Speaker 1: This is kJ Live with Chris Johnson, and Chris is
Speaker 1: having conversations with influencers in the sports world and entertainment industry.
Speaker 1: Now here's Chris Johnson. You're now tuned in to kJ Live.
Speaker 1: Today's guest on the show two guys that have founded
Speaker 1: a initiative based in the New York City area that
Speaker 1: looks to bring back and restore the city as the
Speaker 1: mecca of basketball. Let's bring getting Griffin Taylor and Jared
Speaker 1: Fron of the program New York City. What's good, guys,
Speaker 1: what's going on kJ? Good to be on here, man,
Speaker 1: my pleasure. What's up kJ? Happy to be here, brob man,
Speaker 1: everything is good. I'm joining the sum of those far fellas. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's been a great summer. Just loved these finals that
Speaker 1: just took place. Um, a lot of good basketball. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you guys had a dog in the fight,
Speaker 1: but it was nice to see the Warriors get back
Speaker 1: to the their sales and uh and not got another championship.
Speaker 1: Which quick thoughts on on the finals from both of you. Jared,
Speaker 1: you go first? Oh man? Um, you know look, I
Speaker 1: was secretly rooting for the Warriors. UM. I don't know
Speaker 1: how secret was, but I was. I was just happy
Speaker 1: to see Clay, Steph and Drake you know, do it
Speaker 1: without Katie and remind everyone that they're not going anywhere.
Speaker 1: So um, that was. It was fun to watch Steph,
Speaker 1: you know, get his own Finals m v P. And
Speaker 1: you know, he's top ten all time. I don't even
Speaker 1: really think there's there's any question about it anymore. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: top too. I g what's your thoughts on the situation's
Speaker 1: gonna go. I'm gonna go even more aggressive to try
Speaker 1: to get the sound bite, and I'm gonna say he's
Speaker 1: top five all time because he changed the game of basketball.
Speaker 1: I don't pretend I got enough best friends for die
Speaker 1: hard Warriors fans, so I don't pretend to be one.
Speaker 1: But um yeah, an echo Jay's point. You know, as
Speaker 1: you get older, uh and I'm certainly getting older, you
Speaker 1: appreciate things more and more. And I think we're still
Speaker 1: in this window of appreciating greatness with Staff and and
Speaker 1: Clay and you know, I think it was just great
Speaker 1: to see them add the legacy and Jonathan Cominga's got
Speaker 1: New York ties. Uh, so so that was cool as well.
Speaker 1: Uh And um yeah, no, it just you know, it was.
Speaker 1: It was a great finals, and I think the Warriors
Speaker 1: deserved it. No, I think they did. I think they
Speaker 1: went out and they earned it. They definitely did. This team.
Speaker 1: They weathered all those storms that they went through in
Speaker 1: the last couple of seasons. Man. And really, just like Steph,
Speaker 1: I mean, he's incredible to me because I just all
Speaker 1: the guys I've ever seen play, I mean, just his
Speaker 1: ability to maneuver thirty forty ft out, just the level
Speaker 1: of comfort he has, you know, a half cord and
Speaker 1: through the legs behind the back, I mean the handle
Speaker 1: you know when he's off the bounce but forty ft away,
Speaker 1: it's just like dagn It's I mean it's not only that,
Speaker 1: like he's running off picks, you can't catch your breath
Speaker 1: for one second, the shots going up, Like I mean
Speaker 1: you literally what where? What do you want him to do? Pick? Exactly?
Speaker 1: It's it's crazy too. Everyone talks about his shooting and
Speaker 1: he's the greatest shooter of all time. He might have
Speaker 1: the crazy him and Kyrie, he might have the craziest
Speaker 1: handle in the NBA. And and like it's crazy that alone,
Speaker 1: and then also right after they want to I can't remember,
Speaker 1: as Mark Jackson or Van Gundy who said it, but
Speaker 1: you know the fact that when Katie came there and
Speaker 1: Steph said, you know, hey, man, you know you can
Speaker 1: take the last shot. You know this can be your team.
Speaker 1: You can do whatever to do to get these championships.
Speaker 1: How many guys who are already top ten, top all
Speaker 1: time at that point in their career would be willing
Speaker 1: to do that. And I think this championship kind of
Speaker 1: gives him those roses and people recognize that. So it
Speaker 1: couldn't be happy to do, no doubt. Man, Man, you're
Speaker 1: aw some basketball officiados. I love it. I let us
Speaker 1: see it. Man. Let's fast forward and talk about why
Speaker 1: you guys are here today, which is one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I wanted to bring you on. Shout out to
Speaker 1: Gay Pleasant for hooking this up, but I wanted to
Speaker 1: get just to the core, uh, the motivation inspiration behind
Speaker 1: the program New York City that you guys uh co founded, Right,
Speaker 1: I want to I want you guys. You guys can go,
Speaker 1: you know Jared the Then Griffin just kind of tell
Speaker 1: me what the the mission we're at your core for
Speaker 1: this program? What is it gonna solve what are you
Speaker 1: gonna how are you gonna help? Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: think that's a great question. kJ. Um. You know, look,
Speaker 1: Griffin and I uh grew up playing in in the
Speaker 1: rec league, UM New York City leagues when we were
Speaker 1: you know, eight all the way to sixteen, um, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we would battle against each other, and um,
Speaker 1: we love the experience of being able to you know,
Speaker 1: play play against other kids. But UM, I think we
Speaker 1: felt even back then, not not that specifically me, I
Speaker 1: definitely wasn't good enough Griffin at least want on to
Speaker 1: have a D three college career, but um, there didn't
Speaker 1: seem to be a place where, um there was kind
Speaker 1: of like the central hub of basketball for New York,
Speaker 1: right and in a city that claims to be the
Speaker 1: mecca of the sport. Um, I kind of always felt
Speaker 1: that that was crazy, that there was nothing where you
Speaker 1: could just um, you know, be a part of this
Speaker 1: great basketball culture, walk into a gym, get great instruction,
Speaker 1: um have have you know, elite amenity is that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, and um, you know so so really with
Speaker 1: the impetus of it was we thought like, hey, why
Speaker 1: are all these New York kids who are super talented
Speaker 1: like not staying around. Why are they leaving to go
Speaker 1: to the i mgs of the world, to the Oak Kills, right, Um.
Speaker 1: And the answer was like, there was nobody really doing
Speaker 1: what we're trying to do on a large scale and
Speaker 1: hasn't been um. And so we thought about this, you know,
Speaker 1: years ago when we knew very little about the world,
Speaker 1: and UM, you know, I got back together, you know,
Speaker 1: coincidentally at a wedding last summer and still had the
Speaker 1: same idea, and I realized that the hole in the
Speaker 1: market was still there. I'm all that all that Griffin,
Speaker 1: um continue to kind of like back that up. But
Speaker 1: that I would say was the real start of of
Speaker 1: where this this all began. Well, let's touch on that
Speaker 1: for a second. Let's talk about that, because that's interesting
Speaker 1: because there was a time when New York City was
Speaker 1: the mecca and had all the players and you had
Speaker 1: the guy they were there at the forefront of everything,
Speaker 1: the moves, the style, everything was based out of New York. Now,
Speaker 1: what identified a period of time that this that started
Speaker 1: to dissipate or that sort of started to go away
Speaker 1: Because I'm kind of confused. I always felt like, how
Speaker 1: did them guys get so good in the first place,
Speaker 1: How do you get to the Mardel? How did you
Speaker 1: get like Ron Art? How do you get these guys
Speaker 1: in the first place? You know what I'm saying? How
Speaker 1: was it established? And then what happened? I guess if
Speaker 1: you've got something for me on that, Yeah, yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 1: So it's funny you said Lamar odom because an iconic
Speaker 1: moment was when Lamar came to the Rutger the year
Speaker 1: that jay Z had his team and the Rutger and
Speaker 1: he did the sham God. Everybody knows what a legend
Speaker 1: sham God is. Then did the tenth on the layoup
Speaker 1: with jay Z and attendance with Lebron James standing up.
Speaker 1: That's such a sick moment. That's and and I think
Speaker 1: John Ran a couple of months ago did the same move,
Speaker 1: laid it and then did the same dance as Lamar.
Speaker 1: So you know that should tell you everything about New
Speaker 1: York City basketball culture. Right rewind ten fifteen years from
Speaker 1: that moment, and you got Chris Mullen and Mark Jackson.
Speaker 1: We run fifteen twenty years from that, and you got
Speaker 1: Dr J at the Rutger Um. New York had a
Speaker 1: certain swagger. You turn on the Big East Tournament, more
Speaker 1: than half the kids went to New York City High
Speaker 1: School fifteen. So I mean you worked with with with
Speaker 1: lab like you know years ago. UM. I think a
Speaker 1: big reason why it was the Mecca was there was
Speaker 1: two teams. There was Riverside and there was gall Shows
Speaker 1: and everyone in the country knows at and you had
Speaker 1: hundreds of kids vying for twenty spots. And if you
Speaker 1: weren't on Riversider gauchos, you weren't. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you can curse or not on podcasts A s H
Speaker 1: I t UM. So I think what's happened in the
Speaker 1: last ten twenty years. I think Jared brings up a
Speaker 1: good point. One is there's just not that many nice
Speaker 1: gyms in New York right. The ones that are out there,
Speaker 1: they're only reserved for NBA players. UM. And then you
Speaker 1: look at these other states that are catching up to
Speaker 1: US Jersey, they have huge high school's, huge campuses, huge gym's.
Speaker 1: That's one factor. Another factor is, UM, there's more AU
Speaker 1: teams and there are good players in New York. There's
Speaker 1: more coaches saying they're quote unquote AU coaches not to
Speaker 1: throw any shade at anyone UM, and you just have
Speaker 1: a saturation in the market. Right, it's not the same
Speaker 1: thing that it used to be UM. And then I
Speaker 1: think three to Jared's point, like a lot of kids
Speaker 1: who come up here that are super talented, they're going
Speaker 1: to O Kill, They're going to you know, mont Ver,
Speaker 1: They're going to i MG at a young age, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you see them in March Madness
Speaker 1: and you're like, damn, is that kid from New York?
Speaker 1: You don't have that same kemba sham got kareem read
Speaker 1: story where they come up all the way through. And
Speaker 1: so the project that we're building is sort of designed
Speaker 1: to address all that, starting with the construction the facility, uh,
Speaker 1: and then how we're going about the business, which we
Speaker 1: can both talk about a little more. Fox Sports Radio
Speaker 1: has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch
Speaker 1: all of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot com
Speaker 1: and within the I Heart Radio app search f s
Speaker 1: R to listen live. Now, how big is this facility
Speaker 1: and what is this like, where is it going to
Speaker 1: be located in? What is sort of I guess the
Speaker 1: membership structure because obviously you guys are you're gonna have
Speaker 1: a structure, right, a membership structure. But that or how's
Speaker 1: that gonna work? Somebody can explain that, can Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: so we are closing in on space. UM, we're we're
Speaker 1: looking at somewhere between fourteen and sixteen thousand square feet. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, we're we're hoping that uh, this location, UM,
Speaker 1: you know comes through for us. It's in Long Island City. UM.
Speaker 1: We're still you know, working out the least negotiations and stuff,
Speaker 1: but ideally will do it there. UM and UM, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a membership business, right so um similar
Speaker 1: to like an equinox or um, you know, crawn chenny
Speaker 1: sort of gym. It's basically gonna be a gym membership
Speaker 1: around basketball, right. UM will have one on one coaching
Speaker 1: who love leagues, who have camps. Um, we'll have a
Speaker 1: lot of these sort of you know ala carte programming
Speaker 1: if you want to call it that, UM, that families
Speaker 1: and their kids can take advantage of by um paying
Speaker 1: either annualized or monthly dues. I think we were still
Speaker 1: figuring out what that's gonna look like. UM, to have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to you know, be able to use the
Speaker 1: gym and call themselves a member UM and then you know,
Speaker 1: use our our our facility and and our melodies UM
Speaker 1: as much and as often as they want, uh UM.
Speaker 1: And so that's kind of gonna be the basis of
Speaker 1: the membership model. But UM, something that Griff and I
Speaker 1: are really really proud of is we actually started a
Speaker 1: charitable trust UM. And what we're hoping to do is
Speaker 1: UM have corporations and individuals donate, and then we're earmarking
Speaker 1: actually a certain percentage UM of our memberships for inner
Speaker 1: city kids. So UM, you know, we haven't talked about
Speaker 1: this yet. Carmelo Is is obviously UM a big part
Speaker 1: of what we're doing, and UM we're hoping to work
Speaker 1: with him to figure out, UM, which kids and families
Speaker 1: are deserving uh to be in the gym. UM have
Speaker 1: access to facility, might not be able to afford it,
Speaker 1: but obviously UM are a talented enough but be our
Speaker 1: our good people and UM have just as much you know,
Speaker 1: claim and right to be there as anyone else. And
Speaker 1: and we're hoping to really you know, UM, put put
Speaker 1: everyone together and UH make make this UM you know,
Speaker 1: equal opportunity and and and uh really UM have a
Speaker 1: diverse group of kids in our gym. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: your team. You mentioned Carmelo is on it, J J J.
Speaker 1: J Reddick, I saw is involved in some capacity book Richardson. Um,
Speaker 1: just for minutes to talk about the team and what
Speaker 1: everybody's kind of involvement is in the project. Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1: So obviously, Um, you know Jared and I are the
Speaker 1: co founders. Uh. You know Mellow somebody that was a
Speaker 1: huge gift for us, right, you know he's wanted to
Speaker 1: You see the clips of him working with high school
Speaker 1: kids and how much he puts into it and how
Speaker 1: much he cares and yelling at the rafts in the
Speaker 1: Baltimore games with Will Barton next to him. Um, he
Speaker 1: loves this. And um, you know with Kayen being uh
Speaker 1: at Christ the King right here in Queens and you
Speaker 1: know Mellow having wanted to build something great to give
Speaker 1: back to the youth not only in Brooklyn but in
Speaker 1: all of New York City. Uh, it just made a
Speaker 1: lot of sense. Uh. You know, it's a partner with
Speaker 1: him on this, and you know, we're lucky enough that
Speaker 1: he believes in our vision and he really wants to
Speaker 1: be involved. And uh you know we think he's going
Speaker 1: to be a really integral part of the project moving forward. Um.
Speaker 1: JJ is amazing. He's a great friend of Jared's. He's
Speaker 1: got two young boys, right who are just getting into
Speaker 1: that age where they want to get really good at basketball,
Speaker 1: just like their dad was. And you know, he sees
Speaker 1: a void in the market, right there's no real centralized
Speaker 1: youth league in New York City. There's no hub where
Speaker 1: he can go get them better every day. Um. Kenny
Speaker 1: and kJ Smith obviously Kenny from left rack legend in
Speaker 1: New York City. Um. kJ his son who played for
Speaker 1: Damon at Pacific, then went and played at U n C.
Speaker 1: Has just been such an integral part of the business,
Speaker 1: connecting us with folks like Cole, Anthony uh and a
Speaker 1: lot of other great people to get involved, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and then on the grassroots level, right, you know, just
Speaker 1: working with guys like Book. You know, Book has coached
Speaker 1: twenty plus McDonald's all Americans. When he speaks, kids listen, right, um,
Speaker 1: because he has the track record to prove it. Chad Babble, right,
Speaker 1: who runs Made Hoops, that's Nike's you know, six to
Speaker 1: eighth grade youth division. And Dad puts on the biggest
Speaker 1: events in the country for the best kids. Darren Duncan,
Speaker 1: who runs the Battle where Brownie Jr. Just played a
Speaker 1: few weeks ago and Queens against all the best Try
Speaker 1: State kids. Uh. But we're really building not only a
Speaker 1: great team on the NBA side, And you know, I
Speaker 1: think a big reason that New York has missed the
Speaker 1: last twenty years is there haven't been that many role models, right,
Speaker 1: you know, Sebastian Telfair, Lenny Cook, some of the guys
Speaker 1: who maybe we're supposed to get to the NBA at
Speaker 1: that level didn't. And so I think what we're trying
Speaker 1: to do is bring in the NBA guys who have
Speaker 1: ties to New York and show these kids you can
Speaker 1: touch and feel what it's like to succeed at that level. UM.
Speaker 1: And then on the grassroots side, getting the best guys
Speaker 1: and and and and girls into the facility who have
Speaker 1: coached the most successful kids in New York. I just
Speaker 1: feel like we're building a powerhouse team, which is what
Speaker 1: it's going to take to accomplish this project. Absolutely. I mean,
Speaker 1: you guys have got some key pieces, some key figures,
Speaker 1: some influencers UM that have respect in that basketball community.
Speaker 1: Book richardter Is some ide that have tremendous amount of
Speaker 1: respect for you know, spoke with him on my show. Um,
Speaker 1: I had an interview with him on my show as well.
Speaker 1: Um uh, let me ask you guys this now, when
Speaker 1: this facility get built, are there gonna be weekends where
Speaker 1: you work with like book and some or Chad and
Speaker 1: bring in made hoops for a weekend, or you guys
Speaker 1: have some a U stuff you're gonna do. Or is
Speaker 1: it going to strictly be uh with with your current
Speaker 1: your members and focus on that, or will there be
Speaker 1: like larger camps and clinics that you guys might host
Speaker 1: or you know, block off some courts? How many courts
Speaker 1: first of all? And then and if you guys can
Speaker 1: just touch on that for me, yeah, for sure. You
Speaker 1: want me to take it ja or you got you
Speaker 1: gotta cool. So in terms of the facility we're building
Speaker 1: right um, we're gonna have one gorgeous regulation court and
Speaker 1: it's gonna host big games. If you're on that court,
Speaker 1: you're somebody. Um. The stadium seating map that we have
Speaker 1: right now, we're gonna have about a thousand plus seats
Speaker 1: in the bleachers and then we're gonna have court side
Speaker 1: seats running up and down both sides of the facility
Speaker 1: underneath one set of bleachers. We're going to have an
Speaker 1: additional court. It might be a half court, it might
Speaker 1: be a mini full court to service younger kids. We're
Speaker 1: not sure yet, but basically a shoot around area as well. Uh.
Speaker 1: In terms of how in terms of how we're going
Speaker 1: to structure the business, in terms of how we're gonna
Speaker 1: structure the court time, it's really split in three right.
Speaker 1: Jared laid out our membership model really nicely. There are
Speaker 1: hundreds of families who are willing to pay for instruction
Speaker 1: that just haven't been able to get guys like Book
Speaker 1: to work with or teach their kids or j j uh.
Speaker 1: And that's gonna be a big part of what we're
Speaker 1: going to be doing day to day during the week
Speaker 1: is having that group instruction in those camps and those
Speaker 1: clinics on the weekend. There's no real centralized youth basketball
Speaker 1: league in New York City, right, which is crazy, So
Speaker 1: we want to be the spot to have the dopes
Speaker 1: youth league in New York. I think we haven't brought
Speaker 1: up yet and we can nowur later. Uh. The Academy. Right,
Speaker 1: we're literally building a prep school right here in New
Speaker 1: York City so that kids that or team fourteen years
Speaker 1: old don't have to go to Okale, don't have to
Speaker 1: go to Montvert. They can have this facility, they can
Speaker 1: have book they can have a top education right to
Speaker 1: get ready to go to the n c A A UM.
Speaker 1: And so the Academy team is going to be a
Speaker 1: big part of the facility right when they practice, when
Speaker 1: they have home games, UM. And then I think we
Speaker 1: should host big events, right, maybe not an entire e
Speaker 1: y b L circuit, but the championship of y b L,
Speaker 1: or the championship of the Battle of even the championship
Speaker 1: of the Catholic School League, right, which still holds weight
Speaker 1: in New York. Because we're gonna have the facility, because
Speaker 1: we're gonna have the seating, I think we're absolutely gonna
Speaker 1: be able to do all that in that space and
Speaker 1: kind of be the hub for all of it. Wow.
Speaker 1: So it's until the vision would be to host like
Speaker 1: high profile games, grassroots or or stuff like that at
Speaker 1: your spot in Long Island City. How far is Long
Speaker 1: Island City from like Brooklyn or where you guys grew
Speaker 1: up in Queens area. I love that you think we
Speaker 1: grew up in Queens or Bronx were No, did I
Speaker 1: bea Bronx or we're Manattan boys. Baby, That's horrible, that's horrible.
Speaker 1: That's horrible. But I'm ashamed. I'm I went to we
Speaker 1: went to school in the Bronx. I mean, we'll take
Speaker 1: that that. I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed. I'm sure
Speaker 1: I shouldn't know better. I was. Actually when I was
Speaker 1: living out there, I was staying in Soho, so I
Speaker 1: was with great laugh, like near the world, but we're
Speaker 1: the site of the old world tracing. But so I
Speaker 1: kind of I would take this. I would take the subway.
Speaker 1: Then I would take a bus to get to St.
Speaker 1: John's every day. So it was like a forty five
Speaker 1: minute to an hour ride just to go. So I'm
Speaker 1: a little turned around. What time I fell asleep and
Speaker 1: I ended up in far Rockaway, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you guys know where that is, but
Speaker 1: I woke up and it was like, we know, we
Speaker 1: know where that is. It was sketchy, got definitely a
Speaker 1: little off the beating bath. But Long Island City, how
Speaker 1: far is that from like Manhattan, So it's about a
Speaker 1: fifteen minute drive actually over the Queensboro Bridge, which the
Speaker 1: way for families in Manhattan. Um, the families in downtown
Speaker 1: Brooklyn can shoot right up the b que. It's also
Speaker 1: about fifteen twenty minutes. Now you're asking how far? How far?
Speaker 1: With traffic? Those are two questions in New York and
Speaker 1: l A. Um. But but you always, we always understand
Speaker 1: I talk about stuff. It's always a factor in traffic,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm giving it about thirty forty five minutes
Speaker 1: of just whatever. And I always get myself an hour
Speaker 1: before I go or an hour or two, just depending
Speaker 1: on how far I gotta go. Yeah. Plus, I mean look,
Speaker 1: I mean I don't know if you can see the
Speaker 1: logo on Griffin sweatshirt, but our logo is inspired by
Speaker 1: the subway lines, right, So we um there there's a
Speaker 1: lot of public transportation from all different borrows that run
Speaker 1: right into where hopefully this location is going to be.
Speaker 1: So we feel like it's pretty central and easy to
Speaker 1: get to. And it's a great point because like, how
Speaker 1: far we really go to do something like this? Right?
Speaker 1: I think that's that's something we really asked ourselves and
Speaker 1: thought about a lot. I'd love to hear more about
Speaker 1: the academy that you guys are building, just the foundation
Speaker 1: of that that you haven't obviously there's an educational component involved.
Speaker 1: Would like to hear about that as well. And you
Speaker 1: do you plan on like joining New York City leagues
Speaker 1: or you're gonna do like a total prep school league
Speaker 1: as far as competitively speaking, Yeah, great questions. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: let gee, this is like his his bread and butter,
Speaker 1: so I'll let him watch poetic Let's get I'll China later.
Speaker 1: I'm flattered. Uh. Also, it's also the trickiest and most
Speaker 1: challenging but rewarding part of the business. So I'll try
Speaker 1: my best to tackle it. Um. I think something I
Speaker 1: love what Jaredoise says is we know what we know,
Speaker 1: we know what we don't know, right, um, And we're
Speaker 1: still learning a lot about what this academy is gonna
Speaker 1: look like. But the premise is this a lot of kids,
Speaker 1: as you know, that grow up here, and we've mentioned
Speaker 1: it three or four times, they leave at a young age,
Speaker 1: right because there isn't that uh centralized school. Right. Whether
Speaker 1: you want to call it an academy, whether you want
Speaker 1: to call it a prep school. The point is that
Speaker 1: competes on a national schedule. The Catholic schools in New
Speaker 1: York City can only play the Catholic schools. The p
Speaker 1: S a L can only play the p S a L. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like for examples, started kJ, Cole Anthony Right, there's a
Speaker 1: great example of what we're trying to accomplish. Cole was
Speaker 1: that Archbishop Um, I think until his junior year and
Speaker 1: then you know, basically said to himself like, look, playing
Speaker 1: against the Catholic schools is great, but like I need
Speaker 1: this national exposure. I need to go play you know,
Speaker 1: the Brownie sons of not Brownie's son, but um. That
Speaker 1: was kind of his thinking, right, And his dad was like, look,
Speaker 1: you're gonna go to oak Kill and get a real
Speaker 1: prep school, you know, education and basketball experience and get
Speaker 1: that national exposures so you can get recruited the way
Speaker 1: that all these other kids are because there's just nowhere
Speaker 1: in New York that does that. Right now, Sorry, Graft,
Speaker 1: keep going, You're good. That's a great point. And so
Speaker 1: what we're doing, kJ is we're working closely with Chad,
Speaker 1: and we're working closely with book right, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: work closely on it with Mellow because he has a
Speaker 1: ton of experience in the space. And you know, we're
Speaker 1: gonna build New York City's first prep school academy team,
Speaker 1: and so on the educational side, we're talking to a
Speaker 1: few different independent and private schools that are top schools
Speaker 1: in the city on creating an online only curriculum for
Speaker 1: the players on our team to actually go get those
Speaker 1: core credits needed to be n c A eligible. We
Speaker 1: think a big advantage of doing an academy in New
Speaker 1: York City versus elsewhere where you see them is the
Speaker 1: education system here is second and none. And so if
Speaker 1: we can get an online curriculum from one of those
Speaker 1: schools for the kids, were automatically the best educational basketball
Speaker 1: academy in the country. And then from a competition standpoint,
Speaker 1: we're gonna look to identify, you know, twelve to fourteen
Speaker 1: and the most talented kids in the Tri State area. Right.
Speaker 1: A big reason we're doing an academy team versus an
Speaker 1: AU team is there are a lot of AU teams
Speaker 1: in the Tri state right, so we want to be
Speaker 1: agnostic to all of them. We want to identify the
Speaker 1: best kids. We want to give them the best education.
Speaker 1: They're going to be coached by book guys like Chatt
Speaker 1: will help us with the schedule, and then they're actually
Speaker 1: going to compete nationally on behalf of New York, right
Speaker 1: against the other top powerhouse teams in the country, kind
Speaker 1: of restoring the city's reputation that hey, we still are
Speaker 1: in the Mecca and we still got the talent here
Speaker 1: um and we really think, no disrespect to St. John's,
Speaker 1: but we can be New York's team right Like on
Speaker 1: Friday nights at the facility, that's a hot ticket because
Speaker 1: the nationally ranked Academy team is playing a home game
Speaker 1: in New York. So we're really excited about the potential
Speaker 1: to the Academy holes. Wow, that's a so on behalf
Speaker 1: of New York restoring the Mecca. That means you go
Speaker 1: have some dudes out there there. Y'all gotta have some guys,
Speaker 1: so some you know what I mean, you gotta have
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, we you know Griffin was at the
Speaker 1: Battle a few weeks ago. The amount of talent just
Speaker 1: specifically on New York teams that was in that building, Um,
Speaker 1: you know they were they were given it to Brownie's
Speaker 1: son like there there is that there's some dogs who
Speaker 1: are still here in the city. Um, you know, look,
Speaker 1: we we think that kind of one of the bigger
Speaker 1: problems is on Griffin mentions earlier, there's a big fracture
Speaker 1: and there's a large amount of teams um in AU
Speaker 1: in New York, right, so you don't get all of
Speaker 1: the talent on one team. You get one guy here,
Speaker 1: one guy there. Right, those teams don't end up making
Speaker 1: big runs because they're just not deep enough. But if
Speaker 1: we can kind of unite everyone and say, look, you
Speaker 1: can play for your AU teams, but come play or
Speaker 1: high school ball for us, and and show everyone what
Speaker 1: still exists in the city. Like, that's kind of the
Speaker 1: you know, the the lofty goal that we're trying to
Speaker 1: put together a nationally um competitive team that that can
Speaker 1: go go go out there and try and win championships.
Speaker 1: I saw, no. I mean, you guys obviously have the
Speaker 1: right pieces in place to start that. I think in
Speaker 1: order just to go and develop something like that, you
Speaker 1: have to, you know, start young. So if you get them,
Speaker 1: you know, the youth development, you know, it's all about
Speaker 1: developing dudes when you get into when we were in
Speaker 1: sixth grade or fifth grade man, and then seeing it
Speaker 1: all the way through that to me is the best way.
Speaker 1: And if you really want to have that special, special
Speaker 1: kind of feeling with championship team U C l A
Speaker 1: that I play going. We had a bunch of homegrown
Speaker 1: town and what that did was it endeared us to
Speaker 1: the fans. It made us kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: l A's team. Man, we got so much love. It
Speaker 1: was almost like we were, you know, Lakers or you know,
Speaker 1: we're so you know, we were almost like you know,
Speaker 1: pro team out there just because of the fans, and
Speaker 1: you're nailing a cage. I like the program that's a
Speaker 1: special name to us because we look at college basketball,
Speaker 1: right and everyone always talks about Duke's got a great program.
Speaker 1: You see How's got a great program? Right. Kids are
Speaker 1: just coming in young, build them up, then they go
Speaker 1: next next wave. Right with our membership model, you know,
Speaker 1: starting with young kids right, um, all the way up
Speaker 1: through our high school team. Like the hope is that
Speaker 1: it will feed into each other. And you know, when
Speaker 1: you're ten, eleven, twelve, really starting to figure out what
Speaker 1: kind of basketball player you are, we're gonna have them
Speaker 1: in the gym getting them better understanding their game and
Speaker 1: hopefully preparing them to you know, hopefully be ready to
Speaker 1: join the team when you know, when they get to
Speaker 1: be that high school level. And um, you know in
Speaker 1: the namesake like making a program that's dope, that's super
Speaker 1: were dope. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk
Speaker 1: lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at
Speaker 1: Fox sports Radio dot com and within the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app search f s R to listen live. So
Speaker 1: you let's touch on you guys backgrounds just for a
Speaker 1: little bit. Um is far on the basketball in business side,
Speaker 1: So you guys are both pretty accomplished. Just wanted to
Speaker 1: get an idea of you know what you guys careers
Speaker 1: have looked like up to this point, and you know,
Speaker 1: and just kind of why. I mean, I know you
Speaker 1: guys are passionate about this, but why at this time
Speaker 1: of your life did you decide to jump over here?
Speaker 1: I guess we could start with Jared Yeah, sure, Um
Speaker 1: great questions. Uh quick background, So you know, I grew
Speaker 1: up in New York, went to Riverdale Country School. Um,
Speaker 1: I won a state championship my senior in soccer. It's
Speaker 1: pretty much my biggest athletic accomplishment. I figured I needed
Speaker 1: to get that out there. It's no problem. Yeah, UM
Speaker 1: went undergraduate University of Pennsylvania. UM. You know, I got
Speaker 1: a great education. Was very lucky to attend that school.
Speaker 1: And UM, I have always wanted to work in sports. UM.
Speaker 1: You know. I worked for Jeff Schwartz UM and Excel
Speaker 1: when I was a sophomore in college as an intern
Speaker 1: the year they had Blake Griffin. So that was cool. UM.
Speaker 1: And you know when I graduated, I really wanted to
Speaker 1: be an agent. UM. That didn't work out, but I
Speaker 1: did end up getting a job working for the Miami Dolphins,
Speaker 1: UM in their corporate marketing department. So it wasn't, you know,
Speaker 1: necessarily what I was looking for, but it was a
Speaker 1: sports job and I got to see how a franchise
Speaker 1: runs right, specifically on the business side. UM. Came back
Speaker 1: home and actually worked in real estate for a few years. UM.
Speaker 1: And then for the past five or six years, I've
Speaker 1: actually been at a startup. It's a sports ticketing company
Speaker 1: actually called Fivo, and UM I've run investor relations for
Speaker 1: them for three or four years now. So UM, that
Speaker 1: actually is like a good segue to now right. I
Speaker 1: feel like I've put a lot of great things together
Speaker 1: on my resume that actually are are culminating in doing
Speaker 1: something like this, Like like you said, passion. You know,
Speaker 1: to me, I always wanted to do something that I
Speaker 1: loved waking up every day knowing that I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: excited to go to work. And you know how many
Speaker 1: people actually get to say that, right? Um, I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, I've had a successful career. I'm thirty thirty five,
Speaker 1: my wife's about to have our first kid. You know,
Speaker 1: I feel established. I feel like my network, um is
Speaker 1: as really uh one of my major assets and the
Speaker 1: ability for me to reach capital and also get to
Speaker 1: the sorts of people that um really are our stakeholders
Speaker 1: in New York. That that's that's really coming at the
Speaker 1: right time now to be able to kind of put
Speaker 1: all of this together. Um. So for me, you know,
Speaker 1: that was it. Plus I just love basketball. I mean
Speaker 1: I watch any any basketball at any level at any time.
Speaker 1: My wife has routinely hit me with the clicker and said,
Speaker 1: I can't listen to another basketball game. So, um, you know,
Speaker 1: for me, this this is this is where my heart
Speaker 1: is for sure. Yeah. Um, A lot of parallels honestly
Speaker 1: in terms of the why. Um, In terms of my background,
Speaker 1: I grew up in New York. Uh. My mom was
Speaker 1: a blues musician, which is super dope. Ye. All the
Speaker 1: talent skipped to generation, so I knew I'd have to
Speaker 1: do something different. Um. I grew up in Manhattan, went
Speaker 1: to high school in the Bronx. Uh played Division three basketball.
Speaker 1: I thought Year would just say he played college basketball,
Speaker 1: but he had to say Division three college basketball. Wait,
Speaker 1: where where'd you go to? Where'd you play? I've played
Speaker 1: at a school called Alfred Uh, and I was I
Speaker 1: was the worst player on the team. So let's skip over.
Speaker 1: Let's skip over those you were there, bro, That's all
Speaker 1: that matters that I was there. Um. Coming out of college, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I spent most of my twenties working on
Speaker 1: a really cool shopping app called Fancy. That's actually how
Speaker 1: I connected with LAB. We worked with tons of NBA players,
Speaker 1: tons of entertainers. They were investors in the app, they
Speaker 1: were customers. Um. I started out packing boxes in the
Speaker 1: mall room. I ended up running business development there. Um.
Speaker 1: So I made a lot of connections, brand partner connections,
Speaker 1: NBA connections, music connections, and kind of always connected the
Speaker 1: dots on that, Uh, through having my own consulting agency
Speaker 1: the past couple of years where do the same thing. UM.
Speaker 1: I think more relevant to this conversation is my first
Speaker 1: unpaid job out of college was helping Greg Marius, who
Speaker 1: recently passed away five years ago, run the EBC at
Speaker 1: Rutger Park tournament. UM. And so I would be in
Speaker 1: Soho and then I would go up to Harlem every
Speaker 1: night and help him run that street ball tournament. And
Speaker 1: I really fell in love with New York City grassroots basketball. UM.
Speaker 1: I went from that to to gm NG and putting
Speaker 1: teams and Dykeman and gersh and every single major streetball tournament,
Speaker 1: bringing James Harden in French Montana and Clarie Kardashian to
Speaker 1: come watch the games. Uh. It was really my life, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, culminating in putting teams in the TVT tournament
Speaker 1: on ESPN every summer. Uh. You know where I've met
Speaker 1: a lot of St. John's guys. So um, you know,
Speaker 1: I think this project is really the culmination of, you know,
Speaker 1: ten plus years of living and breathing New York City
Speaker 1: grassroots basketball and then some of my connections from my
Speaker 1: day work Um, and to Jared's point, you know I
Speaker 1: think why now? Well, Um, you know, I always know
Speaker 1: someone in life is always going to have more money
Speaker 1: than you. In my case, a lot of people are
Speaker 1: gonna be better looking than you. Uh. You know, someone's
Speaker 1: always going to have more than you, right materially, But
Speaker 1: you could always leave the biggest impact and legacy doing
Speaker 1: the stuff that you love. And we love New York
Speaker 1: and we love basketball, and if we have the chance
Speaker 1: to be the guys to bring both back, Um, that's
Speaker 1: something that I'll spend every waking moment of my life doing.
Speaker 1: And I think I'm blessed to found a business partner
Speaker 1: who feels the same way and really wants to do
Speaker 1: the same thing. That's dope. That's super dope. Y'all are
Speaker 1: locked in, man, y'all sound locked in. I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: just curious. Uh. Also, like some more details. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you guys how much time you guys got,
Speaker 1: but you know, I just wanted to kind of pick
Speaker 1: your brain. You say, state of the art facility. Um,
Speaker 1: what does that mean? Like state of the art facility,
Speaker 1: like in today's language? What does that mean to you guys?
Speaker 1: State of the art you got the dick cool for sure.
Speaker 1: So I think you gotta look at kids, right that
Speaker 1: are top kids and basketball playing kids, and what they
Speaker 1: want and what they like, right, And so you want
Speaker 1: to you want to build a gorgeous court, right, you
Speaker 1: want your to be state of the art. You want
Speaker 1: to have a cool street artist come in and design
Speaker 1: it with your logo so it feels super dope. Um.
Speaker 1: I think we want to have a juice bar, right
Speaker 1: because you know right now, in the past decade, there's
Speaker 1: a certain kick in terms of being healthier down at
Speaker 1: a younger age. So you tell kids when they walk in,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't have Derrito's in here, we don't
Speaker 1: have Captain Crunch in here. You know, we have juice, right, Um,
Speaker 1: and maybe some middle ground and too. Um. I think
Speaker 1: having a turf training area, right, you know. I think
Speaker 1: when we've talked to parents right that have elite kids,
Speaker 1: one thing they ask is not who the basketball coach
Speaker 1: is gonna be. They definitely ask that who's the strength
Speaker 1: and conditioning coach going to be? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: So you know from Cardio to cry out two waits
Speaker 1: to all that it's really important for us to the cryo.
Speaker 1: You gonna have a cryod chamber up in there. We're
Speaker 1: gonna have a cryod chamber. You're well, man, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: better head let you lead with that. Do you know
Speaker 1: how sick of cryo chamber is at this time of life?
Speaker 1: To be able to have access to kJ, we gotta
Speaker 1: leave some surprises. Okay, let the cat out, all right.
Speaker 1: I got excited about that. Now, now you're good. And
Speaker 1: then you know, I think we want our locker rooms
Speaker 1: to be state of the art as well. Um, you
Speaker 1: ask what state of the art means. I keep saying
Speaker 1: state of the art, but um, you know, I think
Speaker 1: you look at like you know, NBA two K and
Speaker 1: a gaming room in a film room, right, and even
Speaker 1: potentially a classroom depending on how much office space we
Speaker 1: have to compliment the gym. Um, you know, what we
Speaker 1: really want to do is build a place where look
Speaker 1: go ahead, Jay, yeah, I mean just in college level man,
Speaker 1: Like we we are trying to you know, emulate a
Speaker 1: Duke a Kentucky that kind of you know, top tier
Speaker 1: equipment that kind of look um almost like our own
Speaker 1: mini little stadium, you know, little MSG whatever you wanna
Speaker 1: call it. That's that's really what we're what we're arriving for. Dope.
Speaker 1: I've seen I've seen like a couple of stadiums, smaller
Speaker 1: that kind of like that one down in Atlanta. I
Speaker 1: think that group has one that's sort of cool and
Speaker 1: they've got some stuff. So that's kind of where I
Speaker 1: was getting at the state of the art I kind
Speaker 1: of had. I was wondering it was going to look
Speaker 1: like that or not not look like that, but just
Speaker 1: have all the bills and whistles, which it sounds like
Speaker 1: it will. Um. I think that's that's a huge plus.
Speaker 1: The other thing I was also curious about as far
Speaker 1: as like the training curriculum or the actual is there
Speaker 1: a training curriculum that you guys are gonna put your
Speaker 1: stamp on that, you know, Book or whoever your coach
Speaker 1: is are are going to kind of implement with the
Speaker 1: guys or you know what, did you guys have thoughts
Speaker 1: on regarding that? You know, I think that's a great question. Um. Like,
Speaker 1: like Griffin said earlier, we know what we know and
Speaker 1: we know what we don't, and I think we'll leave
Speaker 1: the basketball instruction and training up to the professionals. But
Speaker 1: you know, again, Book has been doing this for decades, UM,
Speaker 1: and it clearly works. So you know, we'll lean on
Speaker 1: him a lot. We'll lean on Chad Um and the
Speaker 1: other coaches too. Yeah. We we definitely want to make
Speaker 1: something that's ours, um. But I'm sure they'll take from
Speaker 1: from many of the years of playing and and a
Speaker 1: lot of the things that are going on across the
Speaker 1: country and um make it ours and uh yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: Griff and I will be at the gym, you know,
Speaker 1: definitely yelling and hollering, but we will we will be
Speaker 1: firmly out of the way when it comes to basketball instruction.
Speaker 1: Well absolutely, I mean that's that's the way, that's the
Speaker 1: way to do it. That's how you you know, you
Speaker 1: actually let people who you hire to do the job
Speaker 1: do the job. I mean, that's just comes down at
Speaker 1: that's dope. UM. I guess one more question. I had
Speaker 1: something you guys touched on earlier about UM kids in
Speaker 1: the inner city scholarshipping. I believe it was what you
Speaker 1: guys said, how many kids and what is your idea
Speaker 1: or vision behind that initiative? UM. Yeah, I don't wanna,
Speaker 1: you know, put our foot in our mouth. I don't
Speaker 1: think we have a number yet decided. Um, like I said,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a percentage, and we definitely are gonna
Speaker 1: earmark UM a large amount of that UH for inner
Speaker 1: city scholarships. UM. You know, we'll talk to Mellow, We'll
Speaker 1: talk with with the team and try and figure out
Speaker 1: we would love to have a nice balance of UM,
Speaker 1: you know, scholarship kids and and paid members. So it
Speaker 1: really feels like like a family in there. But I
Speaker 1: don't think we're specific yet on what that looks like.
Speaker 1: But UM, you know, the idea is, you know, UM
Speaker 1: Griffin and I are both very blessed to have grown
Speaker 1: up in Manhattan attended UM is bron Science Private. Griff
Speaker 1: I went to private school. Grip everyone to public, but
Speaker 1: Bronx sign is one of the best schools in the
Speaker 1: country right, UM, specifically in the city. And UM, you know,
Speaker 1: I look back on my life and and feel so
Speaker 1: blessed to be in the position where I'm at UM
Speaker 1: and all the resources that I was UM able to
Speaker 1: use to get where I'm at and not. It's it's
Speaker 1: not lost on me that a lot of kids don't
Speaker 1: UM and specifically in the inner city. UM. There are
Speaker 1: plenty of smart, hard working kids who just don't have
Speaker 1: the financial means to accomplish these things with the resources
Speaker 1: that you know, people like UM, I was given when
Speaker 1: I was growing up, so it was really important to
Speaker 1: me to figure out a way to give back. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, my family has been extremely philanthropic my whole life,
Speaker 1: and and UM, they've instilled in me from a very
Speaker 1: early age, like you know, it's great to do well,
Speaker 1: but do well and do good at the same time. UM,
Speaker 1: And you know I feel very strongly about that. Absolutely
Speaker 1: absolutely wells UM. I appreciate both of your times today.
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, I have a really good understanding.
Speaker 1: I hope the audience has an understanding what you guys
Speaker 1: mission is and the motivation and the inspiration behind it.
Speaker 1: And we're looking forward to supporting and getting behind the program. UM,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen. Jared Fphron and Griffin Taylor