Speaker 1: Welcome to the solid verbal hell.
Speaker 2: That for me.
Speaker 3: I'm a man, I'm for I've heard so many players say, well,
Speaker 3: I want to be happy.
Speaker 4: You want to be happy for day Edith Stake is
Speaker 4: that whoo whoo?
Speaker 2: And them and.
Speaker 1: Tie welcome back to the solid rebel boys and girls.
Speaker 1: My name is Ty Hilda Brand on the other side
Speaker 1: of this virtual studio way over there, still in sunny
Speaker 1: southern California, the one and only Dan Rubinstein, Sir, how
Speaker 1: are you.
Speaker 3: Ty, I'm feeling some electricity in my bones. I'm gonna
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be very honest with you. I love today's topic,
Speaker 3: and so we're gonna tell you what the topic is.
Speaker 3: You've seen the title of the show already, so you
Speaker 3: kind of already know what it is. But there are
Speaker 3: certain times where I am excited for a show, and
Speaker 3: there are certain times where I'm like, I've never discussed
Speaker 3: this topic with I don't think anybody out loud, and
Speaker 3: this is like a very new thing for me. And
Speaker 3: so in a new way, Ty, I am feeling the
Speaker 3: the the protons and electrons of college football content.
Speaker 1: Yeah, today is a different kind of show. It is.
Speaker 1: It is fitting for us to tell you Please follow
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Speaker 1: Give us your email. We won't spam you a promise
Speaker 1: to only send you good stuff. Yeah, before we get
Speaker 1: into our show. This evening a week is past. The
Speaker 1: The news in college football and frankly around sports and
Speaker 1: around the globe has been dominated once more by the
Speaker 1: death of George Floyd and stories of and demonstrations against
Speaker 1: racial injustice. And I don't know if I could be
Speaker 1: real here for a second, like we do a college
Speaker 1: football show, right, yep, that's why everyone's here. But neither
Speaker 1: one of us lives in a vacuum. Dan, We read
Speaker 1: the news. The stories that we see of racial injustice
Speaker 1: are awful. It's painful to see, and so the question
Speaker 1: that's been lingering in my mind over the last week
Speaker 1: is how we can use how I can use this
Speaker 1: platform to help. And the truth is, I don't really know.
Speaker 1: That's part of the problem for me. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I do know that the world probably ain't gonna change
Speaker 1: with another screwny white guy up here given in opinion
Speaker 1: just to get a pat on the back. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: as you know, that's not really my style. I just
Speaker 1: I wanted Heballers to know that I that we we're
Speaker 1: committed to listening, We're committed to learning how we can help.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we are going to do everything we can
Speaker 3: to use our platform for good and for the most
Speaker 3: human and empathetic reasons. It's ty. It's a very strange time,
Speaker 3: given both the backdrop of everything that's happening culturally and
Speaker 3: in the public health world, and so just from Afar,
Speaker 3: just the outrage and the sadness and the desperation. But
Speaker 3: at the same time, some hope seeing the best of
Speaker 3: humanity come out of this, and hopefully the best of
Speaker 3: public health come out of this as people take to
Speaker 3: the streets rather admirably to make their voices heard. I'm
Speaker 3: really hopeful that good will come of this, and that
Speaker 3: there will be reform, and that there will be more
Speaker 3: listening and more empathy and more humanity. And whether it's
Speaker 3: you know, in policing, whether it's just an everyday conversation,
Speaker 3: whether it's in the business world, whether it's in housing
Speaker 3: and banking, and and just everything that society touches. And yes,
Speaker 3: ty that obviously, as we'll get into includes sports and
Speaker 3: college football. I'm hopeful that we are because we're in
Speaker 3: a time where so many people can make their voices heard.
Speaker 3: That we are in a forward moving era or generation.
Speaker 3: So that's the silver lining of a lot of real,
Speaker 3: just entrenched sadness that I think a lot of people feel.
Speaker 1: The news has been dominated by stories such as this,
Speaker 1: Jim Harbaugh and Mark Stoops and Tom Herman and Gus
Speaker 1: Malzan and Mario Cristobaal and I'm sure countless others who
Speaker 1: I don't have time to name here participating among the
Speaker 1: many participating in demonstrations against racial injustice. So to your point, Dan,
Speaker 1: some of the biggest names in college football out there
Speaker 1: on the streets trying to do their part to help.
Speaker 1: We also had a story down in Tallahassee about coach
Speaker 1: Mike Norvell, this is a weird story. It took a turn.
Speaker 1: It seems like it took a turn back for the good.
Speaker 1: Marvin Wilson, a senior defensive tackle for the Knowles. He's
Speaker 1: now saying he believes the team has grown in light
Speaker 1: of a situation in which Mike Norvell gave comments to
Speaker 1: the Athletic sort of misrepresented his interactions with the team
Speaker 1: after the death of George Floyd. He commented that he
Speaker 1: was communicating individually with every player, which apparently was not
Speaker 1: the case. Wilson called him out on it. He says
Speaker 1: that he and coach Norvell had a chat that preceded
Speaker 1: a larger team discussion and that it feels like the
Speaker 1: team growth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I imagine people have read the story, seeing the story
Speaker 3: as it came and went. Hopefully it has gone and
Speaker 3: Florida State is a closer team for it. But it's
Speaker 3: Mike Norvell's saying in this interview that he connected individually
Speaker 3: with Florida State players when it was more of a
Speaker 3: mass text and he was there to respond if players
Speaker 3: were to respond to the mass text to the team.
Speaker 3: And so Marvin Wilson called the not really conveyed reality
Speaker 3: of this situation, and I came away with a lot
Speaker 3: of things. And I hope Florida State's close a ford,
Speaker 3: and I hope communication is better for it as well.
Speaker 3: But I came away my big picture thing was how
Speaker 3: impressed I was with Marvin Wilson as a human. Holy well, wow,
Speaker 3: was he impressive. That dude's going to do big things.
Speaker 1: We had a story out of Iowa with dozens of
Speaker 1: former Iowa football players speaking out the stories of racial
Speaker 1: disparities and mistreatment within the Hawkeye football program. I'm lifting
Speaker 1: this from the Daily Iowan because they described it much better,
Speaker 1: more accurately than I could. But this centers around Chris Doyle,
Speaker 1: who is the Iowa strength and conditioning coach. He was
Speaker 1: apparently at the center of many of these allegations against
Speaker 1: the program. He's been placed on leave pending an independent
Speaker 1: review of those allegations. Also of note here, though, is
Speaker 1: Kirk Farence has come out saying that he is committed
Speaker 1: to changing the culture of the program. Iowa actually had
Speaker 1: a bit of a Twitter band in place where players
Speaker 1: were only allowed to have one pre approved tweet per month.
Speaker 1: Something of that ilk. They have lifted that band now
Speaker 1: so that players can participate in the nationwide discussion, especially
Speaker 1: that discussion taking place on social media. So I think
Speaker 1: it's good that the players now have a chance to
Speaker 1: make their voice heard.
Speaker 3: There were a lot of very serious and really disheartening
Speaker 3: things being thrown around, and you know, when we look
Speaker 3: at Iowa, it kind of seems that the sort of
Speaker 3: consistency and continuity that the Hawkeyes have enjoyed has now
Speaker 3: become kind of a weakness. I think I saw a
Speaker 3: couple tweets about this, maybe from Pat Forty of SI
Speaker 3: and I thought that was an interesting way of putting it,
Speaker 3: because people are there for so long. Phil Parker, the
Speaker 3: defensive coordinator, has been around forever there and you know,
Speaker 3: Chris Doyle, the person at the center of this, I
Speaker 3: think ninety nine. He's been there ninety nine and he's
Speaker 3: one of the highest paid, if not the highest paid
Speaker 3: strength coaches in college football. And so the picture that
Speaker 3: was painted by all these former players was like, there
Speaker 3: is an inner circle to Iowa football, and you're either
Speaker 3: in it or out of it, and if you're in it,
Speaker 3: you're like a made man and you're unimpeachable. If you remember,
Speaker 3: this was the same strength coach they had the rhabdomialysis
Speaker 3: in god, maybe almost a decade ago, and he then
Speaker 3: went on to win like Iowa Assistant of the Year
Speaker 3: at like the team function. And so there's like there's
Speaker 3: a very insular nature, which I think is very valuable
Speaker 3: to have that continuity in a way of running your culture,
Speaker 3: if it's healthy for everybody, if if people are acting
Speaker 3: professionally in like adults. And I understand there's a toughness
Speaker 3: quotient to football and there should be. But when you
Speaker 3: hear some of the stories about the way christ Doyle
Speaker 3: would speak to some of the players, and the punishments
Speaker 3: and the exercise and like just the way that you know,
Speaker 3: they couldn't show up to practice with your hair a
Speaker 3: certain way or with earrings and it was definitely slanted
Speaker 3: in one way and not the other. And so there's
Speaker 3: it seems like because they're so they've been so successful,
Speaker 3: it's developing under recruited players, it's going to bowl games,
Speaker 3: it's you know, beating more talented teams, sending players to
Speaker 3: the draft high draft picks, that like, well, whatever they're
Speaker 3: doing is working, so don't mess with it. But at
Speaker 3: the same time, there is that thin line between success
Speaker 3: and a kind of unhealthy culture, and so I hope
Speaker 3: this brings out change. I hope this even if it's
Speaker 3: hard to imagine Chris Doyle coming back with all of
Speaker 3: these revelations coming out, and you know is a Darrell
Speaker 3: Johnson Couliano's DJK who had an incredibly successful career that
Speaker 3: ended with you remember the drug house story and you
Speaker 3: know four of the five charges were dropped, and his
Speaker 3: accounting of his career and how he was treated. Hopefully
Speaker 3: it makes Kirk ference in the Iowa program better and
Speaker 3: better listeners. But it definitely sounded like when you're listening
Speaker 3: to these players one after the next, it definitely sounded like, Okay,
Speaker 3: there needs to be pretty major cultural changes in Iowa City,
Speaker 3: didn't it.
Speaker 1: That was my impression as well. I was encouraged that
Speaker 1: Kirk Farrens kind of acknowledged that saying that the culture
Speaker 1: needs to change talk is cheap. We'll see if actions
Speaker 1: can be put behind those words. But hopefully this is
Speaker 1: the first step in acknowledging that perhaps there is a
Speaker 1: bit of an issue within the program. So we'll see
Speaker 1: where this goes.
Speaker 3: It's one of those things where I'm currently in California
Speaker 3: you're in Pennsylvania. You're not in the Iowa locker room.
Speaker 3: You're not in the Florida State locker room. Neither am
Speaker 3: i And so we're taking in the information we can get,
Speaker 3: and so we assume that things are when things are successful,
Speaker 3: like Florida State was, and then it turns out of
Speaker 3: what they weren't so successful near the end of the
Speaker 3: Jimbo Fisher era, and you know, Iowa with everything going
Speaker 3: on now Clemson, which I'm sure we'll talk about in
Speaker 3: a moment, where we just assume there's there's happiness and peace,
Speaker 3: and that's that is our geographic and just the removed
Speaker 3: privilege that we have of not being there every day
Speaker 3: to sort of understand and not hear these players. Not
Speaker 3: hear these players because at a lot of these places,
Speaker 3: they just don't have voices.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the Clemson story. Dabo Sweeney has attempted
Speaker 1: to clarify a situation in which an assistant coach used
Speaker 1: a racial swur in twenty seventeen. Dado has been trying
Speaker 1: to clean this one up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this was in reference to an incident two
Speaker 3: or three years ago with an assistant who used the
Speaker 3: N word. But more talking about the language that players
Speaker 3: were using. He wasn't being accusatory or calling a player
Speaker 3: by a racial epithet. It was more just him saying
Speaker 3: it out loud. There was another incident with music being
Speaker 3: played in the locker room while Dabosweeney was giving a
Speaker 3: prospective new assistant coach a tour, and he wanted the
Speaker 3: locker room to present itself, in Dabo's eyes, more professionally
Speaker 3: and more maturely, and so there was some insensitivity. It
Speaker 3: seemed that like Dabbo was the sort of cultural arbiter
Speaker 3: in that situation. He's a great football coach ti he
Speaker 3: absolutely is, absolutely and seems to like speaking from his
Speaker 3: gut for better or worse.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: And that's on a certain level admirable. I guess it
Speaker 3: depends what he says. The issue, it appears to me,
Speaker 3: is with his platform, because he'll say, like the ah
Speaker 3: shucks that were just a football program, that kind of thing,
Speaker 3: with his platform, with his sway, with the amount of
Speaker 3: people wearing orange and purple, that will hang on his
Speaker 3: every word. He does have a responsibility not just to
Speaker 3: his team, which he absolutely does as you know, the
Speaker 3: big capital l leader of men, but it's it's public,
Speaker 3: it's you know, he's selling kids, he's selling parents on
Speaker 3: taking teenagers and turning them into men. And so as
Speaker 3: this becomes a time of what it's a time of listening,
Speaker 3: perhaps readjusting one's out look to recognize unconscious biases. So
Speaker 3: how he pronounced that biases biases to be more mindful about,
Speaker 3: you know, the power he has over his players. If
Speaker 3: you remember, there was a story about him kind of
Speaker 3: all but discouraging a sit in that Clemson players wanted
Speaker 3: to participate in on the Clemson campus and he was like,
Speaker 3: you better know what you get into. And it was
Speaker 3: sort of like coded language that sort of sent a
Speaker 3: message that I'm okay with it, but not really that
Speaker 3: kind of thing. And then he puts out this fourteen
Speaker 3: minute statement where I think he comes across as pretty genuine,
Speaker 3: but also at the same time he's very defensive, and
Speaker 3: so the better part of me is thinking, Okay, you
Speaker 3: know what he has He has woken up. He has
Speaker 3: awakened to a conversation that he didn't realize that there
Speaker 3: was a gravity to it. You know, he had comments
Speaker 3: about Colin Kaepernick a few years ago, and you know,
Speaker 3: protesters can just leave America if they don't like it,
Speaker 3: and you know, really insensitive, and I just I'm hopeful
Speaker 3: that this has has given him new perspective, and I'm
Speaker 3: hopeful that he is listening more than he is speaking.
Speaker 3: I really am, and that would be amazing if he is.
Speaker 3: But the statement hit a lot of weirdly defensive notes
Speaker 3: to me in this time.
Speaker 1: He's very good at the sneaky qualifiers when he's talking.
Speaker 1: I've always found that about him, and I do feel
Speaker 1: like most of what he says comes from a very
Speaker 1: genuine place. But the sneaky qualifiers, frankly, they sneak up
Speaker 1: on you, right, and it does make you wonder sometimes
Speaker 1: what he's really thinking. But Dabo is now dealing with
Speaker 1: this situation at Clemson, as so many are around the country.
Speaker 1: Another story here. Utah defensive coordinator Morgan Scally has been
Speaker 1: suspended indefinitely for a social media post that referenced a
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen text thread yes, which included a racial slur.
Speaker 1: A number of former players have come to his defense,
Speaker 1: vouching for his character. But again, given where we're at
Speaker 1: right now, this is the kind of story that is
Speaker 1: all too prevalent, and.
Speaker 3: Yes, this is especially this is a time when voices
Speaker 3: are being empowered that hadn't been while they were active players,
Speaker 3: in this case Utah players. And have you heard the
Speaker 3: phrase ignore everything before the butt? Have you heard that phrase?
Speaker 1: Oh, I believe I've said that on this program. It's
Speaker 1: very I think I'm the one who may have said that, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there were a lot of players who came out
Speaker 3: and said we or I adore coach scally, but he
Speaker 3: did act a little bit cringe worthy more often than
Speaker 3: he should have. That was that seemed to be the
Speaker 3: sentiment he's been. What a Utah lifer he was. If
Speaker 3: he's an All American man, he's certainly a tremendous player
Speaker 3: for Utah safety under Urban Meyer and coached under Kyle
Speaker 3: Whittingham as his first job as a grad assist in
Speaker 3: a safety's coach special teams, and now so these last
Speaker 3: two years has been a terrific defensive coordinator. But when
Speaker 3: I was reading the story about things he would say
Speaker 3: to players and how scared they were of speaking up
Speaker 3: around him, it kind of seemed like and I have
Speaker 3: not looked at the coaching staff from you know, between
Speaker 3: two thousand and eight and now essentially, but I've looked
Speaker 3: at well, no, I shouldn't say that. I looked at
Speaker 3: the current coaching staff, and it's a pretty admirably diverse
Speaker 3: one up and down, you know, the different positions. I
Speaker 3: almost wonder if there were no coaches who had the
Speaker 3: temerity or were able to get through to him, pulling
Speaker 3: him aside, you know, in twenty eleven, twenty thirteen, two
Speaker 3: thousand and nine, and two thousand and eight, to say
Speaker 3: you gotta pull back just a you're going a little
Speaker 3: you're going a little far there. I don't know if
Speaker 3: that's on Kyle Whittingham. It probably is, if everything you
Speaker 3: know falls to Kyle Whittingham, it ultimately does. But I
Speaker 3: almost wonder if nobody was able to get through to him,
Speaker 3: and also maybe the fact that he's a lifer in Utah.
Speaker 3: He's recruit it everywhere. But you know, his perspective, especially
Speaker 3: as it seems towards players of color, it seemed lacking,
Speaker 3: like a very human note. But this is everything ignored
Speaker 3: before the butt. But his players, I suppose, as a
Speaker 3: strict coach, seem to love him. And I mean strictly
Speaker 3: as a coach, not as a strict coach. But there
Speaker 3: was all, there's just almost to a person in I
Speaker 3: think it was the athletic wrote the article. Talking to
Speaker 3: former players that played for him. We're like, we love him,
Speaker 3: but yeah, he was really rough as a human, like
Speaker 3: not a fully formed human in the way of dealing
Speaker 3: with people from different backgrounds. And so I'm hopeful for
Speaker 3: change again. I'm going to try to come out of
Speaker 3: this as positively and as silver lininglye as I possibly can.
Speaker 3: I'm hopeful it's a wake up call. But when you
Speaker 3: see those types of patterns, you're like, these these are
Speaker 3: not our best and brightest. These are best and brightest
Speaker 3: defensive coordinator and so helpful. But ready to move on,
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, that's all the news I have for now.
Speaker 1: We'll continue talking about relevant stories in and around the
Speaker 1: world of college football and continue this discussion as best
Speaker 1: we can. But please do write in solid verbal at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. Let us know what's on your mind.
Speaker 1: We're here. We'd love to hear from you. We very
Speaker 1: much appreciate your support and for making us part of
Speaker 1: your day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and on a much more micro level, Tye, I'm
Speaker 3: excited for today's show.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: You know we like to try and cover all bases. Yeah,
Speaker 1: on the college football front. College football has many tentacles.
Speaker 1: We talk about as many of them as we can.
Speaker 1: This is not one that we have spent too much
Speaker 1: time talking about. We've mentioned it in passing, but we've
Speaker 1: never done a show on the social media aspect of
Speaker 1: college football, in particular now the large scale operation that
Speaker 1: many programs are running to position themselves as trendy and
Speaker 1: appealing to recruits, and it's a very very important thing.
Speaker 1: So on that side of the coin, we're excited to
Speaker 1: bring on Derek Markle, the newly minted creative director for
Speaker 1: the Michigan State Spartans.
Speaker 3: Yes, and while that's sort of a vague term, he
Speaker 3: is in charge of the sort of outward facing social
Speaker 3: media and internet presence, be it on Twitter, Instagram. Perhaps
Speaker 3: I don't know what their YouTube presence is like, but
Speaker 3: especially on Instagram, where recruits are and your friend Anne
Speaker 3: also is. He is in charge of the message that
Speaker 3: Michigan State is sending out to prospective football players and
Speaker 3: also existing Michigan State football fans. And in terms of importance,
Speaker 3: I think it's a pretty underrated job because they are
Speaker 3: essentially the visual recruiters for the football program, especially one
Speaker 3: like Michigan State that is is transitioning coaches from markd'
Speaker 3: antonio to Mel Tucker. Is I think trying to enter
Speaker 3: into a new era in terms of cool is the
Speaker 3: wrong word, but refreshing the brand. Perhaps. If you look
Speaker 3: at what Michigan State is putting out recently as compared
Speaker 3: to how they position themselves as a program before, it
Speaker 3: certainly seems different that they've gotten younger with their coach, certainly,
Speaker 3: and I think a there's a different vibe I would
Speaker 3: say to how Michigan State is positioning itself a lot younger.
Speaker 3: So Derek is in charge of that, and what they're
Speaker 3: doing is pretty incredible. And you know what, Ty, what
Speaker 3: a lot of programs are doing is pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: Focus on video and graphic design and letting players and
Speaker 3: their families visualize themselves in a specific uniform or on
Speaker 3: this field or you know, signing autographs or being drafted
Speaker 3: or anything like that. It's all really an impressive way
Speaker 3: to sell a program. And we saw it recently with
Speaker 3: you know, I think it was Bruce Feldman who of
Speaker 3: Bruce and he wrote breaking on Twitter like breaking news.
Speaker 3: USC hires two important members of LSU's video department, as
Speaker 3: in like video promotion, not filming practices. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 3: it's making promotional videos, which at first glance and I
Speaker 3: was one of the people to make fun of that.
Speaker 3: And I don't know what type of impact they'll have
Speaker 3: at USC. I think a lot will depend on what
Speaker 3: they actually accomplish on the field. But it can't hurt
Speaker 3: in the way that USC has gotten that their messaging.
Speaker 3: And I know we like to make fun of USC
Speaker 3: as Oregon fan, an Oregon fan and a Notre Dame fan,
Speaker 3: but everybody needs to stay current tie. Everybody needs to
Speaker 3: share their message out right, no for.
Speaker 1: Sure, and then on the other side of the coin,
Speaker 1: which to your point getting the message out. If you
Speaker 1: are a big time recruit, you got to go to
Speaker 1: one guy and one guy only if you want to
Speaker 1: build your own personal brand. And that guy is Hayes Faucet, who,
Speaker 1: as we under stand, will be a freshman at LSU
Speaker 1: will be joining up with the LSU staff to contribute
Speaker 1: in that department, but he has made a name for
Speaker 1: himself working on behalf of some of the most prize
Speaker 1: recruits in all of college football. If you go on
Speaker 1: out to his Twitter and Instagram feeds. You can see
Speaker 1: some of his fine work. As guys are narrowing down
Speaker 1: the field, their top five, their top three, as they
Speaker 1: make their announcement. You need to get some kind of
Speaker 1: creative treatment to make a splash, and that is the
Speaker 1: role that Hayes has served very notably over the last
Speaker 1: couple of years. So what we're trying to do today
Speaker 1: is just cover where social media is at from the
Speaker 1: college program side, from the recruiting side as well. It
Speaker 1: is such an interesting ecosystem that, as you said, I
Speaker 1: don't think we've ever really talked that much about out Loud.
Speaker 1: We've certainly never done a show in it, So this
Speaker 1: could go a number of different directions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I think it's completely fascinating. And these are
Speaker 3: the people in the graphic design, whether it's at a
Speaker 3: program level or on a recruit level. And Hayes has
Speaker 3: been doing this since I think he was fourteen or
Speaker 3: fifteen years old. Believe he's from Louisiana, And I can
Speaker 3: understand why somebody who's been a college football fan would say, like, God,
Speaker 3: this is all such fluff, This is all such meaningless fluff.
Speaker 3: In my day, we just rubbed dirt on our phones, whatever.
Speaker 1: Your father's football.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I kind of get that. But at the same time,
Speaker 3: there's something fascinating. We get this question all the time
Speaker 3: in person, we had voicemails, we get emails, dms, whatever.
Speaker 3: How do I get into sports? How do I work
Speaker 3: in sports? How do I work in sports media? How
Speaker 3: do I figure out how to get a job at
Speaker 3: my dream job working in sports? And I think both
Speaker 3: Derek and he was at Toledo and Colorado before Michigan
Speaker 3: State and Hayes are really good examples of self starters
Speaker 3: who earn trust. In the case of Hayes, especially because
Speaker 3: he knows where everybody's going. They got to tell them
Speaker 3: where they're going. He's got to know to make a
Speaker 3: USC and Arkansas and LSU a Tennessee graphic ever, and
Speaker 3: so to build trust with people in the sport, and
Speaker 3: then also to consistently be dependable and deliver a product
Speaker 3: to people within the sport. I think it's fascinating that
Speaker 3: people are figuring out new ways in the NBA. You
Speaker 3: saw its House of Highlights. Is the guy who really
Speaker 3: put together a really nice video presence on Instagram, So
Speaker 3: thinking about new ways to break into the industry, and
Speaker 3: I think both Derek and Hayes are great examples of
Speaker 3: younger self starters who have found their niche in the
Speaker 3: sports world. It's endlessly fascinating to me how good a
Speaker 3: job they do. But also, Ty, if we can go
Speaker 3: in the wayback machine for just a minute here, I remember,
Speaker 3: I want to say it was two thousand and five,
Speaker 3: maybe two thousand and four Oregon convinced Jonathan Stewart to
Speaker 3: attend the university and become a Duck. And it also
Speaker 3: came out that one of the ways that they recruited
Speaker 3: him was putting together, for lack of a better term,
Speaker 3: at Jonathan stewart comic book, a bit graphical representation of
Speaker 3: what he would look like as an Oregon Duck, and
Speaker 3: everybody sort of said, wow, that's really creative, or like, wow,
Speaker 3: that's over the top. Only Oregon would do that. They're
Speaker 3: they're so pathetic and desperate for attention. They don't have
Speaker 3: to the tradition to fall back on, so they have
Speaker 3: to do gimmicks to get the attention of recruits. Maybe,
Speaker 3: but guess what we just finished talking about, Ty. It
Speaker 3: being big news that a tradition rich program like USC
Speaker 3: had to make a big deal of hiring new social
Speaker 3: media guys to help with recruiting and program branding. So
Speaker 3: and that was fifteen years ago that Oregon was actually
Speaker 3: a team that got in trouble for doing something that
Speaker 3: nobody else was able to do necessarily. It was an
Speaker 3: NCAA no no to create a comic book. It was
Speaker 3: over the top recruiting wise, and now it is just
Speaker 3: the norm. So I'm panting myself on the back as
Speaker 3: an Oregon fan, but it's fascinating to see the circle
Speaker 3: of sort of promotion and publicity when it comes to
Speaker 3: recruiting and artwork. Well everyone's doing it now. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: you know you almost have to the big thing. And
Speaker 3: people who work in the business world know this the
Speaker 3: hardest question to answer with regard to social media. In
Speaker 3: the business world, it's always around ROI, you know, like,
Speaker 3: what's the return on this investment? Because you're putting time,
Speaker 3: you're putting energy sometimes actual real money into this.
Speaker 1: Is it all worth it? Now? That's easier to define
Speaker 1: if you're friend of the show bombas let's say, I
Speaker 1: don't know right, Like you can measure success by how
Speaker 1: many pairs of socks you sell. It's easy but how
Speaker 1: do you quantify that? If you're a college football team.
Speaker 1: It's a good question like who is the audience? How
Speaker 1: do you measure success? What is the cost of not
Speaker 1: doing it at all? These are all, I think, very
Speaker 1: real questions and it it kind of speaks to the
Speaker 1: larger question of social media. What is this all about?
Speaker 1: What value does this have? So we're going to talk
Speaker 1: to Derek, We're going to talk to Hayes about the
Speaker 1: important roles they have served and continue to serve on
Speaker 1: the college football front. Again, if you're going out there,
Speaker 1: if you want to find out about your favorite recruit
Speaker 1: or your favorite perspective recruit, chances are that one of
Speaker 1: these guys has a saying it so different show, But
Speaker 1: I'm excited to talk about it.
Speaker 3: What would a Tie hilden Brandt edit look like? A
Speaker 3: photoshop edit? Like, if somebody were to convince you, as
Speaker 3: a podcast host and producer, you need to come do
Speaker 3: this for our company, whether it's sports media or a
Speaker 3: podcast company, whatever, what type of visual would they need
Speaker 3: to photoshop you into? Is it like you with three
Speaker 3: different engineers, Is it you with a in a soundproof
Speaker 3: room with posters with Yako and you know, it needs
Speaker 3: to be.
Speaker 1: It needs to be very cheesy okay, and probably have
Speaker 1: some sort of like Mars background. I would like an
Speaker 1: otherworldly kind of of Moti life going on.
Speaker 3: I'm fascinated if you were given endless funds what you're
Speaker 3: with the ty hilden Brandt Lab, when when you're telling
Speaker 3: people you're deep in the lab, what that lab looks like?
Speaker 3: And I think a space theme only makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the lab would be would be something else zero gravity.
Speaker 1: I you know, I don't know how much it costs
Speaker 1: to make that, but that would really be emerging of
Speaker 1: the two loves right there.
Speaker 3: But isn't that like in real life? Isn't that what
Speaker 3: these college football programs are tasked with doing, Getting to
Speaker 3: know a prospective student athlete and say, if they're into music,
Speaker 3: or if they're into food, or if they're into space,
Speaker 3: to design a photoshop or an illustrate or edit around
Speaker 3: that passion to make it feel like, Okay, Michigan State
Speaker 3: or Texas Tech, that that feels it just feels like
Speaker 3: my new home. They get me, right, Isn't that? Isn't
Speaker 3: it all full circle in that way?
Speaker 1: I believe so? And I know a guy we can ask.
Speaker 3: Dan, and with that tie, we bring on from Michigan
Speaker 3: State the creative director of the football program. I think
Speaker 3: that's his title. He can correct us if we're wrong,
Speaker 3: Derek Markle, who is deep in some sort of creative lab.
Speaker 3: I'm positive that we're interrupting some photo shop or final
Speaker 3: cut or illustrator activity. Derek, how are you?
Speaker 2: I've member the best day of my life. Man, how
Speaker 2: are you? Guys?
Speaker 3: I love hearing that so real quick. We both have
Speaker 3: a ton of questions. Ty and I both have a
Speaker 3: ton of questions. But your title is the creative director
Speaker 3: at Michigan State, which sounds very impressive and very cool,
Speaker 3: and it also is could be interpreted as very vague.
Speaker 3: So what do you do for Spartan football?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I get that question quite a bit.
Speaker 4: Actually, So I'm Born and Reid's graphic designer, and that's
Speaker 4: what I had been in my career up until this
Speaker 4: move division City, where I got a double promotion to
Speaker 4: be the creative director, and now I oversee the pretty
Speaker 4: much that whole greative process.
Speaker 2: We have ways of Lizzy to.
Speaker 4: Other designers, and then Paul and Austin, who are two videographers,
Speaker 4: and the two students too. So I kind of oversee
Speaker 4: the whole process, and that's everything from recruiting to our
Speaker 4: social media stuff to facility graphics and large scale things.
Speaker 2: It is a load of title, but I'm pretty much
Speaker 2: a graphic designer.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you say graphic designer. That can cover a
Speaker 3: lot of things. So I think people are used to
Speaker 3: seeing because they follow their favorite programs on Twitter or Instagram,
Speaker 3: They're used to seeing these pretty incredible I mean, the
Speaker 3: sort of state of graphic design in college football especially
Speaker 3: has taken a pretty big jump up these last few years.
Speaker 3: They're used to seeing these big, splashy images of players
Speaker 3: when they set a record, or a recruit when he
Speaker 3: commits to the program, or a coach does something incredible
Speaker 3: or welcoming in a new coach. So what is the process?
Speaker 3: What when we talk about photoshops and splashy graphics, what
Speaker 3: is the process? Who is making them? How long does
Speaker 3: it take? And what are the things you focus on
Speaker 3: in running a creative department, as big or small as
Speaker 3: it may be.
Speaker 4: I mean, the first thing to consider is just that brand.
Speaker 4: When you see something that we put out on social media,
Speaker 4: I mean, you should look at it and just know, like, hey,
Speaker 4: that's something from Michigan State. That's like the first element
Speaker 4: that we always try to implement.
Speaker 2: It's just that, hey, it's got that.
Speaker 4: Strong brand consistency, right, and a lot of people, i
Speaker 4: mean people just see the finished product of what we make,
Speaker 4: like people don't know the inner workings of how long
Speaker 4: some of this stuff takes.
Speaker 2: And that's it's kind of different for each project.
Speaker 4: I mean, some things can take I don't know, half
Speaker 4: an hour, and then some things can take a full
Speaker 4: day to make. It's just kind of dependent. But when
Speaker 4: you see like those those cutouts of the players and
Speaker 4: the coaches and all of that, that's that's the groundwork
Speaker 4: that takes the most time.
Speaker 2: It's definitely time consuming.
Speaker 3: I'm sure. So you you're at Michigan State, you're brand
Speaker 3: new to the job. Essentially, you come over with coach Meltucker.
Speaker 3: You were with him at Colorado and before that, believe
Speaker 3: you were at Toledo. I was you were in demand
Speaker 3: at Toledo. People saw your work and in the same
Speaker 3: way and we you know, it's very easy to joke
Speaker 3: about I saw you know, it was a big deal
Speaker 3: when USC hired away two LSU videographers who are part
Speaker 3: of their creative department. But that's where we are now,
Speaker 3: where people are valuing marketing and recruiting and promotion. What
Speaker 3: has been your career arc like, because a lot of
Speaker 3: people listen to this they want to work in sports.
Speaker 3: How did you go from graphic design student to creative director?
Speaker 3: And are you yet twenty five years old?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I just turned twenty seven a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, you're twenty seven's but you have a department
Speaker 3: at a major place. How does that happen?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I was just kind of snowballed into something huge. I
Speaker 4: started at Toledo in twenty fourteen as an intern, just
Speaker 4: doing some marketing projects like stuff for ticket sales and
Speaker 4: the smaller projects. And then when the girl that had
Speaker 4: my eventual job at Toledo she left and got a
Speaker 4: job with the Detroit Testings and she called NASPA would
Speaker 4: be interested in interviewing for her old position. So I
Speaker 4: went and interviewed, got the job, and that was only.
Speaker 2: A couple of months after I graduated college.
Speaker 4: The timing of that was perfect, and I think people
Speaker 4: will kind of notice. And it's really like being in
Speaker 4: this field, everything that we do is visual, so our
Speaker 4: portfolio is pretty much just out there for the public
Speaker 4: to see, so that makes it a little bit easier
Speaker 4: for schools and say like, hey, this kid from Twledo
Speaker 4: is doing good, but see if he's being interested coming
Speaker 4: to Colorado. And then that's exactly what happened. Tessa Akers,
Speaker 4: who's our director of on campus recruiting at Colorado, she
Speaker 4: sent me a message on Twitter. This is after I've
Speaker 4: been working at Tweedo for about three years and asked
Speaker 4: I've been interested in a job out at Colorado. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 4: I doan do that. And then that was the best
Speaker 4: decision I could have made, because then that's when coach
Speaker 4: Tucker and I started working together, and I couldn't imagine
Speaker 4: working for a different boss.
Speaker 2: Now, been great work with him for the past a
Speaker 2: little over a year.
Speaker 1: Now, Derek, this is a really creative way to apply
Speaker 1: your skills to be on the side of a football program.
Speaker 1: I know what it's like from the perspective of a
Speaker 1: business to go out there and promote social media graphics
Speaker 1: and assets that I know take a lot of time
Speaker 1: to create. But I'm wondering, how do you, as the
Speaker 1: new creative director of this endeavor? How do you define success. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you want to make cool stuff and quality is first
Speaker 1: and foremost. But as you're taking a knee, as you're
Speaker 1: thinking about things, how do you measure success?
Speaker 4: A lot of that is from the fan engagement that
Speaker 4: you see on social media, and we're all pretty conscious
Speaker 4: of that stuff, and when we see the comments and everything,
Speaker 4: and you usually know when something's a big hit, Like
Speaker 4: if we send out a recruiting graphic to to all
Speaker 4: of our offered guys and then we get on our
Speaker 4: social media feed and everything that we see is just
Speaker 4: another prospect tweeting out the graphic. Then you see all
Speaker 4: of their friends and like, oh, this is fire. Like
Speaker 4: that's when you know that that's a hit.
Speaker 2: Success.
Speaker 1: There, you're taking those engagements that you get and parsing
Speaker 1: them down to the degree that you're like, oh, this
Speaker 1: recruit interacted with this messaging and maybe that's our cue
Speaker 1: to go after that individual a little bit harder with graphics,
Speaker 1: or how do you go about maybe planning it on
Speaker 1: that next level.
Speaker 4: Definitely we can get we do get really personalized with
Speaker 4: some of these graphics. For example, like Cordy Hankton, He's one.
Speaker 2: Of our guys that came over from Colorado with.
Speaker 4: Us called me one night and he's like, Hey, this
Speaker 4: prospect really likes this rapper, can you make.
Speaker 2: Something for him that's kind of really to that. So
Speaker 2: I took.
Speaker 4: The album cover from that rapper and make it personalized
Speaker 4: for the recruit, and stuff like that is a huge
Speaker 4: success when it's really personalized for a kid, and you
Speaker 4: like when you take something they're interested in and then
Speaker 4: make them something personalized. And our recruiting team does a
Speaker 4: great job of keeping those specific notes on these guys,
Speaker 4: so we can we can do like these super personalized
Speaker 4: graphics and we have the manpower to do it too.
Speaker 1: Do you consider incoming recruits or potential recruits your primary
Speaker 1: audience for the work that you do.
Speaker 4: Definitely, I'm a recruiting first kind of mindset, And I
Speaker 4: mean that's the life ability of your program. If you
Speaker 4: can recruit and you're gonna have good players, that means
Speaker 4: you're gonna have success on the field, that you're gonna
Speaker 4: have fans. So that's that's really the foundation of it,
Speaker 4: and that's in my eyes, that's our target audience.
Speaker 3: Do you get direction from coaches as for you know,
Speaker 3: who to really spend a lot of time on not
Speaker 3: that playing favorites or anything like that, but will you
Speaker 3: get direction from coaches saying like, really, you know, don't
Speaker 3: let this person not get something for a week, for
Speaker 3: three days, for two weeks. What's your relationship like with
Speaker 3: the coaches who are really the ones talking to these kids.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we have a closer relationship with all the coaches,
Speaker 4: and they're always real vocal with us that if there's
Speaker 4: a kid that is close to committing, for example, like
Speaker 4: we'll fire out graphics left and right to do for
Speaker 4: the thing we can to get this kid to commit
Speaker 4: to us. And the graphic and creative and branding side
Speaker 4: of things has become such a huge element recruiting to
Speaker 4: something that wasn't really even a thing a lot of
Speaker 4: like six seven years ago, has just evolved into this
Speaker 4: huge component of a kid's decision.
Speaker 2: To go play football somewhere. So I'm kind of thankful
Speaker 2: for that because that's what changed.
Speaker 4: I don't know, it's just kind of been the evolution
Speaker 4: like with social media and how these players can develop
Speaker 4: a brand for themselves as well as the school brand too.
Speaker 4: It's turned into a huge empire that we play a
Speaker 4: huge role in it as the creative I'm kind of
Speaker 4: thankful that it's taken that route because that's given me
Speaker 4: the opportunity to be in this position that I'm in
Speaker 4: and have a team around me that can help us
Speaker 4: kind of achieve that goal.
Speaker 3: So when you've been at a number of places, now
Speaker 3: this is I think your third place after Toledo and Colorado,
Speaker 3: so Michigan State. Before you arrive, they have this reputation
Speaker 3: that the school and the football program as being a
Speaker 3: winning program. But I think more blue collar, more old school,
Speaker 3: and that's always going to be a reflection of the
Speaker 3: coach who you know, the previous coach had a ton
Speaker 3: of success, and you've been aligned with coach Tucker, and
Speaker 3: he's younger and comes from a different background, coming from
Speaker 3: the SEC, coming from Colorado briefly, and it seems like
Speaker 3: something you've been tasked with these are my words, not yours,
Speaker 3: is sort of refreshing the brand. It's sort of updating
Speaker 3: the brand. Would you say that's accurate.
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely, And I mean that brand is already somewhat
Speaker 4: put in place.
Speaker 2: And my first day on the.
Speaker 4: Job, when I met with the creative geam, I told him, like,
Speaker 4: I'm not here to tell you how to do your job.
Speaker 4: I'm here to just lead us in the right direction
Speaker 4: and kind of have some organization in the plan and
Speaker 4: build this brand into something special. And I think we've
Speaker 4: done a pretty good job of that. And Coach Tucker
Speaker 4: really sees the value and being active on social media
Speaker 4: and doing stuff that other people aren't like when when
Speaker 4: people look at our social media, we want people to
Speaker 4: look at us as the ones for inspiration instead of
Speaker 4: people looking for what Lsu and clumbs in and Ohio
Speaker 4: State are doing. Like we want to be those those
Speaker 4: guys that people are looking to for inspiration. And sometimes
Speaker 4: it's coming up with an idea that's a little bit
Speaker 4: off the wall and different. Sometimes it plops, sometimes it doesn't.
Speaker 4: And I think that everything that we've done so far
Speaker 4: as and pretty successful in the public's eye. And it's
Speaker 4: been a noticeable change since we got to Michigan State
Speaker 4: because the last staff is a little a little more
Speaker 4: strict on what they could and couldn't do on social media.
Speaker 4: So right it's been pretty refreshing for our creative team
Speaker 4: because everybody on our.
Speaker 2: Creative team besides me, was already here under the last staff.
Speaker 4: So when we came in and essentially gave them freedom
Speaker 4: again on social media. It's been a breath fresh area
Speaker 4: for them.
Speaker 3: How does Michigan State staff maybe size wise, maybe in
Speaker 3: what the spartan staff focuses on, I'm talking about your
Speaker 3: creative staff. How does the size compare and the scope
Speaker 3: compared to other really really successful programs within college football.
Speaker 3: If you look at Ohio State or Oregon, or Texas
Speaker 3: or Alabama, what do their staffs look like? Is it
Speaker 3: similarly sized? Are they bigger? Is it a more well
Speaker 3: oiled machine? Where does Michigan State fit in? Just now,
Speaker 3: very very early on in your tenure there.
Speaker 4: Size wise, we're pretty comparable to all of those those
Speaker 4: top tier programs like you mentioned kind of places like
Speaker 4: LSU and Clemson have quite a bit more manpower in
Speaker 4: their creative departments. But one thing that we're going to
Speaker 4: try to do once we get back on campus and
Speaker 4: can start being face faced with everyone, we really want
Speaker 4: to build up our student body and get a bunch
Speaker 4: of students in here and really build that up. Makes sense,
Speaker 4: and that's how everything kind of starts too. You know,
Speaker 4: That's how I got my start in it. So those
Speaker 4: opportunities are huge for these kids to make the jump
Speaker 4: to a position like the one that I'm in now.
Speaker 3: It seems the big focus is probably Instagram, which is
Speaker 3: where I suspect a number of recruits spend most of
Speaker 3: their time. Is there? Are you eager to look to
Speaker 3: another platform? Are you going to YouTube? Are you going
Speaker 3: to TikTok? Are you going to do more on Twitter?
Speaker 3: Where is? Where would you like to build things up
Speaker 3: where perhaps you aren't right now?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean we always try to stay kind of trendy.
Speaker 4: I mean, I like, personally I don't use TikTok, but
Speaker 4: I know all the recruits around there, so we try
Speaker 4: to do some stuff on there. Is just kind of
Speaker 4: stay relevant, and I mean across all platforms, we're trying
Speaker 4: to just really blow it out of the water and
Speaker 4: just be the best that we can. So I can't
Speaker 4: say that there's just one area that I think we
Speaker 4: need to approve on. I would rather just keep grinding
Speaker 4: and keep pumping stuff out on all platforms.
Speaker 1: Derek, So you you've kind of described a bit of
Speaker 1: an arms race here in the creative field when it
Speaker 1: comes to college football and social media and designing graphics.
Speaker 1: How do you score your peers, your new peers now
Speaker 1: in the Big ten. I know Ohio State's obviously got,
Speaker 1: you know, a pretty developed team in this regard. I
Speaker 1: know there are others. Have you had a chance to
Speaker 1: look around being so this is a new position, and
Speaker 1: how do you evaluate your new competition?
Speaker 4: Yeah, But because Blaze and I had a conversation about this.
Speaker 2: Blaze is one of our graphic designers.
Speaker 4: It was a couple of days before we got sent
Speaker 4: into quarantine, and he's like, hey man, He's like, we
Speaker 4: have the manpower, we have everything here to become the
Speaker 4: best creative team in the country. And I hadn't really
Speaker 4: thought of it in that sense. But after he said that,
Speaker 4: like I said on.
Speaker 2: It for a few days, I was like, you know,
Speaker 2: he's right, like we do have.
Speaker 4: Everything here that we need to be the best in
Speaker 4: the country. And I think we're making some strides to
Speaker 4: actually kind of claim that top spot. And I mean,
Speaker 4: we're always conscious of what those other schools are doing,
Speaker 4: and Ohio State has always done a great job of
Speaker 4: that and they were kind of on the forefront of
Speaker 4: building a creative department and building a strong brand. But
Speaker 4: I think we're we're making some strong strides to claim
Speaker 4: one of those top spots in the country is one
Speaker 4: of the best creative teams. I think a lot of
Speaker 4: people are starting to kind of take notice and what
Speaker 4: we're doing too.
Speaker 3: That you've had to be involved with, I assume for
Speaker 3: the first time, but perhaps it's something that you've had
Speaker 3: to do before, just as a tool, not as a
Speaker 3: necessary A necessary part of your job is the virtual visit.
Speaker 3: Recruits are not traveling the country right now, they're not
Speaker 3: on campus taking unofficial visits. They're not meeting with coaches
Speaker 3: at camps or on campus or anything like that, and
Speaker 3: you've been tasked with setting up some sort of virtual
Speaker 3: visits so perspective Michigan State football players get a sense
Speaker 3: for coaches, for facilities, for atmosphere, for campus, things like that.
Speaker 3: What has the process been like to sort of present
Speaker 3: the Michigan State brand to people who can't fully take
Speaker 3: it in right now.
Speaker 4: That's been a big challenge for not just us, with
Speaker 4: everybody in the country right now because obviously the process
Speaker 4: you can't be traveling. So our approach to it, we
Speaker 4: wanted to again do something that's different and a lot
Speaker 4: of the ordinary, so we treat it like a festival.
Speaker 4: This is an idea from the creative and the recruiting
Speaker 4: team to essentially treat it like a music festival. So
Speaker 4: we would have essentially like a lineup like.
Speaker 2: The posters that you see for the bonner to Coachella.
Speaker 4: Featuring the Prospect, and then have the time slots all
Speaker 4: set up kind of how.
Speaker 2: The stages would be and.
Speaker 4: Huh, and it's it's tough for us because we just
Speaker 4: got to Michigan State and people don't really know who
Speaker 4: we are yet.
Speaker 2: But this kind of gave us a unique opportunity to.
Speaker 4: To have some some face to face interaction virtually with
Speaker 4: with the recruits over FaceTime and kind of introduce ourselves
Speaker 4: and set ourselves aside from the from the competition. And
Speaker 4: our staff is super personable too, so it made it
Speaker 4: pretty easy for us to tast success with these visits.
Speaker 3: What's it like interacting with parents because they're also coming
Speaker 3: on these visits and now they're part of a virtual visit.
Speaker 3: They're also seeing the artwork, and you know, you want
Speaker 3: to you want to toe the line. You don't want
Speaker 3: to make it seem like their kid is definitely going
Speaker 3: to the NFL, definitely going to be an all pro
Speaker 3: NFL player, and so you're selling parents with this with
Speaker 3: Instagram artwork, and parents aren't necessarily on Instagram, they're not
Speaker 3: necessarily tech savvy, but they're still part of this recruitment
Speaker 3: and technological process. What has that level of communication been.
Speaker 4: Like, Yeah, we build those relationships too with the families
Speaker 4: and not just the prospects, and from our creative side,
Speaker 4: I mean we even do personalized graphics for the for
Speaker 4: the prospects, moms for Mother's Day and dads for Father's Day.
Speaker 2: And that's great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a family process. I mean, we're not just
Speaker 4: after the prospect and we I mean we are going
Speaker 4: to be with the families for the next three or
Speaker 4: four years of these digitalizes that they come to play for us.
Speaker 4: So yeah, we really kind of preach that family atmosphere
Speaker 4: and I think our staff does a great job of that.
Speaker 3: Are there any missteps that you've made You're like, yep,
Speaker 3: never doing that again. I've learned a very valuable lesson
Speaker 3: from doing this one thing in a very strange way.
Speaker 3: Do you have like a notable misstep because I don't
Speaker 3: know anybody that hasn't done something kind of wonky online.
Speaker 4: Ever, Yeah, I mean, aside from just like the classic
Speaker 4: like typosonographic and then you notice it two hours after
Speaker 4: it was posted and you have to delete it repost.
Speaker 4: Oh aside from that, I think the only mistake that
Speaker 4: personally I've made was we posted something on It was
Speaker 4: one of the first days of quarantine when people are
Speaker 4: starting to get laid off, and we publicized Kirk Cousin's
Speaker 4: new contract because in my eyes, I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: this is good.
Speaker 2: I mean, we have something to post. It's positive. And
Speaker 2: then we post this graphic that's showing how much money
Speaker 2: he's making while everybody else is losing their jobs.
Speaker 4: So right, I was I should have been a little
Speaker 4: more conscious of that so we didn't look insensitive. But
Speaker 4: that's the one that comes to mind for me is
Speaker 4: as far as like a social media ble under on my.
Speaker 1: Part, Let's get you out of here. On perhaps the
Speaker 1: hardest question of all. I don't know if you're ready
Speaker 1: for this.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, you're.
Speaker 1: In the college football arena. So much of this is
Speaker 1: how one team ranks against another as a creative genius.
Speaker 1: I need your top three. This is very important. This
Speaker 1: is an official ranking Top three photoshop tools.
Speaker 2: Go who Okay, I'm a big pen tool guy. When
Speaker 2: it comes to cutting out.
Speaker 4: Players, Wow, one that I think you'll get a lot
Speaker 4: of different answers across the board for that one, and
Speaker 4: even just at our creative team. That's not even a
Speaker 4: consensus tool.
Speaker 2: For us to use, but it's one that I live by.
Speaker 3: How quickly can you cut?
Speaker 4: So I've been using a it's called a lock them tablet.
Speaker 4: I've been using it since I was in high school.
Speaker 4: My brother is a creative director for Wescott Photography Lighting,
Speaker 4: so he's the one that kind of got me into
Speaker 4: all of the graphic design world. He got me my
Speaker 4: first tablet when I was seventeen years old. So I've
Speaker 4: been using it for the past ten years and this
Speaker 4: sped up my my work process a lot. So as
Speaker 4: far as cutouts, I'd say probably, I don't know, twenty
Speaker 4: twenty five minutes per cutout.
Speaker 3: He's good, Okay, he's impressive.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd be kind of I'd be kind of curious
Speaker 4: to see how how that ranks against other designers. It's
Speaker 4: a conversation I've never really even had with the other
Speaker 4: creative So.
Speaker 3: Your design Olympics, Yeah, it's got to happen.
Speaker 1: All right, So we got the pen tool, what about
Speaker 1: a pen tool as.
Speaker 2: Far as editing photos that he's Topaz Labs.
Speaker 4: It's a it's a photoshop plug in, but it's a
Speaker 4: figure oft tool, and maybe I shouldn't be given away
Speaker 4: my seekers cannot people are going to be trying to
Speaker 4: copy me. But the third one that's huge for me.
Speaker 4: I'm going to go with the clone stamp because there's
Speaker 4: been so many times where we have to if we're
Speaker 4: making a personalized recruiting graphic and it's somebody else that
Speaker 4: we're photoshopping their journey into prospects name and number, there's
Speaker 4: so much clone stamping involved in that. So I'd say
Speaker 4: that's probably my number three.
Speaker 1: Go to good handswer all right, well again, his name
Speaker 1: is Derek Markle. Look for his work on behalf of
Speaker 1: the Michigan State Spartans. We wish you lots of luck
Speaker 1: in the new role. I know it's a little awkward
Speaker 1: right now, as it is for a lot of us
Speaker 1: who have to work from home or remotely or wherever
Speaker 1: you might be in the world, but really looking forward
Speaker 1: to following your work and best of luck to you.
Speaker 1: Great job on all your success.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Yeah, I appreciate your time. Guys.
Speaker 1: All Right, cool man.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Eric Markle from Michigan State an awesome story. Yes, and
Speaker 1: I'm struck by just the arms race. I guess we
Speaker 1: knew it was a thing, right, social media college athletics.
Speaker 1: We knew that it was an important thing. But I
Speaker 1: guess to hear it right from Derek's mouth, it's very
Speaker 1: apparent how much time and energy and thought goes into
Speaker 1: the graphics that you see. It's amazing.
Speaker 3: It's one of the words we use a lot, and
Speaker 3: I use this especially as infrastructure. And we've had a
Speaker 3: couple of people ask like, what exactly are you referencing
Speaker 3: when you say infrastructure, because it is a sort of big,
Speaker 3: vague word. And one of those things is just the
Speaker 3: various departments of support that a program has or should have.
Speaker 3: And there are rumors sometimes about, well, this big school
Speaker 3: is interested in this big coach, and then he's sort
Speaker 3: of turned off for whatever reason. He doesn't think he's
Speaker 3: going to have the support, he doesn't think he's going
Speaker 3: to have the facilities. One of the things that coaches
Speaker 3: look for is what is the academic tutoring situation, like
Speaker 3: what are the facilities, like what does the training table
Speaker 3: look like? But also what about the recruiting department, how
Speaker 3: much what's the budget like for the recruiting department and
Speaker 3: the sort of creative department that Derek helps to run,
Speaker 3: for example at Michigan State, and you know what he
Speaker 3: did at previous places. And if that's not in a
Speaker 3: good place, there either needs to be a promise made
Speaker 3: or they're passing it up. Because if you don't have
Speaker 3: what I guess Michigan State has now, or what Ohio State,
Speaker 3: or any of these big programs that you would think
Speaker 3: don't need to advertise, they all do. They all are
Speaker 3: promoting themselves. They're all creating artwork for recruits and sort
Speaker 3: of touting their own players if they're having an amazing
Speaker 3: game or setting records or winning an award. It's so
Speaker 3: very important now because you're either in or you're out
Speaker 3: tie when it comes to this stuff. And it's fascinating
Speaker 3: to hear Derek talk about sort of what his path
Speaker 3: is and what goes into this sort of thing, because
Speaker 3: I think a lot of us are visual learners and
Speaker 3: as you mentioned with you know, your space themed lab,
Speaker 3: if a company was trying to recruit you, it's you
Speaker 3: want to be able to visualize and these guys are
Speaker 3: so talented. This is a this is a capital eye industry,
Speaker 3: which is how I phrased it to you before when
Speaker 3: we were talking about the idea for this show. So
Speaker 3: what Derek does is is vitally important, like it or not,
Speaker 3: and it's it's crazy interesting to hear what that process is.
Speaker 1: Well, again, it speaks to the point that I brought
Speaker 1: up earlier, return on investment, Yeah or WI. It's what
Speaker 1: it comes down to for every business that's on social
Speaker 1: media trying to promote themselves, and it's the case here.
Speaker 1: How much are you willing to put in to promote
Speaker 1: your brand to perspective, recruits, to fans, who knows whoever else.
Speaker 1: It's a process. A lot goes into it, both creatively
Speaker 1: and organizationally. Need to have a calendar, need to know
Speaker 1: what you're going to say, need to have you know,
Speaker 1: a strong team that can execute on that this. So
Speaker 1: that's what Derek is trying to build at Michigan State.
Speaker 1: And as we know, there are many other programs around
Speaker 1: the country that are really investing heavily in this to
Speaker 1: try and build themselves up and make it look like
Speaker 1: you said visually that this is a place that somebody
Speaker 1: wants to go.
Speaker 3: And I can hear people listening to that interview. Yes,
Speaker 3: I can hear them listening. However backwards that sounds, but
Speaker 3: I can hear people reacting to this side of the
Speaker 3: college football universe and saying, almost this is a very
Speaker 3: much strong man strong man argument. I've just been around
Speaker 3: college football fans for a long time now, where they're saying,
Speaker 3: we don't want fans. We don't want players who need
Speaker 3: to get social media love to come to our school.
Speaker 1: We want guys, yeah you do, yeah you do, But.
Speaker 3: We want players that exist in twenty twenty, right. We
Speaker 3: want players who are online. And there is a certain
Speaker 3: degree of and I don't care if you're a recruit
Speaker 3: or you're an active player. People like to feel appreciated.
Speaker 3: And sure, maybe an older way of recruitment and an
Speaker 3: older school recruit does exist, but the fact of the
Speaker 3: matter is recruits live online. Recruits need to visualize like
Speaker 3: you and I do. And if you're able to do
Speaker 3: that efficiently and creatively, it sends a message that not
Speaker 3: only do we care about you, but we're thinking about
Speaker 3: you when you're you know, two weeks outside of your visit.
Speaker 3: We haven't forgotten about you when you're already committed. It's
Speaker 3: not like we're just going to hope that you stay committed.
Speaker 3: It's we were still thinking about how we're going to
Speaker 3: use you in our nickel package. We're still thinking about,
Speaker 3: you know, what you're going to look like in our
Speaker 3: offensive system. And I think that matters. I think kids
Speaker 3: are really really smart, and when they notice that they
Speaker 3: haven't heard from coaches or that a school isn't necessarily
Speaker 3: being creative with how they're talking to them and how
Speaker 3: they're positioning them, it does send a message. And I
Speaker 3: think you'll you'll see more and more smart schools, dumb schools,
Speaker 3: every school doing their best online to convey that, yes,
Speaker 3: we are thinking of you, and we are very excited
Speaker 3: for you to potentially choose our school. So it all
Speaker 3: makes sense to me. I'm I'm always very excit from
Speaker 3: a graphical perspective to see.
Speaker 1: What these schools do. This is, this is a wheelhouse
Speaker 1: show for you.
Speaker 3: It totally is.
Speaker 1: I love it so much, so much of what we've done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the graphics have been out of your brain.
Speaker 3: And I'm only okay at best, But I love I
Speaker 3: love looking at people who are great at it, and
Speaker 3: it's clear that there's a lot of smart young people
Speaker 3: really pushing themselves to do cool new things.
Speaker 1: Well, with that as the backdrop, let's go to our
Speaker 1: second guest today, Hayes Fawcett. He has been doing this
Speaker 1: kind of work on the other side of the coin
Speaker 1: for perspective recruits, for you know, young football stars who
Speaker 1: want to build their own brand and try and make
Speaker 1: a name for themselves. And on that note, let's get
Speaker 1: to our second guest of the podcast.
Speaker 3: And now we are very excited to bring in actually
Speaker 3: somebody from the exact same world as as Derek and
Speaker 3: Michigan State. But he has done a lot of his
Speaker 3: work on Twitter and Instagram on the recruit side of things.
Speaker 3: He worked with high profile recruits from all over the
Speaker 3: country and helps them with their brands and to release
Speaker 3: photoshop edits of top fives, top tens, top threes, and
Speaker 3: then of course commitment announcements. Hayes Faucet about to go
Speaker 3: into college. How are you today?
Speaker 5: I'm doing good. How are y'all?
Speaker 3: We're fantastic. We are very excited to speak with you.
Speaker 3: So for people that have probably if they're listening to
Speaker 3: the show, they've one hundred percent seen your work online
Speaker 3: even though they didn't know your name specifically. What do
Speaker 3: you do and how did you get involved with social
Speaker 3: media and artwork and recruits?
Speaker 5: Well, what I do is I make the like you said,
Speaker 5: I make the announcement edits for the recruits like foreign
Speaker 5: fosstar guys who are announced the top schools commitment and
Speaker 5: even like just a point edit of all their offers.
Speaker 5: And I got into this when I was like in
Speaker 5: sixth grade. Probably I started off by doing a the pros,
Speaker 5: and I noticed I wasn't getting getting many, like as
Speaker 5: much engagement, so as I wanted, like, it's hard to
Speaker 5: interact with the pros because they have such big followings
Speaker 5: and their busy and stuff like that. So then I
Speaker 5: kind of started thinking maybe I could do high school
Speaker 5: guys because I know it's going to be a lot
Speaker 5: easier to get in touch with them, and plus there's
Speaker 5: a need for it.
Speaker 3: So kind of short from there, when who was your
Speaker 3: first high profile high school football player? What do you
Speaker 3: remember about that, that arrangement, that situation.
Speaker 5: The first one that really got me started was Darius
Speaker 5: Guye And uh, it was when he went to the
Speaker 5: Ormy All American game he had I'd done work for
Speaker 5: him like during his senior season, because he was following
Speaker 5: my page and was saying, like seeing all the pro
Speaker 5: athletes edits those posting and he wanted he wanted something
Speaker 5: like that. So I did something for him throughout his
Speaker 5: senior year. And then he got to the ormey Al
Speaker 5: American game and they always do a good job of
Speaker 5: takings and stuff, and he wanted me to make some
Speaker 5: stuff for him. So I did that whole week and
Speaker 5: he posted a bunch of stuff and then the uh,
Speaker 5: the other are all Americans from that week started to
Speaker 5: hit me up as well from seeing my work from him,
Speaker 5: and just since then, it's just been NonStop.
Speaker 3: How many would you say? How many edits of you know,
Speaker 3: top three's or commitment announcements. What is your typical schedule
Speaker 3: like during I guess a busy season, which now is
Speaker 3: really all year long, but when recruiting really gets into
Speaker 3: high gear before signing day, how busy are you?
Speaker 5: I'm extremely busius in my opinion, I think it's busiest
Speaker 5: like in the summer, like right now, and like it's
Speaker 5: when it's close to December, January, February. Those are definitely
Speaker 5: the most busiest.
Speaker 3: Times totally And what how long will it take you
Speaker 3: for a typical piece of artwork that you'll put out,
Speaker 3: how long will it take, you know, cutting out a
Speaker 3: player's picture and coming up with a background and maybe
Speaker 3: coming up with a theme. What is what is that workflow?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 5: It really depends on what type I'm doing, but it
Speaker 5: can go from anywhere from like forty five minutes to
Speaker 5: two hours.
Speaker 1: All right, Hey, so walk me through like your marketing
Speaker 1: pitch to a recruit for for why they should use
Speaker 1: your services or do you feel like your work has
Speaker 1: transcended to the point that it sort of does the
Speaker 1: talk for itself.
Speaker 5: Yeah, to be honest, when I first started, I would
Speaker 5: hit the tether, hit their recruits up and tell them
Speaker 5: what I do and show them some examples of my work.
Speaker 5: But now, I mean when when they when they're going
Speaker 5: to announce something, they know to come to me. So
Speaker 5: these days I rarely really seeing guys.
Speaker 2: They come to me most of the time.
Speaker 1: From your perspective, like, what do you view as a
Speaker 1: successful project? How do you score your own success?
Speaker 2: One?
Speaker 5: But I'd say just just doing something that that player, like,
Speaker 5: like if I send it to him and he has
Speaker 5: a good reaction to it, thinks thinks it's cool any posted,
Speaker 5: of course, I think that's a great success in my opinion.
Speaker 1: So you you obviously know long in advance where some
Speaker 1: of these guys have chosen to go to school or
Speaker 1: where they won't be going to school. How have you
Speaker 1: gone about building up that trust? And do you find
Speaker 1: yourself in odd situations where people want you to sign
Speaker 1: non disclosure agreements to try and hold those secrets a
Speaker 1: little closer to the vest. What is that process like
Speaker 1: for you?
Speaker 5: Well, I've always known, like since I started, that leaking
Speaker 5: any of any of the recruits information would ruin my
Speaker 5: credibility and like the reputation for myself, so I've always
Speaker 5: stayed away from doing that. But yeah, like you said,
Speaker 5: people have hit me up and asked me to tell
Speaker 5: them where certain guys are going, and I mean, I'll
Speaker 5: never do that.
Speaker 3: So one of the things that's interesting on that level too,
Speaker 3: will you be asked to make three different commitment pieces
Speaker 3: of artwork if a guy really doesn't know until the
Speaker 3: very end, so that he is ready no matter where
Speaker 3: he chooses, are you giving him sort of options and
Speaker 3: contingency plans?
Speaker 5: Yes, sir, so like back in like twenty seventeen or
Speaker 5: twenty sixteen, whenever my name wasn't really as big as
Speaker 5: it is now, some guys would kind of question a
Speaker 5: little bit and I have to make a few and then.
Speaker 5: But since times went on, I've shown them like I've
Speaker 5: earned my reputation and the trust and stuff. But yeah,
Speaker 5: like he said, some guys have hit me up and
Speaker 5: actually not knowing where they're actually going. So there's a
Speaker 5: guy's planning to commit soon, I don't know when, but
Speaker 5: I actually have to make two or three different ones
Speaker 5: for him just because he doesn't know where he's going yet.
Speaker 1: So now as you maybe shift your focus a little bit,
Speaker 1: and as we said earlier, you're going to be working
Speaker 1: a little bit with the LSU recruiting department, how does
Speaker 1: that change what you do? Do you think about out
Speaker 1: things differently the product that you're putting out now that
Speaker 1: maybe you're from the perspective of an LSU department and
Speaker 1: not a specific recruit.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So when I get to LSU, I think it's
Speaker 5: going to be illegal to talk to the recruits, like
Speaker 5: like get a former relationship with them. And just because
Speaker 5: I'm at LSU, I'm gonna have to be putting out
Speaker 5: straight LSU content and like I'm not allowed to like
Speaker 5: post like top five and stuff like that. But I mean,
Speaker 5: it's always been my dream to work at LSU, So
Speaker 5: like all the things that I've done has been specifically
Speaker 5: to make it to my dream school. So I'm fine
Speaker 5: with giving that up.
Speaker 1: Were you recruited by other schools?
Speaker 5: Uh, you could say that kind of.
Speaker 3: So what does that mean exactly?
Speaker 2: Though?
Speaker 5: So like some of the other school like Tennessee, Oregon,
Speaker 5: and like whenever I was in middle school, Texas, A
Speaker 5: and M had wanted me to work for them but
Speaker 5: that didn't work out. But yeah, they wanted me to
Speaker 5: join their Kennessee wanted me to join their content team.
Speaker 5: I was on the phone with a coach Preuitt and
Speaker 5: we talked a little bit, and then uh, Oregon organ
Speaker 5: wasn't really much of an option for me though, But
Speaker 5: and then I got the call from coach Oh, and
Speaker 5: that's just something I couldn't pass on pass up pone.
Speaker 3: Do you feel like you have because you're in communication
Speaker 3: with all these guys who are under so much pressure
Speaker 3: and they have so much attention, do you feel like
Speaker 3: you have a unique ability to communicate you sort of
Speaker 3: have a you know how they're thinking. You know, you
Speaker 3: know what they like, what they don't like. Do you
Speaker 3: feel like you really do have a leg up going.
Speaker 3: It's weird to say it, but it's accurate to the
Speaker 3: next level.
Speaker 5: Yes, sir, for sure, no doubt.
Speaker 1: What have you learned.
Speaker 5: I just learned to, like you said, just think, think
Speaker 5: like I'm in their shoes, think what they want, and
Speaker 5: just respect, respect with their decision and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: From coaches looking to gain insight on kids that they're recruiting.
Speaker 3: Because you are you're followed by a number of you know,
Speaker 3: high profile coaches in the sport. Do they not ask
Speaker 3: you where a kid's going? But like, what is this
Speaker 3: kid like? What does this think? What is this kid's hobbies?
Speaker 3: What are they thinking? Well, you know, how is their
Speaker 3: parent if you've spoken to their parent, are they trying
Speaker 3: to like mine you for information?
Speaker 5: Some coaches have like asked me, like a few nights
Speaker 5: before if a certain guy was going somewhere, and like,
Speaker 5: out of respect for the player, I won't even really
Speaker 5: open the message. I just kind of look at it.
Speaker 5: But other than that, I mean, they don't really try
Speaker 5: to get much out of like, like you said, their
Speaker 5: hobbies and their family and stuff like that. No one's
Speaker 5: really asked me about that.
Speaker 3: Do you ever get feedback from recruits that, let's say
Speaker 3: you put out an edit of a recruits top five
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden that gets the recruit even
Speaker 3: more attention from schools that are are not even in
Speaker 3: his top five. Do you find your artwork really drawing
Speaker 3: attention to recruits that they otherwise necessarily didn't get because
Speaker 3: of what they've put online?
Speaker 5: Oh yes, sir, Like I have a pretty big following
Speaker 5: on both Twitter and Instagram, and I I post like
Speaker 5: well I post. I don't know how to say it,
Speaker 5: but like they'll get a good amount of attention from
Speaker 5: from the people from just from my following and stuff.
Speaker 5: I don't know how to put put in the words.
Speaker 3: How long will it typical edit take you, a typical
Speaker 3: piece of art take you.
Speaker 5: Anyway, just depending on what type I'm doing, anywhere from
Speaker 5: forty five minutes to two or three hours.
Speaker 3: Are you are you self taught? What are you using
Speaker 3: Photoshop illustrator? How did you you know if you were
Speaker 3: starting this in sixth grade? It was just just a
Speaker 3: hobby from from day one. Did you did you teach yourself?
Speaker 3: What did you take classes? How did you how did
Speaker 3: you get involved?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm self taught and uh I didn't.
Speaker 2: I never.
Speaker 5: I wish I had the opportunity to take a photoshop
Speaker 5: class at my school, but they don't.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 5: I go to a small school, a small town, but
Speaker 5: self taught, and I actually do all this stuff on
Speaker 5: my phone. So I'm trying to learn photoshop. So hopefully
Speaker 5: when I get to LSU, I'll be able to learn
Speaker 5: some stuff and have the opportunity to use it.
Speaker 3: You do all the artwork, all of the artwork is
Speaker 3: from your phone. Yes, sir, that's amazing. So that's incredible.
Speaker 3: We need to get you a laptop. LSU will get
Speaker 3: you a laptop, correct, yes sir. Okay, So what are
Speaker 3: you looking forward to? You mentioned not being able to
Speaker 3: take a class on photoshop or anything and doing all
Speaker 3: this artwork on your phone. What are you looking forward
Speaker 3: to get getting better at as an artist at LSU
Speaker 3: at the next level?
Speaker 5: Just honestly everything, because there's so much more you can
Speaker 5: do on photoshop in comparison to my phone. Like on
Speaker 5: my phone, I'm limited to so many different things and
Speaker 5: I have a friend who has Photoshop, and I see
Speaker 5: some of the work he does, and it's just amazing that,
Speaker 5: like all the different things you can do on there
Speaker 5: that aren't available to use on phone on my phone.
Speaker 1: I feel like that might be the breaking news tidbit
Speaker 1: out of this interview Dan, because when we had Derek on,
Speaker 1: we made it a point to ask him what his
Speaker 1: top three photoshop tools were. And I was prepared to
Speaker 1: ask you the same question, Hayz, But this is like
Speaker 1: a different stratosphere. Now what are you using on your phone?
Speaker 5: Are you like nine to twelve different apps?
Speaker 3: So what are your top three?
Speaker 5: Uh? Super imposed that's what I used, like to mask
Speaker 5: and like put the player out of Photoshop Express and
Speaker 5: the app called snapseed to where I can like adjust
Speaker 5: the filters and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: This is great.
Speaker 3: So you will, you will do the cutting out of players,
Speaker 3: you will get the logos in there, you will come
Speaker 3: up with a theme. You will you will position everything
Speaker 3: right there on your phone. And how quickly will you
Speaker 3: hear back from players once you send them? Will you
Speaker 3: get notes like can you change this? Can you pop
Speaker 3: this color a little bit? Or are they just grateful to
Speaker 3: get free artwork?
Speaker 5: Grateful to get for your work for sure, but yeah,
Speaker 5: they don't really, they don't really ask much to change.
Speaker 3: That's incredible, man, Ty I am, I am. I was
Speaker 3: already impressed with Hayes. And do you want to get
Speaker 3: into like do you want to get into video? Do
Speaker 3: you want to do you know, photography, stuff that you
Speaker 3: haven't been able to work on or is it just
Speaker 3: every box you want to check every box and become
Speaker 3: sort of a complete artist.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I want to check every box and to come
Speaker 5: up completely orders like doing video and photography and graphic design.
Speaker 5: That's that's just right up, Miley.
Speaker 3: Do you have people reaching out to you, like fourteen fifteen,
Speaker 3: sixteen year olds now wondering what your process is, how
Speaker 3: they can get into the game. Are you already, even
Speaker 3: though you're at a young age, are you already seeing
Speaker 3: people trying to come up the way you came up?
Speaker 5: Oh? No doubt. Yeah. I get dms every day asking
Speaker 5: like what I use, how I do it, and how
Speaker 5: I get big like I did.
Speaker 1: Well, we got to give you a lot of credit.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 1: That's that's quite the portfolio built for yourself and now
Speaker 1: to kind of take that to the next level. Move on,
Speaker 1: to your dream school at LSU. I guess the operative
Speaker 1: question is are you going to be making any kind
Speaker 1: of art work for yourself?
Speaker 2: Maybe so?
Speaker 1: Yes, I like it.
Speaker 3: When can we look for your official commitment?
Speaker 2: Edit?
Speaker 5: Uh within probably by the end of July.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: I love hearing that.
Speaker 2: That's so great.
Speaker 5: I had actually made my own I was going to
Speaker 5: go play football at Northwestern State, and I have made
Speaker 5: my own commitment at it then to go play football
Speaker 5: at the next level. But that's annymore because the LSU
Speaker 5: opportunity is just too good to pass up on.
Speaker 3: So you're like any any other recruit who isn't fully
Speaker 3: positive at the moment and needed to help have you
Speaker 3: needed to have you make two different edits, and you
Speaker 3: did that for yourself. You were you were prepared in
Speaker 3: both cases.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, that's great.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, this is a super cool story and
Speaker 1: I'm so happy we had you on. His name is
Speaker 1: Hayes Faucet. We'll be going to LSU in the fall.
Speaker 1: We wish you nothing but the best, Hayes. This is
Speaker 1: a great story. Keep on doing the good work and
Speaker 1: pumping out that cool stuff, and we'll look for you
Speaker 1: for sure. All across social media, all.
Speaker 5: Right, thank you so much, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: So, Dan, he doesn't even use Photoshop using to make
Speaker 1: those graphics, Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3: Elements or express? I forget what he said on his phone.
Speaker 3: So we're not talking about using a track pad or
Speaker 3: a mouse or anything like that in a traditional graphic
Speaker 3: design way.
Speaker 1: Watson me, Dan, Yeah, I'm here. It requires the patience
Speaker 1: of a dead horse to do that kind of work,
Speaker 1: that much work. Yeah, on a phone.
Speaker 3: How much battery does he go through?
Speaker 1: You definitely have some sort of Encore Encore not a sponsor,
Speaker 1: but like portable battery situation to facilitate such work. To
Speaker 1: be that that busy doing those kinds of graphics, that
Speaker 1: quality of work on a phone is a true commitment
Speaker 1: to the cause. So I salute you, mister Hayes Fawcett,
Speaker 1: not just for coming on the show, but for the
Speaker 1: work he does. He does a great job. Congratulations to
Speaker 1: him and all success.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'll mention again that people ask us how
Speaker 3: to get into sports. A lot of it is self starting.
Speaker 3: It's not just spamming every inbox with resumes and everything
Speaker 3: like that. A lot of it is just making work
Speaker 3: that you're passionate about being relentless about your specific niche,
Speaker 3: whether it's within college football or E sports, or baseball
Speaker 3: or softball, whatever, it's finding out what you really like doing,
Speaker 3: what specific element of that sport you like doing, and
Speaker 3: doing it relentlessly and honestly. Ty, this is a safe
Speaker 3: space for you and I, you and me. You started,
Speaker 3: you won the contest to start writing at Fox Sports
Speaker 3: at what age?
Speaker 1: That was two thousand and six, So I was twenty five,
Speaker 1: you're twenty five, twenty four? I was twenty four, Right.
Speaker 3: You're twenty four? Are you writing for Fox? You had
Speaker 3: already started I think a Yankees like proto podcast before then,
Speaker 3: right around then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was so, I well, even before the writing
Speaker 1: things started. Yeah, before I got into the blog circuit,
Speaker 1: I had figured out how to do podcasting, right, And
Speaker 1: this is before there was a word. This is two
Speaker 1: that late two thousand and four, and I you know,
Speaker 1: I paid a guy in New York who I never met,
Speaker 1: to like run a server for me. And I had
Speaker 1: like this whole thing that I that I set up.
Speaker 1: But I had figured out the podcast thing long before
Speaker 1: podcasting was even really a thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But you were paid for the first time to
Speaker 3: work in sports when you were twenty four years old.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's the same age that I sold my
Speaker 3: series to Sports Illustrated and started working for SI and
Speaker 3: eventually met you at SI dot com.
Speaker 1: And by the way, yeah, two thousand and four was
Speaker 1: YouTube really even a thing at that Really, it didn't
Speaker 1: come around till like two thousand and six.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, oh, five oh six is when it really
Speaker 3: took off as a platform anyway. So I was really
Speaker 3: impressed with myself forgetting a job at SI shooting video,
Speaker 3: hosting video going around the country an amazing job. I
Speaker 3: was impressed that I was able to figure out that
Speaker 3: part of my life by the time I was twenty
Speaker 3: four and get to that level I was. Now, that's
Speaker 3: ancient ty compared to the people doing really cool work
Speaker 3: online and making names for themselves, whether it's on Instagram
Speaker 3: or with a podcast or Twitter or whatever, with their artwork,
Speaker 3: with their video. That's ancient because the tools are so
Speaker 3: good now that if you would just have a little
Speaker 3: bit of a self starting gene and you just stick
Speaker 3: to it, you can make something of yourself in a
Speaker 3: way that I definitely thought I was really early doing.
Speaker 3: Turns out I'm ancient TI. That's all there is to
Speaker 3: it in twenty twenty terms. That's all it is.
Speaker 1: Fun show, good show, two good guests. We wish nothing
Speaker 1: but the best to Derek in his new role and
Speaker 1: Hayes as absolutely moves on to the college level. I
Speaker 1: await eagerly his amitment graphic.
Speaker 2: That'd be cool.
Speaker 1: Best again, don't forget. Please go on out to soliverble
Speaker 1: dot com. That is our website where you can find
Speaker 1: all of our stuff, where you can sign up for
Speaker 1: our newsletter, listen to all of our old episodes. Please
Speaker 1: do in the fine spirit of this show, follow along
Speaker 1: on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook, where we post more
Speaker 1: frequently now as we get a little bit closer to
Speaker 1: the season, and if you want to participate in conversations
Speaker 1: with other reballers, going out to Soliverble dot reddit dot com.
Speaker 3: Dan it's all yeah, and as we as we ramp up,
Speaker 3: and there will be more details about that soon. But
Speaker 3: as we ramp up. If you enjoy the shows, if
Speaker 3: you enjoyed listening to Derek and Hayes, or you enjoyed
Speaker 3: a Q and A, or you enjoy like an upcoming
Speaker 3: guest that perhaps has to do with scheme stuff. Tie wink,
Speaker 3: we get you, Wink wink wink. Here's what you can
Speaker 3: do to help out, and it's all free. You can
Speaker 3: just post the link on Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, maybe tell
Speaker 3: a person in real life or via text message that
Speaker 3: all really really does help to spread the word, because
Speaker 3: we are about to be investing more time and energy
Speaker 3: and resources into the show than we ever have, so
Speaker 3: we're always very grateful for people who enjoy it and
Speaker 3: share it. And now I am done speaking and I
Speaker 3: need to take a probably a cold shower after all
Speaker 3: that graphic design talk for.
Speaker 1: That guy over there, my good friend Dan Rubinstein, for myself,
Speaker 1: Tie Hilton Brand over here in Eastern PA. Thanks again
Speaker 1: for listening. As always, appreciate your feedback. Celiverble at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. You know the drill. Stay safe, wash those hands.
Speaker 1: We'll talk to you all in a week. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: stay solid, peace,