Local Hour: The Great Pole Vaulting Plague of 2002
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Jessica, I'm a little worried about the chaos of today. We're trying to send Billy wants to very excitedly get out to his home school. And and they've got a big announcement today. But we've been having all sorts of video and technical difficulties the last three days. And I just feel like things are elevated around here today. And then Billy's going to leave in the middle of the day and we've missed him.

I need Billy to stay long enough to talk about the pole vaulter. Mondo? Which pole vaulter? There are two famous pole vaulters right now, are there not? No, yesterday was Mondo's day, Dan. You sound like a silly goose right now. The other pole vaulter, old news. Okay, so the guy who failed because his penis crushed his Olympic dreams, old news already? Old news. Yep, had his day. So this new guy, what's his story?

Billy, I mean, tell us about him. So his name's Mondo. He's the world record holder. He went to LSU, was competing for Sweden, and he was born in Lafayette, Louisiana, which I said, how did that happen? I found out his mother is Swedish, so I was like, it's like the World Baseball Classic. You just get to choose where you're going to compete. So I started doing a little digging, and then I read up, I believe, unless I misread. He chose Sweden over the U.S. because Sweden agreed to let his dad be his coach, and

And he's the world record holder. Which, by the way, bad job, America. The best guy in the history of the world at an event, and you're choosing not to do it. Yes. Yeah. Well, he's really good, though. He spends half his time in Lafayette, Louisiana. He went to LSU. He spends half his time in Lafayette, Louisiana, half his time in Sweden, depending on when the weather is good for training. Guy's just training all year long.

Oh, I love pole vaulting. I forgot about my love for pole vaulting until yesterday when I was watching. I was like, oh, that used to be me. Not like that, obviously. I wasn't a world record holder or anything. But, oh, that rush, the way you see him go over the bar, the form, the...

You fell in love all over again with pole vaulting? It relit my spark. And I said, you know what? I miss this. And my wife said, you're never doing that again. And I said, yes, ma'am. Wow. Crushing dreams over here. Sometimes you need to see something to be reminded just how much it meant to you. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's what happened yesterday. But I'm not in the best shape in it.

It's a dangerous sport. It could be dangerous. I'm here for a book of Stugatz's wisdoms like that one, when he goes deep into the life philosophy tree and just talks about gratitude and appreciation. Sometimes you have to be reminded. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Greg Cody, do you have any thoughts on pole vaulting? I have nothing but thoughts on pole vaulting. Does the pole ever snap?

Oh, yeah. It happens. Yeah, it snaps. What's it made out of? Fiberglass? Yeah. Well, carbon fiber also depends. So if it snaps, doesn't it send potentially deadly... Shards. Shards? Yeah. Shrapnel. Well, potentially deadly...

Potentially, I suppose. It also, by the way, when it snaps, like the reverb or whatever, it's hard. Like, it'll bruise your hands. What was your best vault? You want meters or feet? No, let's pretend like we're in the United States. Well, this is what you have on Paul. Your thoughts, all of your thoughts on pole vaulting are questions for Billy. All right, let's just start the show. Greg Cody's not ready. Let's start the show. It's the perfect time to start. This is the Dan Levitar Show with the Stugatz Podcast. ♪

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Greg, I don't know what you think we do here on Tuesdays exactly, besides promote all of the things that you have, a podcast and now a book we're going to be promoting today. So I don't know what you think we do. But just generally speaking, if before the show we're wandering around as people who have done this for 20 years and you squawk at some point, fraud swede. Yeah.

yeah yeah and so that so when i think oh cody's got something on pole vaulting and so then i go to you when the show starts and what happens you ask billy a question right yeah he's the only former pole vaulter among us i know but you had a strong opinion you had a strong opinion that i'm still waiting for after you said you have a ton to talk about him on pole vault yeah mondo um

Billy, answer me this. Is Mondo a Swedish citizen? If he spends half his time in Sweden and half his time in the U.S., I would assume so. I think you'd have to be a citizen to compete for the country. I don't know about that. Okay, well...

But he was born in the U.S., is that correct? He was born in the U.S. So I don't like this where guys are born in a certain country and they're playing a sport for another country. It's ridiculous. It's absurd. They shouldn't be allowed. This is your Olympic take now, Guy? Yeah, I don't think you're aware of how much that actually hurts the U.S. more. I'm going to look this up right now. Okay, this is going to be a bit of a gaunt.

Hold on, he's looking it up. Yeah, I've got two people here. I did nothing. No, but the two of you are aggressively ignorant, anti sort of things. Immigration. Okay, I take it back. He does have dual citizenship. Okay, he's got paperwork. Well, that changes everything. That changes everything, unfortunately. I still think he should be made to relinquish his medal.

but he's more legit than I thought he was. Why should he have to relinquish his medal? Well, he was born in the United States. Yeah, that's weird. So Greg Cody gets to decide what citizenship you have, what nationality you are. Yeah, you've got to draw the line. You know, my grandmother was born in Canada. It doesn't make me Canadian. Sports are where you will find all sorts of things in politics. Just know that's the America of the future if somebody wins.

Just know that, yes, I get to decide who everybody's nationality is. Greg gets to decide. Me maximum. Yes, me maximum is going to be president of the United States. I'm just saying the Olympics began in...

as country versus country. So it's the U.S. athletes versus the Swedish athletes. I just want to be clear on something, Stugatz, because I don't want to make these games geopolitical. They have been blessedly free of any sort of... Well, not entirely. Free-ish. You have 35 athletes from...

Belarus, I believe, and Russia who are competing on a team that's been described as not a team. All right. You know what? You are correct. We will find any manner of malfeasance here that we can wrap a number of flags in. Sports absolutely does that. But to have these two guys in here as the aging demo on what it is the Olympics should be during what feels like some of the best Olympics we've had since blank. 84. Yeah.

It's been a while, for whatever reason, that America has felt like it gathered around a television set to care about pole vaulters. It's been more than a decade. Yeah, well, the last Olympics was swallowed by the pandemic, and the 20 games were actually played in 21. So I think we were predisposed to love anything that was actually taking place on time in front of huge crowds, let alone in a cinematic, gorgeous setting of

of Paris. So, but I agree with you. I think it's been a wonderful games. Well, there's no disagreement to be had on that. Like there's somehow consensus about like, you'll dislike things here and there and argue about things here and there, but you can find wonderful stories. Look, man, it's the best of sports and little cubes. Like it's, they're giving you nonstop stimuli. Mike Ryan yelled at me as we're starting the show, Patty Mills is going off.

International Patty Mills is a problem. Might be a basketball Hall of Famer when this is all said and done. You're right. They're up 20 on Serbia right now in the quarterfinal. This is a big upset for Australia. Put it on the poll. Is International Patty Mills a basketball Hall of Famer at Levittar Show? Everyone gets in, Dan. Which other athletes, Greg, should not be allowed to compete for the country that they live in, partially or full-time? Just so we know, like, clearly which, you know,

Well, decisions this momentous have to be vetted and researched. I would need to be given a list. But basically, you should be competing for the country of your birth or the or the country of your first citizenship, in my opinion. So if you leave a country because they have like an oppressive regime and you immigrate somewhere else, you should have to go back to that country.

Just to be clear. No, I think that's an exception to the rule. Okay, so the rule... Well said. Well, it's good that you... So you think you should change the rules, but basically you think you should change the rules, me maximum, so you get to decide what an American is. Well, to the best of my knowledge, Sweden does not have an oppressive government or nation. I could be wrong. I'm going to have to talk to my Swedish friends to determine that, but I don't think that would... So it's by country then? Yes.

You get to choose by country. But it is you choosing. This country good, this country bad. It is you choosing. I'm happy to be the commissioner of the Olympics. The athlete themselves needs to be born in a certain country. It can't be the parents. Greg is just saying when he watches the Olympics, he wants to know that he's watching Americans. When he's watching Team USA, he wants to know they're all from the United States of America. That's what Greg is saying. U.S. soccer has no shot. I can't believe what's happening around me. You're

We should change the subject. I have a question, Greg. I thought we could do this as spoof. They're not playing the game correctly. I heard him workshop in a Biles take. Let's just go away from the gymnastics entirely. I think the big story with Mondo, by the way, is the fact that he wants his dad to be the coach. This guy is very good. He's top of the line, right? Top shelf at what he does. He's a mercenary. He's a mercenary. Well,

Yes. Did you hear Billy's part of the story? The only reason that he's winning, identifying the way he is, is because he negotiated his dad as coach. I know, and that's a terrible job by the United States of America. Like, if Michael Jordan wants his dad to coach, you and I once said, if it takes Maverick Carter coaching the Heat to get LeBron James, we would allow that. We would want that.

And if this guy wants his dad to be his coach, you're the United States. You let his dad be the coach. I mean, I think both of his parents coach him per the broadcast yesterday because his dad was a pole vaulting champion and his mother was a heptathlete. Can I just warn everybody as Marlon Humphrey is learning, there is a whole different aggregation algo when it comes to the Olympics. If you guys decide to do show around Olympics, you're,

I don't think you're fully aware of what you're stepping into. I think our Sweden numbers could go up, to be perfectly honest, good or bad. Like, if they're going to listen to us and hate us, the Swedes, you're welcome to, because we need to up those numbers. I believe that we need to feed off the hate. I miss feeding off the hate. I don't want to be scared of being aggregated unfairly in the misinformation age.

But I want to descend a little deeper into where it is Stugatz and Cody might be taking us as men who are going to decide for all of us who gets to be American. I want to play on this third rail for a minute because they don't realize how it is that they sound. And I want to make them alert to it, but...

but also play with it a little bit because of how absurd it is what they're saying. Well, I'm glad you said that because I almost did something yesterday and then I thought, no, this is mean. I'm not going to do it. And that was, I saw Stu Gatz's take about Simone Biles and it was starting to pick up some engagement traction on social media. And I thought,

If I retweet this, it might cross over to either gymnastics Twitter or women's sports Twitter, and then he'll start getting some real hate. Like, I think Dan would... Dan probably wants me to do this. But then I thought, no, I don't want to do this to Stu Gatz. Some people, you know, don't know Stu Gatz is doing a shtick, although who knows if that's a shtick or not. I mean...

We'll never find out. Whoa, wait a minute. So I didn't do it. Penalty box for you. What? Penalty box for caring too much. To think. I was worried for what would happen to him. Minor penalty, two minutes for lying.

lying about the idea that that might have been a schtick Stugatz was doing yesterday. He absolutely believes that Simone Biles needs to be better. That's not schtick he's doing. We got the high schticking joke, so it's a win all around. All that matters. In Greg's defense, I feel like Greg's argument really is everyone should compete for America.

Not people shouldn't compete for America because they're not American. I think Greg's argument is everyone's American, so they should all compete for America. And to make clear, when I said that Mondo should have to relinquish his medal, that was before I learned that he did have dual citizenship.

Okay, if to me if you're not a citizen of the nation You should not be allowed to compete for that nation in the Olympics doesn't apply to anything else Well, it applies to international competition. It applies to world championships and everything certainly doesn't apply to you know teams and leagues but more power to Mondo has a Swedish mom and

That kind of thing. You called him a fake Swede. More power to Mondo. You called him a fake Swede. A feed. He's a fake Swede in the sense that he was born in this country, went to LSU. Talk about it. You try a Swedish accent out at LSU and they'll run you out of town. Put it on the poll. Are there any Swedish accents at LSU at Levitard Show?

I can't believe that we've... It depends on who Brian Kelly is recruiting. Yeah. We can't... I can't believe that we... Borky, Borky Four Star. ...are the show that descends into age so poorly that Stu Gatz is trending for ripping Simone Biles. Ripping? Just...

Yeah. All I said was stick the landing. I said she's the greatest gymnast we've ever seen. I love her. She's awesome. She did not deserve to win the vault. Did you see the balance beam last night? What a nightmare. She fell off. She didn't win the gold. You need to stay on. The only girl who stayed on.

I think it was the Brazilian. She won the gold because she stayed on the beam. Yeah. Yep. I mean, do you realize the amount of power and momentum that Simone Biles puts forth on the boat? I do. So you're asking for her to stick the landing. I didn't rip her. I watched the sporting event, and I said I thought someone else should have won. What's the big deal? That was yesterday's take. Very strong. I appreciate your efforts. It's not schtick.

It is not. This is who this man is. This is who this man is. He thinks Simone Biles needs to be better. I want that to end up in USA Gymnastics Twitter.

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official sleep and wellness partner of the NFL. See store for details. Don Levitard. That's how it's going to end. The mailing and end of the retirement, Chris, go get me this. It's just going to be him coming out and hitting the one or two notes of that kind of thing. And you know it. And then just giving us finger guns and leave it. Baby.

You should listen to the Great Cody Show podcast because that's all we do for 55 minutes a week is just say catchphrases. We even make songs about them. And You Know It is a song for Crying Out Loud. That's great. Hopefully that's a SUI nominee for best song. And you know it, baby, and you know it. Stugatz. And you know it, baby, and you know it. And you know it, baby.

This is the Don Labatar Show with the Stoogads.

I had a moment yesterday when watching the Olympics in primetime, which is like a re-air of what happened during the day. So we already knew the results, but I hadn't seen it play out. And I felt almost un-American, and I didn't like it because America benefited from this, but I felt very bad for Romania, who did not benefit from this. And it was in the floor exercise where Jordan Childs, I guess they made a protest to go against it.

Why don't you tell them? Can't do that. Well, it's terrible. They awarded someone the bronze medal, and then they reviewed Jordan Child's performance on the floor, and they gave her the bronze medal after announcing that someone else had won the bronze medal. Can't do that. Correct. She was, I believe, in fifth place at the time, and then there was a protest, and then they redid the scoring, and then all of a sudden she wins the bronze when there was a Romanian gymnast who thought that she had won the bronze and now has lost the medal. So America takes silver and bronze and where it looked like the...

Jordan Childs was going to finish fifth. I'm confused. What's her name? Because Sugat's called her something different. Yes, he put a D in there. Are you going former governor of Florida or former point guard for Knicks? I'm not sure what happened. I'm just glad I knew the details around the Florida. He's a big on gymnastics, guys. Thank you, I am. I love gymnastics. He's glued to it. I mean, his takes may be questionable, but he's watching. Lawton Childs.

Let me explain to the audience here. Is that the guy that did a job different every day? Or that was Bob Graham or something? Bob Graham. I'll ask Billy Corbin when he's here. Claude Kirk. What Stugatz just did during that segment, swaggering, is something that represents the lowest the bar has ever been put in this medium.

Because he got the name wrong and what he sang in only my headphones after doing that little bit where he had two sentences of information, he sang in my ear, watching the games, Dan. Yeah, well, I mean, is he? Because the Brazilian didn't even meddle in the beam. Not retaining the correct information, not watching. He didn't say watching the game's

correctly, Dan. Just watching. He's got a Brazilian winning a medal that you didn't win. Watching the game. In the background. lowering the bar, but Mondo, he kept raising the bar and oh my God, he pole vaulted over, I think it was what, Billy, like 20 feet, six inches or something like that. What is like the, I mean, Greg, I asked you this, but I'm genuinely curious, like what are most college pole vaulters doing?

clearing in competitions that you've been at, because that seems unfathomable. Well, I'm eliminated from the competition when anyone's close to that. I get out very early if I even cleared the opening night. I was not a good pole vaulter. Well, I don't think we've... I don't think that we have taken full advantage, and Jess and Greg have tried really hard for some reason to make you more of a pole vaulting authority than you're willing to accept. Well, hold on. What is that supposed to mean? You know what? Now, thinking back, the last meet that I...

Granted, I don't mean for this to sound as grandiose as it will. The last meet that I competed in was in one Lafayette, Louisiana. At the University of Lafayette, Louisiana. Home of the fake Swede. And I'm wondering... They just call themselves Louisiana right now. No, that's Monroe.

No, UL Monroe, like, no, Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns, they don't want to distinguish Lafayette anymore. They are the University of Louisiana. At the time, they were proud of being Lafayette, which I guess they no longer are, which they should be because they're home of the greatest pole vaulter to ever live. And Jake DeLome. Now, I'm wondering if...

A little young Mondo decided one day to go over to the Sunbelt Conference Outdoor Championship and be inspired by one Billy Gil pole vaulting. Not to say that I inspired the greatest pole vaulter in the history of the world. I'm just saying, it's possible that we crossed paths. He was a young lad at the time. I was wrapping up my career at the moment. It's very possible that a young Mondo

was out there watching. Barry's doing a lot of work in that. No, it's very possible. I mean, the University of Lafayette, Louisiana, if you're going to watch pole vaulting, would you not go to the Sunbelt Conference Outdoor Championships? Billy, what month was it? Because you may have been in Sweden during that time of the year. No, we were... No, no, no. This was prime pole vaulting time. It was good weather. They were hosting the outdoor championships. But were you winning? It wasn't in Sweden. Were you winning? No. Why would he be inspired by the guy finishing 12th? Well, just because he goes and he watches... No, first of all, I believe it was 7th, if I'm going to...

If we're going to state accuracy. If journalism is still alive and well, let's report the facts. Excuse me?

Seventh place is the tin medal. Congrats. I would have settled for a tin medal. Fourth, seventh. Same. At that point, you don't even distinguish. Yeah. After second. You're either top three or you're nowhere. Aluminum. Aluminum. But Billy, I've asked you several times and you're evading the question. What was the tallest height that you scaled? The best I cleared, I believe, was 14'2". Very nice. So it was about six feet shy of the world record, which is just one human being.

The whole thing seems aggressive as an event. It seems a scary thing to do. That is not a small height. If you get it wrong, if the stick breaks, if you fall backwards, a lot of bad things can happen at that height. I missed the pads once. I landed in the metal box.

You know what my fear would be? Did you hear what he said at all there? You just wanted to get to what you wanted to say? Because there seems to be more on that bone right there. Did you hear what he said? Yeah, go ahead. You've been asking him questions about Howie Polvold. He gives you an interesting story and then you just moved right on. Well, I might have asked him to elaborate on that. So go ahead, Billy. Well, I mean, that's the gist of it.

You missed the pads. Yeah, I wasn't running fast enough, so I went upside down, and then I heard someone scream, and I was like, oh, that's not a good sound when you're upside down in the air and someone screams. Before you even

I knew something bad was coming. So wait, so wait. You knew before the scream. You knew before she did that something bad was coming. Well, I heard the scream. And I was like, uh-oh. And instinctually somehow, look, if you can see the pads here, so that box there is metal. Or at least the one I was using was metal. So I hear the scream, and I was like, that's not what you're supposed to hear if you're doing this right. So I instinctually somehow...

spread my legs and caught the two side pads on my way down. - No, like a split? - Yeah, I opened them up to slow myself down. I don't know how I thought to do that. And it did slow me down, but I still hit the box. I completely destroyed my shoulder at the time. I don't think I dislocated it. It was a really bad sprain. To this day, I still have clicks when I rotate it like this because I had physical therapy and I couldn't do it. And at the time, and this is the bad part,

I couldn't drive because my car was a manual car and I did this to my right arm. So I couldn't even drive with my left hand. I'd have to use my right hand to like switch the gears into place. So I just very quietly, cause I was embarrassed by this, sat in my car and,

adjusted my seat till it was in a laying position so no one could see me embarrassed sitting in my car as I waited for a family member to come and pick me up and take me to the hospital. That sounds terrible. I was watching this whole pole vaulting competition yesterday, Billy, and do they bring their own poles? Yeah, yeah. You have to take your own pole. How do you travel with a pole vault pole? I used to put it through the middle window in F-250. So I would have it go out the

back and then I'd have it like go very dangerously, like lay on the dashboard and then go out the back window. I guess I mean on a plane. Yeah. On a plane. I would assume you check it. There's no way that fits. Does it have a case? Like you would assume that you would have a case. Does it have like, like you would carry a bill, a billiard stick, like you show up at the vault and you've got a bigger bag than, or

cooler bag than others. Forgive me. I have a lot of questions as well. I was making fun of Jess and Greg for throwing you questions, but this story, how is it possible that we have spent nearly 20 years doing this, 20 years in September, and that's the first time that we're hearing that story? We've been coming to you for pole vaulting information for two decades and never gotten that story. You guys didn't care about pole vaulting. I knew it. I just kept the show moving

along. By the way, Bob Graham, former Florida governor, not Billy, he was an evangelist. Yeah, that was a strong word work by you, Lawton Childs. You make fun of Billy Corbin. You're our less politically adept Billy. Okay.

I don't own that. I don't care. Lawton, you mentioned Lawton Childs. I want to get back to what Stugatz did. You want to know how you travel with the pole? Yes. So, like, they have containers that you can use. You can also get, like, giant, like, well, we store them in, like,

the backs of trucks, which is not how you should be taking care of your poles, but it's not, you know. - Right. - You could be at a giant PVC pipe or something that you put it in, and then there's a travel case that you get and you put it in, and then there's different poles, you can use different poles for different heights if you want to.

The poles themselves are made of different material. They also have a different level of flex, so some could be stiffer than others. It's like a personal preference. - Interesting, so Dan-- - They're also scaled for weight, so you could do your weight. At the time, when I did it in high school, you had to be under the weight of the pole. So the pole was calibrated for, let's say, 150 pounds. You had to be under 150 pounds or that was the situation.

So one time I was there, I had to take off my Under Armour long sleeve that I had under my tracksuit because I was overweight slightly. And then I had to go do a couple laps, then I re-weighted myself. Boom! I was good for the state championship because I got underweight again. It's like luggage at the airport. Has there ever been an obese pole vaulter? It's common.

What kind of question is that? No, just because I associate pole vaulting. He just mentioned the weight. I associate pole vaulting with, you know, slender people. And I'm just wondering if there's ever been like a really fat pole vaulter. Here's my other question. How often do you get to the apex and then fall backward?

That happens. That happens, too. I think it happened at the Olympics and someone fell and banged their head on the track. I imagine so because you're 20 feet in the air and all of a sudden you're falling backwards. That's terrifying. I got to tell you, when I got into it, and no one cares about any of this, so we'll keep it brief. When I got into it, it was a crazy time in pole vaulting where people were dying.

They then had to change the size of the pads because it was almost like we were using two high jump pads next to each other. And then people were going off the back. They were banging their head. There was helmets that were being used for a time. I wanted to get a helmet because I didn't want to die. I was a young boy. And then my coach told me, you don't actually get high enough to injure yourself if you fall on your head. So you don't really need a helmet. Since 1980, 20 people have died.

I'm telling you, of those 20 people, probably like 16 were, I want to say, in the year 2002. Billy, I believe that we may be the only national sports show airing today with a former D1 pole vaulter on it. So I'm so glad that you're here to answer all of our questions about Mondo. Specifically, has there ever been an obese pole vaulter? Yeah, correct. But realistically,

Really? I find this fascinating. I think the best part of the Olympics is when there is like some kind of niche sport or like something that we don't listen to or watch really. And then it goes viral because someone does something crazy in it. And this guy, he, so like Billy, correct me if I'm wrong. After you win the gold, you get three chances to try to go for a world record. Is that how that works? No, he won't.

He won. So like he won the meet. Was it my understanding of what happened? He won the meet. So he's the only one that was left in it. So like when you're the only one left, you can just choose whatever height you want to jump at. And he could, he could have kept going, honestly, because like he's not eliminated until he fails three times. So like he could have gone for another world record had he wanted to, which when I was watching, I'm like, why don't you try to go like two or three inches higher and just keep raising the bar? Literally. Yeah.

There has not been somehow nearly enough Greg Cody in this first segment and at once. Did he find a fat pole, Walter? Way too much Greg Cody as well in this first segment. But he has just turned his computer to me.

with a single Google image of a obese person holding a Paul vault. And that is his contributions to the segment, as well as volunteering to decide on behalf of all America, who should be American.

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Don Levitard. I miss crank windows. Too many unnecessary conveniences now. Cruise control. Please. I've got cruise control built in. It's called my right foot. It controls how fast the car goes. No button or steering wheel lever needed. Power steering. There's another one. Why do I want to give my power to the car?

The power that I once had. The car is a ton of metal. I'm a damn college graduate. Stugatz. Bluetooth, HD radio, satellite. I'll take AM, please, with Wolfman Jack talking through the static. And I'll crank the windows down so everybody can hear. I'm Greg Cody, and that's how it was back in my day. This is the Don Levitas Show with the Stugatz. Stugatz.

Juju, can you put it on the poll, please? Has there ever been an obese pole vaulter? And also, can you put on the poll, did you miss the great plague of 2002 pole vaulting deaths? Because Billy is saying most of those deaths took place

in one year. And really, he was a hero athlete here locally. He is an FIU legend, I would say. One of the most famous graduates FIU has ever had. And today he returns home. I'm worried about this for a number of different reasons. Our technology has not been great. But you are going to celebrate with your school as a proud student.

alum and a distinguished alum and what are we allowed to tell the people about what may or may not happen there? What's being announced and what is it that might, what treasure chest might our audience get from this announcement? Oh, well, what was put out yesterday was just a press release that at 11 o'clock today there's going to be an announcement at FIU announcing a partnership between them and Pitbull. So then we were discussing should we cover this live?

And a lot of things have been going wrong behind the scenes. So I assumed we were not doing this. I, in fact, just told Danny I don't think we're doing this today. But we are doing this? I don't know. I'd like to do it. Roy, what were you laughing about back there? Jessica had sang a lyric from a song that starts with the letter C. I don't know if I can actually see it. Kool-Aid!

Yeah, okay, she said it. Why couldn't you say it? The C word? Like, what is that? No, not that one. I don't know the rules about that one. What are we doing with this? Is Danny now canceling our plans to get Pitbull? Well, I think Billy canceled the plans. Well, no, I mean, sometimes you have to be the responsible person in the room. We have a number of guests lined up. We have weekend observations to get to. We have liners to be ready. We have lots of things. Greg's in studio. I don't know how polite he is. Don't forget game time. Game time's a big one.

Oh, yeah, big one. Did you mention GameTime? I did. I love GameTime. In fact, now that Pitbull's there, I keep getting IG targeted ads for FIU football. And those prices seem nice, but I could probably get a better price on the GameTime app.

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Thank you, Game Time. And thank you, Pitbull. There is a lot going on today and we're having technical difficulties. Now being reported that Tim Walls is the vice presidential candidate selected by Kamala Harris. Pablo Torre will be here in a few minutes to discuss that and some other things. But Greg Cody keeps moving this computer and I've asked him to keep it in front of me because...

What he didn't reveal to me while it is that he was pushing in front of me a photo of a clearly very heavy man pole vaulting is that that is premium photo, extremely obese man pole vaulting, ultra stock photos, AI generated art. Of course. And so it's not real.

And Greg Cody's contribution to the segment was to find a fake fat pole vaulter after calling a gold medalist from Louisiana a fake Swede. Those have been your contributions to the show today.

So far. It's early. It also appears to be a javelin. It's up for debate. No, it says, well, it may be a javelin, but it does. The words say pole vaulting. He just Googled obese pole vaulter, and what came back is the Internet gave him somebody who generated a fat pole vaulter who's not real.

Billy, if I may, do the Anfield athletes feel like they get the shine of the track athletes overshadows them? Because I feel like the Anfield athletes are having a hell of an Olympics between shot putting, discus, triple jump. Hammer throw two. Oh, the hammer throw. So satisfying. Not the most glamorous of events, I would say, the Anfield crew. And also, I don't know how much of you watched yesterday,

It's a very long event to watch. It can last for hours, especially when you have disparities in talent where you have someone that can barely clear the opening bar and then someone setting a world record. You can go on for four hours in one of these competitions. It's very long. They said yesterday it was over three hours between the start of the pole vaulting and the final jump. And there was also an athlete doing high jump the other day. Apparently, they go in these little sleeping bags.

in between their jumps. Did you see this? This Ukrainian woman, she ended up getting the gold medal. She like climbed into a little sleeping bag in between her jumps because I guess there can be a really long wait in between jumps and they want to keep their limbs warm. It's very cute.

A sleeping bag? Yeah, like a little Coleman sleeping bag. She can't stay awake? No. To warm her legs. Oh, you only have her sleeping in it. You don't have her warming in it. Okay, so you haven't... What else do you do? So you haven't having no other uses. So a sleeping bag isn't a warm bag. So you either sleep in it or get the hell out. Yeah. But this is the Olympics. Can we do better than having the contestants bring their own sleeping bags? What are we doing? That's ridiculous. Figure it out!

Figure out something, a place where they can keep their legs warm. I made it a game show. It's weird. You made it a game show. The feud. Build a Motel 6 right next to the arena and have them get a room of their own. You know, sleeping bag. What weighs more, a shot put ball or a discus?

This is a great way to cover the Olympics. Greg Cody just wandering in telling us who's an American and who's not, and then just asking remedial questions about details from the Olympics, and then criticizing the people who don't perform as well as he would like them to perform. Has the sin claimed any other people with E. coli? Is this still a burgeoning controversy? Yes, it has. Also, the shot

put is 16 pounds and the discus is 4.4 pounds. So the shot put is four times the weight according to Google. It's 16 pounds? That's what it said when I just Googled it. It's pretty heavy. You know what? I had it being lights. Well, I didn't know it weighed that much. To give everyone perspective, I use a 14 pound bowling ball and the idea that I could throw my bowling ball

More than 10 feet. That does give everyone perspective. It does. It makes them understand that people who are shot putting have to be strong to throw something that's heavy. And that concludes our Olympic coverage for the day. Have you closed the categories for the Cody Olympics yet? Because now I'm thinking maybe you do the bowling ball shot put. Oh, wow. I am going to write that down. He's going to write it down. Look at him, working hard. That's going to be the second best event.

That we've ever had. Bowling ball, shot put. While we're at it then, and this is what he's dying for, it's the only reason he's here, we're not likely to get his attention the rest of the show. The Greg Cody Show featuring Greg Cody.

is featuring an Olympics between him and his son, and I assume the best event is there. The very best event in the history of Father-Son Olympics, I'm assuming we can find on the Greg Cody Show featuring Greg Cody. For sure. The last one we did was, and this is a first for the medium. This is a first in the history of podcasts. We went towing with a 57-year-old die.

Okay, we were barefoot. We grabbed a small die. I call it a die. It's one dice. I still call it a dice. Officially, it's a die. We grasp in our bare foot, in our toe, the great toe. With your talon, with your rotten talons that Greg, that Stugatz has clipped the toenail, the great toenail twice off of. Your giant talon, you're rolling die with your feet. We're not rolling it. We're throwing it. We're whipping our foot down.

propelling the die down the street on my block we have video of it

To prove we did it, I'm not going to say who won. You've got to listen to our podcast. But towing with a 57-year-old die, a family heirloom. If I ever get this Greg Cody Hall of Fame off the ground, you know that that die is going to be in a lucite square case like they have for gold medals and Hall of Fame baseballs and such. I'm surprised the die didn't get stuck under your big toe, your big talon. Well, yeah.

And here's the thing. It's one of those small die. Ah. You know, it's not the big die. How do you feel about the die that are like six-sided or eight-sided that they have now? Oh, yeah. We don't know. I guess the nine-sided one. No. To me, that's an aberration. Nice categories. Yeah. It was a hexagon or something. Yeah. We like the classic die. Yeah. The square die. One through six. Yeah. And you'd be surprised how far you can whip the leg and...

and throw the die. You know, the key is you don't want to whip the leg too hard that the die falls out of your toe before expelling. Can you please explain to me whether there is anything about these 1957 die that if I were holding them in my hand, I wouldn't say that they're 2023 die? Like, you say they're a family heirloom. You're throwing them down the street. Do they look... They have to be yellow. Do they look different from 1957? That's an excellent question.

And there's a photograph of me holding the die, and it is way yellow. Keep in mind, this die was white when I got the game delivered to me in 1968, the spring of 1968. And 56 or whatever years later, it's yellow, like the color of unbrushed teeth. Yeah.

Like the color of unbrushed teeth. Good way to paint a picture. Yeah, look at the photo. I put the photo on Twitter. Somebody get that. Look at that. I love the way he does his job. Somebody get that. Look, just understand, okay? Understand that when Greg Cody walked in today, there are so many things to talk about. And I asked him what it is that he wanted to talk about. And all he said was me.

Just me, Maximum. I want to talk about my podcast. I want to talk about a book that I'm publishing. They look orange. They don't look like the color of unbrushed teeth. They look like orange dye. And basically what you're describing is a game of rotten foot throws rotten dye. Which is older? Which is older and more rotten?

Greg Cody's dice from 1957 or Greg Cody's feet from 1957? No, 1967. It's a 57-year-old die. That die used to be white, bone white, and now it's yellow or, as you call it, orange. Rotten. If this is a quote-unquote family heirloom, shouldn't you treat this with a little bit more respect? You know, we considered that, Roy. That's another beautiful question. Mm-hmm.

We're in his wheelhouse. He wanted so badly to come in here and just talk about himself today, to be the center of the Olympics. He misses it. He was the center of the Stanley Cup final. He misses not being at the center of things. Well, I have a question for you, Greg, in regards to the Olympics and what we were talking about sleeping bags. Why don't you guys have a sleeping bag competition where you guys maybe take a nap?

between you and Christopher. Also, a follow-up question. How do you feel about the advancements in sleeping bags? I don't know if you've seen them, but they have sleeping bags now that'll go all the way around your head. You can almost wear a hoodie. How do you feel about those? Yeah, the nickname for that is the suffocator.

I'm not a fan of sleeping bags. I'm not a fan of tents. No. If I'm forced to sleep outdoor, it's going to be au naturel. And I don't mean nude. I mean I'm going to sleep on the ground. I'm not going to lay on a mat outside.

I just don't believe in that. You're not going to use a tent? I mean, what if it's raining? You know what? Maybe I'm claustrophobic because I just don't like the idea of being zipped up in a sleeping bag. What if the zipper breaks? Then all of a sudden you're squirming around in a sleeping bag. You can't get out. They're thick enough where you really can't rip through them. So you're in a real pickle there. I've never understood that expression.

What's that? Is the pickle the game of pickle? If you're in a real pickle, is where it is that you're stuck in a game, the game of pickle, where someone throws a baseball, two people are throwing a baseball, the game of pickle. You're trying not to get tagged, and that's the game. Where does that expression come from, getting in a real pickle? I don't know. Nobody knows? Well, I mean, in this situation, if he's trapped inside a sleeping bag, it would be as traumatic as being trapped inside a pickle, I would think. It would be. Yeah. You know, I...

I just can't... And the idea of a sleeping bag that goes over your head, what's the point of that? You can't see a bear car rumbling toward you like Ron McGill with a buffalo marauding right through his tent.

I don't want to do that. I'm in a sleeping bag. You can't even see the buffalo. The origin is apparently from William Shakespeare's The Tempest. But that's just the first result. And we got an AI-generated dude holding a javelin the last time we did that. So let me keep digging. I wish that Stugatz had said that. I wish Stugatz had said that.

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