought I was being humble. They're like, you know,
Speaker 3: how you know, can you dunk? And I was like no,
Speaker 3: I can't. And they're like he's lying, he's lying, he's amazing,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, no, guys, I I don't even play,
Speaker 3: and nobody would take my word for it. And so
Speaker 3: then at the end of the day, I'm walking down
Speaker 3: the hall like ready to go home, like this is
Speaker 3: the worst situation I could have ever imagined with the reset,
Speaker 3: and this gentleman taps my shoulder and I turn and
Speaker 3: he says, hey, are you the new guy? And I said, yes, sir,
Speaker 3: i am. And he said, hey, you want to go
Speaker 3: down to the gym and shoot some hoops? And I
Speaker 3: mean his voice came out of me like I'm not
Speaker 3: a basketball player, and he said, well, I didn't say
Speaker 3: you were. I just wanted to get to know you.
Speaker 3: You want to go shoot some hoops with me, I'm
Speaker 3: coach Marty Waters and I'm like, okay, I know this routine.
Speaker 3: I'll go down there, I'll start shooting. You'll realize out
Speaker 3: of the gym and he's like, hey, Pat, you ever
Speaker 3: shut over here on the elbow and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I've shot there. So he's like, let's take some shots.
Speaker 3: So I start shooting brick airball, brick and he's rebounding.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's just running around getting these rebounds. And
Speaker 3: he comes up to me and he's like, hey, you
Speaker 3: have a nice soft touch. And I'm like, is there
Speaker 3: something wrong with this guy? Like what are you talking about?
Speaker 3: I just bricked every shot. And so he told me
Speaker 3: that the varsity coach from that school he was unlike
Speaker 3: high school, had contacted him that I was coming down,
Speaker 3: that I was a project player, and he told him
Speaker 3: that I had played eight years of ice hockey. So
Speaker 3: I was pleasantly surprised that, you know, someone had actually
Speaker 3: taken that initiative to call. And so Coach Water said
Speaker 3: to me, he said, hey, what if I can set
Speaker 3: this up where everyone understand that you know you've played
Speaker 3: ice hockey and that you're out here to do your best,
Speaker 3: and I promise you that there won't be any expectations.
Speaker 3: And I was like, okay, I'm going to go for it.
Speaker 3: So he brings in the team, you know, the next
Speaker 3: day or I come to one of the practices and
Speaker 3: he's like, hey, guys, this is Pat you just moved
Speaker 3: down here. He's six ' seven, he played eight years
Speaker 3: of ice hockey, and I guarantee if we were on
Speaker 3: ice right now, he probably slammed you all onto a wall.
Speaker 3: You'd never be able to stand up. He would skate
Speaker 3: circles around you, he said, but he's transitioning over to basketball,
Speaker 3: and I think if we help him, he'll help us.
Speaker 3: And it was like one of the coolest moments because
Speaker 3: I was like, Wow, I wish I had that every
Speaker 3: time I walked into something new. And so then as
Speaker 3: that season started going, you know, I didn't play that
Speaker 3: much that scene that transitioned into that sophomore second half.
Speaker 3: But then by the spring and summer, and I was
Speaker 3: around my house and I just remember the phone rang
Speaker 3: and my mom would come to me and like, Pas, Pat,
Speaker 3: there's someone named Michael on the phone. I'm like, Mom,
Speaker 3: I don't know Michael, and she'd be like, well, someone's
Speaker 3: on the phone, So I go pick it up. He's like, Pat, Hey,
Speaker 3: it's Mike. You know. Coach told me to come pick
Speaker 3: you up. We're gonna go play over here at Fort
Speaker 3: Myers Beach. I'm like okay, So they picked me up.
Speaker 3: As soon as I get home, somebody else would call
Speaker 3: me and they'd be like, hey, you know, hey, this
Speaker 3: is John. Coach told me to pick you up, about
Speaker 3: to go shooting the driveway, and slowly I started to
Speaker 3: you know, get an understanding. I was going kinesthetically through
Speaker 3: the motions. But then Coach Water kept asking me these
Speaker 3: thought provoking questions. And even my dad, you know, I
Speaker 3: didn't have this sense of like asking these type of
Speaker 3: questions in this leadership space. So he kept asking me, like,
Speaker 3: what would you like to do in life? And I'm like,
Speaker 3: you know, my my my life is pretty destined to
Speaker 3: you know, be a landscape like my dad. I don't
Speaker 3: think I'm going to be playing basketball. And he said, well,
Speaker 3: I think you know that you're still growing, and I
Speaker 3: think that maybe there's an opportunity, you know, even even
Speaker 3: a small college could come look at you. And I
Speaker 3: was like, this guy, whatever sods about my senior year.
Speaker 3: I'm you know, I'm six ' eleven and he's you know,
Speaker 3: has changed everything in me. I have the confidence where
Speaker 3: I'm out in the driveway and I'm practicing all the time.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm at night, I'm taking my mom's lamps
Speaker 3: out in the driveway and I'm turning them on. Neighbors
Speaker 3: are walking by, They're seeing me working on post moves,
Speaker 3: and they're probably thinking they're going this guy what's what's
Speaker 3: he thinking? He's not going anywhere? And then you know,
Speaker 3: college has started to come in and talk to me.
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Speaker 2: How good was your team your senior year.
Speaker 3: I think we had a lot of potential, uh, the chemistry.
Speaker 3: You know, this was marin or high school back in
Speaker 3: you know that that would have been the ninety one
Speaker 3: ninety two year, so a lot of a lot of
Speaker 3: kids were moving in, uh at that time, so it
Speaker 3: wouldn't be unfamiliar to see like new kids moving in
Speaker 3: every week. So I think that we had put together,
Speaker 3: you know, a fairly good looking team on a poster,
Speaker 3: and I think it was like six eleven, like six
Speaker 3: eight sixty six sixty six. You know, there's just a
Speaker 3: lot of real good height. But we never really got
Speaker 3: to that level. I think that we were I think
Speaker 3: we were you know, too young at the time to realize,
Speaker 3: you know, what we what we could have been doing.
Speaker 3: But coach Waters did a great job, of course, of
Speaker 3: you know, setting up a great schedule for us. We
Speaker 3: went out and we played in a bunch of tournaments.
Speaker 3: But I think it was all based on the fact
Speaker 3: that you know, I hadn't I hadn't developed, or I
Speaker 3: hadn't reached my full potential, you know. So a lot
Speaker 3: of times I would have these like freakish stats where
Speaker 3: you know, you'd have like eleven blocks one game, and
Speaker 3: then one game you'd have like five rebounds, and you'd
Speaker 3: have like, you know, eighteen rebounds. So the consistency wasn't there.
Speaker 3: You know, at that time, I probably wasn't setting any
Speaker 3: goals as far as like how the team would actually
Speaker 3: become better. I was only working just on how do
Speaker 3: I become better? You know, technically.
Speaker 2: Okay, so then take me through the recruiting proces. By
Speaker 2: the way, is what was your coach's name, Coach Marty Waters.
Speaker 2: Is he still alive? He is, She's still coaching.
Speaker 3: He's not coaching though.
Speaker 2: That's pretty amazing though. The understanding, the emotional intelligence it
Speaker 2: takes to understand what a kid has, what a kid needs,
Speaker 2: and how to support him, Like that's really remarkable because
Speaker 2: your first coach, you know, in Cleveland, like that's how
Speaker 2: a lot of that generation coach, right is break them down,
Speaker 2: build them back up, and just some kids you can't
Speaker 2: because internally they've already broken themselves back down.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, I totally agree. I think that, you know,
Speaker 3: looking back now my hindsight and seeing it is there's
Speaker 3: this theory that a gentleman came up with, like in
Speaker 3: the sixties, is called transformative learning theory, and it's one
Speaker 3: of the most disruptive ways to actually get people to learn.
Speaker 3: And most of it is done through not addition and
Speaker 3: that old school way that I've recognized that you know,
Speaker 3: a large portion of people are still doing this. They're
Speaker 3: coaching but telling people what to do. You know, you'll
Speaker 3: see a coach on the sideline telling a kid, I
Speaker 3: told you a thousand times, you got a box out,
Speaker 3: and you're going, yeah, you're not even hearing yourself. You're
Speaker 3: saying you told them a thousand times, But you didn't
Speaker 3: realize after two or three that what you're doing isn't
Speaker 3: working as far as an impact. To create transformative learning,
Speaker 3: you know, to actually speak or work with someone to
Speaker 3: actually have them turn into something else. So Marty Waters
Speaker 3: was doing was he was actually having me subtract bad
Speaker 3: habits and so that's really what the you know, transformative
Speaker 3: theory works on a lot of like let's go back
Speaker 3: to when you first thought something, and then let's figure out,
Speaker 3: you know, the most effective way to do it and
Speaker 3: and doing so. Like after I left, I kept going
Speaker 3: it was something about the way Coach Waters would communicate,
Speaker 3: and I kept thinking about it, and then you know, here,
Speaker 3: now I'm almost fifty years old, I actually studied all
Speaker 3: of that ways he was doing. And that's how I
Speaker 3: work with with youth and individuals, whether it's in business
Speaker 3: or in basketball, is actually going through those same you know,
Speaker 3: let's say, methods of actually working with others finding out
Speaker 3: their truth, not the one that I'm seeing from you know,
Speaker 3: from from this person point of view perspective. I'm actually
Speaker 3: you know, figuring out how do we share a grounded reality.
Speaker 2: Okay, your recruitment to Auburn, how that? How'd that go down?
Speaker 3: So, uh, you know, pretty much late in the game,
Speaker 3: moved down to Florida. As you know, now today's world,
Speaker 3: I mean, they'll find a kid when he's twelve, you know,
Speaker 3: like in a remote country of the world. So nobody
Speaker 3: knew that there was this six ' eleven guy in
Speaker 3: Cape Coral. So coach Marty Waters came up. I think
Speaker 3: the one practice I broke a backboard and he came
Speaker 3: on a dunk, not a shot. So he came up
Speaker 3: to me and he said, Hey, I'm gonna send this
Speaker 3: out to I don't even know I can't remember who
Speaker 3: the coach is at the time, and he was like, Hey,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna send this out to this coach. I think
Speaker 3: that you know that they should come look at you.
Speaker 3: And I was like okay. And you know, he was
Speaker 3: taking care of all of the handling of communication. So
Speaker 3: then small colleges started to send letters and so I
Speaker 3: started getting recruited by Winthrop, went also to Stetson, went
Speaker 3: to Ucor, I got UCF with Joe Dean. Tommy Joe
Speaker 3: Eagles was at Auburn at the time and his coach,
Speaker 3: coach Haddocks, was the one that was actually you know,
Speaker 3: showing up on campus to take a look set the
Speaker 3: loyal and marimunt out in California was also communicating with
Speaker 3: me at the time.
Speaker 2: That was back when LMU was was was was run
Speaker 2: up and down and win the games.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so why Auburn? Uh, Tommy Joe Eagles, he when
Speaker 3: he came in his presence was one that I knew.
Speaker 3: I was like, you know what, there's something about him.
Speaker 3: I really trusted everything that he was saying. He could
Speaker 3: see that I was a project. He was probably the
Speaker 3: main reason when I visited the university, I was like,
Speaker 3: this is beautiful. It was probably the most quiet of
Speaker 3: all my visits. Most of them they were all trying
Speaker 3: to like take me out. American University was another one,
Speaker 3: so a lot of them were just taking me out,
Speaker 3: you know, showing me kind of the social scene. When
Speaker 3: I got to Auburn, it was like I went out
Speaker 3: with the guy who was graduating, christ brandt Uh and Chris.
Speaker 3: You know, he basically just showed me around and went
Speaker 3: to a restaurant, We went to a pet shop to
Speaker 3: grab some food for his fish. After after going through
Speaker 3: all of it, I was like, I think this is
Speaker 3: the one, you know. But then there was one more thing,
Speaker 3: Doug that you know, it really nipped me in the ass.
Speaker 3: Was the starting center was Chris going out at the time,
Speaker 3: and the next guy in line, I think it was
Speaker 3: a guy named Aaron Swinson who was six ' four
Speaker 3: and so my belief was, Hey, I'm six to eleven,
Speaker 3: I'm coming in here, I'm going to start what.
Speaker 2: About your parents, Like they hadn't experienced any of this,
Speaker 2: none of it? What was what was there? What was
Speaker 2: their influence like on your decision?
Speaker 3: So going back to we were sharing kind about the
Speaker 3: leadership side of the things, is I think the benefit
Speaker 3: of my dad not knowing anything was there was no
Speaker 3: tampering in any of Coach waters beliefs or his techniques.
Speaker 3: So he basically was like, hey, Coach Waters, here's my son.
Speaker 3: Please do your best to help them with this. And
Speaker 3: so my dad never got involved in you know, like
Speaker 3: trying to shoot the drive with me or putting me
Speaker 3: through ball handling stuff. He just didn't know. You know, again,
Speaker 3: is growing up irish? You know, like there was a
Speaker 3: lot of things that were the you know, initially whenever
Speaker 3: we did something it was the first time doing it.
Speaker 3: So me going through basketball, I think that he knew
Speaker 3: his place was like, Hey, I'm going to support my
Speaker 3: son and I'm not going to sit here and give
Speaker 3: him some sort of advice that you know doesn't translate.
Speaker 2: But again, and I don't want to be presumptuous because
Speaker 2: I don't know your family dynamic. My guess would be
Speaker 2: irish immigrant family that it was a some sort of
Speaker 2: push of hey, if you're going to do it, you're
Speaker 2: going to do it right, right, You're going to do
Speaker 2: like there's a I mean, I think one of the
Speaker 2: things that has changed, and it's it's it's I think
Speaker 2: most of it is actually our generation because we're the
Speaker 2: parents now, right, is the questioning of teachers, the questioning
Speaker 2: of coaches, the questioning of leadership. Yeah, in your upbringing,
Speaker 2: was there any what was what was your you know, like, look,
Speaker 2: my dad wasn't he was grandson of immigrants. But it's
Speaker 2: like people ask like why did you get good grades
Speaker 2: in high school? Well? I didn't have any other choice,
Speaker 2: you know, why did you work hard beasketball? I didn't
Speaker 2: have any other choice? What was what was even though
Speaker 2: he wasn't involved in the day to day what was
Speaker 2: this influence? Like academically and in terms of your work ethic, So.
Speaker 3: Academically it would have been you know, the great reports
Speaker 3: coming home. You know, he'd sit down with you and
Speaker 3: just you know, communicate like you know what's going on here?
Speaker 3: You know, And again it was it wouldn't be more
Speaker 3: of a question. It would be like you can do better,
Speaker 3: and you'd feel you'd feel an understanding of if there
Speaker 3: was disappointment, you know, that would be something that would
Speaker 3: burn inside of you and you'd know, you know, you'd
Speaker 3: made some choices that you know got in the way
Speaker 3: of you know, studying for tests or doing assignments. As
Speaker 3: far as the work ethic in games, I I think,
Speaker 3: you know, just seeing my dad work as hard as
Speaker 3: he could, you know, to make ends meet. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm the youngest of six, so I saw the older
Speaker 3: three going off to college, my mom and dad making
Speaker 3: ends meet that I don't think I ever was coached
Speaker 3: in energy or effort. It just you know, I went
Speaker 3: as hard as like even when I played pro. I
Speaker 3: just I never would have thought once to like drop
Speaker 3: at a level. And I think that comes from again,
Speaker 3: is like when you're when you're growing up, and it's
Speaker 3: just what you see. You never see anybody taking a
Speaker 3: day off. You just you're always going as hard as
Speaker 3: you can. And I think that that's one of the
Speaker 3: things that even when my dad, mom and dad saw
Speaker 3: me in games. I don't remember my mom and dad
Speaker 3: ever after a game going oh you really had good energy,
Speaker 3: you know, it would because it wasn't ever put in there.
Speaker 3: It was just like, you know, you did you did
Speaker 3: well with this, and what did your coach say about this?
Speaker 3: So a lot of a lot of going back to,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of at the abstract of today's world
Speaker 3: with parents, you know, saying and giving their opinion. My
Speaker 3: parents would have been like, well, what did coach Waters
Speaker 3: say about this? Or what does he think about that?
Speaker 3: And as soon as he would I would share what
Speaker 3: it was, it would be like, that's what you're going
Speaker 3: to do, you know. And so I think that my
Speaker 3: parents really partnered with my coach, you know, and anybody
Speaker 3: who was involved as far as you know, just creating
Speaker 3: a larger sense of team and kind of a uniform
Speaker 3: thought process be like okay, let's do that, you know.
Speaker 3: So I think that, you know, after games and stuff,
Speaker 3: my mom and dad would go up to coach Waters
Speaker 3: and shake his hand and just there was a lot
Speaker 3: of understanding that this was not happening because you know,
Speaker 3: a rock hit me in the head and all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, you know, I understood how to do a
Speaker 3: drop step. You know. It was like they knew that
Speaker 3: he was investing a lot of time and now that
Speaker 3: all these coaches and colleges were coming in that he
Speaker 3: was the influence that was making it happen.
Speaker 2: So you go to Auburn, What do you remember about
Speaker 2: showing up on campus?
Speaker 3: So I'm sitting there my mom and dad we drive
Speaker 3: the nine hours up there. I have a trunk that
Speaker 3: has two pair of jeans, a couple of T shirts.
Speaker 3: My dad hands me two hundred dollars and he says,
Speaker 3: make this work, and I'm like, wow, this is a
Speaker 3: lot of money. I fixed my room up all of
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes, and then I remember there's a knock at
Speaker 3: my door and Aaron Swinson, the six ' four second
Speaker 3: coming of Charles Barkley, says, hey, you're the new guy Pat.
Speaker 3: I'm like yeah, yeah. So I meet him. I'm like, hey,
Speaker 3: nice to meet you. He's like, hey, we're gonna go
Speaker 3: play some pickup down at the gym, and I said okay.
Speaker 3: So I'm sitting there and I'm getting nervous because no
Speaker 3: one's seen me play. I've never seen them play. And
Speaker 3: in one pickup game, Aaron Swinson dunks on me about
Speaker 3: fifteen times and I have.
Speaker 2: No I have no You're like, what am I doing here?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I'm like, what am I doing and immediately it
Speaker 3: just starts crushing me. And then we then most of
Speaker 3: the guys show up and they start playing up ball,
Speaker 3: and I can't. I can't hold my own I can't
Speaker 3: even stop any of the guys. You know, I'm about
Speaker 3: I'm six ' eleven and I'm just probably it's a
Speaker 3: little over two hundred pounds, so I'm like, I'm a
Speaker 3: skeleton and they're just taking advantage of me. And then
Speaker 3: before long, I'm not even getting picked up in the games.
Speaker 3: So I remember, you know, I'd sit there and I'd
Speaker 3: try to voice saying I got downs, and they wouldn't
Speaker 3: even listen to me. They would actually play five on
Speaker 3: five and they go, let's just run it back, and
Speaker 3: so that after a while, I just went into the
Speaker 3: locker room and I just started watching television, you know,
Speaker 3: every day in preseason. And then one of the coaches
Speaker 3: came in was like, you know, what are you doing.
Speaker 3: Why aren't you out there playing? And I was like,
Speaker 3: I've been out there for you know, a week and
Speaker 3: a half. They won't let me on the court, and
Speaker 3: so then they just kept telling me like you got
Speaker 3: to go out there, and it just it wasn't happening.
Speaker 2: So my first month at Notre Dame, do you wear
Speaker 2: a Keith tower?
Speaker 3: Yeah, he lives down here in Orlando.
Speaker 2: Okay, So Heith had graduated, but he and Lafonso Ellis,
Speaker 2: a couple other guys came back and Keith was Keith's
Speaker 2: whole thing was like he it was his pickup game.
Speaker 2: So he's like, little guy, you ain't got no credit
Speaker 2: algy you can't get on this court. So a Notre
Speaker 2: Dame and I think it's where their practice facilities now
Speaker 2: is have what's called the pit, and the pit is
Speaker 2: you know the Joyce Center now I figure what it's
Speaker 2: called now, but they have several auxiliary gyms and the
Speaker 2: main auxiliary gym is down kind of below in the
Speaker 2: battels of the arena and it's a nice setup and
Speaker 2: that's where we play pickup ball. And so Keith kind
Speaker 2: of ran the pit even though he'd already kind of graduated.
Speaker 2: And it was the same thing like I couldn't get
Speaker 2: on the court. Now. It wasn't that I was bad,
Speaker 2: it was that I was a freshman and I was,
Speaker 2: I'm sure, kind of cocky and I was told like
Speaker 2: I was, I was brought in to be the starting
Speaker 2: point guard, and at some point, like I couldn't get
Speaker 2: on the court, so I did the opposite of what
Speaker 2: you did. I stood at the free throw line and
Speaker 2: just wouldn't move, And these fucking guys start playing without me,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, dude, I came here to play, so
Speaker 2: I'm going to play. And Keith, you know, Keith would
Speaker 2: just have him keep playing for a while. Finally, like
Speaker 2: Freddy McCaffrey came down, he's like, wells, we gotta get
Speaker 2: Ayboddy in here. You know. It's like and I think
Speaker 2: they probably pulled Keith aside, like, look, dude, I get it.
Speaker 2: You know you're the older guy, You're the NBA player
Speaker 2: at this time, like you gotta let the guys play.
Speaker 2: But I completely know the know, the feeling of not
Speaker 2: feeling like you're fitting in belonging. Yeah, and it's really
Speaker 2: all right. Then it gets worse because then I'm sure
Speaker 2: when you started practice, you're like, holy crap, I've even
Speaker 2: more lost.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So then we start practice. We started doing drills,
Speaker 3: and Tommy Joe Eagles before practices, he'd you know, we'd
Speaker 3: warm up, stretch at half court. We'd have a big
Speaker 3: circle and he'd walk around, he'd visit with everybody, and
Speaker 3: he come up to me and be like, hey, Biggin,
Speaker 3: you're a right biggin. And I'm just like sitting there like,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, I'm good, and he's like you sure, you know,
Speaker 3: cause he's getting all the report. But I couldn't see
Speaker 3: that big macro plan. I was like sitting there just
Speaker 3: in the micro going I don't see it. And every
Speaker 3: time I talk to my mom or dad, I'm like,
Speaker 3: I don't think I'm supposed to be here. My dad
Speaker 3: just like stop, just stop, you know, And I'm like,
Speaker 3: you don't understand, like they're not letting me play. I'm
Speaker 3: in hearing when I'm going into practice, I don't understand,
Speaker 3: like why I can't keep up with everybody, And just
Speaker 3: you know, I never even took a snapshot of these
Speaker 3: guys and said, you know, what was their experience, Like
Speaker 3: what did they do in the year before in the
Speaker 3: weight room? What do they do as far as like
Speaker 3: you know, getting faster lateral quickness. To me, it was
Speaker 3: just like this is never going to actually improve because
Speaker 3: I had never stepped into any other way of being
Speaker 3: more effective. So it was like someone was like coach, coach,
Speaker 3: Eagles was like telling me, hey, look, there's a bunch
Speaker 3: of different approaches that you haven't even taken yet. With
Speaker 3: your nutrition and strength training and all of this. You
Speaker 3: know you're coming in here, you know, like a skeleton.
Speaker 3: But you know, within that first year, I think I
Speaker 3: left there my freshman year with like twenty five pounds
Speaker 3: of muscle.
Speaker 2: How much did you play?
Speaker 3: I didn't a red shirt. I read shirted that first year.
Speaker 3: My roommate, Lance Weims was mister Alabama for basketball, mister
Speaker 3: Alabama for football, mister Alabama for baseball. He was like
Speaker 3: everyone's all American. So he played that year and so
Speaker 3: I just I just you know, I went out, I
Speaker 3: suited up, and I you know, went through the layup
Speaker 3: lines with the guys warming up, and I just saw
Speaker 3: this tough year of just Auburn basketball, Like, let's let's
Speaker 3: see what Auburn basketball is in the SEC and all
Speaker 3: these non conference games, Let's see what the country thinks.
Speaker 3: And that's when I started to really put it together.
Speaker 3: I'm like, wow, this is a football school.
Speaker 2: It was. It was a football school. By the way,
Speaker 2: your roommate who was mister basketball and everything, did he
Speaker 2: play professionally in any of the sports.
Speaker 3: He didn't. You know, he at the end of his
Speaker 3: senior year, so he graduated a year before me. He
Speaker 3: had an offer to play in England, and the year
Speaker 3: before he had gotten married, and he, you know, was
Speaker 3: sitting there going, do I put you know, four or
Speaker 3: five years into this and then lose where I could
Speaker 3: be in the professional setting if I go get a job.
Speaker 3: And so you know, I think he just became very
Speaker 3: conservative there at the end and he said, no, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna I'm just going to start work.
Speaker 2: Do you things come to mind with that one. It's
Speaker 2: that you talk about different guys running their own race,
Speaker 2: right like he was. He was on a completely different
Speaker 2: path coming out of high school, right, and you become
Speaker 2: the top center in Europe. That's that's amazing. But the
Speaker 2: other part too, it is and like this this is
Speaker 2: at lant that I'm glad that he got. He understood
Speaker 2: and I know you understand, is like we have completely
Speaker 2: devalued the relationship you can build with your university to
Speaker 2: use it to get that first and all your jobs.
Speaker 2: And you know it's I do think our generation, a
Speaker 2: good portion of us get it. But for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: you know, college has just become about how much can
Speaker 2: I get how quickly can I get it, and not
Speaker 2: realizing the ramifications of the next fifty years of your life.
Speaker 2: You know. It's like, that's why I went to Notre Dame.
Speaker 2: Was I went to Notre Dame because if it didn't
Speaker 2: work out, domers take care of domers. And what I
Speaker 2: found is Oklahoma State people are unbelievably loyal when you're
Speaker 2: loyal to them. But now we have these guys, these
Speaker 2: transient guys, and they play at three or four schools.
Speaker 2: We're like, hey, when it's over, what are you going
Speaker 2: to call it a job? You know? Anyway, So the
Speaker 2: red shirt year it hit. And there's another part is
Speaker 2: like red shirt ear is like a bad word to
Speaker 2: kids now, Like sometimes you need a year to develop,
Speaker 2: to figure it out, to grow, to understand what you're
Speaker 2: doing every day, to feel comfortable. But you know this
Speaker 2: is twenty five years ago. So the set your sophomore year,
Speaker 2: your second year, your red shirt freshman year. What was
Speaker 2: that season like?
Speaker 3: So just before that, I end that year. I remember
Speaker 3: we go home for spring break. I come back and
Speaker 3: my roommate Lands says, hey, let's go to the gym
Speaker 3: and shoot this is my freshman year. After the season's
Speaker 3: all over, and I said, okay, so I was feeling good.
Speaker 3: I was like, hey, let me see that ball real quick.
Speaker 3: And I get the ball. I take like one dribble
Speaker 3: and I go up and I just slammed the crap
Speaker 3: out of it. And he looks at me and he's like,
Speaker 3: holy shit. And I was like, dude, I feel really good.
Speaker 3: And next thing you know, I'm just wind milling it
Speaker 3: and doing anything. I'm like, what just happened? And I
Speaker 3: hadn't realized that, you know, everything I had been doing
Speaker 3: in the weight room and nutrition wise was paying off.
Speaker 3: I mean the nutrition side of it. It was like you're
Speaker 3: coming out of class and you have a three pm scheduled,
Speaker 3: go eat four peanut butter sandwiches at the weight room.
Speaker 3: So then coming back. I leave that summer and my
Speaker 3: dad was still a subscription member to an Irish newspaper
Speaker 3: called The Echo. And at the back end of the
Speaker 3: Echo he sees this advertisement. It says, all Irish basketball
Speaker 3: players call here or something. So he makes the call
Speaker 3: and I get on to this Irish World University team's
Speaker 3: or the World University Games team. And when I get there,
Speaker 3: It's the funniest thing is I get to reinvent myself.
Speaker 3: Like none of the guys from Auburn are there, so
Speaker 3: when I get there, all the Irish guys are like, oh,
Speaker 3: you're amazing, this is great, and we have a lot
Speaker 3: of Irish Irish Americans as well. And I just started
Speaker 3: playing more dominant with that team. And then when I
Speaker 3: come back then that year that you're sharing the sophomore
Speaker 3: or my freshman year. The second year, I remember going
Speaker 3: through the preseason and everybody, Wesley Person, Aaron Swintson, all
Speaker 3: these guys are coming. You're like, dude, you are not
Speaker 3: even the same person. And it was just that one
Speaker 3: moment to get away to realize like at that time,
Speaker 3: I you know, we played the USA team and practices,
Speaker 3: we played all these other teams and I was getting,
Speaker 3: you know, some attention, and it was like wow. You know,
Speaker 3: sometimes you go under a little hypnosis thinking the environment
Speaker 3: is telling you who you are, but it's like that's bullshit.
Speaker 3: It's like you don't have to listen to what the
Speaker 3: environment says. You can actually create that and be in
Speaker 3: another environment then come back and all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: you know, it's a paradigm shift. So I get I
Speaker 3: get more obviously, I get to play. I'm not starting.
Speaker 3: I'm not like in some position where you know, Tommy
Speaker 3: Joe is using me amazingly, because at that time most
Speaker 3: people don't even know this time of telling me Joe Eagles,
Speaker 3: he had Wesley Person was the leading score of the SEC,
Speaker 3: Aaron Swinson was a second leading scorer, second rebounder, and
Speaker 3: Aubrey Wiley was the leading rebounder. And we probably lost
Speaker 3: in conference games on like an average of like two points.
Speaker 3: So going into the RUP or going to Tennessee, you know,
Speaker 3: playing Jael Mashburn and playing uh, the guys in Tennessee.
Speaker 3: We got to Alan Houston, we got to a point
Speaker 3: where we're going to every game to the end and
Speaker 3: we're just losing by a small margin. And then of
Speaker 3: course at the end of that year, Tommy Joe Eagles
Speaker 3: got fired, and uh, you know, that year was another
Speaker 3: one of those opportunities where you learn so much. All
Speaker 3: the guys that I looked up to were graduating, Aaron,
Speaker 3: Wesley and Aubrey and they had they had taught us
Speaker 3: all like how to work, you know, as hard as
Speaker 3: you can and become you know the leaders in the
Speaker 3: conference in those categories.
Speaker 2: Okay, your coach gets fired right now, everybody leaves. What
Speaker 2: was it like for you? Then?
Speaker 3: Uh So then the athletic the athletic director comes up
Speaker 3: with David. David Howsley is a Hall and he's like, Pat,
Speaker 3: We're we're very interested in hearing your opinion on who
Speaker 3: we should be looking for and this, that and the other,
Speaker 3: and like, we're looking for a Southern gentleman, Like a
Speaker 3: southern gentleman. Why don't we just find somebody who wants
Speaker 3: to win and is effective at winning. But anyways, they
Speaker 3: had their parameters, and so then we get the call
Speaker 3: that coach Cliff Ellis is our coach. She's coming out
Speaker 3: from Clemson. And uh, the year before that, that redshirt year,
Speaker 3: we actually played Cliff uh in the n I T
Speaker 3: in Clemson when they had Searon Wright Chris Whitney. And
Speaker 3: so when we play we played them, you know, you
Speaker 3: got to see kind of the atmosphere he's about. And
Speaker 3: then looking looking back at when they were telling us
Speaker 3: Cliff was coming in, we started to look at all
Speaker 3: of the big centers in the NBA that he had,
Speaker 3: Horace Grant, Uh, you know, Dale Ellis and and all
Speaker 3: these guys, and I started sinking, Wow, this guy's really
Speaker 3: going to develop bigs. And so he came in and
Speaker 3: uh he was. He was all about winning. So immediately
Speaker 3: he was like, we had a team meeting and he
Speaker 3: just said, look, we are Whatever happened in the past
Speaker 3: is the past. This is a new you know, this
Speaker 3: is a new movement forward. It's a new group, It's
Speaker 3: gonna be a new environment. And it was how is
Speaker 3: it different? Uh, the practices I think became more demanding,
Speaker 3: you know, really questioning people about understanding the tactics of
Speaker 3: the of the game. You know, I think that it
Speaker 3: wasn't just going through the motions. And coach Ellis was
Speaker 3: extremely hard on us until we learned everything. You know.
Speaker 3: He put in a faster paced, full course press. We
Speaker 3: went into a one to two on one. I was
Speaker 3: the top of it. So I was starting and you know,
Speaker 3: my whole goal in the beginning of that was just
Speaker 3: to put as much pressure as I could on the ball.
Speaker 3: He gave me, you know, the nod to play and
Speaker 3: I was like extremely excited and want to do my best.
Speaker 3: Forum you know, his coaching staff was great. I think
Speaker 3: that also we changed, We've changed the trainer in the
Speaker 3: strength room. You know, there was just these subtle differences
Speaker 3: that you could tell that this was a bigger I
Speaker 3: want to say it was. It was a bigger consistency
Speaker 3: throughout the whole year, like you know, like what there
Speaker 3: might have been some time off I think in between
Speaker 3: Tommy Joe Eagles off season, but with coach Ellis, there wasn't.
Speaker 2: And it feels like and again, Tim, if I'm wrong,
Speaker 2: but this is another fresh start for you. Right, you
Speaker 2: had the fresh start when you're from Cleveland to Florida.
Speaker 2: You had the fresh start when you at Auburn after
Speaker 2: your first year when you got to go and and
Speaker 2: play at with the Irish national team. Right, and now
Speaker 2: you get another fresh start after kind of establishing yourself
Speaker 2: as a developmental player and you're much further along. What
Speaker 2: was he like to you? What did he tell you?
Speaker 2: What was his expectations of you?
Speaker 3: I don't think you ever gave me expectations. I think
Speaker 3: it was more you know, he would just you know,
Speaker 3: he would come up and he'd not not so much
Speaker 3: congratulate you, but he'd confirm or affirm when you were
Speaker 3: doing good things. You know, keep doing this, keep doing that.
Speaker 3: I don't think till my junior year when we played
Speaker 3: in San Juan. He after one game he was just like,
Speaker 3: you know, guys, we got a stud on our team.
Speaker 3: And I'm looking around the room like who's he talking about?
Speaker 3: You know? And we had just beat Louisville in the
Speaker 3: finals and they had Samocky Walker and Lewis Simms. And
Speaker 3: I remember at that point my junior year, he was like, look,
Speaker 3: there's people that coming. They're going to start looking at you.
Speaker 3: And I was like, what, Like, you know, I'm just
Speaker 3: I'm just playing college ball. Like again, is I think
Speaker 3: one of the things that I lacked, and that was
Speaker 3: any type of goal that was outside of just that
Speaker 3: month or two months, you know. Like you know, I
Speaker 3: see a lot of times I see documentaries and I'm like, man,
Speaker 3: I wish I could go back and start thinking big
Speaker 3: picture more when I was younger.
Speaker 2: Do you know. I mean, like there's the naivete. I
Speaker 2: think it's a healthier thing, right like you, I kind
Speaker 2: of think all they think now is a big picture,
Speaker 2: whereas you don't enjoy the little things, like the little
Speaker 2: growth and the other stuff. If you're worried big pic like,
Speaker 2: were you a regular student, did you go to the
Speaker 2: football games, did you go to parties? Or you know,
Speaker 2: were you because because I will tell you now, if
Speaker 2: you go to a college campus, they're barely students. And
Speaker 2: I'm not saying they don't take classes, but they take
Speaker 2: them online. Right, They're at the facility, they're at training
Speaker 2: table in front of their computer in the student athlete
Speaker 2: like academic area, and very rarely on campus. And to me, like,
Speaker 2: I was actually just at my own model and one
Speaker 2: of the freshmen was like, yeah, we just I just
Speaker 2: moved on my class online, and both me and the
Speaker 2: head coach, Mike Boyden, were like, I think you want
Speaker 2: you should get to campus, you know, like one of
Speaker 2: your days a week, just because there's nothing like winning
Speaker 2: a game, a league game, being Oklahoma and then strutting
Speaker 2: on campus. Right, that's the ship. That's the best part.
Speaker 2: So I understand, like you were like, man, I can't
Speaker 2: believe all this stuff was happening around me. I didn't
Speaker 2: even know. On the other hand, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: think that naivete is super healthy because it allowed you
Speaker 2: to enjoy and absorb all this other stuff that's going on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think when I tell you about my senior year.
Speaker 3: I think that that's absolutely spot on, because you know,
Speaker 3: being Irish, being an immigrant coming over, when you're coming
Speaker 3: from nothing, you have nothing to lose. So I don't
Speaker 3: think there was any fear that I was playing with
Speaker 3: my junior year. I was just putting it all on
Speaker 3: the line, you know, like I was going to parties,
Speaker 3: I was going you know, I was going to class,
Speaker 3: making sure that I took care of my stuff. So
Speaker 3: in a sense, I definitely agree that, you know, my
Speaker 3: junior year probably was the end then of me being
Speaker 3: in the moment and then I all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: I clicked something and a switch went off, and then
Speaker 3: I just kind of I was thinking way too much.
Speaker 2: You were thinking too much your senior year. Yeah, yeah, No,
Speaker 2: it's a it's a really hard one. I think everybody
Speaker 2: kind of goes that. They people wonder why sometimes seniors
Speaker 2: don't perform to the level of expectations, and that's why,
Speaker 2: because they put too much on them on themselves. I
Speaker 2: got to ask, though Irish background, you had to be
Speaker 2: a legendary beer drinker.
Speaker 3: And you know, sometimes people will call me former teammates
Speaker 3: and they'll tell me a story and I'll be like,
Speaker 3: I don't remember that, I'm not co signing that. So
Speaker 3: but there will go a lot, especially with the Irish
Speaker 3: national team. You know, we have a pilgrimage. We'd go
Speaker 3: to the Guinness brewy uh in the summer and h yeah,
Speaker 3: there was a lot of really good, good, good memories,
Speaker 3: good stories, a lot of beer.
Speaker 2: So okay. I have a friend Dave Redison, works for
Speaker 2: the Big ten Network, and he did a semester abroad
Speaker 2: and actually played little basketball there and he said, like,
Speaker 2: so in Ireland it is a fact. It is not
Speaker 2: an arguable fact that the closer to the brewery the
Speaker 2: pub is the better the beer. Is that accurate, and
Speaker 2: then of course you went to the actual brewery. So
Speaker 2: what is what is the reality to the quality of Guinness.
Speaker 3: It's extremely interesting, but I didn't know this until the
Speaker 3: first time I went over. There's they said there's three
Speaker 3: grades of Guinness. So there's an A, B and C
Speaker 3: and most of the time we're drinking beer. C and
Speaker 3: A is only brought out during like Saint Patrick's Day
Speaker 3: or big festive events. So there probably is a some
Speaker 3: sort of radius inside of what you're sharing that you know,
Speaker 3: there's only so many of the really good barrels and
Speaker 3: kegs coming out of there. But as far as like
Speaker 3: having one in Ireland compared to having one in Cleveland,
Speaker 3: Ohio or Mount Or, Florida, it's night and day, you know,
Speaker 3: Like I was just over. I was just over for
Speaker 3: four weeks, got back about four or five days ago,
Speaker 3: and it's just a significant difference. Your senior year, well
Speaker 3: you remember, so I think once I heard that there
Speaker 3: were scouts coming, I was like, you know what, it's
Speaker 3: the junior year, Damien or not Damien. Eric Dampier is
Speaker 3: kind of at the pinnacle of the draft in it
Speaker 3: was at ninety six. So we're at the SEC tournament
Speaker 3: and I remember Mississippi State is taking us out. We
Speaker 3: made to the second game.
Speaker 2: They went to the final four that year too, so
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not like they're a bad team, right right.
Speaker 3: So I'm sitting there and I'm looking at him, and
Speaker 3: I'm getting into my defensive position for a free throw
Speaker 3: in our basket. He's shooting the free throw and I
Speaker 3: remember looking at his forearms and I'm like, Damn, this
Speaker 3: guy's big. I'm like, I gotta get big. So I
Speaker 3: devote all my time going into the weight room, going
Speaker 3: in and balancing the weight room. We're not even balancing
Speaker 3: any understanding of what muscle groups do you to work on?
Speaker 3: You know, like now in today's world, it's like every
Speaker 3: sport has got specific things that they're working on a
Speaker 3: lot of core or you know, upper body Laura. But
Speaker 3: I was just going in there and I'm doing everything
Speaker 3: that an Auburn football strength coach is telling me to do.
Speaker 3: So I go from two hundred and forty five pounds,
Speaker 3: I get up to two hundred and eighty pounds when
Speaker 3: I get to my senior year. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 3: look like an NFL player. I was huge, and I
Speaker 3: go out to start the first game, you know, put
Speaker 3: some good numbers up in the preseason. As two or
Speaker 3: three games go by, I get winded after four minutes
Speaker 3: and coach has to Coach Ellis says to take me out.
Speaker 3: So I remember, Mama do Enji was a freshman coming in,
Speaker 3: so he kept getting the call, and I remember just
Speaker 3: looking at I was on the bench watching him play.
Speaker 3: He was doing really well, and I'm like going, how
Speaker 3: the hell am I getting out of the game, And
Speaker 3: I kept thinking it was something about Coach Allison and like,
Speaker 3: and I was like, what is this? And I had
Speaker 3: actually taken myself out with all the pressure, and so
Speaker 3: all my stats and everything were lower my senior year
Speaker 3: than my junior year. And I just remember that it
Speaker 3: was probably around Christmas or you know, there was a
Speaker 3: break coming. I remember we were at a practice and
Speaker 3: coach Ellis came up to me and he was just
Speaker 3: like very stern, and he's like, damn it, you are
Speaker 3: strong enough. Get the hell out of the weight room.
Speaker 3: I don't want ever want to see you in that
Speaker 3: rate weight room the rest of the year. And I
Speaker 3: still kept thinking to myself, like I got to make
Speaker 3: this happen. And then of course over the season, I
Speaker 3: just kept gotting to the point where I couldn't even
Speaker 3: get in the game because I couldn't even stay you know,
Speaker 3: partio ready. And then of course my when I went
Speaker 3: and played pro my first year out, I got back
Speaker 3: to two fifty, lost all the weight got and I
Speaker 3: got back to myself.
Speaker 2: Get We'll get to that in a second. So your
Speaker 2: your last game, your senior year, where was it.
Speaker 3: Last game? We didn't make it into the NIT or
Speaker 3: anything that year, And I remember I was just being
Speaker 3: so upset at the idea that Auburn was on the
Speaker 3: quarter system at that time, and again as we weren't
Speaker 3: a basketball school and that we lived for March Madness.
Speaker 3: We were more of a football school that when the
Speaker 3: basketball team got into March, we all wanted to have
Speaker 3: our break and go home. And it just it upset
Speaker 3: me that, like, this is my senior year, this is
Speaker 3: the end of it. And I think that was in
Speaker 3: I think it was the tournament that year was in Nashville,
Speaker 3: and I just remember at the end of it just thinking,
Speaker 3: you know, I can't believe I let this senior year
Speaker 3: end like this, and it just felt crappy. You know.
Speaker 3: I remember going out in the SEC tournament. We were out,
Speaker 3: you know, afterwards, and this one person came up to
Speaker 3: me was like, oh man, you Pap Burke, and I'm like, kid,
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, I picked you for my Fantasy
Speaker 3: League SEC team because you were the leading you were
Speaker 3: the leading rebounder, coming back into your scene your year
Speaker 3: and it's like what happened? And I'm like, yeah, thanks
Speaker 3: the whole what happened? Like, I was like, you know,
Speaker 3: there's such a story there that I overthought, you know,
Speaker 3: going back to what you were saying, like four or
Speaker 3: five minutes ago. It's like I wasn't in the moment.
Speaker 3: I was thinking too far into the future and doing
Speaker 3: so I cut myself out.
Speaker 2: How long after your senior year did you realize that
Speaker 2: it was you not Coach Ellis? Oh?
Speaker 3: It was probably two or three years later.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I would say, so my you know, my
Speaker 2: junior year I led the country, insists, But it's actually
Speaker 2: I played the fewest minutes per game of any year
Speaker 2: in my career because I got into Coach's doghouse right,
Speaker 2: and I had after my first year there, I came back.
Speaker 2: I mean I was ready and I was killing it,
Speaker 2: but I got a technical in a Florida Atlantic game
Speaker 2: at eighteen assists. But I had a bad technical and
Speaker 2: we lose in some crazy shit. And then we play
Speaker 2: UCLA and actually got thrown out of the game, and
Speaker 2: someone is managing my emotions. But you know, again, like
Speaker 2: when I look back at what I like, I struggle
Speaker 2: to watch myself play in college because guys played off
Speaker 2: me because it couldn't shoot. But like forever I would
Speaker 2: you know, you have that you get done with college
Speaker 2: and you're like if you wouldn't have fucking taken me
Speaker 2: out every time I've missed a shot. I would have
Speaker 2: been able to make shots. On the other hand, like
Speaker 2: I realized that I would work and work and work
Speaker 2: every off season. And then I also went through the
Speaker 2: getting too big so you couldn't shoot right, put on
Speaker 2: too much muscle. And then the other part is like
Speaker 2: you get into practice and you start working less on
Speaker 2: your game and on shooting and your mentality, and then
Speaker 2: you go through practice where you don't take shots in
Speaker 2: live action. So you get in the game and of
Speaker 2: course you're not going to take shots right, So I
Speaker 2: would say it's the same thing, right, It's like it's
Speaker 2: like really two years for me before I was like,
Speaker 2: you know what, it wasn't him, it was me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And like that's the sign of ultimate maturity when you
Speaker 2: start pulling the finger in like, yeah, that was that's
Speaker 2: my bad, that's that's the coach that that.
Speaker 3: Uh so that that was in ninety seven and then
Speaker 3: ninety eight, Peyton and myself we got married. We met
Speaker 3: at school and I remember I invited all the guys
Speaker 3: and I didn't invite coach Jealous because I had a
Speaker 3: grudge thinking it was him, and I remember like a
Speaker 3: year after that, I went, I was on campus and
Speaker 3: you know, I had a great relationship with him and
Speaker 3: his family, and his son came up to me and
Speaker 3: just blatantly just said, why didn't you invite my dad
Speaker 3: to your wedding? And I had some bullshit excuse, you know,
Speaker 3: not owning the fact that I made something up, and
Speaker 3: so he uh sorry. He ended up he ended up
Speaker 3: giving me probably a seated understanding to start thinking, why
Speaker 3: did you Why did you do that? You know, because
Speaker 3: every time I look at my wedding photos and all
Speaker 3: the all the fun that we had, you know, like
Speaker 3: all these great people that were around my life at
Speaker 3: the time, Marty Waters, all of my teammates and all
Speaker 3: that were there, and it's like Coach wasn't there, and
Speaker 3: it was because of my grudge. And I realized that
Speaker 3: whenever I look at those photos sometimes I realized, like
Speaker 3: the people that weren't there, and I'm going, you know,
Speaker 3: I made some shit up, you know, and I have
Speaker 3: to own that.
Speaker 2: I'd say. For part one of my talk with with
Speaker 2: Pat Burke, of course, that's the growing up high school
Speaker 2: and college experience. How did he make it overseas how
Speaker 2: did he make it in the NBA, what was that
Speaker 2: lifestyle like? And the juxtaposition of the two and the
Speaker 2: lessons learned along the way, In addition to which we're
Speaker 2: going to try and fix USA basketball as we get
Speaker 2: ready for next year's Olympics. All that is upcoming a
Speaker 2: reminded of the Doug Outleid shows daily three to five
Speaker 2: Eastern time on Fox Sports Radio the iHeartRadio app of
Speaker 2: Fox Sports Tradio dot com. Of course, that's noon to two.
Speaker 2: I also have a daily podcast called in the Bonus.
Speaker 2: You can check that out. That's all sports, not just basketball.
Speaker 2: Matter of fact, this time of year, obviously we rarely
Speaker 2: talk basketball, but it's good stuff and a reminder will
Speaker 2: drop Part two probably in about two days by thanks
Speaker 2: to Pat Burke. That's part one. I'm Doug Gottlie. This
Speaker 2: is all ball