7-30-24 McElroy & Cubelic in the Morning Hour 3: Martin Newton talks college athletics, Samford, and Bear Bryant
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McElroy and Kubrick in the morning starts now. All right, welcome back in. McElroy and Kubrick in the morning, 9 a.m., hour number three on the way.

And before we get Sanford Athletic Director Martin Newton discussing some of the changes in college sports, specifically college basketball, G-Mac, tell our listeners about Polar Bear Services. Well, Polar Bear Services is a one-stop shop. You can call them for anything. They've been to my house to help with electrical. They've been to my house to help with appliances. They've also been to my house to help with plumbing. They've added all three of those to their incredible repertoire of an amazing, amazing work that they can do on your HVAC system. System tune-up, duct cleaning, repair, new installations of HVAC.

independent train systems. They can help you on so many different things. So call Wes and the guys today. Remember, if you have a problem with your electrical plumbing, heat or air, just pick up the phone and call the Bears. 205-497-BEAR. It's 497-BEAR. Martin Newton, Sanford Athletic Director, joining us in studio now. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. Appreciate you guys having me. Yeah, it's...

It's such an interesting time in college sports. First and foremost, new facilities going up for you guys right now. I know it's been a point of emphasis. We had Coach Hatcher in last week talking about that. Looks like it's going to be fantastic with what you guys are able to pull off there around the football field. Yeah, we're really excited. I tell you, our new president, Beck Taylor, has just done a tremendous job investing in the infrastructure and this new campus rec and wellness project that we've gone. They've taken the old gym that I actually played in when I was a student athlete back in the late 70s and really renovated it. And they've taken the old gym that I actually played in when I was a student athlete back

The add-on to the football stadium, we've got a practice facility for men's and women's basketball and volleyball. So the future is bright for the Bulldogs. Well, it's like I told Hatch, that space back there between the football field and that building, it just always felt like a waste of space. And to be able to plug something right there, it's just almost a perfect fit. Yeah, we used to market that as the kids' place where they could come slide down the hill. It's going to ruin that, but it's still going to be much needed, and we've got a little bit of an indoor practice facility out of it as well. So we're excited.

How would you assess kind of where you guys are moving into this new frontier? I know the 12-team playoff doesn't really encroach on your level of football. You've already had the playoff forever.

But there was a time in which December was about watching FCS football, and there was a lot of publicity that was generated in those few weeks. But now you're going head-to-head with the FBS, which has expanded, and the NFL is encroached as well. So how does that adjust your thinking moving forward in this FCS program? You know, I think, Greg, you've got to just be true to who you are. You can't worry about the things that you can't control.

I mean, we're going to field as good a football team as we can to try to win a Southern Conference championship. And we've done a lot of that. We've won more championships in the last decade than any school in the Southern Conference. And so we're going to continue to focus on doing what we can do, control what we can control, uh,

We've got a really good relationship with the over-the-mountain community, the Homewood community. And thanks to Damien and Cole's been on air with us. And I think we're building those relationships. And I just think, you know, people will that may not want to go to an Alabama and Auburn game or they may not want to. They're not tied into that big. They want a real good, inexpensive family entertainment option. That's what Sanford's all about. One thing that I appreciate about you, Martin, is when I did call games for you guys right after COVID in the spring,

you were kind of open to at least having that conversation. And so tells me that the creativity may be doing things a little bit different than they've always been done. You'd be open to that. How important is just that mindset going to be moving forward for your level of athletics? Yeah. You know, I spent the majority of my career in sports marketing with Nike and basketball. And so, you know, Phil, Phil Knight's motto was always, if it's not broke, break it. And so, you know, he was always trying to think of different ways to do things and not rest on your laurels. And so for us at our level, um,

We've got to be creative in what we do. You know, I'll be honest with you guys. Until we went to the basketball tournament this past year, there was a lot of people in the Homewood community and the Overmountain community and even in Birmingham. I don't think they realized we were a Division I athletics department.

because we played FCS football. They didn't correlate that with Alabama-Auburn. And so I think for us to get good in basketball, to have that exposure that we've had in the NCAA tournament, has now made people realize, okay, this is a viable Division I athletics program. Like I said, we've won a lot of championships in the last 13 years.

So we've got to just continue to build on that and find new creative ways to do it and focus on who we are. We can't worry about what everybody else does. And I think that's probably my biggest takeaway in being on the Division I Council, being on the Men's Basketball Committee, is it gets more focused on what everybody else is doing instead of focusing on who you are.

What is kind of the future for FCS football, though? A lot of people are saying, well, if the money games go away, it's going to have a significant impact on the bottom line. There have been some people that have said, hey, why don't we just move them to the spring where there's more time? There's some people that have said, why don't we move them to the midweek? I understand creativity is going to be necessary in the next generation, but –

It feels like there's also a lot of resistance to adjusting and thinking of new ways to create viewership opportunities. So what are those conversations like as we move forward? That's a great question, and I wish I had the answer. I will say this, and Cole knows, when we were playing games in the spring during COVID, I put out a tweet and got absolutely jittery.

killed by the folks around the country about, hey, FCS needs to look at playing our football games in the spring. We've got no competition. Now, obviously, look, I grew up in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in the 70s, right? Bear Bryant was there winning championships. I mean, it was a wonderful time to be in Tuscaloosa. I'm a football guy. I love college football. But at our level, we've got to think about how can we do things different to put us on platform. The reality of FCS football for most of us, not all of us,

But most of it, it's an enrollment driver. Right. It's what we need to get male student-athletes. At Stanford University, our focus for football is to bring alums back to campus. We're in the South, so you've got to have football, but bring alums back to campus, have family weekends, homecoming, but also to get male students.

and minority male students. So it's a driver for – it's a different business model for us and a lot of FCS schools than it is for, say, the P4. So Martin Newton, Sanford Athletic Director with us in studio. I wasn't really going to go this far down this, but for the folks, because you and I had multiple conversations about it,

The numbers game that comes with that is, like Greg just said, and that was the main reason that I said it, is when you projected out the future of college football, it felt like those pay games were going to go away. Because what are you going to do? If you're adding teams to your conference and you start getting to 16, 18, 20 whatever teams...

What are you going to start doing more of? Playing your own teams because your inventory is more valuable. So therefore, those pay games go away. And how are you going to make it when that happens? And then had an interesting conversation with you and Bo Kerr about, you know, fiscally, how much better it could be with a small ticket attendance on a weekly basis.

So that's what you and I talked about is if you went to the spring and the attendance just went up, say, 20%, 25%, that makes your budget almost if the games were in the spring. And is that kind of where your mindset was in even saying we should look at this? Yeah. Again, I think every weekend we go up against – when does Alabama and Auburn play?

play. That's what we look at when we try to schedule our games. Because it affects our attendance, whether they are going to the Alabama and Auburn game or whether they're just watching it on television. So we always are cognizant of that. But again, for us,

I go back to the business model. Football is a revenue driver from a tuition standpoint because we've got 63 scholarships. We've got 120 players on the roster. So that means I've got almost 60 kids paying tuition at Sanford University, and Sanford's not cheap. I mean, we're a private institution, and we're well-priced, but we've got 60 males that are paying to go to Sanford. So, again, it's a different business model. And for me, let's look at it from a sponsorship standpoint. If we move it to the spring,

Sponsors are dying for inventory. How do we know that linear television, they're looking for programming this. Absolutely. So how do we know that linear television wouldn't pick it up and we don't have to do everything on streaming? So I just think, again, if we bury our head in the sands, and you guys keep talking about the money games going away, and they could.

The pressure is that – and I have so much respect for Greg Byrne being on the basketball committee with him and what he has to deal with. But the pressure those guys are getting now that you're doing revenue share to increase ticket prices to pay student athletes, how many people want to go to Tuscaloosa or to Auburn to watch a FCS game? They're going to want to go watch –

a really good footballer if they're going to pay those ticket prices. So just a lot of challenges that, again, I go back to what I said. You've got to be true to who you are. You've got to figure out ways that work for you and your model. Where do you think you could continue to grow as an athletic department? I know that it's tough to just add sports out of the blue and say, hey, we're going to do this. And in the event in which this House ruling, I don't know how much that affects you all,

In the event in which this House ruling goes down, you've got to start doing rev share and things like that at your level as well. At what point do you have to start maybe thinking about getting rid of programs? And obviously no athletic director wants to have blood on their hands, essentially, and getting rid of sports. But that's a realistic possibility for these schools. So do you have outside counsel when it comes to these things? Like who's helping you with these things?

decisions? Yeah, we've got outside counsel. We've got an NIL collective that we do outside of Sanford. I mean, we've tried to figure out all those ways to get creative. The reality of it at our level, basketball is the driver. And if you think about it from the perspective that 90 plus percent of the revenue for the NCAA is from the men's basketball tournament.

So for us, we're not getting CFP money, right? So basketball has got to be the driver for us. I said earlier that when we went to the tournament last year and played Kansas and had a chance – by the way, that was all ball, just so on the record. That was all balls, bad call. But anyway, that gave us exposure that we're not going to get. Plus it gave us revenue that we're not going to get because the revenue is associated, the distributions are associated with the men's basketball tournament.

So we've got to focus on what moves the needle for us at our level. You know, the Big East, I think, is primed to be in a perfect position from a basketball standpoint because they only have to revenue share with basketball. They don't have to revenue share with football players. And I think it's interesting that when you look at the revenue share that's taking place, the CFP, there's no money coming to the NCAA from the CFP. That's all going to the Power 4 schools. It gets trickled down to the Group of Five.

The basketball revenue is coming from the CFP, yet 75% of the projected revenue from the revenue share will go to football players. But yet it's basketball revenue that is creating those distributions of the payouts that we're all having to make. So you are on the NCAA Basketball Committee, and one of the coolest things that we've talked about as it pertains to college basketball recently was the decision to move the lower-level players

Final Four with the actual Final Four or the championship games. Can you just kind of take us through this discussion and how you guys came to this? It feels like it makes so much sense, and it's going to make that atmosphere wherever the Final Four is in certain years just so much cooler. Yeah, you know, it's taking the Division III, the Division II, and then the Division I championship all to Indianapolis.

Our job, our main job for the committee, not only is selecting the teams and seeding the teams, but it's also making sure that the game of basketball is in a good position. And so this just, for the committee and for those at the NCAA, if you look at growing the game of basketball, this is just an incredible way to grow the game of basketball. Plus, you know, look, I'll go back to what I said earlier. I'm a football guy. I grew up, I mean, I...

When I was 12 years old, I had a near-death experience with Bear Bryant. He scared the heck out of me. That's another story. But I am a football guy. But it's hard to argue that the NCAA tournament is not the greatest sporting event in the country because for a month we take fans that have nothing to do with the school, that have nothing to do with basketball, but, man, they all fill their brackets on it. They're all tuned in. They all want to see what's happening. So being able to expand that and bring the Division II championships

the Division III championships, I think just makes a lot of sense and it's going to be great for the game of basketball. What do you make of the conversation about further expansion and potentially down the road getting rid of automatic qualifiers? People are starting to propose that. I don't think it's likely. I just think there's too much goodwill built up. For instance, the Champions of the SoCon, like you guys last year, there was a lot of people kind of galvanized by that story. So I don't think it's going to have enough momentum, but...

In the event that that does happen and starts to gain traction, how do you combat it? You know, I would be shocked that the AQs go away for a couple reasons. CBS, Warner Brothers, who are television partners, and again, I go back to that revenue for the NCAA, that's 90-plus percent of it comes from that contract. They don't want the Cinderella story to go away. Now, look, when you get to the Final Four, when you get to the Elite Eight, you want the Blue Bloods.

But those early round matchups, that's why the nation tunes into the NCAA tournament. So I think the committee is looking at expansion. We will continue to study it. But it's not just a, well, we've got to do this because we're fearful that somebody may leave or we're going to take away the automatic qualifiers because somebody might leave, the P4 might leave. And on that subject, and I'll be transparent with you, where I have concerns right now with what's going on is you've got

Some commissioners in the power for it. Like Greg Sankey is wonderful. Greg Sankey has been at every level. He knows college athletics from every level. He's been there. You've got Jim Phillips in the ACC. They understand the history and the tradition of not only the basketball, but also the football. But then you've got some other commissioners.

quite frankly that don't and they're they come from the outside you look at the pac-12 that guy had nothing to do and where's the pac-12 today had nothing to do he didn't understand the tradition and history of college sports so the ncaa basketball tournament those automatic qualifiers are what makes that such a special tournament uh it's we've talked about it here on the show martin that uh we just don't feel like it should happen hope it doesn't happen it's just it's

We're all about opportunities, and I feel like certain teams, certain leagues deserve at least an opportunity to be able to get there, and most of them have proven it over the last couple of years that they deserve that spot. Do you mind hanging out for another segment? I'd love to. All right, we'll get to a break, come back, talk some more NCAA basketball. What's next with Martin Newton, Sanford Athletic Director, joining us here in

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More with Martin Newton next right here on McElroy and Kubelik in the morning. Catch up with all things McElroy and Kubelik in the morning by subscribing to the podcast. Mythically, he's grown. He's almost like a little bit bigger than a player, right? Like the myth of Bo Jackson. Like, rate, and download the show from the Jock Tap or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, welcome back in. Michael Roy and Q Blake in the morning. Sanford Athletic Director Martin Newton hanging out with us in studio. Get to a little bit more with him here in just a moment. 918 Tuesday, July 30th, JOX 94.5. Listen online, joxfm.com. Apps in the App Store, iPhone, Android. You can download that for free.

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that they can give you at GameDay Men's Health. Book a free consult today at GameDayMensHealth.com. Minimal upfront cost for the programs they offer. That's GameDayMensHealth.com. All right, Sanford AD, Martin Newton in studio with us. And I want to kind of go back to that Bear Bryant story that you brought up a few moments ago and see. I mean, obviously, we all know your lineage with your dad, where he has been. You mentioned working for Nike just a little bit earlier, but growing up in Tuscaloosa, what...

I mean, just some of those memories, some of those stories you must have should be fascinating. Yeah, you know, it's funny. So when my dad was a basketball coach, all of the offices, football and basketball, were in Memorial Coliseum or Coleman Coliseum now. And there were these two double doors, right, that there was a football wing. And at the end of the football wing hall, there was the meeting room, and there was a Coca-Cola machine in that football meeting room. So anyway, I'm about 11 or 12 years old. My dad used to tell me, I had a basketball with me everywhere I went. And he'd say, don't you go through those double doors drilling that basketball hole.

So like most, we were just talking about, Greg and I were just talking about how as a boy, you don't get smart until you're about 35. So I bust through the doors, forget. I'm doing spin moves. I'm bouncing the ball off the wall. I'm about halfway down the hallway, and I hear this gruff voice come out from behind this door, and he goes, boy.

And I look up, and it's Coach Bryant. And he's looking over his bifocals. He's sitting behind his desk. He's looking over his glasses, and he reaches out with this big paw, and he motions for me to come into his office. And literally, I can remember putting the ball under my arm and thinking, this is it. I'm done. I mean, this guy's the bear. He's getting beat to death.

Crap. Right? I just remember when he would come down out of the tower and all the football players would be scared to death. And I said, well, those dudes are scared of him. And I got problems. Yeah, I got problems. So I walk in with my ball under my arm and he reaches into his desk drawer and he picks up a quarter and he flips me a quarter and he says, go buy me a Coca-Cola. And he says, and hold that damn ball. That is great. That's awesome. I'm interested, though, because one of the coolest things when Wimp joins us on Thursdays

is hearing stories about who actually was the athletic director back then. It was Coach Bryant for a while. He says, Coach Bryant hired me. So how did that work with your dad? And then when your dad actually moved into administration, how much of that was taken from obviously having Coach Bryant there at Alabama? Yeah, no, Coach Bryant was definitely the athlete. He hired my dad, hired him from Transylvania University.

Where is that at? It's in Lexington, Kentucky. They got Kentucky a couple years ago. That's exactly right. So he had played at Kentucky and then became the basketball coach there at like 21 years old. So he calls him and offers him the job, and he just assumed he's going from Transylvania to Alabama. He's going to make more money, and he gets down there, and he's making –

$12,000 a year. He was making $15,000 at Transylvania. And he said there was no way I was going to question Coach Bryant. Hey, Coach, I need to make more money. But Coach Bryant was in charge. Now, Sam Bailey, I think, did the day-to-day operations. But Coach Bryant was large and in charge. And when he spoke, I think everybody listened. Has your dad said that there were parts of that that helped him as an AD also? No doubt. Yeah, absolutely no doubt. I mean, his –

I think the biggest thing he said was that with Coach Bryant, everybody mattered. Everybody fit into the scheme of things. It didn't matter who you are, whether you were the person that cooked at Bryant Denny or Denny Hall or Bryant whatever it was, the dormitory, or whether you were the offensive court. It didn't – everybody fit into the scheme of things, and he took that with him. And then, you know, he also played for Adolph Rupp, which he learned a lot there as well. I think the difference was from Coach Rupp, he probably learned more what not to do.

As opposed to what two do. And the way he treated people. Coach Rupp was mean. He was tough. But Coach Bryant was fair. I would imagine so. Looking at other questions, I know it's a bit of a right turn here off the Coach Bryant conversation. But I am kind of curious. Is there ever like a point of contention between you and the other committee members as you're putting teams and ranking teams in March when March Madness Election Day comes around? Because I would think that that is...

highly volatile in there but maybe it's not i'm just curious it's it's not volatile but it is we have a lot of really good in-depth conversations the beauty of this you've got 12 people on the selection the power four uh are represented so everybody on the power four at the time it was the power five everybody they have representation but the conversation and i think what what

Impresses me, Greg, more than anything is that everybody comes in and takes their hat off or their shirt. Like you don't wear – I don't wear Sanford logo gear. You go in there shirtless. You go in there shirtless, man. Bathing suit? No. It's March. No, we're not doing bathing suits. But you don't go in there with your logos on. Good call. So everybody walks in with, okay, how do we pick the 60 – really, you're only picking 36 teams because 32 are automatic qualifiers. So how do we select and then see the tournament?

And they kind of put those biases. Now, it comes out. I mean, look, it's human nature. But I think for the most part, we have really good conversation and it can get intense. But it's there's no I think there's respect for everybody in the room.

Again, Greg Burns is on the committee as well. I've known Greg for a long time, but my level of respect for Greg, being on the committee with him and seeing all the things that he has to deal with that I don't have to deal with, I just have an unbelievable amount of respect. And I think that's kind of a consistent thing without the committee. I feel like one thing that would be – and Greg and I have both done, which would be different now, but the mock playoff committee, selection committee, when it was four teams, 12 would be a little bit different. And, of course, there's now automatic bids. Yeah.

One thing that I believe would make it much more difficult for what you guys do is how critical numbers have become in basketball. No doubt. There are so many people that just immediately go to a certain poll, a certain analytic, a certain rating, and that's – well, they're here in Ken Palm, so that's it. That's right. How much more difficult is the discussion because – I mean, you guys have your own, of course, and you released the rankings off of that. But how –

How much more difficult is it because so many people are so glued to certain numbers in basketball? In football, you're not really going to get that. You'll have certain analytics and certain polls from the BCS there, whatever it is. People will point to it, but it's not really what drives the conversation. I would imagine if you really feel something about a team, but maybe the numbers don't support it, that's got to be a difficult conversation to have.

Yeah, it is. And you know, the difference too is football, normally there's probably realistically, what, five to six teams that have a chance of winning a national championship in football? Thereabouts, yeah. Yeah, I mean, in basketball, that's not the case. Right. And so, what

What gets confused with, and even coaches get confused, is this net, which is the evaluation tool that we use. But what people don't understand, that's just one evaluation tool. If everything is based on analytics, then you don't need a committee. And so we've got about six different metrics that we use. The net is one. You mentioned Ken Palm. We're going to add Torvik, which is a good tool as well. We're going to add Wins Against Bubble, which is a good tool. So they're predictive measures, and then there's also results measures.

And so we're looking at all of those things and balancing them out. So you can take a team that maybe has really good predictive measures, but their results measures weren't very good because maybe they didn't play anybody. So there's a lot of variances that go into it. It's not just as simple as saying, okay, well, here's the net. And if you're in the top 64 of the net, you're going to make the tournament. That's not the case. We saw that. We see it every year. I think we had nine teams that were in the top 75 that were left out of the tournament. So what is Torvik? Torvik.

Torvik is another tool that you can use. It is a predictive tool that you can use. Again, you've got the net, which is the main evaluation. You've got Ken Palm. You've got Torvik. You've got BPI, which is an ESPN ranking on schedule. So you've got all these different tools. And then we also look at, you know, you've got to look at non-conference strength of schedule. I mean, if you're not trying to play anybody, you

You better do really well in your conference. And that's going to be the challenge, I think, going forward because you've got these leagues, you know, the Big 12s at, what, 16 teams now? You've got the Big 10s. So you've got all these additional teams in the conference, so you've got more conference games. You better have tried to play somebody in the non-conference, especially from a seeding standpoint, where you better do really well in your league.

And one of the questions that I've got going forward is, how do we start evaluating teams that maybe have a losing conference record? Yeah. Compared to a team that, you know, maybe is in the Big East, the A-10, the

the Mountain West, the Southern Conference. I mean, we were pretty good last year. We took Kansas to the wire. And granted, I know they had some injuries, but so did we. And so there's a lot of teams out there in basketball because it only takes two or three guys in basketball to win. And so I think you've got to make sure we look at the whole body of work. What about when you guys actually have to go to site? I'm always...

I say I always laugh because it only feels appropriate. Like you guys have your little spot when you go to the site, and you have to sit there as a, quote, committee member, and you have a little sign that says, you know, here's Martin Newton and here's Greg Byrne. And you have all the little signs. You have to sit in your spot with your jacket on looking as if you're engaged.

But what are you doing there? So is it the assumption that we're not engaged, Greg? Is it the hay in the barn? No, there's no way you can be. I see Greg Byrne in Greenville, South Carolina, and Bama's playing in Spokane. How can you be engaged at that point? So what are your responsibilities by the time you get the site? So you're running that site. And so I'll give you an example. When the NCAA tournament was in Birmingham, my first year on the committee, I

I'm running the site. Me and Cole were running the site. You don't realize it, but we were up there. You were behind the scenes running the site. We were up there in the stands running the site. We were having a great time. Alabama and Auburn in the same day. It was a big day for us. Exactly. So you want to know what we do. I'm running that site first year on the committee. I've got Alabama as an overall number one seed. I've got Houston as a number one seed. Right. And you've got Auburn as a number nine seed playing in Birmingham. So the tension –

With the coaches, I mean, it was unbelievable. Bob Huggins took it. Oh, Huggins is the best. But it's a great example. So I'm sitting next to Huggins. Huggins has a logo on his shirt. Well, it's against the NCAA rule. We tell them all that on the front end. The decision is whether you tell Huggins he's got a tape over his logo or we deal with it later. But really, it's a lot of work. I mean, you'd be surprised because we literally run that. So any decision that's made has to come back to the committee. So if there's any...

with a fight, if there's any issue with the transition meetings that we have to run, I mean, if there's any issues with television, if there's any – and there was a lot of issues in Birmingham, not because of the Birmingham site, but just because of the different personalities that you had. With Alabama and Auburn being there, you can only imagine, right? Sure, of course. So there was just a lot of different stuff that we had to deal with, parking, all those type things. But it's actually – You're in charge of parking?

Well, we're not in charge, but when you have an issue with parking, it comes to you to resolve. If somebody wants additional parking passes, if they want additional media passes, all those things, eventually that decision comes back to the committee members. So, yeah, we sit there with our little suits on and our little name tag, but we do have some responsibility. You look so bored the whole time. See, I love it. The other thing we do is officiating. We help evaluate the officiates.

So we're, we're focused more on, you know, the, the demeanor of the official has Twitter for like a poll as to like how, how people felt about this group will move on. This group doesn't absolutely not. Although I will say, I was really proud that the officials at the Sanford Kansas game, the guy did not move on that missed that call. That was a good thing. Yeah, that was a good thing. We've talked about, we get, listen, every, every week, whether it's basketball, football, people call in, they're frustrated with officiating. I'd,

Football's hard. Yes. And Greg and I have actually both done that as well, where we've been an official in a spring game, and you just don't understand how technical your eyes have to be on every snap, before the snap, during the snap, and some processes you have to follow. I just feel like basketball officiating is impossible. Well, it's good. There's just so much of it that is...

based on essentially your judgment of what may have happened or what you saw happen. And then with the replays in HD and 4k and slowing things down, it's just, it's everything's going to look different than it does. Obviously what has happened at full speed. It's,

I think basketball has got to be the most difficult to official of any of the sports, and it's an impossible task, it feels like. It really is. But I will tell you, and this is what's been unique being on the committee, because I was one of those guys that officials never got calls right. But when you start looking at the percentages of calls that they get right, it's in the 90s. They don't miss as many as you think.

It is a hard game. They never miss any of the other teams. Well, no, absolutely. They always miss them. All 10% of the missed calls come against my team. Yeah, exactly. Always. But they're better than you think, and they put a lot of work into it. But it's important. I mean, you could have a great game with great fans and poor officials, and it ruins it. You've got to have all three. And so we put a lot of emphasis on the officiating. Those guys study, but basketball is tough. It is.

Because the athlete, and same thing with football, though. The athletes have gotten so much bigger, stronger, and faster that it's like, man, you've got to be sharp. That's why you're seeing these officials are in better shape now.

You know, it used to be guys looked like me were officiating. You can't do that anymore. I want to get a couple more questions. Do you mind hanging out for a few more minutes? I'd love to. We'll go to a break real quick. All right. We'll take a break. Greg, tell our listeners about Iconic Carts and how they can help them. Well, Iconic Carts, they have two locations, so it's easy and convenient for you if you're looking to get a golf cart for the community, the neighborhood, the beach, the lake, you name it. They

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IconicCarts.com. All right, we'll come back. A couple more questions with Sanford AD, Martin Newton in studio next right here on McElroy and Kubelik in the morning. The capital of the sports talk nation. This is Jocks 94.5 and JocksFM.com. Hurry and... All right, welcome back in. McElroy and Kubelik in the morning.

uh sanford athletic director martin newton hanging out with us a couple more questions for him excuse me here in just a moment first i want to say about royal automotive if you're thinking about selling your vehicle online don't do it it can be dangerous no-shows haggler scammers just stay away from that i listed my old pickup truck on facebook no telling what was going to happen but thankfully my friends at royal stepped in sent me a message said bring that thing down here i had a check they had my truck in 30 minutes just like me if you're not

looking to buy or trade with them, Royal still wants to buy your ride. If you want the best value for your car, truck, or SUV, forget Facebook. Put the for sale sign down. Only one way to go. Royal Automotive at the corner of I-65 and Highway 31 of Estavia. Get started with a free, no obligation quote in person, over the phone, or online at royalautomotive.net. Remember, for every ride, there's Royal. One thing that I did want to discuss with you, Martin, in a little bit is just your dad. When I knew you were coming in, I did some research and

There are just things about certain people that you never know happen. I mean, played in the Yankees organization, was a part of the Olympic basketball program, was a part of the Dream Team, actually, worked for the Southeastern Conference Office. Everybody, I think, just sort of fixates on Kentucky and what happened there. But, of course...

integrated Alabama basketball, really Alabama athletics. I feel like we need a real biography, not just SEC story. We need a little bit more, I feel like, on your dad's life. Well, good. I thought the question you were going to ask is, what the heck happened to you? No, no. You know, it's funny when...

I worked with a buddy of mine with ESPN that I got to know when I was with Nike, and we were trying to do this SEC story about that. And as we were going through that, I was like, man, this dude, we're sitting here and they're going through film clips and everything, and I go, this dude's like Forrest Gump. I mean, he just was everywhere. You talk about the dream team. I mean, he was president of USA Basketball when they put together the original dream team. I mean, he was just kind of at the right place at the right time. But he had a heck of a career. Have you heard any stories or he shared anything with you about –

How that actually finally happened, whether it was a discussion with somebody or convincing or how it actually just finally got to the point where, you know what, we're going to get back in there. Yeah, we got beat. We lost for the first time since, I guess, 72 when they got cheated. But, yeah, we got beat. And it was like, yeah, that's not going to happen. They lost in, what, 88. I think John Thompson was the coach of that team. They get beat, and it was like –

We're basketball. We invented basketball. James Naismith invented it in this country, and we're not losing again. And so what you saw was the world was now moving towards – basketball was moving towards a global game. So you had a lot of guys that were playing professionally, were in European leagues, and they were like, well, we're going to put our best foot forward. The amazing thing about that is how they got all of those guys to do it.

And the egos that you had, they all kind of said, yeah, we want to do this. You know, patriotism gets a punchline at times. But the patriotism that those guys had to just say, you know what, they were the first that just said, we're making millions of dollars, we really don't need to do this, but by God, we're going to bring this goal back to the U.S. It was pretty cool. Absolutely. Yeah.

What do you make of where kind of the Olympics have gone for college athletes? Because it's been super cool to see. I think there's 14 from Alabama. I don't recall the number from Auburn, but there's a bunch of –

People that you would see competing against, what have you, that are now competing for multiple countries in the Olympics. So that's my biggest concern is with all the changes that are going on, like all of a sudden those athletes no longer have a place to go. They don't have that opportunity to compete here in the United States. So how do we make sure that the Olympic sports are still kind of built up and –

and not all the attention goes towards basketball, football, and the moneymakers. It's a challenge because you think in the Olympics there's probably about a $5 billion commitment from universities for Olympic sports.

And it would pain me to see that go away. We'd have to become like China where the government funds everything and kids start training to identify them at a young age. And I don't think we want to do that. That's the beauty of our collegiate model right now. We're unlike anybody in the world. So you just look at the basketball right now. There's 144 basketball players, I think, is the number playing in the Olympics. Half of those went to college. Half of those went to U.S. colleges. There's like 1,500 colleges.

participants in the Olympics that participated in college athletics. So, I mean, to your point, Greg, you can't – we've got to be careful that with all this revenue share and all the things that we're doing that we can't diminish what's the role of the Olympic sports on our campuses. And, yeah, there's two revenue sports on every campus. I don't care what campus you're on. There's two revenue sports. It's men's football or men's basketball and football.

But those sports fund all these other sports. And we cannot get away or we will be irrelevant in the Olympics unless we completely change our model and go to a government-based model, which everybody else is. Yeah. Martin Newton, Sanford Athletic Director, joining us in studio. I want to get just your thoughts, kind of thousand-foot view of realignment because you have multiple lenses on it. Now, being the AD at Sanford, you mentioned growing up in Tuscaloosa, you know what big-time sports are in that town and really just in this part of the country.

as we continue to extend footprints

and numbers in certain conferences? Where do you see the health of college sports going just from a realignment perspective? You know, I get it. It's all television driven. And I'm going to preface this by saying, first of all, you're looking at me, so I'm old, but I'm also old school, right? I still kind of believe in that regional model where the Southeastern Conference was the Southeastern Conference consisting of schools in the Southeast. Obviously, that's not the case. And again, I'm not naive. I get it. It's all about revenue. And so you need to expand those markets. You need to expand your reach.

But I have a hard time continuing to use the term student-athlete because when you're taking a volleyball kid or a tennis kid from California and you're flying them across the country to play matches, you really are telling me you don't care about their collegiate experience as a student.

That's a four-time zone change. So I think we've got to be real careful with that. And I think at some point – and this is – again, I go back to what I said earlier. You've got guys like Greg Sankey that I think really understand the tradition and the history of college sports. You've got others that don't, and they're in it for the money grab. And so my fear is where –

Where do we sit 10 years from now with all these decisions? We used to have a saying at Nike, respect the past but represent the future. I'm not sure there's a lot of respecting the past going on right now because we're shipping kids all over the country. And, you know, Greg, you may differ. As a football player, it's easy because you get in a charter flight and you fly. But it's those other sports that are having to go all across the country. And I just don't see how it works. And you can still have one of the greatest things about college for me is

were the relationships, the stupid stuff we did outside of our sport. And are you going to be able to have those now if you're always on a plane going to play matches or games? The other thing is like the online classes too, to me, just drives me absolutely nuts. Look, I understand if you're a professional or if you have to work your way through school, like I understand that there are circumstances where online education is extremely advantageous. I'm not naive, but I do feel like part of the best,

experience that you can have is on campus as a student athlete or as just a regular student. And knowing that a lot of these kids now don't even go to class because their schedule is way too challenging with conflicts all the time of being on the road or having to do this. So online class just makes more sense. So I feel like they're just missing out on a tremendous part of the experience where you get to interact with other parts of the student body. I completely agree. And again, we keep talking about the most overused term student athlete experience, right?

Let's stop. It's athlete experience because the student experience is not very good anymore. If you're in those P4 leagues and you're traveling, the student experience is not very good for exactly what you said. How many friends did you guys have that were outside of your football team? Tons. Tons. And it was great. And those are still relationships you've got. A lot of these guys aren't going to do it. Their sphere is the world that they live in. And now you've got the transfer portal where they're there for a year and they leave. They're not building any relationships. And to me, that's one of the beauties. I

I'm fearful that what we've done through all of this revenue and the settlements is we've devalued the education component of college athletics. And that's just, again, I'm old school. I get it. I understand the money. But I struggle with that. I won't say the school, but I spoke to a player at Media Days who transferred into an SEC school, and somebody else asked him the question of how many classes do you actually go to?

And he said, I have not been to a class in person at this school. A lot of them don't even live on campus. Yeah, and I just – it almost – I just kind of sighed like, oh. You just hate to hear – you understand parts of it, but then you're like, man.

Like that's sad, really. Well, I told my son when he was being recruited, he played basketball, and I said, you know, there's three things you need to look at in school. One, because, and here's the reasons. Number one is that your education determines the rest of your life. I mean, it's important. Number two is your faith. That's where you can grow your faith. Whether you're outside of mom and dad, so you no longer have that. So now you get to make decisions on your own about what's your faith. And then the third thing is who you marry.

because a lot of times you meet your spouse in college. And so we're kind of taking all those things away now, and that concerns me a little bit. We cannot devalue education. And so if we're going to keep going this direction, then let's quit calling them student athletes and let's just call them college athletes and those that want to go to classes.

Go to class. If you want to take it online, go online and call it what it is. Well, Martin, this has been great stuff. We appreciate you stopping in. Thanks so much for the time. Really cool conversation. Hopefully we can do it again soon. Man, I appreciate you guys. Appreciate y'all supporting Sanford Athletics. You don't have to do it, and you guys go above and beyond. So good luck to you this football season. Can't wait to watch both of you. It's going to be fun. Can I give you some parking tickets from Sanford? Absolutely not. Because I've gotten a couple. You send them to me. I'll take care of them. All right, perfect.

I think it totals like $30, so it's not a lot. I got you covered. All right, perfect. All right, guys. Or you can just figure out how to park one or the other. It's just really far, and we're running late for swim lessons. Sometimes it's just challenging. All right, we'll be back to close it out next right here on McElroy and Kubelik in the morning. Catch up with all things McElroy and Kubelik in the morning by subscribing to the podcast. Mythically, he's grown. He's almost like a little bit bigger than...

A player, right? Like the myth of Bo Jackson. Like, rate, and download the show from the Jock Cup or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, welcome back in. 9.50 a.m. It is Tuesday, July 30th. We're here on Jocks 94.5. Get to our bad box scores of the day in just a moment. Some NFL news. Former Alabama DB Kareem Jackson signing with the Buffalo Bills. Also...

Some other NFL news that we'll get to here in just a moment, but wanted to give you some baseball scores from last night. Yankees take down the Phillies 14-4 last night. Two home runs for Judd, 63-45 on the season. They'll go tonight again at 540 on TBS. Phillies still best record in baseball, 65-41. Braves go down to the Brewers, now 8.5 back of the Phillies.

8-3 last night. Braves 56-49. Milwaukee 61-45. One of the bigger surprises in Major League Baseball this year. Ozuna hits his 31st last night. Now one behind Shohei for the National League League. Ten home runs in July for Marcel Ozuna. Tied for the most in Major League Baseball. Braves 3-7 since the All-Star break. Those two go at 7-10 tonight. And Toronto and Baltimore split yesterday. 11-5 Baltimore, 8-4 Toronto.

They go again tonight. Before we get to our bad box scores of the day, GMAC, tell our friends about Wayne's and what they can do for them around their home. Well, Wayne's has so many different things that they can do. Their services just take your experience at your house to the next level. Cannot recommend the Mosquito enough. Mosquitoes are always trying to take over your yard, patio, porch, all the outdoor spaces. Well, the Mosquito Plus is.

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If you sign up right now with a subscription to Wayne's pest controls, call the day at eight, six, six, Wayne's one. That's eight, six, six, Wayne's one. Doesn't matter where you're at anywhere in the Southeast, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and the Florida panhandle. Give Wayne's a call at eight, six, six, Wayne's one. Visit call Wayne's.com and let Wayne's continue to create your happy place. Also Texans, Danico Autry, a violation of the substance abuse policy going to be suspended for six games. Colts defensive end,

Samson Beckham is going to be out for the year as well. He had an Achilles tear yesterday. And Matt Stafford has a new deal. He'll get an extra $9 million for one extra year on his contract there with the Rams. All right, so let's get to our bad box scores of the day. You got a little bit excited with the Team USA Rugby 7s score, G-Mac? You love the Rugby 7s.

I do because it gives me easy fodder here for the bad box scores of the day. Yes, that one was close. But also yesterday, Fiji took down Uruguay 40-12. New Zealand took down Japan 40-12. And on the men's side, Ireland took down Japan 40-5. The old five spot we've had a couple of times here in Rugby 7s. The old five spot. I don't know how you get to that, but apparently some people do.

Either way, those are some more Rugby 7s bad box scores of the day. I told you we would come back to it. DSL Arizona Black. They went down to the DSL Twins yesterday. Now, I mentioned that De Los Santos had a pretty strong day yesterday with the multiple home runs, but that score was 22-7. Wow.

Twins get the win there. And as you can imagine, it was not a great day on the mound for certain pitchers from the DSL Arizona Diamondbacks black as Yoron Perez goes one and one-third.

Gives up four hits, four runs, all earned for an ERA of 14.22 in the game. Less than two innings pitched. Seemed worse. There were four pitchers in the game who all had ERAs in double digits in one game for the DSL Arizona Diamondbacks. Double-dig? Black. 22-7. I think that qualifies. It does. As a bad box score of the day. I think it doesn't just qualify. Yeah.

Absolutely. It solidifies. Top of the list. Bad box scores for baseball. It's about it of bad box scores. Now, we also mentioned it a little bit earlier. USA Women over Japan yesterday, 102-76. They closed as a 23.5-point favorite. 102 points most in an Olympics game since the 2016 quarterfinals against Japan where they had 110. It's a lot in 10-minute quarters. It doesn't feel like they're going to be –

I don't know another way to say it. But, yeah, I feel like this is going to be a runaway for the gold. Should the U.S. be able to send two teams to the Olympics moving forward? Like a B team? Maybe. Or just two A's. Probably could get that also and find a way to win that one. So, all right, those are your bad box scores of the day.

Tuesday, July 30th. If you missed any of our interviews today, Ryan Callahan talked Tennessee, Andy Bertram talked Auburn, Martin Newton, great conversation really just about all of college athletics. Tomorrow, we've got Barry Trammell. He's going to talk Oklahoma as they get on the practice field. You may be on the practice field right now, so we'll hear from Trent Dilfer tomorrow.

Barry Trimble is with us at 7.30. Talk Oklahoma. Anwar Richardson is going to be with us at 8.30. So talk Texas also taking the practice field tomorrow. And Penn State is our team of the day tomorrow. Will they make the college football playoff and why? Our poll question of the day, Greg, you said you thought it would be slighted. Will Notre Dame be in the college football playoff? 66% say no.

Imagine that, haters. That's only 89 votes in, so not a real large sample size there, but it is a dominant lead for Notre Dame not being in the college football playoff this upcoming season. We're back tomorrow. Three-man front coming at you next right here on Jocks 94.5. This is McElroy and Cubelik in the morning. It's time for Bob's Dare to compare. You get style. You get features. You get style.

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