Coach Mike Vrabel, Comedian Gary Vider Growing Up With A Scam Artist Dad + We Introduce Our New Intern
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Hey, Pardon My Take listeners. You can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. On today's Pardon My Take, we have a packed, packed show.

Our good friend, Coach Mike Vrabel, on the show. Awesome interview with Coach Vrabes. Large and intimidating. Yes. We also have a very interesting interview with comedian Gary Veeder, who has a new podcast out that everyone should go listen to called Number One Dad. Basically talking about his childhood living with a father who was a scam artist, and he had these crazy stories. He snuck into MSG with his dad over 50 times. Awesome interview with him. We're going to try...

To do the Mount Rushmore pizza toppings for real this time. It's our third try at this. We tried it last year. We tried to run it back and give Hank a shot at redemption. Hank threw it right off the top, taking spinach in the first round. Yeah, so... But I think Hank's really turned around. His attitude's much better. I was watching the old clip, and Hank used to be just in a sour mood all the time. Yeah. Didn't want to talk, didn't want to participate. All he did was complain that we ruined Mount Rushmore season. But now...

It's the summer of Hank. We've got a new boy, and he's chipper as hell. Different guy. This is going to be great. Different guy. And then we also have...

The introduction of our intern. So we're going to, there's an extra person in here, our new intern, who we all are fond of. He's been in the office for a couple days now, but we've kept him a secret because we wanted the AWL to see him first. So we'll finish then with Fyre Fest, but we have an awesome show. The MMA event of the year, Battle of the Giants, is coming up fast.

Lineal heavyweight world champion Francis Ngannou makes his return to the cage versus Hanan Ferreira. Women's MMA GOAT Chris Cyborg takes on 2023 PFL champ Larissa Pacheco.

Johnny Eblen goes toe-to-toe with Fabian Edwards with the Bellator middleweight title on the line. Battle of the Giants and Ganu vs. Fajera goes down Saturday, October 19th at 4 p.m. Eastern Time on ESPN Plus Pay-Per-View. Okay, let's go. ♪ Boy, boy, there is violence ♪ ♪ And not a lot of work to be done ♪

We're going to rock.

It's a part of my take presented by Barstool Sports. Welcome to Part of My Take presented by DraftKings. Best Ball Week is here. Download the DraftKings app. Use code TAKE. That's code TAKE for all customers who enter the NFL Best Ball 15 Million Millionaire Contest to get a bonus ticket and get a shot at being crowned one of two millionaires. It's Best Ball Week only on DraftKings. Today is Friday, July 19th.

And my co-host looks like a poodle Got the perm baby Finally at long last Now I've wanted to pay this bet off For a long time I was originally supposed to pay it off when I got the tattoo Memes didn't book the appointment correctly Not to throw memes under the bus Don't point fingers But if I were to point a finger it would be directly at memes But I'm not going to I tried to reschedule it a couple times Things popped up with travel Finally got it done today I was the first male permed

What? Popped up? Yeah, things popped up with travel. Things popped up with travel, yeah. Are we starting off with a negative attitude? I'm just curious. I'm just curious. Things popped up with travel. I actually was going to do it the day before Beer Olympics.

But when we got kicked out, I scheduled it. Then we kicked ourselves back in. Yeah. Had to reschedule. You didn't know Super Bowl week was happening. Didn't know Super Bowl. They blindsided me. Final Four also blindsided. Yep. I was the guy's first perm. Oh. So a guy in that salon had never done a perm on a guy before. Wait, was it his first perm or a first-

It was his first perm. First same-sex perm? First same-sex perm. First same-sex perm. We're doing it now. Perm is perm. Yep. In 2024. You look good. Thank you. Shout out to the people at Salon Sen. Nice. The Sen Salon up north in Boys Town. Love it. Great place to get a perm. It does smell, though, the stuff that they put in your hair. Yeah. They don't tell you about that. They really stink it up for a while. Yeah. I'll be honest. It looks like you just jumped in the ocean. Yeah. I mean, I've got curly hair anyway, so this is... I told them, use the tightest, smallest rods they could find.

How long does it last? I think until I like wash it out. So it's tough. Yeah. No, I'm not going to wash out. I can see why you put it off for so long. No, I didn't put it off. Hank, you missed it. Meme screwed it up. If you're wondering why Hank might be in a bad mood is because we're doing not rush more of pizza toppings today for the third time. We've done it twice. The famous first time we threw it. Well, we didn't throw it. We were just trying to help our boy. Second time Hank threw it. Third time we're going to do it for real.

For real. Yeah. For real, for real. Okay, so you got your perm. I kind of like it. Yeah, it looks good. I'll tell you what. Cruising the El Camino with a perm hanging out? Yeah. That's a good look. You're basically a time traveler. I'm pretty much from 1970. Yeah. I'm living dazed and confused. Yeah. So we have a couple sports things to get to before we get to Mount Rushmore, but the other thing we have to get to, there's another person here, and we have our intern, and his name is Matt or Matthew. Matthew? Matthew?

I'd prefer Matthew. Okay, great. Okay, why would you prefer Matthew? I think I'm a little too fat for Matt. Okay. I think, you know, Matt's, you know, last six months they've probably gotten laid. Yeah, right. And you have not. Hey, you said it. Okay. You lose a couple pounds, then you lose the letters. Yeah. Then you'll just be Matha. But then what's the point? Yeah. Yeah. So when you came in for the interview, we instantly fell in love with you. I'm a little disappointed that you're not wearing the suit again because the suit that you wore was a good look. Yeah. Yeah.

It was a good look. I got it. I mean, I can bring in any day. Okay. So you got, you got your one suit yet, Matthew. Um, we'll get your backstory real quick in a second. And then we also give you a task. Matthew, uh, blew us away. He, he came in, uh,

The wettest handshake of all time, which, by the way, I don't know if you guys shook his hand on Wednesday's first day. I did, yeah. Still wet. Still wet. Always damp. Still wet. Still wet. He's our moist little boy. See, he had an upper lip that was just wet as could be. And then he sat down and we started talking. He is NBA Hole on Twitter. With a W. With a W. And we were asking about it. And he said that he had an NBA podcast called NBA Hole.com.

But he then decided he was going to, you know, equal time here. We're going to add the women. So he became an NBA hole with the W. And then we asked if we could listen to his podcast. And we're like, hey, how many episodes have you done? And he's like, I've been doing it for a couple of years. I got over 200 episodes. Like, great. We'll listen to it. He said, well, I accidentally deleted over 200 of my episodes.

So that right there was basically like, we need this guy. Yeah, we need you. We need you. That seems like the kind of guy that would fit in real well around here. Yeah, and then I think he also had a... Did you have another podcast? Yeah, that also accidentally fell in the same category of waste. Okay. That one. But yeah, that one was more of like just a whatever floated in my boat type of podcast. Okay. What does float your boat? You know, just...

whatever I'm in the mood for. I'm a big sports, those are my hobbies, gambling, obviously. I'm a big horror movie fan, so I like to get into weird thoughts and which killer could kill me quicker. Okay, okay. That type of thing. Which guy do I have a shot against? Yeah. Who do you have a shot against? Pennywise. Pennywise.

Okay. Nice. You're ready with that. I've never seen it. Well, you never need to. Is that IT? Yeah. IT. That scared the fuck out of me. I saw it way too young as a child. The first one? Yeah. And I shouldn't have seen that movie. And I saw it and it was the scariest thing ever. All right. So Matthew, give us a backstory. Give us where you're from. Where are you from? What are you about? What are you about? What were you doing before this? Just, you know. Yeah. I'm from Detroit. I'm from Detroit.

A little bit north of Detroit, more specifically. A small little town called Macomb. Okay. A high school. We got a lot of Cougars out there because that's our high school name. Okay. You know, a couple hot moms, but, you know, a lot more young studs. We're going to win a state title this year. Oh, you think so? We were, like, first place in the state, you know, like, what, a year, two years ago? You're saying it like we know, we don't know. Yeah, what sport? Football. Football.

I'm hoping somebody else. We're talking like the football team, they're going to win state this year in Michigan. That's the goal. That's the goal every year. I'm going to hold you to that. I'm going to become very, very, I'm going to pay a lot of attention to Michigan high school football. Do it. You're going to be in it for a rude awakening. You don't even know what team he roots for. Yeah, come on. What if he roots for McComb?

You're not going to. No, I'm a Kalamazoo guy. Well, we have a rival. Yeah, I know. Okay. Who's the rival? Chippewa. Yeah, Chippewa. That's my team. Yeah, they went under a name change a couple years ago. Yeah, now they're just the football team. Yeah, what happened? I think they're the Big Reds now. Okay. That's almost worse. Yeah, that's... That might have been the old name. Okay.

They changed. They won this title in 2019. So we're falling behind them. Okay. So you're from north of Detroit, Michigan. Yeah. Did you go to college? Not one bit. I took one English class once. Where? At a community college in Macomb. Okay. Why'd you take one class? Well, I just wanted to get it tested out, see how I could do in the college life, see how I... Just...

I was working. So just let's add one thing, see if I can manage a class, manage the extra hours, uh,

uh couldn't okay uh the extra hour it was about an hour and a half so what kind of jobs did you have after high school uh so i've done you know lots of odds and ends uh a cook prep cook uh laborer uh non-union uh you know so just done it all good yeah yeah i don't don't know what a union looks like okay um what does laborer mean that seems like it could be anything exactly

Picking things up, putting things down. Yeah. Giving birth. Yeah. Putting some drywall. Maybe, you know, I'm the grunt work. So, you know, up and down the stairs, you know, I was the one carrying everything. So Randy didn't hurt his back type of thing. Yeah. And then, yeah, like, you know, just helping, you know, hold stuff, get this. Yeah. You know, nothing skill. That sounds illegal. Well,

Like, hey, hold this for me? No, not... Like, hold this bag for me? No, hold the ladder up so I can install the light. Got it, got it, got it. That type of hold. Okay. Um...

And yeah, just kind of stuff like that. I wouldn't say anything too skillful, but yeah. We got to get you together with Jerry. Oh, me and Jerry. Oh, boy. Me and Jerry had a night last night. They are very good friends already. Yeah, you remind me. They share a lot of interest. You remind me a lot of Jerry right off the bat. They share a lot of interest. How much money are we going to have to loan you? A lot of political interest. Yeah. You're not going to have to loan it. You're going to have to earn it.

Okay. All right. So the podcast that you started, NBA Hole. Yeah. I kind of want to just call you Hole. I don't know. I like Matthew for some reason. Hole is good, I think. Hole Matthew. We're just a nickname company, though. I need nicknames. I know, but it feels like he's a Matt guy, and then Matthew's almost his nickname. Sir Intern Hole. I think I'm going Hole. Okay. With a W? That's so weird. Okay.

We're just like our guy. I mean, we call memes at the at Tahoe is introducing himself to celebrities like, hey, what's up, Hank? And he goes, hey, I'm memes. But people were just like, what memes make sense? He's a memes guy. He's but saying memes to another human being is weird. So it's like it's but that's the beauty. OK. All right. We'll work. Let's have a kid named Pug. Also, Matt. Oh, he's a dog. Matt and Max sound a lot alike. Matthew. That's what I'm saying. Matthew. I like Matthew.

But okay, we'll figure it out. Let's not, we can't decide right now. Let's see how we go. He's going to do something stupid. So you started the podcast. What inspired you to start your own podcast?

I just love sports and I just, you know, I like to a place to kind of go and talk about it and kind of, uh, having, you know, funnel it down into a, a place where I, I mean, I'll be honest, like I've listened to my own podcast like two to three times over. What? That's crazy. I wanted to understand. So were you listening to your podcast? So you had another podcast to listen to, or were you making your podcast? You had another podcast. I was, I was making it just so I could go back and listen to myself and learn how I like talk

in my beats and practice that so that it was like, you know, because I can sit there and hear somebody else talk and talk about, you know, I can sit there. There we go. I can sit there and hear somebody else talk and, you know, do all that. But when it came to myself, I just wanted to, you know,

actually understand how you know my beats and uh you know my emotions and you know at the end of the day like you could talk but then you're not listening back to your film it's it's going over game tape all 22 except for you when you deleted it all well listen i already listened to it back twice so i had all the information is there something that you listened back to that you you changed about how you did the podcast

Like, I just like certain like in and out of topics, making it like how I would transfer it from one topic to another, just making sure those transitions were a little bit better, understanding, making sure that like there was a little bit more of a beginning, middle and end to my points and not just a point that, you know, didn't know where it was going to fizzle out. So just kind of being a little bit more prepared for those things, not even necessarily writing it down, but just mentally knowing where to take that. Okay. So let's, let's show everyone what you can do. So

Why don't you tell us your order of teams, like your fandom order of teams. You can do college as well. And then transition into the first thing we asked you to do, which was we want the top 10 current basketball players in the world. So that's NBA and WNBA combined. All right.

All right. Well, first off, I guess I'll give you my rundown of my teams. First off, as you can see, I'm repping them proudly. Defending, reigning, undisputed national champions of the college football world, the Michigan Wolverines. Okay. So the football team will go one. Dan Campbell and the Detroit Lions are going to have to take a nice spot at number two. Mm-hmm.

Number three, Shadley. My loyalty goes out to Tommy Gores and the Detroit Pistons. Okay. Four, Dusty May coming into Michigan Wolverine basketball. Okay. Taking them back. I like that. Fab Five is going to be fabulous once again. Okay. Yeah, then, you know, Tigers and Red Wings, you know, they're at the bottom. They're tied down there. Are you a Michigan man? I'm a Michigan man at heart. What makes a Michigan man? Well, that's a good question. Hard work.

And that's about it. Okay. What would you say to people who might call you a Walmart Wolverine? You're not a half wrong. Okay. I think that's a fair statement. Because I think at the end of the day, I think it's fair to say the Wolverines have a little bit of pride and prestige. And, you know, a lot of doctors and lawyers go there. Yeah. So when you never went to Michigan and you never even touched the university.

But then you're sitting there saying, look at these boys. These are my boys. It feels a little, you know, it feels a little fucked up. Listen, I don't prescribe to the theory the Walmart will – I think you should root for whoever you root for and it doesn't fucking matter. If you were to say that about everyone that cheered for every SEC team. Yeah, it's stupid. There's a level of prestige. Yeah, but gatekeeping that stuff is the dumbest thing in my mind. So, all right, so those are your teams –

Oh, yeah. And then, you know, but at the end of the day, those teams are awesome. They are nowhere near as awesome as these 10 people in and out of the NBA and WNBA world. That was a great transition. That was a great transition. And last, we're going to start with number 10.

The old man himself, the man who's done it before and he'll do it again, LeBron James. You think he's going to win another title? He could. Wait, are you a LeBron fan? I like excellence. Okay. Okay. And he's been excellent. Okay, so you are a LeBron. For now. What do you think about him making the Lakers draft his son? It was disappointing. LeBron's a better person than that. And I think at the end of the day, sure, he's going to play with Bronny one day, but

I like that you're disappointed. You actually are disappointed. Yeah. What about, I mean, I always said a man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man. That's what I always say. Maybe he was trying to speed line that process and bringing Bronny to his team. Yeah. So, you know, just disappointing. Okay. Just, you know, made me look at him differently as a father. Oh. That's what I was, oh, okay. Yeah. Number nine, not,

Not a father. Are you a dad? No. Okay. And neither is this guy, I don't think. Joel Embiid. Okay. I think he... Definitely is a father. He's 100% a father. 100% a father. Oh, right. Arthur is the name of his son. Yeah. I got a dog named Arthur. So...

All right, so he's number nine. What kind of dog? A Pomsky. What's that? Like a little... That's the chief of staff for Coach O at LSU, remember? A Husky. A Husky Pomeranian. Okay, yes. Yeah, yeah. He's a little thing. Okay. Joe out, you know, dying, but, you know, at the end of the day, is he going to do it? No. No.

Number eight. I like how he did. That was a great sports broadcaster thing. You didn't even answer your own question. Is he going to do it? And then just go to the next one. Number eight, a guy who arguably maybe shouldn't be on this list. You made it. That's why I'm arguing. Okay, you're arguing with yourself. Love this. But he's probably the best ball handler in the world. Magical, some say. Kyrie Irving. Whoa. I don't hate that. At the end of the day, if you want to win a game,

He can help you do that. Turns out more than Joelle. He was hurt at the end of last season. He got, uh, he just got surgery. Okay. Well, he is Kyrie. This is, there's a lot of big names left. Seven. Giannis Antetokounmpo. Okay. Good job. Uh, yeah. A great Greek freak. Uh, he's, you know, a couple, couple rough seasons and the bucks are a rough organization right now. Uh,

But they're going to be all right. And if they have him, they'll manage. Six, obviously the man who still does it, Stephen Curry. Okay. I think he just performed pretty well against Serbia. I think he was 18 in a couple minutes. Rivalry game, yeah. Great kid. Going to keep doing big things. Hold on. Let me interrupt you for a second. Is that your accent? Is that a Michigan accent? Nervous Michigan, that is. Okay. Steph Curry's like...

34. Yeah, he's like 10 years older than you, right? Yeah, he's a young guy. Great kid. Great kid. Not even 40. He's got a whole life in front of him. Number five, the man himself, SGA. Shane Gildress. At the end of the day, he does great things. And his ceiling is... He's blown my expectations out of the water. Yeah. Number four, maybe a pretty controversial pick, Victor Wenbenyama. Oh, yeah, I like this. Let's get him out there. Oh, yeah.

By the time this man can rent a vehicle, he will be the best player in the world. Wow. What is that, 25? Yeah, 25. We got like four years? Yeah. I mean, to me, the sky is nothing but a limit. When you put it that way, it seems like he's about to be the best player in the world. Yeah. You would assume he'd be able to rent a vehicle. No, he can't. Can't now. But he will be. Three more years. Probably. How old is he? I think he's like 21, 20.

How old are you, Matthew? 25. Okay, so you can rent a vehicle. He's 20 years old. Five more years. All right. Number three on this list. The only woman I want to make clear. Let's make it clear now. Asia Wilson. Oh, good call. She averages 12 rebounds, two steals, three blocks. Four more points per game than second place in the league.

Her EFF, which is her overall efficiency, is nine more than the second place girl. Wow. And that's points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks together, minus field goals and missed free throws per game or internals. I think her being the best woman in the world compared to the second best woman in the world, the gap is as long, as strong, as big as

It's Patrick Mahomes to the second best quarterback in football during the playoffs, specifically the playoffs. Okay. You're confident with her. You know she is skillful. She's athletic. She's insanely talented. She can do it all. You're not worried about what she can't do.

You're worried about what she can do against them. And she's going to be there. Okay. Who's the second best quarterback in the NFL? Oh. During playoff time, I would take Joe Burrow. Okay. All right. At the end of the day, you know. Good answer. He hasn't been, you know. Yeah. He's been injured. He's come back. Number two, teammate of a man we named earlier, Luka Doncic. Okay. You know, what he does, his overall stat line, just impressive as can be.

A little bit of a beer belly, but hey, I'm no one to talk. Same age. Same age. Number one. Good kid. Number one. Great kid. Number one, the best player in the world, Nikola Jokic. Yep. I like your list. This is a solid top 10. At the end of the day, he's one. And that's the difference between him and Luka. Yeah. World champion. And you can argue Asia should be two because she has a title. Yeah. So maybe I'm wrong. Do you want to make that change?

Sure. Okay. Asia's number two. All right. I like that. I can't find any holes, any gaps at all in that top 10 list. I want to be realistic. At the end of the day- Yeah. You have to be honest because- There isn't going to be another two or three girls on this list. Yeah. You know, Caitlin Clark fans can shut the hell up. Oh. With that being said, 19 assists. That was incredible. Incredible. Incredible. I haven't seen something like that since Kirk Heinrich in NBA 2K06. Oh. But yeah.

But yeah, that's my list. I would rank your list very highly. That's one of the top 10 lists I've heard this year. Hopefully it's the best. Okay. All right, anything else before we talk some other stuff? Hank, do you have any comment on that? No, I think the only one that...

I would take Umbridge with the SGA. Yeah? You're an Umbridge taker. Who do you think should be on it? I think there's a guy who's the same age. Jason Tatum is not in the top 10. More All-NBA first games. Jalen Brown is not in the top 10. Yeah, well, I heard your list. I know that. I said if I were to take Umbridge, I'd be with that. Yeah. More points per game, more rebounds per game, way more playoff wins. No Anthony Edwards either.

But that's fine. Yeah. All right. So and then you you also said that you were working on Mount Rushmore ideas. Why don't you give us two? OK. And then we'll we'll keep moving. You, by the way, Matthew said he he was working on Mount Rushmore ideas. He came up with some. He found some. He found some and split them. I don't know what that means. OK. But he found somebody split them.

So one I got, Families to Live With. The Mount Rushmore Families to Live With. Like you could do sitcom families like the Griffins, or like the Hutchinson family. You just want to wake up next to good looking people. Oh, yeah. So Families to Live With or Beat Bump. I don't hate that one. Yeah, that felt like that. Okay, so Hutchinson was right there with...

It's a good family. Yeah, okay. It's a very good family. Yeah, yeah, no, very good family. This is a good one. Missed shots. Oh. Rushmore missed shots. Yeah, that's kind of wide open. Yeah, a lot of missed shots lately, I'd say. Oh, okay. Missed shots being up there, you know.

I also got fat guy sayings. Oh, okay. I like that. Every draft is stacked for Max and Big. I'll have another. Yeah. Are you going to eat that? Yeah. I could eat. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not full. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that. Can we have seconds? I hate pizza. I hate ice cream. That's what Max has been saying all week. Yeah. Yeah. Hank, how could you call us fat again?

Another fat guy. Or the one today. Jerry walked in and was like, oh, we got the big guys in here. Max goes, what is that supposed to mean? Damn, Max. But it wasn't. Guys, okay. Yeah. I was calling you my big boy on Tuesday night.

Yeah, that was good. Yeah, I said, that's my big boy. I thought his jersey was too small. Yeah, yeah. Okay, Matthew, we're excited to have you. Yeah, thank you. You'll be helping out as much as you can, internship for the rest of the summer. I was having one conversation with him yesterday that I told him to save for the show, and I need to hear your Coach Doug's critiques. He started breaking it down. Breaking it down. He has a notebook. So I took notes on every game. Okay. Okay.

Just general philosophy stuff. Yeah, so it's actually just really impressive what you've managed to do. Feels like. Because somehow you performed worse on the second night. What? Even though you had more wins, which is actually impressive. No, this is good. This is good. Went ugly. You threw, I'm going to make this very clear, eight pick sixes last night. I played more games.

You threw 16 interceptions. Yeah, I played more games. I played five games the first night. I played, what, like eight games the second night? You still threw 11 interceptions on the first night. Yeah. Three of them picked sixes. Yeah. Four touchdowns. Yeah. And I think these are all passing numbers, but I think there was only three touchdowns, and I gave you an extra one because I felt bad. Okay. Um...

I mean, it was just honestly awful. Yeah, but I won. The Cal game, the first game, you threw five interceptions. Yeah. I mean, that's a horrible way to start a season. Yeah, that was the first game that I played in the game, yeah. These are long quarters, right? Yeah. These are...

Yeah. 10, 15 minute quarters. He should be running the ball more. Okay. I mean, that was the one thing I kept noticing is positive yards happen more times than not when the ball is in the ball carrier's hand. Yeah. But then you throw the ball and shit doesn't go well. Yeah. And you were, the craziest part is on the second night you were staying in the pocket more, but yet you were more inconsistent with your throw. So somehow you, you learn from your mistakes, but you didn't.

Just so we're clear, I'm the offensive coordinator. I'm not playing the game. Right. The players play the game. The play call hasn't been great either. Okay. Okay. Okay. You know, we're going to get into it. Okay. But I did win. I turned the season around and won a bowl game, which you have yet to congratulate me on. Congratulations. Thank you. On the best season Wazoo is going to have under you, Coach Ducks. Oh, wow. I mean, the roster coming into next season. Are you poopy stinks? I'm...

I'm realistic. Okay. And I wanted to root for you. Okay. But when you're missing reads. Yeah. I mean, you could have beat Oregon. Yeah. Game one. Or that's what is the second or third week? Yeah. You're talking about the first night though. Yeah. First night I was bad. It added to the badness on night two. Okay. If you won that game, you know, sky's the limit. Yeah. You could have got a three-star recruit. Yeah. Okay. I'll take that criticism. It was rough. Yeah. All right. That's fair. Listen, I'm a big boy.

I'll be in the booth next season and I'm excited. Okay. I'm rude. I would love to see your notes after a game. I'd love to get, you know, the feedback helps. Yeah. No, I think, you know, you need to listen to your thoughts more. I feel like you're, you know, you're just doing things. Yeah. No, that's true. You just got to calm down, breathe, and take it one day at a time. One play at a time. Yeah, that's facts. That's facts. Okay. So, Matthew.

I like that. I like that. Come in at Doug's. I like that. So you're going to be there. You'll watch the games, the streams. You're going to be with us for the rest of the summer. We'll see how it goes. We're excited to have you.

And what else? Anything else for Matthew? No, I'm excited. I'm excited. I think we're going to have him be the world's first college football bracketologist. Yeah. Preseason. So maybe next week? Yeah, next week. Next week, do your bracketology for the top 10. Yeah. Or top 12. And between now and the end of the show, think of a Fyre Fest, okay? All right. All right, you got this. I like Matthew. That's Matthew, our intern. Mr. Hole. Yes. There's got to be some people who applied and they're like,

The guy fucking deleted 200 podcasts, and that's how he got the job. I mean, I like that. We've got a guy whose only job is to press the button to publish the show. Yeah. Now we have a guy whose only job is to press the button to delete the show forever. Yeah, yeah. There are also the video with all of the interns that applied will be coming out shortly. Yeah, and you'll see Matthew did sweep us away. He was quite something. Yep. He had his suit on, and he looked... I think I called him...

John Candy, new age John Candy. Yeah, like from playing trains and automobiles. Yeah, if you're watching right now, he's got a John Candy look that makes him very lovable. So we're big Matthew guys. Okay, sports world.

Caleb Williams officially signed as a bear. Was there a doubt that he was going to sign? Oh, that's funny, PFT, that you asked that. If you listen to the lamestream media, there was a doubt. The Florios, the Cowards, the RG3s of the world. Wait, are you talking about pre-draft? I'm talking about the entire process of...

There was pre-draft. There was in between draft and signing that people were like, oh, he's trying to get the Bears to agree to no franchise tag. He's trying to get the Bears to agree to no fifth year right now. He wanted equity. All these rumors were such bullshits.

bullshit because Caleb Williams doesn't have an agent. So you have agents basically saying, Hey, Caleb Williams, if you had an agent, all this stuff wouldn't be happening. You should have hired me. But Mike Florio, Colin Coward, RG three, the countless anonymous trolls are

All who said that there was 0% chance that Caleb Williams is going to sign with the bears, that he was going to force a trade, that he was going to demand ownership. Florio said he was going to play another season at USC. You all look like morons. Caleb Williams is officially signed as a bear. We now have a window and I would like an apology. I would hope Florio would be a big enough man to apologize. I don't expect it. Coward the same member. Coward said his father said he's no chance. He's going to go to Chicago. All these people, uh,

Spent all this time and no one's taking him to task. So you've been taking a task and he's officially a bear and I'm excited. I think that there was a lot of talk going like through the season about certain teams he didn't want to go to. And then for like a month leading up to the draft, then that ESPN article came out that was like Caleb is down to play Chicago. Because it was always bullshit. I haven't heard any other doubters after the draft, post-draft.

There were people who were saying he was trying to get the fifth year taken away and to get the franchise tag taken away. And they'll move the goalposts. I had people yesterday telling me that Caleb Williams won't sign a second contract. Let's have that discussion right now. It's just crazy. I don't listen to the Flores of the world. I listen to the boogers of the world. An RG3 moron.

Booger McFarlane, he said today on Get Up, don't be surprised when Jaden Daniels is the guy that they're talking about next year as being like a C.J. Stroud and Caleb Williams is the one being talked about like he's a Bryce Young. So I go with Booger. Booger played in the league. Okay. That's my guy. Okay. He knows ball. Windows open. Windows open. All right, what else do you guys want to talk about? That was a dud.

No, I honestly just... Of course. I didn't hear it. Sorry. Bronny hit a three. He did? Finally? Bronny hit two threes. He had a good game. 12 points. And there's talk that they might shut him down after he had one good game. Just leave him with a good taste in his mouth from Summer League. So I don't know if that's going to happen. But that was the big story. A lot of other people are pointing out that Alexander Saar went 0 for 15 from the field. Oof. 0 for 7 from three points against the Blazers. Oof.

You know what? You learn more from a miss than you do from a make. Yeah. So I feel like Alexander Starr has nothing but room for growth. Wait, so Bronny hit one three. Oh, I thought he hit two. Oh, he hit two? I thought he went two for five. And one of them was clutch. He's on fire. What do you mean it was clutch? I was like, okay, the agency? No. Oh. I think they're all clutch. Yeah. Yeah, he is all clutch.

We also had the list The top 100 athletes We called it correctly Serena Williams was number one Was she? Yep Fucking nailed that one We forgot about Michael Phelps Oh no it was Michael Phelps Sorry Michael Phelps number one We forgot about Phelps Serena was number two Okay and then number three It was Messi

Okay, Messi. Which I like that. That makes sense. And then after that, Tom Brady? It was two, Serena, three, Messi, four, LeBron, five, Tom Brady, six, Federer, seven, Simone Biles. Okay. We didn't have that on our radar. Eight, Tiger Woods, nine, Usain Bolt, ten, Kobe Bryant.

Interesting. Yeah. And then Novak and then Nadal and Ronaldo. Oh, so interesting. Messi's way higher than Ronaldo. Way higher. Where was Djokovic? Djokovic was 10. Did they have any horses on the list? I don't think they had any horses on the list. Null and void. I do not think they had any horses on the list. Steph was 14. Katie Ledecky, 15. Yeah, they did a good job of...

Switching it up on us Because we thought it was going to be Serena And then they went with the Phelps We also had Sam Pittman Arkansas coach He went in front of the media today And he gave the best quote of the offseason Besides Mike Gundy saying that he's driven drunk thousands of times

Sam Pittman said our focus this year is to embrace the hog at Arkansas, which I love. That's a great slogan that you can put out there. It's easy to chant. That's what Bill Clinton's motto was for the state when he was governor there. And I feel like Arkansas might be back. I think they're also back because they get to renew the rivalry against Texas.

Yeah. Which is bigger than a lot of people think. Like Arkansas and Texas hate each other. Yeah. And so we didn't get to see too much of that in the last couple of years. But I don't know. I like Sam Pittman. I'm wishing the best for the Hogs. Embrace the Hog. Yeah. And he's also got those big old breasts. Big breasts. Yeah. And the jowls. Yeah. Yeah, we're Sam Pittman guys. I would like Arkansas to be good. Oh, also Russell Westbrook. He's in the news today. Yeah. What happened with him? So he was traded to the Utah Jazz again.

and they're going to buy out his contract again. He's got the best career ever. So this is two years in a row where he will be on the Utah Jazz. I don't think they ever even thought about making a jersey for him. They should really do a retirement video for him. Yeah, a welcome back. Yeah, a welcome home video. He went to the Nuggets today. Yeah, so he went to the Jazz. They bought the contract out. Oh, I don't like him. And then he goes to the Nuggets. I don't like that fit on the Nuggets either. Yeah, I don't like that on the Nuggets. Huh. Okay, and then we had the Open Championship.

Victor Hovland sucks. Yeah, tough course. That was a bad decision by us with the whole death thing, and we're like, oh, maybe this will be... And then he was eating ice cream. That sucked. Yeah, this is a tough course. We saw a couple people. I think Morikawa did it where he hit a bunker shot, and it just went around the bunker and came back in the bunker. I saw that a couple times. Those are fun. Bryson's...

Basically out. Ludwig's basically out. Tiger's definitely out. He had that one birdie, though, which was sick. Yeah. And then Brooks had like a four-hole span where it looked like. Brooks is alive. Brooks is dialed right now. And Bryson also had a moment where he corrected a reporter's English, but Bryson was wrong. I don't know if you guys saw. No, I didn't see that. He said incalculable. The reporter, I believe. Hold on. Let me get the clip.

I think the reporter said incalculable and he said it's actually incalculatable or whatever. Incalculatable? Yeah, hold on. Ready? There's not that many. There's a couple. Yeah, there's a couple, but not that many. Incalculatable? Huh.

And he kind of gave a look to it. Uncalculatable might be a word. I don't know. But yeah, incalculable is the word. Incalculatable. I love the idea of Bryson just correcting people and being wrong. That's good. I like that. Good for you. Did you see the plants? The bourse? Is that what it's called? Yeah, that's what Shane Biggs was talking about. That Shane was telling us about? Have you seen the pictures of it? Yeah. It's fucking gnarly. Yeah. It is crazy. It doesn't... I know that...

links golf is supposed to be the best golf and everyone wants to go to you know the uk to play it but it just never seems fun no when i watch it i'm like what this the wind is always blowing it's overcast there's huge bunkers it just doesn't seem fun yeah and the courses look like they were just like bombed out in world war ii yeah never repaired them yeah um it it looks like uh

The worst event to go to as a fan, as a spectator. Just sitting out in the rain and the wind the whole time. Yeah, but you guys love the course. I do, but I'm just saying, like, the course is fighting. Correct. No, these are good things for the course. Yeah, yeah. I'm talking about, like, the experience of being out there in person. I... The course... Like, when I watch the Masters, I'm like, man, I wish I could go play Augusta. That looks incredible. When I watch the British Open, I'm like, I don't know if I'd want to play that. And obviously, I'm not a big golfer, so I get it.

it it's incredible for golfers but like it looks miserable in the fact that if i ever got in that bunker i'd never get out ever in a million years it's cheap over there golf is golf is cheap over there which seems appealing well maybe you have to fly over there yeah but if you're right that's true how cheap is it like 50 bucks 100 bucks but the flight i'm saying though like that in the hotel hank's thinking about moving no no i'm not saying i just think that's a nice thing like they golf is is for the people the people's for the people should we take a trip

I'd be down a great week. Yeah. We're throwing that out there. Yeah. Do you think you can golf right now? I can't. No. Oh, no. He can't eat ice cream. It's not a fire fest. Yeah, it's bad. Oh, no, Hank. Sacrifice. You do sacrifice for us constantly. The team needed me, and I didn't want to back out. Yeah. What? I agree with you. You were awesome on home run derbies. You didn't want to back out.

No, I didn't. I wanted to, but I knew I couldn't. Hank was very good. Stand up guy. Yeah, I know. He was fucking awesome in a great swing. OK, anything else? Brandon, I, you demanded a trade.

No, he formally, he like requested it with the team. Instead of passive aggressive. Instead of passive, instead of just posting practice videos where he's like, yeah, I wish I could play with this guy. Yeah. But he, he apparently requested it with the team, but the Niners have a history of not honoring trade requests because you don't really have to. Yeah, no, you don't have to do anything. You don't have to do anything. And Brandon, I use really good in the NFL. That's what the contracts basically say. It's like your, your only leverage that you have is to just be annoying.

So he wants to trade. Wait, is something going on with Devante Adams too? Memes? A lot of people shot it down, but there's speculation. So, but you're thinking maybe. I'm thinking if the Raiders start off bad, then trade rumors are going to ramp all the way up.

Nice. Nice. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. On the new Netflix show, The Receiver, he was just pissed at Jimmy G. I saw that. He's like, he's going to get me killed. Yeah. Never want to see that. We should watch that show. I think it's good. Yeah. Never want to get me killed is not what you want your wide receiver saying. They got to make a show just the fullback.

Like how we had the quarterback one, then wide receivers one. Give me a fullback show. Just a 10-minute episode? All fullbacks, yeah. 10-minute episode, but just like dudes lighting people up. Sideline shot, sideline shot, sideline shot. Yeah. Full line package, sideline shot. Then like the bye week and they're on like their family farm using a tractor. Yeah, that's what I want. Show me fullbacks. Show us fullbacks. All right. Should we do our Mount Rushmore? Something that is...

Probably the most ambitious thing we've ever done is this podcast. We're going to try to do a Mount Rushmore for the third time for real this time, though. Hank? Water? Oh, we did do water. Yeah. Water was a good one. It was a good one, yeah. Water was a good one. You remember when... What went 1-1 overall? I think it was from the hose? Maybe the ocean? The ocean probably went 1-1. My dad did that one. He...

It was bad. Yeah. Bad performance. Okay. The second time we did it. It is the Mount Rushmore of pizza toppings and is brought to you by our friends at Pepsi. Saucy, stretchy, gooey, crunchy, messy. Pepsi is an essential part of the most undeniably delicious food moments. Let's face it. Pepsi just makes every bite better. The refreshing pop of sweet, fizzy Pepsi bubbles makes even the best food taste even better.

Grab a Pepsi zero sugar for your next meal as every crave worthy bite is better with Pepsi. We love Pepsi. I was actually drinking a cherry Pepsi earlier today. So good. They gave us the old plastic cups, the hard plastic cups. Oh, delicious. So every meal is better with a Pepsi, especially pizza. And we are going to do the Mount Rushmore pizza toppings for real this time. Hank,

Are you going to participate? I think I'm going to leave it up to my guy, Hole. No, no, no, no, no. No, I have a question for him. I have a question for him. If you got lied to and burned... There we go. I would like to, after this question, I would also like to ask a question. No.

What do you mean no? I can't ask a question? He can answer, not before he answers my question. All right, answer his question, then I'm going to ask you a question. But I object to Hank's question. Objection, because he did not get burned. If anything, we were gassing him up. Yeah, save it, save it, save it, because I'm going to ask him a different question after. All right, you know, you do something with honor and integrity. You believe everyone's playing by the same rules, and then you find out that people bent the rules. They went behind your back. They lied to your face.

He's a Michigan fan. Would you give them the time of the day and do another version of that? Or would you stand for something? You should give him another chance. Oh, I love that answer. I did last summer. No, you didn't. No, you didn't. No, he took spinach one-one and tried to throw it. Let me ask you a different question, Matthew. Would you say if you have a friend...

And they are going through some tough times down in the dumps. They're losing Mount Rushmore. They're just not happy. But that's the thing. I'm losing Mount Rushmore right now. So how am I supposed to believe you? Hold on. You're already setting yourself up to throw this one. I've lost the last five Mount Rushmores. That's not true. I lost Monday's Mount Rushmore. His life is not great. And then your friends come and pick you up.

and try to make you feel good for a moment. Do it as a bit to make you feel worse. They make you feel worse. That was the worst thing that happened to me that whole summer. Four years ago, Hank was getting crushed, and life wasn't good for him at the time, and we might have thrown him out Rushmore pizza toppings when he found out he was so mad.

So, so mad. And then last year we tried to do it again for real and he took spinach 1-1. So we're going to try to do it for real this time. Let's put it together. Let's do it. I'm going to go for real. Me too. Hanks acted like a little kid at camp who got bullied once. He's like, this is the worst thing that's going to happen to my whole summer. Can I come home? I understand your PTSD. I said that was the worst thing that happened to me that summer. It was a joke. Yeah, I got it. Yeah. I did too. Well, you just said whatever.

All right. I know you have PTSD from this. Hank doesn't think you actually got it. You said this is going to be the worst thing that happened to me this summer. I did not. All right. Okay, whatever. Let's do it. Who's up first? Hank is. Hank. Pepperoni.

Come on, Hank. Good pick. Wait, so good pick. Don't be a bummer. Don't be a bummer. Come on. I don't believe I can. I literally will not do this in good faith. You just set it up. Your friend's been losing Mount Rushmore's. Have I been losing Mount Rushmore's? Yes. So how? Like, I can't. I'm going to go through with good faith. I'm not going to. I can't. But our picks are going to show that we're trying. But Hank, you're not losing Mount Rushmore's season by that much.

No, you're not. I'm only four points ahead of you, and I lost on Monday's show. It's early. There's always a comeback. All right, who's up second? I think it's Max. I'm second? Yes. Oh, fuck yeah. Sausage. Easy. Good pick. Good pick. All right. I'm going to go double olives. Just kidding. No, it's BFT, right? It was a joke. Wait, didn't I go last last time? No. No, you went first last time. It's a circle. I'm sorry, Hank. Wow. I'm sorry.

I apologize. I apologize. All right. I'm going to go with bacon. Then I'm going to go. Wait, what? We're all fucked up here. Bacon. Bacon. Bacon. Okay. Hank has collapsed. Hank definitely thinks something's up. Hank has collapsed. So what's been taken? Pepperoni, sausage, and bacon. I want to take double halves. I'm not joking. That was a joke, Hank. That was a joke. Hank's having a great time. That was a joke.

Hey, can you at least pretend to be excited about Mount Rushmore season? I got a question. Does sausage include all sausage or just like classic sausage? I think sausage is sausage. Sausage is sausage. Is chorizo sausage? I think chorizo can be a different. Chorizo can be different. Okay, so I'll go barbecue chicken and then chorizo are my two picks. Okay. My second pick is going to be extra cheese. I don't like extra cheese. Oh, I love extra cheese. I'll take buffalo chicken. Okay, nice pick.

Hank, this is a good draft, Hank. How do you think we're throwing this? There's no throwing. We're doing this. I will do peppers and onion. We'll give you both. No, we'll give him both. No, he has to take one of the two. We're not pandering. Either peppers or onion. You have to take one or the other. All right, I'll do peppers and onion. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Two picks. That's good. Two picks. That's a good pick. Okay.

Max, it feels like there's a gun in everyone's head right now. We're in a Mexican standoff, but we're actually doing this for real. Yeah, no. Hank, are you all right? No, I'm not. I don't think he's all right. All right, Max. I mean, we all know that Mount Rushmore died four years ago. People love Mount Rushmore season.

Okay. Some people hate it, but I absolutely love it. I'm going to go mushrooms. Ooh, I like them. Yeah, not bad. I'm going to go meatball. Okay. That was my other pick. Yeah, meatball, baby. Pick it. We're not allowed to think about two picks? I mean, I would have picked all these.

I'm saying I was thinking between meatball and mushroom. Got it. Yeah. You love meatball. I always pick meatball. That was the other reason. It was on your sub, too, right? Yeah. No, it was also on my meat. It was on my sub. I should have done meatball. Fuck me. It was on them all. Mount Rushmore salads. Meatball. Yeah. Great salad. Meatball salad is an excellent salad. Is that a real thing? Oh, yeah. It's an Italian thing. Meatball salad. Meatball salad. That's the fattest thing you've ever said.

I it's a thing I can't like I can't tell you what what things are okay can I put forth a motion to have Hank smile he won't just smile Hank he won't you'll feel better is a white pie a topping or no I don't even know what would be the topic is it different so give you we'll give you a regal yeah that was weird I said that was very horny say it again I'm not saying okay I do love a white pie love a white pie I

Fuck it. I love it. I don't care. Pineapple. I love pineapple on pizza. Yeah. I fucking love pineapple on pizza. I love pineapple with barbecue chicken on pizza. Yeah. I like pineapple on pizza too. Yeah. There will be haters. Pineapple and bacon. Pineapple and bacon is great as well. Because that's my favorite pizza. Yeah. Like, I don't know why. What happened? At what point was it like, did it become a thing where people like pineapple doesn't belong on pizza?

I personally don't like pineapple on pizza, but I don't mind people that do. Yeah, but it's just like it's one of those things. I'd like to fight someone on it. It's kind of like mayo when mayo just got a bad rap for no reason. If you're doing like a big order, get one of them that's got the pineapple on there. Yeah, of course. And then I'll go with a prosciutto. Okay. My last pick.

I'm going to go in a nod to the margarita pizza. Basil. Yep, good pick. Fresh basil. Get a little fresh basil on there. Fresh basil, mozzarella, tomato. That's really all you need. Yep. That's a good pick. I'm going to go with a sopresat. I think I like it better than a pepperoni, and it's kind of similar. Oh, yeah. Sopresat. I don't think I've ever had sopresat pizza. Oh, it's good. It's really good. Oh, I forgot one. Fuck. I have another one. I forgot one. Oh, I'm so mad at myself. I'm so mad at myself.

Can I ask Hole for a recommendation? Yeah, his name's Matthew. I don't know if Hole sounds so weird, but I understand. We do nicknames. Should I go meat or cheese? Meat. Taco meat. You asked him if you should go meat or cheese? Yeah. Come on.

It's going to say meat. Taco meat. It's not bad. I've had a taco pizza before. That's a good pick. That's a good pick. I totally forgot. Oh, Burrata's a good one. Burrata's a good one. Burrata would have been much better than taco meat. Burrata's a great one. Thanks, Matthew. Oh, Matthew. Piece of shit. You ruined it.

Would you guys have accepted hot honey? Yep. I was thinking the same thing. Oh, okay. That was the one I forgot. Yeah. It's because when you said so percent, I was like hot honey. So damn it. This is that. That's the exact thing that was going through my head. I was like, uh, that could be like a drizzle. I don't know if that's necessarily a topping. I'll just go with sobersot. I'm mad at myself. But hot honey was what I was thinking as well. I'm mad at myself. All right. What, what, what got left off? I, I like, and this is more, you do it with the pursuit, but, uh,

an egg on the pizza is pretty good. You guys ever get that? Never had that. In the middle? Never had that. Oh, it's great. No, you don't like it, Matthew? No? I'll get you guys one. I order from a place that it's prosciutto, and there's an egg in the middle, and it's fucking delicious. I actually like the pizzas with the prosciutto and the arugula on top of it as well, so arugula is another one I like. Jalapeno? Jalapeno.

Could have put that on there. Jalapeno on a pizza is pretty good too. I hadn't had it until I've been out here, but Jardiniere is really good. I've never had Jardiniere. It's regional, but it's good. It's really good. If I get a tavern style pizza, get one with Jardiniere. Probably the fattest thing you can do, but I fucking love it. It's the pizza place in Madison, Ian's, which actually they have one. Demos is the name of it. It's in Chicago as well. Macaroni.

Yep. I had that in college. They have that at, what's the name of the pizza buffet place? Pizza Hut? CeCe's. CeCe's. CeCe's Pizza Buffet. There you go, Matthew. Nice job, Hole. Tomatoes on the pie. Sometimes it's pretty good. Yes. It can be overkill. Yeah. Yeah, tomatoes, like a margarita. Yeah, margarita pizzas. Yeah, margarita pizza's good. Salami. Trust Tree. I used to work at a place that had like, it wasn't great pizza.

But it was an Italian place with like the oven style thin. And they had a really good like salami and like hot honey pizza. Yeah. Are we the trust? But I haven't ordered it. Like it's not something I would order. I want pizza real bad right now.

Until you got something being totally honest I don't mind anchovies I don't like them I don't mind it at all I almost never get a pizza with anchovies on it But when there's like a little bit of anchovies as a treat They just taste like salty They don't taste fishy at all It's just so hard to do that because you just can't You need like buy in from like three people Yeah if I'm like by myself Once every couple years just as a treat Get half of it with anchovies on it I had a chicken caesar slice At my college pizza place that was good

It was just like chicken Caesar salad on a pizza, but it was nice. One of the biggest pet peeves I have is when you order pizza for a large group and someone's like, get a cheese or whatever, cheese or maybe get a mushroom or something, and they only have one slice of that and they eat all the other ones. I'll make people, if they ask for something, like if they ask for anchovies, I'll be like,

You have to eat four slices. You better put in work. Like you have to. You can't. You can't have one anchovy and then go to the pepperoni that we're all eating. You guys ever eat a full pie by yourself? Colony Grill. Yeah. I don't know if that's full pie. Like it is the full pizza, but it's thinner. But yeah. Yeah, I've had it. What is your favorite? Like if you're going and you can get any toppings you want, like what is your favorite?

customizable pizza order like right now. Bacon pineapple. I'm doing pepperoni, jardiniere, and then I've got hot honey at home that I put on it. I go one pepperoni pie, one barbecue chicken with like sauteed onions pie, one cheese pie is all for me.

No, that's it. I go pepperoni and then a barbecue chicken with sauteed onions. I do sausage, onions, and mushrooms. That's good. That's my favorite pie. Good order. Solid order. I love mushrooms on pizza, but I know people aren't going to... There's some people that just hate mushrooms. No, I think mushrooms belong on pizza. Yeah, they do. It's all about the saute, too. Like, it's not... They're not eating like...

you know, dry mushrooms. Yeah. When I was in college, I was a pizza delivery guy for, I think, a full year, full calendar year. I worked at a place called Anthony's Italian Touch, which is a very creepy name for a pizza. That is weird. And what made it weirder was the guy that ran the place was not Anthony. His name was Nick.

But he just called it Anthony's Italian Touch because it sounded more Italian. But I had this one customer that would order extra mushrooms, like double mushrooms. That was all that he would get. And that shit would stink up my car. Double mushrooms. Double mushrooms, like extra, extra mushrooms. Double mushrooms. My car would smell so bad. What do you guys think about a little pesto? Pesto on the pizza, that's nice. Pesto's good. A little change of pace. Not bad.

bad that's another one where like I I won't order it if I'm not eating like you have to eat all the you have to eat a lot of slices yeah can't be like I want the pesto pizza memes keep saying vodka pizza but I don't think that's a topping I feel like that's a sauce yeah yeah I thought about doing stuffed crust but I don't think that's a topping right now it's a style of pizza no yeah that's style Matthew we miss any read

No, I think you covered it. Okay. I mean, unless you want to start talking like barbecue sauce and ranch and... Well, yeah, barbecue chicken. Well, yeah, but like the sauce is specific. Just the sauces, yeah. I do like a little... Yeah, like if you can't get...

A little barbecue sauce, a little Frank's Red Hot. Frank's Red Hot's pretty good. Frank's Red Hot goes on everything. If it's like shitty pizza, I like a ranch or a hot sauce, but if it's good pizza, I just want the pizza by itself. By the way, Hank still thinks we're fucking with him. He's just not participating. I think what happened is this took Hank back to a dark place. Yeah, no, there's PTSD. It's like trauma involved, and he heard us talking about pizza. Yeah, the death of this segment. We've had so many good moments. We had Max saying the titty fucking.

Mm-hmm. There's been some incredible moments. Mr. Positions. Yeah. Yeah, Billy and Jake doing AI Taco Bell orders. There's been some great Mount Rushmore moments. I don't know. The integrity of the game was lost. Look at that chick. We haven't broken the integrity since. We broke it one time, and you still have trust issues.

Why wouldn't I? Of course I do. Because we've done three seasons straight up since then. I've watched that video so many times, by the way, of us doing the original Mount Rushmore pizza draft and then Hank being totally surprised whenever he got his next pick on the board. He was so mad at us. Yeah. So, so mad. We're back. This was a good draft. Come on, Hank. Yeah. Good times.

Good draft. Hank, you won an NBA championship like three weeks ago. Your favorite athlete of all time sucked your dick at his retirement ceremony. You can't get down in the dumps because of a segment. I'm not down in the dumps. He's got his guard up. Yeah. He's got his guard up. As I should. But you are down in the dumps. But we just pulled this off. Now we can put it to bed. Now we can lay it to rest. Pizza toppings are done.

What? I feel like that's what you're setting me up. You're trying to set me up. I know you are. This whole time you've been like flinching. Trying to get my guard down and then you come back over the top. I'm surprised. Because I'm getting smoked in the standings. Yeah, what are the standings? It's not that bad. Yeah. Remember last year? Didn't you guys make a comeback at the end? Yeah. Billy and Jake did. Oh, it was Billy and Jake. It'd be a real shame if people voted for this Mount Rushmore based on attitude during the Mount Rushmore.

No, we had a good lead, and then I went on vacation. Oh, yeah. That's right. So you just suck at Mount Rushmore, Hank. That's all it is. Yeah. I feel like you always have two good picks. I tried to blame the team. I had the team angle for a while. Yeah. There's nobody left to blame now. It's all right. It's a long season. It is a long season. Yeah, we got a lot of Mount Rushmore left. Okay, let's get to our interviews. We've got two great interviews.

We have Mike Vrabel. Wait, did we lose last year, Max? Yeah, you lost. You had to go over? Yeah, we did the 24-hour stream. Oh, damn. Yeah. Yeah, it was bad. We have Mike Vrabel, and then we have an awesome interview with comedian Gary Veeder, who has a crazy, crazy story about his life with his dad growing up.

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Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very, very special guest. One more very. Very, very. One of our dear friends. It is a chill week interview presented by Coors Light and Chevy Silverado. One of our dear friends, recently retired...

NFL head coach Mike Vrabel. You can't fire me. I quit. I was going to say the recently retired, but then I realized you have a job. You're a great job. I asked Kevin Stefanski, the coach of the Cleveland Browns. What is Vrabel doing for you? And he said he's a scout team middle linebacker. So that's what you're doing for the Browns. Partly. Yeah. Yeah.

Anything they need help with and anything I can do to learn, it's been awesome. You were actually putting on the pads, right? You were doing like kickoff return. Yeah, just helping. You know what I mean? Bubba Ventron was a special teams coordinator. Bubba was a rookie when I was with the Patriots. And so we would take Bubba and his girlfriend, his wife at the time, now his girlfriend Katie, you know, we'd take these rookies to dinner or whatever. And so...

Bubba now is a special teams coordinator. So it was an easy transition to help on special teams. I've, I've played a lot of those positions. I've coached them and, uh, help Kevin and Andrew and the Browns and the Haslam family. However I can. Wait, you just said whatever I can do to learn. Yeah. Um,

I mean, that's actually a pretty crazy, it's cool and also crazy thing to say. You're a very good NFL head coach that is in a transition period where you're going to be an NFL head coach again. And you're like, I'm back to learning? Well, I think like anything else, you guys look at podcasts, there's a million podcasts. Well, there's a lot of ways to coach football. There's 31 other teams, head coaches, there's coordinators.

There's guys that have been other places, Andrew Berry, his personnel staff, how they go through draft prep, how they, you know, integrate analytics and how they communicate with the coaches and all that stuff that I'm trying to learn and be a part of and, you

It kind of worked out for them and for me especially. So that's what I've tried to do. That's a super mature way to look at it. When you relate it to podcasting, it's like we should send Hank off to another podcast to learn. Yeah, we should learn. We should send him to Politican. When we were at Ohio State, Urban Meyer was like, whatever Alabama's doing, if they have 50 people in recruiting, we need 51. And if they have this, then we need to have one more. That's how he looked at it.

And so you're always trying to figure out what everybody else is doing that's successful and try to figure something out. - So yeah, you're a consultant for the Browns, right? Is that your official title? - Yes. - That's an awesome title. - Coaching and Personnel Consultant. - It seems like you do whatever is needed or are you coming up with your own initiatives? Do you have to be like a self-starter?

I think there's a lot of leeway there. I think the first thing I want to do is help Kevin wherever I can. I've got a lot of respect for him. I think he's done an unbelievable job. Is help and support him wherever. If he has questions or he wants to bounce something off of me. And then I thought it was a great idea. He's like, we have a pretty new offensive staff. A lot of guys that have transitioned on to other places. And now we've hired some really good coaches that are new to Cleveland. We're going to help them.

why don't you hang out on the offensive side and give a defensive perspective? Tommy Reese, former quarterback at Notre Dame, Alabama coordinator, and he's coaching tight end. So he's like, why don't you work with Tommy and the tight ends? And so I played a little tight end in my day. It's not a bad. Ooh, maybe Miles Garrett at tight end this year?

I mean, you can't stop that. It's July. You can't stop it. So anyways, that's been really cool to have that perspective on offense, which having six years as a head coach in Tennessee –

There's plenty of offense that I was doing and understood and communicated with. So that's what I've been doing. So do you think Stefanski is going to have you address the team in the Mike Vrabel situational spot this year during the season? Potentially. I mean, we've discussed it. I put tapes together for Kevin and things that...

they've done, things that we've done, things that people around the league have done. I showed it to him. He's got a great group there. And so we sat a few mornings and went through the tape. What you try to do situationally is you try to take all these clips and you try to consolidate it down so that you can show the team, you can show the quarterback, so that everybody sees it through the same set of eyes. They're not going to be able to watch everything

clips in the last 45 seconds of the first half and the last 45 seconds of the game. So you're like, okay, that's a good one. And then you come up with this cut up and then you just, you know, show it to the coach and then he decides how we want to do things. Do you know what I'm talking about though, in terms of the actual situational spot?

I knew. I knew where you were going with this. Yeah. You don't. Just tell me what situation. Yeah, it's the Tennessee Titans are playing a Sunday night or Monday night game, and they're like 7 to 10 point underdogs, and everyone thinks they're going to get absolutely killed. And then Mike Vrabel comes in, and he wins the game.

We did that quite a few times. That seemed like every game we won pretty much seemed like that. Anytime the Titans were like consensus written off as they got no chance in this game, you guys would win out. Decent money line. Yeah, very good. So like that's the – I don't know how you did it. It really was more than just a couple times where it came – it became something that I almost expected where it's like,

If their backs are against the wall and people think that they got no chance, Braves are going to figure out a way to get this team to play and play their best football. Here's what I say. You guys have a team. You guys have an operation. You're very good at what you do.

early on, maybe a few years ago, you're like, we're going to make this switch and it's going to work and our, and our, and our shit's going to take off. And we're going to, we're going to nail this. We're going to figure it out. Whatever that was, whether that was with Dave or you guys. And so early on, I forget what it was, 2018. We said, so it was like, I think it was the second game we're playing Houston and they were rolling. They were good. Deshaun was down there and

We had nobody. Everybody got hurt in Miami. We had like our...

Prep the squad tackles. Marcus got hurt, and it was like, how are we going to win? Well, we faked a punt, threw a punt to Bayard for a touchdown. I was like, we're going to stand in the huddle for 38 seconds. We're going to run to the line, snap it. We're going to go wildcat with Derek. I mean, we did all – and so I was like – the night before the game, I was like 40-17-2. I was like, we've got to run the ball 40 times. We need to hold them to 17 points or less, and we need to get two turnovers.

And we won 20 to 17. Yeah. And it was like, that was, so when you explain these things, then you're like, this is how we're going to win. It may not be the same every week. It may not always work, but this was the plan. And I think if you can do those things and then the people around you see it work, they're like, Oh,

Okay, well, we'll give it another try and see how it goes. So you had a specific plan like that when you would go into a game where maybe your team didn't match up 100%, like talent for talent. You know if you play this game 100 times, you're not going to win 50% of them. But you had that plan of, hey, if we can muck it up and do these three things. Reserve the right to punt. We played the 49ers and we came out. I said reserve the right to punt. It was back and forth. We took care of the ball.

Had a huge turnover in the red zone. And then Jimmy came out. I think it was the first play of the second half. And we had gone from playing all zone. We switched it up. We played man. He kind of chunked the ball. Imani Hooker intercepted it. And we ended up beating them. And they were, you know, they were really good. That was a Thursday night game? Yeah. Yeah, right around Christmas? Yeah. I remember that. That was one of the ones. Yeah. It was like in the Rams Sunday night game. Remember that one? That one. Was there a Dolphins one too? Yeah.

The Dolphins one was last year. Yeah. There's so many where it's like you just go in and everyone's like, Titans got no chance. But you know that. And whatever team hires Mike Vrabel next, his head coach is getting like an entire season's worth of Mike Vrabel being counted out. Yeah. I think the 49ers were wearing all whites in that game. Yeah. I actually gave you a chance after I saw those. Those didn't make any sense. I mean, I don't know necessarily being counted out, but I just think that there's a mentality that

You know, I mean, these guys were here for a reason. Everybody, I think each week you just try to explain to everybody that you have to prepare as a starter. And I think it kept guys engaged. I think when they saw that, you know, we play different guys in different places and whatever we try to do, you just try to keep them engaged. And, you know, hopefully I get an opportunity again and would love to try to do it. I think it's going to work out for you for sure. I mean, this offseason, I felt like you were one of the top coaching prospects out there. It's like –

I was going through my own personal coaching search at the time, and I was like, yeah, Mike Vrabel. Would love to have Mike Vrabel in D.C. A lot of it is about fit. I think these interviews get overblown. I think that they go through a process. I think that... You were too big and intimidating. Yeah, you are too physically big. It's a big man's game. You scared away a lot of owners because they're afraid of you. It's a big man's game, boys. And, I mean, they just keep getting bigger and bigger. And so, you know...

I didn't really necessarily – I tried to do my job the best that I could for that organization. I was shocked. But these interviews are interesting, right? You try to make a connection early on, right? We have a connection. I've known you guys. You know, thought I had a great interview in L.A. for the Chargers, and Harbaugh decided to come back to the NFL, and that's what Mr. Spanos and John Spanos –

communicated with me and I respect them for that. They literally called me on a speakerphone. No, they called me and that rarely happens to where if an owner is going to interview you and then go in a different direction that they'll personally call you and they're like, second place isn't going to give you much but I wanted to tell you that we just had an opportunity to hire you know,

John Harbaugh. So that's how it goes. Or Jim Harbaugh. I was actually surprised. I do that every time. It is fucking impossible. Every single time. Just say Harbs. You know them so well, and I just always do that. Yeah, I was actually shocked that you were fired this year because it felt like you were a good thing, a stable thing that the Titans had going. Your team's always played hard. And I remember it was during the season. I will say I was always proud of that. I appreciated that as a young coach. Yeah.

There was a veteran coach at Ohio State. He came in, Dave Adolph, and he was a defensive coordinator with the Raiders, and he was a defensive coordinator for Al Davis, and that's not an easy thing. And he was helping out Ohio State when I just started there. And he came in, and Trestle had brought him in to kind of just watch, consult, hang out.

And a good football coach. And he's since passed away. But he said, man, your guys play hard. And I didn't realize how good that felt when he said, your guys play hard. And so I always try to carry that through, you know,

And I figured it was the contract that you made for the team, with the team. Individually, that's the contract that you make with the football team is that you're going to play your ass off. But I really do think the way, if you can get your team to play hard in the NFL, I think it actually is worth, like consistently, week in and week out, I do think it's worth a win or two at the end of the season. Yeah, and then if you're worth a broke one, then you've got a chance to win. You know what I mean? Right.

If you play hard, you're going to be in the game. Right. There are teams that you can see like, oh, they're just not – they don't bring it to the other team at week in and week out. But when you – when Vrabel coaches a team, that happens. Well, let's hope so. Yeah. We should hire him right now. Yeah. You want to coach our podcast? Yeah.

We don't have a head coach. I mean, if I can't beat out one of these guys, I've got problems. Yeah, you could definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Name your title. He forgot to hit record on the camera yesterday. The coffee. Yeah. Did we get the coffee? Well, Hank, you know, he's slow. Yeah. So, all right. So, would you ever coach college? I'm not going to say never, but it's certainly turned into a different game. You know, I talked to...

you know coach fickle yeah um you got to be a huge fan have you are you going to go up there and have him on or no yeah we've had him on oh good but i saw him when i was up there in the spring and i'm going to go are you uh are you contributing to the nil um i'm i've been telling them i'll tell you the answer i've told them find me a really good player and i will do a stella blue coffee nil deal that's big

bigger than like just i hope you're hearing this i'm gonna let's call we'll call right now the basketball team i told the football team but figure out like you bring the player to me and be like hey we're this close to this guy can you help and i'm in and bring in the closer yeah i'm not gonna just write like uh 10 grand you don't trust i'm just not gonna write a 10 grand check and just be like oh i see where it goes 10 grand is not gonna get you a player right exactly right i

You're not going to get a player for $10,000. I want to actually have an impact where if you just give money to a collective, it's like, where's this going to go? It's going to go to the players. But anyways, I don't know. Luke and I have had conversations about this, about how do you want to structure that money that you have that you're allocated for each team, your salary cap? Is it going to be this group of...

incoming freshmen that I would consider rookies that you're not really sure on and what's the hit rate. Are you going to try to develop your own team and then re-sign your own guys or are you going to live in the portal and that's free agency? And again, those are six-month rentals. Guys are coming in and then they're out.

There's a lot about coaching college football that's not about coaching football at all. And I feel like you could have more success, I think, translating from the NFL to college than you would going the other way around. But also at the same time, if you're an NFL coach, I don't see why that would appeal to you. You have to work so much more. Well, there is a lot of – in the summer, you'll be sitting at baseball games or you'll be sitting at things and kids will call and say, hey, coach, I'm 30 minutes from campus. And you're like –

I mean, there was a guy from Georgia. I was at one of the kids' baseball games when I was coaching at Ohio State, and he was making the Notre Dame, the Michigan, Ohio State loop, like, in the summer. And he went to high school, like, an hour from Georgia, and I'm thinking, there isn't a chance in hell this guy's coming to Ohio State. But I've got to come in there, open up the stadium, go Bucs, and I'm thinking, just go on down there and commit to Georgia. Yeah, and yet it's chasing... And he did. Yeah, right, of course, he did. So do you think Coach Fickle's...

I mean, I'm very bullish on this season. I think it's a tough schedule. But how do you think – I think going into his first year at Wisconsin – And again, I'm a football coach and a football player. Bull, bear, like can we clean up that? Like you mean that you're excited about the bull is a good bear? Bull is strong.

Well, Bears, have you seen the Bears out here? I'm bullish means I'm very excited and I'm like by the Luke Fickle. It gets very complicated when he's talking about Chicago because he's always bullish on the Bears. Bullish on the Bears. Yeah. Bearish on the Bulls. I can see where that is. That's true. Yeah, that's true. So I am high on Luke Fickle. Good. I think the first year going to Wisconsin probably were –

It was maybe more of a mess that he had to clean up than he realized? He was my host at Ohio State. He was there as a freshman, and I came in in December, and he was waiting for me when I got there at the hotel, and the rest was history. Yeah, you guys were best friends. Were you guys best friends initially? Yeah, it's amazing how well his ID worked for me when I was 19 years old. Who would win in a fight right now? Fight? I would beat his ass. This is not a sanctioned wrestling event. He only lost once as a high school wrestler, right?

I think he lost three times as a freshman. He was an unbelievable wrestler. I thought he lost once his entire career. I think he lost three. Because I went to a really, really good high school wrestling program. I was a basketball player. I was too athletic to wrestle. But...

I remember, and we had ended up winning a national championship. So all my buddies were wrestlers and they played football. And so Luke, I think, lost three as a freshman and then went undefeated three straight years. Crazy. So he'd kick your ass. No, no, no. Like in a sanctioned wrestling match? Absolutely. Yeah, but if you guys fought right now, he would wrestle you to the ground. I do not believe if it was a street fight that I would lose.

I think he would have you. What's his size? He'd spladle you. He'd spladle your ass. You're way bigger than him right now, right? I'm intimidating. Yeah. You are bigger than him. He's lost a little weight. But all right, so back to the Luke Fickle question. I think the first year at Wisconsin, maybe a little bit more of a situation he had to clean up than he realized. How do you think he's feeling going into year two? I am always high on Luke. I wanted – Luke recruited my oldest son, Tyler, when he played in Houston, and he recruited him at Cincinnati. Okay.

Jen and I, obviously we don't have a say. My wife and I thought it would be

because what he was doing with that program. Right. And then Tyler's like, you know, Dad, I've known Uncle Luke since the day I was born. You put him in a tough spot, yeah. And it was like, yeah, when you look at it like that, you make the decision that's best for you. Now you've got to call him. And Tyler was like, fuck. He's like, I've got to call him. I said, yeah, that's part of the deal. He goes, I figured you were going to say that. Yeah, he should have just gone to Cincinnati instead of having to make that call. Instead of having to call him. Yeah.

I was like, Luke, you're pissed at me because Tyler's not coming. I was like, don't be pissed at me. Right, right. Hank, you got Braves coffee? Where'd he go? Where you going out? Hank's off surfing the internet in the other room. So speaking of Hank, his favorite person in the world, Tom Brady. I don't know if you saw, but he went to Tom's jersey retirement. Yeah. Tom called him out by name. Yep. Brady 4. We also watched the roast of Tom Brady, which you were not at. I was thinking that you were going to be there. I mean, all the good stuff. I mean, I was...

Too much low-hanging fruit on those jokes. I've done much more. Yeah, I mean, it does feel like you maybe spent whatever it was, the first five years of his career roasting him every single day. Yeah, no, those were great. Those were fun. The roast was funny. The funny parts, I mean, I didn't sit there for three hours, but there was some good stuff. What if Hank was Tom Brady? Would you roast Tom Brady? What would you have said at the roast?

Oh, I, I, there's a lot of stuff left in there. I think that we could have done, but I mean, it was a lot again, the, the, the, I, I struggle with, uh, I, I like to age gracefully. I got wrinkles. I got crow's feet. I got scars. Yeah.

It's just a polish and a shine on that face of his right now. Yeah, I think everybody in this room, we all age gracefully. Yeah, exactly. Naturally. We embrace it, you know? He's kind of like an anime version of Tom Brady. It's like an airbrush. Yeah. Right. It's an Instagram filter of himself. I was with him. We had a family over the summer come and hang out with us a couple days. And we went out on a boat. And we got a 16-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter. And we were like,

The daughter wanted to get pictures of her jumping off the boat. And she's like, as she's in there, she's like, put it in portrait mode. And I'm like, what the hell? What is portrait mode? Yeah, I mean, the game has changed. Everybody's got to go on Instagram or TikTok. Speaking of which. Thanks, Hank. Are you surprised that Bill didn't get a job? That was a little surprising to me. It felt like he would have...

Yeah, again, there's a lot of connection, right? You know, I mean, you come in, you sit down. Some organizations have eight to 10 people there. Some have just a few and you have to sit down there and they have to, you know, I'm not, I don't think many people know Bill. I mean, he's been in New England forever.

So I don't know how those interactions went, but there's certainly a connection that has to be made. It's not just, you know, they have to see that and say, this is the person that's going to lead our team to a championship. Not that he did it in new England and it's just automatically going to work. Right. So there's a lot of fit to it. Having, having done it, there's a lot of fit with the pieces that are around you with ownership, the support, the communication, the general manager, the personnel people, however that works. And so,

You know, maybe that wasn't the right fit. Yeah, I think there's a chance also that he gets into media and he either loves doing media or he loves the time away from football and kind of leans into it and doesn't come back. Well, I think there's just so much knowledge there and the way that he can articulate it and he explains it. And those are when I watched him briefly, you know, in those media opportunities, he

that's what we felt like, you know, me and Teddy and Willie and Tom and on and on and Seymour and everybody that we played with and Rodney. And it was just, that's kind of what we got in a team meeting was this overall history of football, understanding of who we're playing, how we have to win, um,

just the intricacies of that. And I think you saw some of that. Yeah. No, I mean, he was great on the draft night stuff. It's – yeah, I just – I was shocked. We'll see. You're right. The fit is always, you know, the connection, the human connection with the owner and the coach. But that just feels like maybe owners are intimidated too where it's like a guy who has that –

legend behind him and the amount of Super Bowl rings, he is going to command a lot of eyeballs and kind of take a lot of attention in your organization. And sometimes you need that, though. Sometimes somebody's got to stand up there and take the bullets. Yeah. And sometimes that's a good thing. Yeah. Did you think the Apple TV documentary was... What were your thoughts on it? I didn't watch it. They came in. They interviewed me. I said, you know, I can be available online.

You know, for an hour or two in the summer right before training camp or something. You know, they came in and I didn't really – again, I was in a different position. I was coaching. Right. I was going to play against – coach against Bill. I wasn't going to play. Hell. Coach against Bill. So I didn't really like catch much of the undertone of the hit piece. Right. Right.

I didn't watch it. I talked to some big, big Patriot fans, and they're like, if they spent 10 minutes on a team that won 23 games or four games in a row in the National Football League, then it wasn't a very good documentary. Oh, yeah. Your team, Scott, they basically...

showed the first Super Bowl. And they won again. And they won again. And also they won two more. Okay, now Aaron Hernandez. It was crazy. I felt like the roast thing, man, that was probably what bothered me the most was like the whole idea of about a roast. Like if we went out or we were hanging out, like you'd make fun of me, I'd make fun of you, and then you'd make fun of it. Like you're there to like you get made fun of and then you get to stand back up and then make fun of somebody else.

This poor bastard, he can't even defend himself. Yeah. Like, he's in the great, it's like, we can, you can't really, like, there's no swinging back from that standpoint. That was, I was, some of those jokes, I was like,

But there were some funny moments in that roast. Yeah, yeah. So you obviously still have close ties with the Patriots, always will. Was there any part of the Ring of Honor ceremony that maybe rubbed the Titans the wrong way? Where it's like, does he love them more than he loves us? Well, you're asking the wrong person. I certainly hope not. You know, I certainly hope not. You know, when you – there was going to be some uniqueness to this. I don't know. You know, I can't think off the top of my head. I'm sure there's coaches that –

did something but not currently where I went back where it was the bye week and everything was structured it was hopeful that our bye week in Tennessee was Patriots home game and it was um and it did and it worked out and as soon as it came out you know you call the owner you call the the team president you know because you can kind of see like this is how it's going to be it's it's going to be a big deal you know I mean it's like I played there you're going back there you're going to put a red jacket on you're going to stand with Mr. Kraft for four hours there's going to be

that you're going to sit in the box next to him and you're going to watch the game and you're going to have a conversation and all these things are going to be caught on television. Right. But like my, that didn't affect my desire to, to be in Tennessee. Right. Yeah. Right. Like that's how it goes. Like you go back there and it was amazing. And the conversation that I had with the fans was don't be frustrated about this season because

Like look up there and look and see like when teams come in, like they stare at those banners. Like I remember going back there in 2000 and,

20 in the 19th season and telling the players, like, you're going to see those banners. And those aren't – I mean, you don't get caught looking at the pinstripes, boys. Like, those things are amazing and what they've done. And, yeah, they were 19-3 in the month of January in the playoffs. Like, it's going to be a tall task, but we're up for it. And I'm going to tell you how we're going to win. Mm-hmm.

But also a lot of teams go in there and they stare at those banners. And I wanted to explain that to the fans. Like, it's not like you don't walk in NFL stadiums and see the entire end zone, like with AFC Central Division champion banners. Like, these are Super Bowl banners. These are Lombardi trophies. These aren't like...

division panners that was a great game by the way where you stole time from from belichick you just time traveled did he ever yeah did he ever say like hey touche like good job braves no it's different like i mean bill and i i mean we have a i would i think a great relationship and um but it's it's different right it was a player coach now it's coach coach and we're

We were competing against each other, and now we're up, hopefully, potentially for some of the same opportunities if it presents itself. And so we never really talked about that situation or anything else. And it's kind of understood. These games are all taped, guys. Somebody comes up with an idea.

And then somebody tries to do the same thing. But you did it like perfectly. You did it perfectly and you did it to the guy who doesn't tell you. Yeah, it was good. And again, my guy – You had that smirk on your face too. I did not want to smirk. I did. I swear to God. You definitely had a little smirk. But my guy Stretch up in the box who's with the Rams now. He's going to help the Rams. John Stryker, Stretch. Yeah. He's like my personal assistant. Yeah.

game management he was doing a lot for for us and now he's with the Rams but he was in my ear and he could watch on the TV copy and he is like he is steaming yeah like stop stop telling me this because I could not I didn't want to like

Explain the situation, the loophole that you took advantage of. Outside of five minutes, any defensive penalty, they would just wind. Right. The clock. They would just take the yardage off and then put 25 seconds back and start the clock.

So you could take it down, you could false start, or you could delay a game, then you could false start, then you can delay a game again eventually. Because if you're punting from the 36-yard line or 35-yard line, you don't want to attempt a long kick in the weather or whatever it may be. What's the difference for these punters nowadays between –

the plus 40 and the minus 45. They're so good. They're so specialized. Instead of kicking an end-over-end, they'll just kick it in the corner and kick it out of bounds. So the yardage really didn't matter. It was about taking the time off and figuring to try to give Tom Brady less opportunities, or if we got to stop, then they would have less time. We ended up stopping them, and then they had –

eight seconds. And there's nothing the other team could do. They're sitting there. Yeah. They can sit over there and yell at the officials. And the officials are like, if you do it again, it's going to be this, this. And I said,

you know, like the guy jumped off sides, like the guy flinched. I don't know what to tell you. Like, Jesus Christ, you're yelling at me. Like, I know the rules. It's right there. And you've done that with. Just tell me what the rules are and we'll play by them. And we'll do the best that we can. So then the next year they said, any penalty, the clock stops. Any offensive penalty, the clock stops. That's kind of an honor to get a rule change because of something you did. I had one as a player too. What was that? What was that?

So it was the old like fake timeout because the rule is you can't call two consecutive timeouts. You pump fake to timeout? I pump fake to timeout. So we would do this on like the field goal block and –

Because this is back when you could push. Yeah. So Teddy and I would literally stand with our hands on Seymour's ass and Ty Warren's ass. And we would, as soon as the ball was snapped, you could push. And it was like, it would just be a tidal wave. And the line would go back. And everybody would try to block. And you can't push anymore. Right. So we would like, I used to kick her. We'd call the old timeout. And then I would stand up. And I'd be like, timeout, timeout, timeout. Knowing that the official wouldn't give it to me.

And then the tight end who had his hand down, he would like think it was a timeout. So he'd pick his hand up. I go, that's a false start. And they would move them back five yards because the guy thought, oh, it's going to be another timeout. I said, watch, this guy's going to pick his hand up. I'd be like, timeout, timeout.

And he would like, and I'm like, false start. And they're like, yes, he's right. And we got to throw it. So then they're like, if you do that, then that's the delay. Yeah. But we did that a couple of times back in New England. You'd also just take a guy sometimes, I think it was on punt, maybe punt return. You would just take a guy on the sidelines, be like, Hey, go run out on the field, get 12 men for us real quick. So that is a, that, that was a clock thing and it wasn't necessarily punt return, but

I don't want to get too far into the weeds on that one because that's actually a pretty good one. Oh, you've got to keep that one. Yeah, for sake, you know what I mean? You're down in the game. Let's say you're down in the game, right? So now you're trying to conserve time. There's two things. You want to consume time or conserve time. If you're down, you obviously want to conserve. And they get a long game on first down.

Right? So now it's second and one. Do you want to waste a timeout? What's the probability that they gain a yard? Give them a first down. Right. So you're kind of just resetting the process. Because again, it's not about the yards. It's about the time. So you kind of run a guy out there and, you know. Yeah, because the worst that could happen is they get like a gain of no yards on the second down and then get a first down on the third down. Then you're fucked. Have you ever read up on, I think it was Buddy Ryan's Polish goal line defense? Yeah.

You ever heard this one? No. Oh, yeah. I'm trying to remember. My first coach in New England was Rob Ryan. And he'd tell Buddy Ryan stories. He didn't tell this one. You put 14 guys on the field on defense. There are like 13 guys out there. It's 12. Yeah, it's 12 or 13. What difference does it make? Yeah, it doesn't matter. 12 is good. 13 has got to be better. But 12, it's harder. Sometimes the ref will miss 12, right? No. Well, I mean. Not the NFL refs. No, it's happened. They would miss it. Yeah, I think the Bills, right? And if you get a penalty, it's half the distance.

So you go a centimeter. And then if there's like six seconds left, then they can, some of those seconds burn off maybe. Yeah. And so then now they only have one time down or like the hack of shack where, yeah, you know, there's six seconds and you think that's the last play. Usually it's the half, but a lot of these teams now with the analytic, you know what I mean? They're going for it where they used to be a field goal. They would just take the field goal.

Now, you know, they untimed down the balls on the half yard line. Most teams will go. Yeah, you've you've I mean, are you I feel like you would go for it a relative like you'd play the game of, hey, this makes sense. You went for it.

This actually was – I mean, you know this. Will Compton's a fucking moron. He's got rocks in his brains. We had the whole debate about Dan Campbell, and he was like, you can't go for two. You've got to kick the extra point. You've got to kick the field goal. I was like, your coach, Mike Vrabel, who –

From the outside, people would be like, old school, doesn't like analytics. He did this against the Dolphins on the Monday night game where they're down 14 and you go for two after scoring a touchdown. He did it. That is what – that is playing the percentages. He is showing you that you can adjust, and Will just didn't understand that. Yeah, it makes sense when you look at it that if overtime is a coin flip, right, you try to avoid the coin flip. Right. And you're just trying to put the numbers –

Give yourself a best chance to win it in regulation. And, you know, you can debate whether you want to do that from, you know, the eight-yard line. I don't know what the numbers are. That was the Dan Campbell, yeah. Those are, I think, the odds start to go down. Yeah. But, you know, that's the whole idea and the mentality. Seeing a lot of these teams, you know, just –

Being able to go for it more when you cross the 50-yard line. Yep. And a lot of those things inside the two- or three-yard line, going for it on fourth down. These things are all very important. And how you combine those numbers, right, is critical. Just like when you talk about analytics and drafting players, right, height, weight, speed, different scores that they put together based on the testing, arm length.

how you weight things, what positions may take in analytics to more seriously than other positions would. Maybe not need to use the analytics so much in this position, but historically, height, weight, speed has translated pretty well in these positions. Yeah. Maybe this is what you should do when you get to the next coaching cycle that you're trying to get hired. You bring Will with you.

And you sit him down and you're like, watch, I'm going to teach him something basic. That's risky, though, because he might not pick... That's true. He might not understand. You might just debate. I could bring a monkey in there to watch him wipe his ass before I interview Will. What you do is you just have Will and you debate Will and you show how much... Well, the problem is if you bring Will, then Taylor's right there. You know what I mean? And they got like seven JPs that show up. Yeah, and they got a bus, which is a great idea that they had to do a podcast on a car. Well, I love Will, but he... I literally...

I wanted to fight him on the analytics thing because I was like, you just don't understand the simple math behind it. How did Beer Olympics go? Oh, it was fantastic. I'm still hungover. It was a lot. Puke and Rally? Well, they kicked me out.

So if you puke, you're out. I was like, I can still play. Put me back in, coach. It was like, caution. They took my helmet. You didn't pass protocol. Yeah, they took my helmet. I was like, I want to get back in there. You didn't pass the protocol. They took Big Cat to the tent, and they were like, he's not coming out of this tent. I actually threw up after the very first event. Did they let you compete as an individual? I was very sneaky about it. PFT threw up right away. Yeah, so I chugged three beers and then just calmly walked around the corner, puked, and came back and started drinking again. Good to go. They didn't see that. The cameras weren't on.

me because mine was at the end of the day and it was after all day and i'm so did you guys show up in one of those like party buses yeah yeah and we was i mean it was fun with the boys like those guys are the best all the guys that were there the not fun part is being 39 years old and waking up with like crippling hangover anxiety and being like what the fuck am i doing i just want to go home that part wasn't fun

But everything else was great. Who won? Will and Taylor. So they... Yeah. Oh, can we... Yeah, I don't know. We can bleep it. I mean, everyone said it. Jimmy Tatro went on Rich Eisen and said who won.

Oh, he did? Yeah, so they invited everybody to Nashville to win. Yeah. That was basically it. Also, the last game of beer pong took, I think, an hour and a half. It was insane. He was playing David Bakhtiari, and none of them could see. Will and Taylor beat our asses in the pool because I started a rumor that they were drinking fake beer. And everyone in the whole house kept on coming up to him like, are you drinking non-alcoholic beer? And so, yeah, they kicked our asses. They almost drowned Hank. I noogied the shit out of Taylor, though. You should come.

I've been invited. I didn't think that was the best place for me. Probably not. You should come as just security. Just beat the fuck out of him. God, it looked like carnage. It was a lot of... It's like there's something about just hanging out with the guys, playing games all day, getting drunk. It's just...

It's fun. Yeah, that's awesome. You're out there throwing a ball around with the boys. Yeah, right. It's just fun. Like, there's nothing. Yeah, there's moments. I think around 4 o'clock, I was like, I'd pay a fucking million dollars to be in my basement right now. But still. Just get me out of here. Yeah, right. You're like, looking for the Irish exit. Let me go like that. Yeah, stab my fingers. Looking for the Irish exit, like the old Mountain Dew Slipparoo. Yeah. Me and Big Cat never had a chance to win. No. That's what we realized after we got there. Because you're competing against giant dudes. You're like, we came in. We flew all here. This process. The bus. Yeah.

We were talking. I was talking to two guys who played on Michigan last year, just got drafted. Not only are they freak athletes, they're 300 pounds and they're 22 years old. Like we got no chance. Can't compete with that. We made the cut though, which I think is pretty good. Yeah. What is that? Like top? It was like the top half. It was half. Yeah. So yeah. I did it. I did it. Three beard chug in 8.19 seconds. Tom could chug. I would say that. That's the one thing I remember about that. He was like chugging.

Just one right down. He would break that out. There was a bar outside of Bryant College called Parente's. And then we would go there for like an hour after meetings before bed check at the Patriots. And it would be like, okay, boys, let's go. When did he stop chugging, though? Oh, I don't know. He had to have stopped. There was a couple years. Yeah. When he was new.

Yeah, man, that's how it goes. It was crazy. That's a transition. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't drink with my coworkers anymore. I can't. No, they don't want to either. They won't tell you this, but they don't want to hang out with you guys. Well, if I pay, they do want me there to pay. Maybe, but they really don't want to pay. Yeah, no, they don't want me there. I think we can drink with them for the first four or five beers, and then we got to go and let them do whatever they do late night. I mean, I guess if that's the...

You know, the culture that you guys want to create. Yeah, we're not cool. No, they don't want to hang out with the bosses. Just like nobody wanted to hang out with the head coach. It's how it goes. Are you going to be on the sideline for the Browns this year? No. No. You're going to be up in the booth? I'm not. I'm not. I knew going in, Kevin and I talked and not having a role on game day. Oh. But I think that that's good. You know, I mean, I want to do everything that I can, you know, prior to the game, to pre-advance, to practices, help out where I can, you know,

And I don't want to change their flow of the game day. There'll be games that I go to. And again, these were conversations that Kevin and I had, like, how is this going to work? You know, first we talked about, is it just going to be for the home games, right? Would it just be for the home games? And then the schedule comes out and it's like, they've got three home games in a row and then they got three away games. And I was like,

I don't – that's not good to you. That's not fair to you guys. I don't think that's anything I want. Like maybe I'm starting to work with a young player or helping a coach or doing something, and then I'm just not there for three weeks. Like that didn't feel – so just trying to find something that's consistent. And so we came up with this, and I think it's going to work really well. Have you thought about what your Sunday is going to be like now though? Yeah. Welcome to our world. You're going to be watching the games on TV like everyone else? It's harder than playing. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I think that that's exactly what I'll do. I'll watch the Browns or I'll watch whoever we're playing next and try to get ready. You're going to get to watch the game. Red Zone, what is that? The Red Zone? Yeah. You're going to experience Red Zone? We have all the TVs, so we put on all the games. We have all the TVs. I'm telling you the truth. You...

You're going to have to. You strike me as a one TV guy. You strike me as a one TV guy. You guys are like, hey, you want to know how everybody's doing, and you just don't want to know that they're doing better than you're doing. I mean, it's our job. I think you're doing great. I think it's also a fair question how many TVs you got. You guys got a job. How many TVs? That's true. I'm a consultant. You don't have a job. You're right. You work at Deloitte.

Wait, are you on contract? You guys understand, like, I used to wear, like, orange-brown sweatpants to school with a dog. Like, we'd see how many dog biscuits you could eat. You want to talk about chugging beers.

Like you haven't lived until you puked on milk bone. You know, there's like hair in those things when you eat them as a, as a sixth grader. You ever partied the Muni lot? What's that? You hang out at the Muni lot ever? At the what? At the Muni lot. Isn't that what it's called? The Muni lot? Oh yeah. Municipal lot. So that'd be funny. Yeah. The first time I ever smelled weed, I was like in seventh grade and my dad splurged for dog pound tickets. And it was like, guys are like, had a keg there and they're like pouring, and it's like,

passing Jays around and I was in seventh grade. I'm like, what is this? He's like, well, it's a good time to talk through a lot of this stuff here as we're watching the ball game. Was at the last game at Municipal Stadium. Oh, wow. Which was awesome. People were pulling. Oh, yeah. You remember? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Taking out the seats. They pull the rails and they come out, or the chairs and they come out like 15 seats in a row. And it was like, ah,

Ah, ah, and they would throw it over to the thing, and the place would go nuts. Yeah, Browns fans are special. I do have a good place in my heart for them. I've tailgated a couple times that parking lot. I have never seen people that drunk before 10 a.m. before. Northeast Ohio is a great place for football. There's a lot of history, which is really cool.

You know, they had a lot of Ohio State players. Yeah. You know what I mean? So the history there, they've had a lot of Ohio State players. Obviously, Paul Brown, you know, coaching high school football in Massillon. So that's the kind of stuff that's really cool. You know, Bill Willis was like one of the first –

like nose guards. He played at Ohio state. And they said the story was that he kind of was like a linebacker. And then he walked down over the center and put his hand down. And that's how he became a nose guard. And, and he was, you know, he's a hall of fame players, hall of fame, pro football, fame, college, you know, hall of fame and Ohio high school hall of fame. So there's a ton of history there, obviously. And it's cool to look up and see a lot of those. Yeah. Speaking of Ohio, does it bother you that Michigan has your number right now? Or do you not care? I I'm, I'm,

I care a little bit. I don't care a lot. Yeah, you're not. You're not. I mean, I don't. I'm not. No, I'm I care. I don't care that much. OK, you don't care that like the NCAA football game just shat on Ohio State with their trailer, right? Didn't didn't catch that. They crossed radar. No, that's shocking. I thought that for sure would have no radar. Nope. That's what I talk to a girl. She was on the timeline. She was on the for you page.

She was on the For You page. Yeah. I spit on that thing. She did a documentary about her. And I love this. Like, there are hillbillies in Tennessee. And we're making sure she gets every dollar she's supposed to get. And she's over there signing hats. Signing hats, yeah. That's great. Good for her for cashing in, though. You got to know, strike while the iron's hot. He's like, I'm representing her now. And she's going to get every dollar she's supposed to earn. Yeah.

I'm being ethical about this. I want to, you gotta have like a followup plan if you're Hawk to a girl, like how do you follow up that massive first hit? Yeah. There's, you know, I mean, you don't, I mean, other than like a, like a fantasy camp where like the, you come in and it's like, Oh,

You teach, like, here's the technique and everything else. She's a coach, yeah. Yeah, she could be a coach. I got kind of a serious question. We talked about Dan Campbell. Kind of serious. Kind of serious. We talked about Dan Campbell earlier, and I feel like where you were early on in your head coaching career in the NFL is kind of like where Dan Campbell has been around the last couple years. What I mean by that is that I feel like journalists and the media and fans a lot of times are

didn't necessarily know how smart you were for the first couple of seasons. They saw you as, you know, former linebacker, meathead, he's aggressive. And I don't know if you played into that aspect to like let people underestimate you, but I feel like that same thing is happening with Dan Campbell, where he gets all the clicks where he says, I'm bringing a live line onto the field, you know, doing all the meathead stuff, but secret. Yeah, that was our fault. But secretly, secretly, he's like very, very smart.

In a football sense, and he's like very... Yeah, he's been around the game. He played for a long time. He, you know, obviously was successful in New Orleans and Miami and everything that he did. And I think that that's...

His ability to translate that being a player, right? These tight ends are very unique positions, right? They're involved in a run game. They're involved in the pass concepts. So they know coverages. They also know fronts. So he took a lot of that as a player and the way that he played the game and then translated that to his coaching style. And when you go out there, you're not trying to prove anybody like, oh, I'm this or I'm smart. I'm very intellectual, right?

It's all about what you can get your players to believe in. Right, but I feel like sometimes he does it the other way where he puts stuff out there to make people underestimate him and not realize that it's true. I mean, I don't know that. Maybe he does or maybe that's his personality. But they've certainly been successful and I love the way that they play. I love the, you know, I always root for Dan. I think that he's...

you know, like would always have conversations with them and wish them the best until they play to Browns. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it is, I think it also just speaks to the way the game is talked about as obviously evolved analytics, a lot of it's covered in a different way. But analytics is always something that was a part of the game. Of course. There's always percentages. There are always this. And I think now,

that there's got to be a fine line, right? There's got to be some working balance between the two. You know, they're humans and you have a feel and not every time that the conditions are the same and you know,

The decisions that we make, yeah, they have to be, you know, you just don't want results-based analysis. Yeah, right. Well, it didn't work, or it worked, and so it was right. Right, the process. It's got to be thought out before, like, if we get this situation, here's what we're doing. Yeah, we've always had analytics. It's just how the numbers that we're now measuring are different because we've learned what's better, what's not, and having a coach that has, like, real-life, like, especially playing experience.

absolutely helps when you've got the numbers and then you also have game feel at the same time. The application of it. And the biggest thing is that the players understand what it is that you're doing. Hey guys, we got a call upon this practice in August when we went through this situation and this is why we're doing this.

And I think that once you can get the players to understand it and buy into it and believe it, then you've got a chance. Did you have that moment where you could feel that the players were fully buying into everything you did? Because it feels like every time I hear a story about coaching, and this goes back to Belichick, it's like the minute the players realize the coach is putting them in the best spot, they buy in 100% and they're all in and they'll do everything for that coach. Yeah, I do. I mean, I think...

It was, you know, early on, I think we'd, I think that they, we might have beaten the Patriots in 2018, you know, even before we went up there. And they had lost to them in the playoffs the year before, and they went hurry up, right? They went on the ball, and they weren't ready, and they weren't lined up, and it just, it didn't look like it was a unit, right? It didn't

There was no flow to what they were doing. And so...

I just said you guys are going to be ready to beat this team, to beat this quarterback, and to beat this coach. When the game's over, you have to be mentally and physically exhausted. And however you want to put that first, physically and mentally exhausted or mentally and physically exhausted. Because every snap, if you're not ready to go, a quarterback like Tom is just going to pick you apart, right? They're just going to spread you out. If you can't get lined up, he's going to snap it and he's going to throw to the guy that's open. That's how they operate.

And we beat them in Tennessee. And the guys that were there and that had gotten beaten were like, okay, we felt like we were prepared. They went empty. We blitzed them. I mean, we sacked Tom like eight times. You know what I mean? And they were like, okay, this felt better. It felt like we were ready for what they were going to do. So that was something that, you know, I think early on,

Helped us. I just thought of another Vrabel game when you... I think you held Patrick Holmes to three points. We did. Yeah. That was a classic. Was that the week after you guys lost the Cardinals opening week? I don't know if it was the very next week, but... That was a Vrabel game. We played well, yeah. Where the Chiefs were like, oh, the Chiefs are the best. Patrick Holmes, you held them to three points. Yeah. And we had great... I mean, again, to be able to... I think Travis had one catch or something like that. And so the guys executed the plan. They knew. It was just...

But, you know, unfortunately we weren't able to beat them when it mattered. That was to go to the Super Bowl. I need you back in the leagues. Yeah, we need the Mike Vrabel weeks. You and Tom. You get a sense. Yeah, you get a sense of it. And it's like, okay, at least I've got one winner this weekend. It's always good to go on a weekend knowing you're not going to get shut out. Yeah, the Steelers or the Titans are underdogs and everyone's written them off. Great. Oh, have you thought about the new kickoffs yet? Yeah, we've worked through that. What's going to happen with those? I think you'll probably see some...

I think as the season goes on, probably more touchbacks. I think that we'll see what's the difference. I know that analytically somebody's going to, as soon as this comes out, they're going to tell me the difference between the 25 and the 30.

It's five yards. Just did it for you. Points. Okay. Points. Is it a half a point? It's a third of a point. It's .13 points. Is it? Yeah. Good. Yeah. Sure. It's a third of a point. But I think that if it keeps the kickoff alive and it keeps guys, you know, the special teams in the game, I think that there's going to be –

more returns. I think there will be more yardage gained. I think guys are going to, you know, be able to, to get it up, you know what I mean? To be able to hit it in there and get some yardage out there. And we'll see what the 30 yard line does on the touch box. Yeah. And maybe have kickers that can tackle too.

We, you know, that remains to be seen. That'll probably never happen. One of my best friends in the league playing. Larry Izzo came up with this idea when we were in Houston. And he went to, you know, Larry and I played for eight years together in New England. And so he was like, Billy, I think we're going to have Brian Peters, you know, Northwestern guy. We're going to have Brian, who's our special teams, like really good player. And he's like, I'm going to have Brian kick off. You know, he can kick off. And it's like, we're going to get an extra guy covering.

I think we were in Minnesota. First one, he kicks down to like the five and maybe it wasn't the first one, but the second one he kicked and you could just see his quad go. And I'm like, Larry, this isn't going to go well for you. Yeah. There's one guy. He was like, what?

I think he's on the Texans, right? He's a safety and can also kick pretty well. He did a couple kickoffs last year. Might have made a field goal, too. Reed is a safety for Kansas City. And then Darre is a running back. Wally, yeah. Badger.

He was versatile. He was in Houston the first time when we were down there. And he kicked last year. I think he had a kick against Tampa Bay, the game that Houston came back and won at the end. Yeah. Do you still hate kickers? Because I think for a time period you did hate kickers, right? I mean, I don't know how many we've gone through, but there should be a game. Have you kicked for the Tennessee Titans from 2008 to 2022? Yeah.

And I wouldn't be able to tell you if they did or not. I think one year we probably had six field goal kickers. And sometimes you just wouldn't send the kicker out there. It'd be like, you're just like, I'm done with kickers. I can't handle another miss. Yeah. I mean, I see these guys at kick force. Cairo Santos missed four field goals against the Bills. Bills were good. They're still good. I mean, Josh Allen, you know what I mean? A great defense. Four field goals.

You know the last field goal he missed was that fourth one against the Bills. And then he goes to Chicago. I don't think the guy's missed since. No, he's been actually money. So money. It was unreal. Yeah. And I'd watch every week. I'm like, oh, Greg Joseph. He could only kick 52 yarders when he was in Tennessee. Apparently he made a 65 yarder or whatever he did to win the game. I'm like, nice kick, Greg. These guys are great guys. Yeah.

Apparently, they get down here on Broadway. They can't make them. Nick Folk was fantastic for us last year, and I joke, but...

We had certainly some bad breaks. Yeah, yeah. All right, so I got one last question. This has been awesome. We love having you on, Braves. Can't wait until you get back in the – well, you're in the league, but head coaching. If you need us to call in a recommendation, we got you. I'm sure you're on a resume. Yeah, just call us up. I tried to do that last year. There was a guy from the Commanders. Remember, he was sitting first class on a plane. You were on that same plane. I was like –

You should go talk to Mike Vrabel about this job. He told me you were on there. Did he talk to you? No. That's sad. But I like Dan Quinn. Dan Quinn, great coach. But, all right, so my Roback question, R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com, Roback.com, promo code TAKE. 20% off your first purchase, Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. They got great golf stuff. Roback.com, promo code TAKE. 20% off. That was all from the dome. I know. Make sure my swag bag's ready here for the Roback. Yeah, yeah.

Well, how was the coffee? Hank wants to know how was the coffee. Hank got you the coffee. I meant the rowback, the golf stuff, Hank. How are you golfing? We'll see. What's your handicap? It's better than what it was last year. I got really good at skiing this year. I mean, I'm a scratch skier. I got fired, and I went to the mountain, and I skied. But it is – I mean, when you go out there, like, it is nerve-wracking. Like, there's fans. Like, it's along the line. You're like –

And every ball, you got to put everything in and it's like, no, like no gimme gimme gimme. Yeah. Yeah. So wait, what's your, what's your handicap? Do you have one? I do. The index would be 8.3. If you looked it up right now. Yeah. It's pretty damn good. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it's pretty damn good. What's the workout? Sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit. Yeah. Incline walk, some push-ups. That's it? Hike. Wait, what is it? Incline walk? What's the incline at? That's a hot girl walk. You're doing hot girl walks. 12 and 3-5. Okay. Accountability. You don't hold on to the things, right? You go hands-free. That was a dumb question. I'm just making sure.

some pushups. He's like, I don't, I did get into this bootcamp. So the boys back in Nashville at Richland country club, there's a 7am bootcamp. There's like four of us. And we got this trainer, Justin, and he does this like bootcamp. And I was like, screw it out there. These guys are guys I golf with. And I'll, you know, Pico and the boys and chappy and, and Gotti. And so we'll go in there and,

He grinds us and it just gives me a chance to cuss him out for an hour. It is something about being pushed by someone else that's fun. Right, and it's not even like heavy weight. It's just like do as many reps you can do for 30 seconds. Someone keeps just yelling at you. Take two second break and then go. Yeah. So you go incline walk, three and a half speed, 12 incline for 30 minutes? Yeah, 35, 30 minutes, whatever. And then how many pushups? 100 or whatever if I don't do a boot camp. And that's a full workout? Yeah.

I'd do some toe touches and some core maybe. Some stretching? Some core. Get the first tee. You do 100 push-ups. How many breaks do you take? I just go straight through. You just do 100 push-ups? Yeah. Yeah, same. Me too. I don't go on my shoulder. I mean, the last two years, I would say this, the last two years I have felt like

Man, I felt like I played. Like, I was okay at 45, 46, and then now it's like, Jesus. What's going on? But now you're skiing. I wake up, identify as I'm set. Yeah, but that's gravity. Skiing is just down. Yeah, just go down. Just using gravity. Yeah. You got a place in Utah, right? I do. Is it an apocalypse bunker? I heard it might have been. Yeah, I heard it was an apocalypse bunker. The entire state? No, no, your place in Utah. Yeah. No. It's not an apocalypse bunker. The entire state?

No, it goes right on to the mountain. You just ski right out. You just go right out the back. So it's in the mountain. Your place is in the mountain? That sounds like a bunker to me. It's half in the mountain. You know what I mean? The top part is not. So it's half a bunker. The bottom part is. So it's half a bunker.

It's a good place to go in case shit goes down. Will you let us in the bunker when shit goes down? Yeah, we'll go down there. We got a golf sim in the lower level. Nice. Tomato cans, tuna. No, just beer cans in there. All right, that sounds like a good bunker. Any guns? You got guns out there? No. Not a huge gun guy, you know, but that doesn't mean we can't get some. Yeah, right. We'll get some. Yeah, I don't know why you would need one. I mean, other than a...

you go hiking right you guys are married and and you know go hike and you know my wife jenna and i would hike and she's like well i saw on the instagram they got bears out there now park city and i'm like but i don't have to be faster than the bear i just have to be faster than you yes right exactly it's not that hard to understand yeah we saw jody yesterday i'd fuck a coyote up

Yeah. Easy. Yeah, they're skinny. They're like 90 pounds. Punch in the face. That's like a raccoon. That's like a carp with legs. Right. They're afraid of us, too. We're intimidating as fuck. All right, Braves. Did you enjoy this? You're the best. Yeah, of course. Did you enjoy it? Yeah. Kidding me? You're the best. Was it Rodney Harrison that said you're the nicest asshole that he knows?

Maybe. I think that's, yeah. You guys remember that story about Rodney and Kevin Falk, right? No. So we bring, Bill like comes up with this idea that he's going to sign Rodney Harrison after the Chargers let him go. And he comes in, it's like the first day of pads. And, um,

Kevin Falk runs one of his option routes out, and I try to cover him, or Teddy tries to cover him, and we can't cover him. So he catches it, and he turns up, and Rodney comes and knocks the shit out of him. And everybody, you know, this is when we had like 8,000 fans. And it wasn't a cheap shot. And Falk gets up and kind of slams the ball around. He's like, fuck you. And then Dante's like, Skarnieckia, right? Little Scar. He's like...

take care of your team. You can't, Ronnie goes, fuck you too. And me and Teddy looked at each other like, I think we got a dude right here. He's cussing out Dante. He's cussing out the coaching. It's bad.

We were like, me too. Yeah. We got a dude. Got a guy with some age. That's it. Fuck. Yeah, that's Rodney Harrison. All right. Yeah, you know, you're the best. We love having you on. Maybe come watch some games with us on a Sunday. I think we could do that. Yeah. Let me see if I have to. See all the TVs. Because you're one TV guy. Let me check with my boss.

Kevin, I'm going to reach out to you and I'll see what he thinks. I have one last, last question. Do you have any interest in doing TV, media or TV? Because I feel like you'd be good at it. At some point in time. I just don't want to cross over. I don't think that it's ready to go to the dark side yet. No, no. You don't want to do it. Dark side, yeah. Well, I mean, by that, I mean, once you go to media, these guys, they never missed a tackle. They never dropped a pass. They never threw a pick. Yeah.

That's what I mean. Yeah, that's true. It's a good point. All right, Braves. Thanks so much, man. Thank you. We'll get back to Coach Vrabel in a second. He's brought to you by Chevy. As everyone knows, this is a Chevy truck podcast. The greatest trucks ever built. And our good friends at Chevrolet have been a big part of the part of my take story. From the Silverado that helped us dig the biggest hole ever dug in Ohio during Grit Week to Silverado partnering with us to give college fullbacks all the rightful recognition that they deserve with the Lowman Award.

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Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest. It is comedian Gary Veeder, who is here for his comedy, but also for his podcast that is out now. It's called Number One Dad. I've listened to every episode. It's an insane story. So we wanted to have you on, talk about it. There's a very weird and awesome sports angle to it.

So let's start there. Let's start with number one, dad. First of all, thank you for coming in here. Totally. Do you want to give it like a quick? Yeah, yeah. I'll give a background. Yeah, background. And then we have a question. And like kind of where like the podcast picks up. It's my dad and I, we had a extremely complicated relationship.

But back, this is in the early 90s. My dad, he, for one, he's a con man. Yes. Get that, like, you know, right out there. He's a con man, and we stopped talking 24 years ago. But back in the early 90s, him and I, we shared this special moment where one of the cons involved me, where we would go to Madison Square Garden. He'd call up ahead. He'd say that we worked for Sports Illustrated for kids, that I was a reporter and he was a photographer. Right.

And when we'd arrive at the Garden, they'd give us press passes to these games back in the 90s, between 93 and 97. And we went to over 50 games completely for free without tickets.

and they gave us access to the locker rooms also. So when we would go there, not only would I meet the players, but I would keep up appearances, and I would also interview the players as well. So I met all the New York Rangers back in the 90s. I met all the Knicks back in the 90s. And then if they're playing a cool opposing team, especially like the Bulls when they came to town and Michael Jordan was there, I met and interviewed Michael Jordan as well. That's crazy. Would you actually write stories?

No, we wouldn't even write stories. Then that was the thing. Nobody asked because over time, for one, people just believed us because after they see you a few times, they're like, oh, here you are again. So it's all good. But they never questioned us. They never asked to see any articles or anything like that. But I would come around with like a notepad and a pen and I would ask questions.

mostly like, you know, bullshit questions. So it'd be like, what's your favorite food or what's your best advice for a kid that, you know, wants to maybe one day be an athlete. So it's things like that, things that they would actually ask in sports illustrated for kids. It's crazy. And, and obviously the whole podcast is, you know, about your dad and he has a ton of different cons that, um,

broke apart your family and like was very hurtful but this one when I first saw this one I was like oh shit this is insane because there's pictures of you with Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing now how old are you when this happened so I was between the ages of 9 to 13 when we were doing the SI for kids scam did you have any idea that like you were just you were part of this con or were you like because there's there's like nine years old I could see a nine-year-old not fully understanding and being like this is just the coolest thing ever

For sure. I mean, I knew 100%. My dad, I was kind of groomed into my dad, I think, wanting me to be like him. Right. Wanting me to be this kind of con man, this fast talker, a guy who had a lot of street smarts. So very early on, my dad was operating like this in just everything he would do. If we're going to a restaurant, he's trying to cop a free meal by whether he's bartering or he owned a pay phone slash telecommunications business. Their phones would just...

be magically out somehow. I would always think that my dad would cut wires and things like that. And we'd be getting a free meal because they needed somebody to repair the phone system. So I was seeing my dad operate on a certain level. So when it came time to do the SI for kids scam, I was very familiar with how my dad operated that I knew that, that it wasn't, you know, who we were, but that we would just have to keep up this, this ploy to actually get in. So there was no part of you that was like, when you get SI for, I remember getting SI for kids when I was a kid and,

there was no part of you that was like, oh, I'm going to see my article in here. No, no, not at all. Yeah. You're just like, this is what we do to get tickets. Oh, for sure. And my dad would take the pictures and he would use these pictures to show off to people. If we went to restaurants, he'd be like, oh, look, this is who my son meets to kind of give him a higher profile. He always just loved bragging about different stuff, his accomplishments. He loved lying. So him succeeding in this particular lie definitely brought him joy.

Yeah. So did you tell any of your friends that you were writing for Sports Illustrated for kids? No, never told them. And that was part of my dad's thing. He knew that. However, if I was to tell somebody, they wouldn't understand it. And then it would also get back to him. So we kept it very hush. Later on, I was like, I want to share these moments. I want to share that I met Michael Jordan with people. So my dad agreed that we could tell people that he knew somebody at the garden. And that's how we had access. Okay. So it was never being completely forthcoming or anything like that. Yeah, go ahead.

Was there like a moment growing up where you realized that like a lot of what dad says is bullshit? Oh, yeah. And it becomes a point where you're like, damn, can't you just be like a normal dad? Right. That's all you want. You just want your dad to be normal at a certain point. You're living this cool moment where you're going to these games and all my friends, they weren't able to go to see. I went to Rangers game seven Stanley Cup. Game one, game five, and game seven without Fulham.

ticket game seven I sat glass and watched the Rangers win the cup went to locker room after the game watching them drink from the cup went to the after party so these are things then and I go to school the next day I can't share with anybody but I just want I want to I wish that we I could have I wish I could have been like my dad and I we did this thing but you can't you have to keep it

quiet because you don't want to not be able to do it. And I didn't know what the repercussions were about lying. I just knew that it probably wouldn't be good. Probably we probably wouldn't be seen in a good light. Have any of the, so when you went, you, you posted the first, uh, like story about this during COVID, right?

Yeah. So you posted like, hey, I live this life as a fake sports illustrator for Kids Reporter. Well, The Last Dance just came out. Right. So it kind of brought it up and my son was just born. So I was like, maybe I should just start sharing this. And I would tell people like Nate Bargatze and my friends in comedy all about it when we were like starting out. And they're like, oh, this is so insane. And I just...

I didn't really find the right time to say it. And then having a kid of my own kindly kind of brought this out more of why, you know, make me maybe question, why did my dad do this? Why, what were his, did he even do it for me? Was he doing it for himself or was he actually wanting to show his kid a good time and this is the only way he could show it. And then kind of made me wonder what has he been up to after all this time? 'Cause like I said, we haven't talked, we have had no communication in 24 years.

And, uh, and yeah, I wanted to see what he's up to. When you went public with it, did any of the, I would assume none of the athletes reached out, but did anyone reach out like from Madison square garden or anyone being like, Hey, this is crazy. I remember this. No, nobody, nobody reached out. Um, the only, I mean, sports illustrated reached out just so I could write an article for them. Right. And, uh, then they went under. So I don't know if that was because of me, but, uh,

But besides that, I would say, yeah, nobody did. And it was before Dolan. So I think I and I've been to Madison Square Garden. I went through like the private entrance before. And it's it's after that article came out and everything. So I think I'm good on Dolan's terms. But other than that, he was pre Dolan. So I think everybody's gone from the garden by that at this point. The craziest part to me is so you're a professional comedian. You went. I want to talk about you. You won. Did you win America's Got Talent?

No, I was a finalist, though. Finalist. I lost to a magician or somebody. It's always a magician or some guy that invents a musical instrument that takes up the entire room. Yeah. So you've been doing comedy for a long time. And comedy, we have a bunch of comedians on. We have friends that are comedians. It feels like most comedians tell a lot of personal stories. You just didn't tell this story through all your comedy? No.

All these years? Yeah, never told it. It was one of the ones where I wouldn't even mention my dad in my act. I didn't want anything to do with him. I completely cut him off. It was just too much bringing him up. And then I needed kind of a right platform to bring out the story. And then so I thought that this podcast would be it.

Yeah. It's kind of beautiful too. You ended up becoming a Sports Illustrated columnist. Yeah. Because your dad lied about you being a Sports Illustrated columnist. Yeah, 24 years later. And you're, like, I would hope that you're, I mean, the podcast is really, really well done. Everyone should go listen to it. But I would assume you're making money now.

off your day it's like you're kind of getting them back yeah yeah he exploited me and that's my chance to right you yeah he put you through all this everything yeah this is everything he taught me yeah right it's coming right back full circle yeah that's crazy the the other one that uh and you mentioned it there for the pay phones

I don't know if you listened to it yet, PFT, but your dad basically went around selling payphones pretending to be AT&T even though he had no relation with AT&T. Yeah, my dad was a master at pretending and posturing people. He could be somebody, anybody he really wanted to be and

As soon as he saw something as simple as this is, but with AT&T, he owned and operated his own payphone slash telecommunications business. And he would go and get accounts by saying that he personally was AT&T. They didn't know that he was just...

one person to maybe he had four people max working for him at a time but this very small company and he'd get accounts like Toys R Us and Costco and he'd put in all their payphone systems and all that and this is I mean this winds up being big money back then and they had no idea they weren't actually working with

AT&T. So like when he'd send them a bill, would it say AT&T on the bill? Yeah, he would forge it. He would have their insignia and their symbol on there and their logo. And if you called my dad's phone, it would have the AT&T chime on it. So they fully believe that they're in business with AT&T. And then he would give, when they would change over managers, he would give them a commission. And then if they...

move managers. Sometimes he wouldn't give them commission, things like that. Just finding ways to weasel his way in and out of certain deals. Was he always on the look for a scam? Like where would he go about his day and be like, Oh, that's something I can, I can take it. I'm going to circle back on that one later. Like, or was this just about like, you know, get a meal here or there. He'd have a couple of big ideas every now and again, like the,

the Sports Illustrated for Kids, or was this like an everyday thing where you always had a new project? Everything. Everything he did. So before what predated the AT&T thing, he had a furniture business and he would give some people their furniture and then some people not. And this is back in the 80s. So finding out

where my furniture is back in the 80s, you have to jump through hoops. You could call the Better Business Bureau, but are you one of two people complaining about this furniture company? How long do you have to wait on the phone? This whole process. And this guy is saying, meanwhile, my father is saying, I did send you your furniture. You do have it. What are you talking about? This person's lying. So your word against his. And

Eventually, enough people complained about my father. He wanted to be in court. The attorney general, New York State Attorney General, filed suit against him. Apparently, my dad, it was something over $100,000 that he took from people back in the 80s, which is equivalent of $400,000, $500,000 now. All these scams do feel like you couldn't pull them off today.

A lot of them, yeah, you can't. Now, a lot of my dad's scams, it's simplicity. It's him saying he is somebody and then somebody buying it, the AT&T thing, the Sports Illustrated. So a lot of people look at certain scams as, you know, to get into Madison Square Garden, I'm going to have to jimmy a lock and then slide in through a back door. My dad's just going to walk through that front door because you're going to give him access. A lot of his things are...

figuring out a way in the most simple way to get in. Yeah, we've, I'm ashamed to admit this, but like it, it wasn't until about two years ago that I realized that con man didn't mean con like your

you're tricking somebody con means confidence and so if you just do something with enough confidence and you act the part and people just let you we've always said that the easiest way to get into places is if you have a clipboard and maybe like one of those orange day glow vests and an earpiece yeah no one's golf cart if you're on a golf cart golf cart with a clipboard you can get in anywhere in america but yeah so so your dad was like a very confident person and everything he was doing oh absolutely would he like change his style or was it always like a very uh assertive

He was always very assertive, but if he was talking to somebody who is Israeli, he could put on a Hebrew accent or Russian. He's figuring that out. French, all of a sudden he could speak French. So he's a smart guy. So he knew what to say to make certain people like him. Yeah. So he could always figure out something. The psychology of it is so fascinating to me because I've...

I've dealt with a couple people in my life who are, you know, I think your dad is probably to the like very far extreme, but like I used to have to manage property in my old career. And like I dealt with someone who they moved into an apartment and all they made a list of like 300 things to complain about. And their whole plan was you can't fix 300 things. So I'm just not going to pay rent for three months until you finally kick me out.

And then I looked it up after. It was like, I was very naive. I looked it up after the person was in all these court cases and that was their entire thing. They just go from apartment to apartment knowing that they could live off of people for long enough to then go to the next one. Yeah, they just figure it out away. And they just, it's like, I think there's such a fascinating thing where like most people are trusting and most people want to take people at face value. So if you have this

sociopathic brain you can take advantage of anyone for sure and now some people are not going to buy your bullshit but for the most part a lot of people are right i mean not everybody think when somebody's talking to you you're thinking that they're going to be telling you the truth right even on the street oh i need you know any way the directions for this by the way could i have you know five dollars i have no money it's like well now i gave you directions you already had a conversation maybe now i am going to give you

Right. Yeah. You know, it's like that was their whole intent, but they got you kind of talking or whatever. People just figure out a way because they don't think that they're going to be lied to. Right. And it's like it's it's a it's kind of a scary life hack. It's it's actually almost I was thinking about it more because, again, this podcast is so, so good. And I was listening to it all weekend. Thank you. It's like.

It's like the people like in homeowners associations who complain and complain and complain. And they know that if they complain enough, they'll just wear everyone else down. Right. And it's like if you if you're just like if you just annoy people to a point that they just give up, that is like a weird life hack. That's a loophole that you can use. And it seemed like your dad kind of had that figured out. He's like, people will eventually give up.

because I won't. Yeah. I'm not going to give you your furniture because I know that it's going to be pretty hard for you to figure this out or maybe you don't want to put in the time. So I'm going to get away with this for a while. Right. But yeah, but back to the confidence thing. Yeah. My dad, uh, he kind of operated on a thing where, you know, when we're all young, you, you kind of like, I could do this thing. I could, I'm going to sneak into, you know, uh,

or something like that. I'm going to figure something out. But when you get older, you're like, oh, I don't want to deal with the consequences. I think as my dad got older, he really just didn't care, continued not to care about the consequences. He just had that mentality. Like, I'm going to go through with this. I'm going to figure out how to get by. And if I get caught, I'm not going to be embarrassed. It just is what it is. Yeah. Did he ever get caught in front of you?

Yeah. I mean, there was one time we were at a diner and I had like a small cut of my hand because there was some glass on the table. And my dad just went up to, I guess, the manager of this diner and said that my son is bleeding. You know, you should comp our meal. And I was with a friend at the time. Next thing I know, my dad was getting thrown out of the diner. So it's these little things where, you

you don't want your father to be doing that there's no reason for him to ask for a free meal and who knows exactly what he said to them but next thing you know he's having the cops called on them and he's eventually he like uh he pressed charges against them and he still got he got

more money out of the old situation. Yeah, it's the complaining thing. Like if you keep pushing, someone's going to give up because they're like, I don't want to deal with this. Exactly. That's crazy. Is there anything that you've taken from him that he taught you either like knowingly or unknowingly that you've been able to use to your advantage? Like either, we're obviously the podcast, the stories. Right, right. It's a big thing, but just like his mannerisms or how he approaches people in a conversation.

I would just say that basically how people take you at face value. So you could really use that to your advantage, but you don't want to use it. I didn't want to be anything like my dad, but in terms of comedy, if anything, it just taught me...

If you could be confident, if you use your skill set in a positive way, you might be able to do something actually with your life. My dad would say that he was a cop. He would say that he was a lawyer. He would impersonate these people. He would say that he's a photographer. And these are things that he all probably could have done on his own if he actually worked hard. But he chose not to.

Yeah, because he does sound like a very smart guy. Yeah, and he was funny too. So I saw all this, that he had the capabilities of being a different person, but he chose to, he loved lying. He loved conning, and it seemed that that really brought him joy. As a comedian, it's interesting because that's probably the one line of work where you can't lie about it. You can't fake it.

You can't fake it. You can fake comedy. You can fake a lot of comics. You go on stage and you're still in front of an audience. You have to act more confident than you actually are. So it does play some sort of a role. But yeah, for the most part, there is vulnerability. And I can't even say that word, but it's a good one. If you're funny, you're funny. Yeah, yeah. I guess you could steal other people's jokes.

Yeah, you could say. Yeah, but there's still some truth in who you are on stage for sure. Yeah. So now that you're a father, are you worried like your son is going to have like if he shows signs of being a con man early? Because it is...

I don't know the actual psychology of it, but it does feel like this is something that some people are just born with where they have that sociopathic ability to lie and they never relent on their lying. Yeah, I think whatever made my dad do it, it might have been his upbringing, his need to see that he couldn't afford things. And then he was like, how am I going to get certain material goods? But in my son's case,

I think if you just try and teach them right, hopefully they, and tell them to be honest and say that's not a good way to go about your life, hopefully that they stay clear of that. It's funny because every kid has moments where they bang their arm on something and then it's a big deal and they act like they're hurt. It's a perfectly normal thing for a kid to do. But maybe you look at your kid and you're like, oh no. He's trying to sue me. He wakes up the next day in a neck brace being like, dad.

Where's our settlement? You know what my son does now? And I mean, kids are how old are your kids? Five, three and one. Okay. Yeah. So I have a four and one year old now. And my four year old, he'll say sorry about stuff. He'll hit his brother and be like, I'm so sorry after he does it. Yeah. But he's saying it just so he could, you know, what else are we going to be like? Well, you shouldn't do that. And he goes, I'm sorry. No, they know it's easy way out. It's a very, very good tactic at manipulating. Yeah. Yeah.

So kids have it, and it just depends how you kind of maneuver around it. Teaching them right from wrong. Yeah, no, it's true. My son does the, I'll say sorry if you say sorry. And I'm like, what the fuck? How did you get that? And then obviously I'll just be like, yeah, I guess I'm sorry. Yeah. So that way we can move on. Yeah.

Like, yeah, my kid will do that too. It'd be like, say you're sorry for, for raising your voice. Yeah. Right. Yelling. I'm like, yeah, exactly. I just said, don't do that. Yeah. Like, well, that was too loud. Right. Yeah. Fucking yeah. The kids, kids are little con men. Right. Um, how bad,

Was it looking back on pictures and seeing your bowl cut? Oh my God. I would have done anything. That's probably actually why I didn't share the story forever. I went bald on purpose, but it was the, I have that bowl cut is, is horrendous, but it was the nineties. And that's what they did. And I,

The guy who, I had a guy who was cutting my hair, and I guess he was probably just bored. He just kept on doing it every single time. I probably, I definitely had the bowl cut probably too long. I probably had it going into 2000. Yeah, because it's like, oh, sick, you got a picture with MJ. I know. Bowl cut. I know. Oh, it was terrible. So how did this end? How did you guys decide, okay, the Sports Illustrated for Kids thing, I'm too old for that now.

I was started getting fed up with all the stuff my dad was lying about. He wasn't treating my mom well, my sisters and myself. And we'd be going to these games lying. I wanted eventually a real relationship with my father that I saw was non-existent. I saw all my friends had it. And I was also getting older. And there was always a chance that I could run into somebody that I knew at the garden. Yeah.

that was there. So that was always on the back of my mind and I felt that it was kind of at its course. So I was about to be close to 14 at the time and I just said, you know, we gotta, we just stop doing it. And my relationship with my dad was kind of fizzling out.

Yeah. And you did say the anecdote that you would, when you went there, you would like go as, you know, your fake press credentials, but then you would never sit with your dad. You'd sit by yourself. So you're nine years old. Never actually having the father-son experience going to a sporting event with your dad.

dad yeah just sitting by yourself yeah wouldn't yeah I would sit in the press area or if he found me a seat I'd be in another part of the arena where he would be uh taking pictures on the floor or like he would have his camera through through the glass that's crazy yeah so he would actually take the pictures though because he was was he like your photographer

He was my photographer and wouldn't say that he was my father either, which was totally unnecessary. He could have said that he was my father, but I think that he just enjoyed not saying that he was my father and that he was a professional photographer and I was kind of this prodigy kid reporter. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, he sounds like he got high off the lie. Yeah. Where it's just like lying to someone makes you...

It's wild. I think everyone's probably had an experience. We know somebody like that. Yeah, we know somebody. It's like, dude, just tell the truth. It would be so much easier if you just told us the truth instead of lying. And then when we say it's a lie, you're like, well, no, it's not. It's like, why are we doing this? Yeah. And I went to tons of therapy over time just to...

teach myself not to lie I would lie with my wife about things I don't even need to lie about and then she'd be very upset with it and you know when I saw Top Gun Maverick I didn't tell her about it and then she was like you wanna go see it and I'm like sure and she's like you saw it already right and I'm like no and she's like you saw it and I'm like yes and then she got so furious with me but it was such a pointless lie right no reason to lie and in her mind she's like if you're lying about that what else are you lying about right right wow

That's crazy. So have you made a plan for the podcast of all the different storylines you can go down? Are you rediscovering? Are you re-remembering some of these old things? For sure, yeah. It feels like doing the podcast itself...

might be almost a therapeutic experience. - Definitely therapeutic because a lot of the stories I buried, I had them so far in the back of my mind, I wasn't thinking about it. And then as more I thought and then I started interviewing different people, my sisters and then of course talking to old people that work for my dad and it just brought back tons of old memories. And then just going to therapy, I would be like, oh my God, we counterfeited money together.

You know, we would get in, he would purposely get in, he would purposely get in fender benders and then, and say, you know, act like my neck hurts also just so he could collect on an insurance claim. So these things, you know, getting thrown out of that, that restaurant, these are all things that I completely forgot about. You know, when we would go to a movie theater back when I was, I remember five years old, the first thing that we would do is I would sneak under the ropes and then he'd go find me. And it's normal. Who hasn't snuck into a movie theater, but not with your dad. Right. So, and I,

I didn't think – I knew my childhood was messed up, but I didn't think that it was as messed up because I'll get responses from people who will be like, oh, my God, I can't believe you went through this. And I was like, oh, yeah, I guess part of my childhood I missed out on certain things or at least a normal relationship with a parent. Yeah. Like the stories going to Madison Square Garden sounds very cool and then you're like, but it was also with your dad who you're supposed to have a relationship with like –

that's not running cons. I don't understand how he never got arrested. Yeah, everything that I've been able to find, he never has been arrested. And since 1984, he's been involved in, that I've been able to find, 23 court cases. Jeez. And that's just what I've been able to find. And these are only the stories that I know. There's got to be so many more that he has that maybe he'll share, and we'll find out. You also told a story, he was...

not in the mafia, but he knew mafia guys and would like hang out with them. Would you, would he take you to those places? Yeah, I never went to this place. There's a place called Wiggles and my dad installed their payphone system and had, had their, their, all their communication was done by his company.

And this strip club, Wiggles, was owned by this guy, Vinnie Palermo, who was the head of the DeCavalcanti crime family. And some people say that that's who Tony Soprano is based off of. And apparently, and this comes from one of my dad's ex-employees, is that he found a bug in their phone. And from that point on, these guys were completely indebted to him. And...

That's the word that came from one of my dad's employees. And then knowing my father, more than likely, he planted the bug, told him that, just so he could be on good terms with him. False flag, he's the hero. So it seems, I'm not a licensed therapist, obviously, but it seems like a lot of the stuff that a con man would do

Rooted in deep deep insecurity for themselves. Yeah, like every interaction that you have You have to feel like you're getting one over on somebody like you're smarter than them like you're better sure It was these people who are successful, you know to everybody else. Let me feel better than they are Yeah, I'm better than that guy. Yeah, everyone thinks he's high and mighty tell you what I'm gonna trick him and now I feel good Was he ever like that? Was he try was he conning you?

My thing with him was I played sports, I played baseball, and I played hockey. And in...

in those senses, he would take what I was doing and use it to his advantage. If I was playing baseball, he would have to be the coach. All of a sudden, equipment for the team would be missing. And I assume that he was selling it. And he was responsible for the clubhouse that he had access to for a little league. In hockey, he was, hockey basically, this is early on, where they kind of started having AAU teams, especially during my age of growing up in the 90s.

And he started his own AAU hockey team, essentially. And he would overcharge the parents. And I would be playing on these teams. I wouldn't deserve to be playing on these teams. He would have really great players. Some guys went on to play D1 in the NHL as well. But he would overcharge their parents and he would make money off of them. Meanwhile, I love playing hockey. But then you're hearing parents complaining about your father overcharging them when, you know, a hotel shouldn't cost $400. It should cost $100.

right yeah and he'd be charging these people and making money off of them and then kind of putting a bad taste in in their mouths about him and then I'm hearing about it on the bench of course it sounds like a lot of a lot of complications that you have to deal with as a kid oh not deal with all of it and I could see why that relationship would probably get fractured at some point so now that you're doing the podcast you're talking about all these stories at some point he's going to hear the podcast right yeah do you think he has already

I don't know. I haven't heard from him since the podcast has come out. So as far as I know, he hasn't unless he's preparing a lawsuit. Oh, that's got to be a concern. Yeah. I mean, maybe that would be season two. Oh, shit. We probably could get sued just having you in here. I think he's a good guy. I love him. I don't believe you. Oh, that Manny? He's a stand-up guy. Never done anything. Never told a lie in his life. Yeah, yeah. Would you want him to reach out?

You know, so I mean, the way the podcast is going right now is that I mean, I I tracked him down. I have his phone number. And that was episode that that just came out today. So the next thing is just to wait and see. We're supposed to meet face to face in the podcast. OK. Going to the Second Avenue Deli. Yeah.

Jesus. All right. So your comedy career. So you, what, when did it start? When did you, what was your first like big break? Uh, or was it America's got talent? No. First big break was Conan. I did Conan in 2014. And then that was the first time I was ever on TV. And then, uh,

the booker at the time, he saw me at a comedy festival in Portland just randomly. And it was, there's nobody in the room. And fortunately enough, I went on second and he was still in, he was still there and I did well. And then I got booked for Conan maybe like a month later. That's awesome. Yeah. So I always wanted to do Conan. Yeah. So you did Conan. And then was it from that point on, it was like everything started opening up a little bit. Then I, yeah, started opening up, started touring more, started headlining and,

And then I got America's Got Talent and then going pretty far in that, that helped get an agent and manager and then some more gigs. And then, you know, fortunately enough, a lot of my friends, they started doing well too. So guys like Nate and Sam Morrell and guys that I've toured with, Salvocano. So their careers expanded.

friends help friends in comedy and that's kind of been the best thing better than any agent or manager they've been definitely a deep part of any type of success that I've had I love that part about comedy where it's like there's little groups and if one of them

you know, quote unquote makes it to that like big supernova level. They kind of bring everyone along for the ride. Yeah. And I didn't know that going into comedy. You just, you think it's a very secluded that, you know, just going to be in isolation all the time writing jokes, but yeah,

You meet a lot of people who have maybe similar past to you or could at least understand your past. And that's been a cool thing. And then those become your best friends. Yeah. Has Nate ever sworn around you? Never. Not even close? Yeah, I try getting him every time. Yeah. He doesn't do it. He won't say damn?

no he told me to not say damn actually really they cleaned it up i was like damn damn is it weird watching nate with his dad who like his dad you know does shows with him and it's like he's incredible very it's so perfect and his dad loves the the uh the podcast and he loves the sports stuff so it's but it's such a different relationship than i had with my father yeah they're so close he had nate's dad opens for him yeah and it's it's super cool what are the knicks back

I think, Oh my God. Yeah. And then especially getting bridges. It's insane. Yeah. I love it. Villanova Knicks. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. None of your like sports, uh, fandom was diminished at all by any of these things. Was it?

For, yeah. I mean, but also the Knicks and the Rangers had some bad years in the 2000s. So that kind of affected it. So I took a step away from sports, especially with my dad, as I mentioned, getting involved in hockey. I was like, let me just put the skates down, the stick down in the skates because I couldn't be around

ice hockey anymore after by the time I was 17. Yeah. And then and then I'm back in it now. Yeah. You kind of just sports just just warms your heart. You love it. It draws you back in. Yeah. And especially when you have kids to go. I want to share these moments completely. Yeah. At the garden, especially like these playoffs were just incredible. The atmosphere there. Like I get it. I understand why people say

Madison Square Garden is like the mecca of basketball. When you see them win a playoff game and they go nuts, it felt pretty special this year. So, yeah, the Villanova Knicks, they've got every player from that college. Do you want Jay Wright to coach the team? I mean, if he came back, that would be insane. But, I mean, right now they're great. I mean, I think coaching is kind of set, but I think that they could –

they definitely make a run, but other teams are making moves too. Yeah. The, uh, it's, uh, yeah, I mean, it's fun. It's fun. Like we lived in New York for seven years and I, uh, I hate to admit it, but like when you go to a Knicks playoff game, there is a different vibe to it. And it's better for bass. If the Knicks are doing well, it's better for basketball. Same with hockey. If the Rangers, I mean, ESPN just sucks their dick the whole time. Yeah. The Pacers weren't even in that series. Right. Right. It was just the Knicks. Yeah. Brunson is out.

And I met him at a game and he's such a nice guy. And you always hear great stories about him. He'll help old people. He's a superhero. Yeah, Dante DiVincenzo too. That dude seems awesome. Oh, he seems super cool. They just see him like cool dude. Yeah. Brunson's helping old people? Yeah, I heard a story. Like one of Sam's cousins, Sam Morrell's cousins, said that Brunson helped and his wife, I think, or girlfriend helped him

their grandparents like carrying their groceries. Sam can't be trusted though with the Knicks. He's just going around just doing like guerrilla marketing for them. Like yeah, you hear Brunson, he saved like a bunch of puppies. Exactly. Okay, sounds good. What about on the baseball front? Baseball front? I mean, I like the Yankees, but

I'm not diehard in any, any which way. And I did love baseball at one point. And now I know you guys are huge baseball guys. Oh yeah. Huge. Are you being facetious? Oh no. I thought you were. No, we just did our, we do a fantasy league called dingers only where we just draft nine players and the only status home runs. Okay. And we started July 3rd, which is like three months into this. Yeah. And we drafted like half players that were,

on the reserve. I mean, baseball to me is always, yeah. The, uh, what's his name? Christian. Yeah. So we, yeah, it's a whole other issue. I don't know. Nate would not want to hear this story. Yeah. We, we told him when he, before he, when he was on the Marlins. So before he was hitting like a ton of home runs, he was like, I think I could win a home run derby. You're like, no, you can't. And there was a porn doppelganger of him who there was a video of,

a guy who looked exactly like Christian Yelich eating a girl's ass. So we said stupidly, if you ever win the home run derby, we'll eat each other's ass. And,

And he, the one year that he, did he win MVP? I think he won MVP that year. He got hurt right before the Derby, so we dodged that. But I think he's going to be in the Derby this year, so we might have to eat each other's ass. He could end this podcast. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, really stupid. Or make some good money, you know, people get into that. Yeah, but at what cost? Right, right. It would just be Bella. I don't know if I could look Big Cat in the eye. Yeah.

Yeah, well you won't have to yeah the brown. Yeah, this is it's it's gonna be bad That's actually a really bad thing that like is in the back of my head Dad yeah, yeah, just bury it and there's every now and then it comes up and triggers a memory right? We're like oh fuck we have to get to say that go to therapy We should actually have a therapist on the show like billions how they have Wendy that just sits in the corner Oh, yeah, you need somebody yeah, yeah, what's the hardest part about comedy?

hardest part I mean coming up with new jokes is super hard because you might think you have a new joke then you have to test it on stage and then it might not work are you gonna be able to are you gonna use your dad now like cause that I might that feels like a treasure trove of material yeah

I might. I'm definitely, you know, letting so much out in the podcast. So, I mean, I do sprinkle it in a little bit in my set right now. So we'll see how it goes and as time goes on. But yeah, if there's room for it, you know, it's...

Now that people know the story and then if they come to see me, that gives it a little bit more weight. So it kind of helps. Yeah. It must be a weird feeling too now that you're a public figure knowing that all this time your dad probably was still scamming using your name.

Yeah, telling people where he goes and be like, that's my son, for sure. Like, that's crazy to think about that he probably was. Yeah, I've thought about that. And, you know, I had concerns about him even showing up into my life before I went and, you know, approached him until now, which was when my wife and I got married. We had to tell security at the wedding venue, this is what my father looks like. Make sure you don't let him in because who knows? We were like, maybe he shows up and dresses up as a waiter.

Yeah. Yeah. That would be wild, though, if you got super, super famous, most popular stand-up comedian in America, and then your dad's out there somewhere telling everyone, that's my son, and they're like, dude, stop bullshitting us. Yeah. Yeah. There's no way. That is the only real thing I've ever said. Yeah. Yeah. That could very well happen. Yeah, maybe. We're rooting for you. Thanks, bud. So...

So the whole story and everything coming out, what has your friends' reactions been? Are they like, well, now I understand you a little more? Yeah, my wife says that now. Really? Yeah, she's like, oh, wow. I mean, she knows all this stuff, but now just hearing it and you're like, oh, you could have went one. I mean, there's only one or two ways. There's no in the middle. You're either going extreme liar or you're going to be – I like to think –

decently honest, you know, pretty honest. So I try and, you know, tell the truth and be a good person, be a good father because I could have been a bad father and that was kind of what was taught to me. But maybe, maybe you're being a con man right now. I know. Maybe none of this is true. All of it is true. And you've taken all of his lessons that he kind of gave you. Right. But you're just, you're taking it all made up. Yeah. Your dad's actually the

literally the number one dad. Yeah. It's all in plain sight. Yeah, you did that as a joke, but... It's reverse. So my son could have a podcast. That would actually be a fantastic ending to the podcast. This has been a con. Here's my dad. He's a sweetheart. Yeah. And I just knew that I would get good content out of this. Right. But I like what you said. And I thought of that recently, but he exploited me as a kid trying to

use me, whether it was sports or, you know, going to the games together and getting what he wants out of those lies. And then now it's kind of my turn. Yeah. Yeah. You get back at him. Can you take what, what you've experienced with your dad and are you better at spotting another con man? Because. Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, also the key is just think everybody's lying to you. Yeah. That's one. It does like that. Everybody's full of shit. And most, most people are, I mean, you, a lot of times you go and you start talking to people if they're at a party, you know,

People start bragging about it. They're already lying because you're trying to be entertaining. You're trying to sound interesting. So a lot of things that people are saying to you are going to be false. Yeah, and it is that first feeling of, oh, I just got conned. It does change you where you're like, all right, now I'm looking at everyone and not...

like i'm not going to take them fully at face value because i find myself i struggle with that where i i think i'm too trusting of a person sometimes and it's like i could you know you're trusting where the guy when you uh the stella blue coffee last time i was here you're like i'm sending it and you did you said i did yeah yeah oh i didn't even do oh nice fuck yes

I did. But a lot of times people give, you know, empty promises and they'll say they're going to do something and they don't. So, you know, you're my good graces because you kept your word. You're an honest man. That's probably credits to Paige, who's our office manager here, who's fantastic. I probably was like, hey, send him some. So credit to her. She did the hard work. Right. But I at least said, please send him some. It happened. It happened. I want to go back to Howie Mandel real quick. So...

America's Got Talent, Howie's a recurring guest on this show.

Interesting guy. Yeah. He never shook your hand, right? Never shook my hand. I've opened for him, too. He's had me open for him in AC. I bombed, too. It was not a fun crowd to perform in front of. AC's a lot of trash there, but he's a good guy, Howie. He's a good guy. So I would assume that doing stand-up comedy for him and Howard Stern would be... You'd be thinking in the back of your head, like, oh, fuck, this is Howard Stern. Yeah, super cool. Howard Stern was one of the judges on AGT when I was there, and...

And Howie being there. And you're seeing them because you grew up listening to them and seeing them on TV. And obviously they're both very famous. But that is definitely in the back of my mind. But even more so, these shows were live. They were live. So...

And I'm at Radio City. So you have a lot going on where you kind of don't even care that it's Howie Mandel and Howard Stern. Yeah. Backstage, it must have been quite a scene, though. When I think of America's Got Talent and the cast that are on there, you've got a guy with seven dogs. You've got acrobats, dancers, dancers.

Oh, it's terrible. It's, uh, it was awful. That whole, the whole scene back there, it's, it's very hectic. You're waiting to go on. And then you only have a couple minutes to perform on the show. And meanwhile, the person before you, uh, my shows, they would, they would have a singer and they wouldn't even be singing, uh, an original song. None on my show. Sometimes they do sing original songs and that's cool. But when they're not singing an original song and then they're getting a standing ovation to me, it's,

it's karaoke. Yeah. I'm telling her I'm doing my joke. Right. And I wanted to say that to the judges, but then you seem like you're a dick. Yeah, but it's true. And also going out there, you're sometimes the act before you, they stink and then it's a cold audience. And now you've got two minutes, like just jump right into your standup routine. Completely. There's no buildup whatsoever for it. You've just got to be like, okay, I got to be funny within the first like five seconds of being on stage. For sure. And comedy works better when there's,

comedy a little bit before you. Right. An audience just needs to start hearing jokes and just getting warmed up. So the whole setting is tough, but...

Whatever the lineup that they had me in, it definitely worked to my advantage somehow. Was there any reservation of doing America's Got Talent that it was like not a comics comic move? Like you're kind of doing this thing where people are going to look at you and be like, it's kind of cheap. For sure. Really? Yeah. In the back of your mind, you just don't want to... It's kind of an icky feel of you don't want to be associated with it. It's not as cool as a Conan or being in the light of just...

Kind of a cool vibe Right Which is a crazy thing To be like I'd rather grind it out In clubs Than have this Like be on Network television Right I guess an advantage Is not winning it Yeah true Because then you don't Have the label But you still have Oh I was on And you have cool clips I still feel like A lot of comics Or a lot of people From America's Got Talent Have From America's Got Talent After their name Who's the most famous America's Got Talent person Jeff Dunham I don't think he Was he The puppet guy Was he

who who's the most successful brought puppets back maybe gary veer yeah it might be you most successful america gary veeter and manny veeter my dad just it'd be funny if it was did they do like a puff piece on you or like a sob story yeah i oh i lied in my in my sob story i said that i had well there are two things i lied about one i said that i had a roommate at the time because i didn't have material yet about uh having a girlfriend we were about to get married so

I made up a whole story about having a roommate and that was my back story. And my roommate was played by a comedian, Greg Stone, and he was kind of just a piece of garbage and he would steal from me. So that was kind of my back story. But I was actually getting married at that time and I didn't want to share that with him because I didn't want them to ruin the wedding. So it was either them or my father that I was thinking was going to ruin my wedding. I don't recognize any of these names. Terry Fader?

He's an impressionist. A lot of these guys, if you win, you get a show in Vegas. I don't know if they, I'm pretty sure they still do that. But yeah, that name sounds familiar. Yeah, it'd be funny if it was just like, if I was scrolling. Like Copperfield. Kawhi Leonard. Yeah, yeah. He just went and dribbled and was like, oh shit. The Olate Dogs won in season seven. I remember them, yeah.

Yeah, a bunch of little small white dogs that did all these tricks and jumped through hoops. Matt Franco. I don't know. I don't recognize any of these. I was on season 10. Paul Zerdin. Yeah. So you lost to a puppeteer. Yeah, puppeteer. That's brutal, dude. Yeah. It was tough. It was really tough. That's the most tragic thing that's ever happened in your life. Yeah, I know.

You try, you do, and you try so hard to be funny and this is a set I'm going to be doing and you run it even though it's two, three minutes that you're going to be on stage and then yeah, you lose to a guy who's a ventriloquist. What's also tough about America's Got Talent as a comedian is they've got, don't they have the like buzzers, the X's if they don't like you? Yeah. So you can like tell one joke and then you just hear buzzers and then you're like,

And then you have to keep going until they all X you out, right? Oh, completely. And Heidi Klum did not like me whatsoever. Oh, shit. And she was still pretty attractive back then. Yeah. And also, I thought I loved her, too, growing up. So then hearing that is part of you as a kid when you're talking to one of these people that you knew back then in your mind. And I remember her saying that she didn't like my comedy.

It hurt. And then I'm like, screw her. She doesn't even know the language. Yeah. Good point. Right. You got this. Wasn't Red Panda on America's Got Talent? I don't think so. Shin Lim was the big winner. I know he's got like a whole act in Vegas. I feel like that's where she got discovered. Yeah. Yeah. Season eight, America's Got Talent. Was Red Panda? Red Panda. That's where she got discovered from. Yeah. She's the most successful. She's the most talented person. Yeah. All right. I have a couple last questions. Appreciate you coming by.

Everyone go listen to Number One Dad. It's an incredible podcast. Last couple questions. Roback question, R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com, promo code TAKE. 20% off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, roback.com, promo code TAKE.

Do you think there's going to be a movie or a show out of this? Right now, working on writing up a TV show. Yeah. Do you need any cameos? Oh, absolutely. Podcasting? I think I could see you guys in it. We strike out on every cameo. No, but if it was up to me, I want to throw in as many of my friends as possible. I think it's super cool. Are you going to play your dad? That'd be cool.

I mean, maybe. I mean, they might need a bigger name or something, but I would be totally down, and I think I could do it. Yeah. Sure. And I think that it would be cool because it could be definitely a nostalgia piece. So back in the 90s, maybe mix in present day, especially me being a father now and stuff like that. I think it would be really cool. But whether it's a TV show or movie, I think it has legs for either or. What about – so –

I know probably the answer to this, but has there ever been a small part of you that's like, let's go to a game and pretend that we're someone else? Yeah, absolutely. Really? Yeah, you wouldn't want to do it, especially when I had no money. It's all I was thinking. I was like, I could go to these games and I could probably get in and figure out a way. Yeah. And I do know how, but it would make me look so bad. I can't say it. Yeah. Think of the worst thing.

And that's how I'm getting it. One time I tried to sneak into RFK Stadium. It was the Nationals' first year, and it was the 4th of July. I was drunk. I was shirtless.

And I went up to the media entrance and I told them, I was like, yeah, you have my name on the list. And they're like, no, we don't. What's your name? I told them I was Michael Wilbon. And they said, no, you're not Michael Wilbon. He's black. And I was like, touche. That was my biggest experience. But Hank, our producer, he used to sneak into the Boston Garden almost every night. With butter knife. With a butter knife. There was one door that had a latch on it.

that you could just go up to and wiggle, get in the garden. And he like early Barstool days when the Blackhawks played the Bruins at Stanley Cup and Dave and I went to a bunch of the games and we're looking for tickets for one of the games. Hank was like, we could just butter knife in. And we're like, dude, we can't like, do you imagine the look of us like trying to break into the Stanley Cup? Right, right. Like he just didn't even think about it. He's like, it'd be no problem. We'll just butter knife in. I know the door.

But yeah, he used to do that all the time. One thing I do agree with your dad on, it's fun to sneak in places. Oh, yeah. That's very, very true. Absolutely. You have a rush. There's something about it. There's something about not paying for something and then getting away with it. Yeah. You got to see something that was amazing. Seeing Game 7 of the Stanley Cup. I was at Jordan. The time I met Jordan was at his double nickel game. That's crazy. So it just winds up being this historic event that I was able to go to.

completely for free. And you got to interview Jordan one-on-one after? I did. He was in a private locker room. It was him, Phil Jackson, and a few other assistant coaches. And then I just went in there. I only asked him what his favorite food was. I was so freaking nervous that it was Jordan. And I mean, I could have believed that

We were able to do that. Yeah. And that game, the actual real sports illustrated for kids was there. And this is the only time they ever, they were ever at a game and they weren't, it wasn't a kid's reporter. It was a two adults. They didn't use kids back then. And wait, what? Yeah. They didn't use kids.

So that was another part. What the fuck? It was four kids, not by kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah. But eventually they wound up using kid reporters. Maybe they got it from my dad. Yeah. But at the game, we found out that they were there and my dad went up to them and asked them for their business cards. I don't think he led on that we were,

saying that we were Sports Illustrated for kids, but he said whatever to them, got their business cards, and when it came time at the end of the game to go in, security let us in, didn't let them in. I go and meet Michael Jordan. We're coming out, and then they were still trying to get in. That's crazy. Wow.

Yeah. And not only this, I found this out because we interviewed and we had to cut it for the podcast, but I was the last person to interview Michael Jordan for Sports Illustrated for kids because he didn't take any interviews with Sports Illustrated. They had an article called Bag It Michael, titled Bag It Michael. And from then on, he said, I'm never interviewing with Sports Illustrated again. So you were the only one. Yeah. He let me slide because mine was in 95 and that article came out in like early 95 or 94. And you weren't even Sports Illustrated.

Yeah. You need to get in touch with MJ. I know. Listen, your boycott actually stands. Yeah. I didn't actually work for sports. Right. Right. Yeah. It still works. Which was his answer though. What's his favorite steak? Yeah. Good choice. Good answer. Good answer. That's a good steak's good. Yeah. All right. Well, Gary, thank you, man. Anytime you're in Chicago, you got to come by. Definitely. We appreciate it. And everyone, please go listen to number one. Daddy, I can't recommend it enough.

It's like a very nice, refreshing change of pace of like it's in the line of a true crime podcast, but you don't have to listen to someone getting murdered. Yeah, yeah. That's the best. It might be your elevator pitch. Maybe my dad did murder somebody and I don't know about it, but it's not in the podcast. I feel like he didn't have that in him. He just gets off on lies. I think he's the type of person that he'd be adjacent to. Yeah. He would never have blood on his hands. Right, right, right.

Well, thanks so much, man. And best of luck with everything going on with this podcast and the show. Thank you both.

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Head on over to Body Armor Store on Amazon. Use code 15BARSTOOLBA. That's 1-5-BARSTOOL-B-A, as in Bravo Alpha, for 15% off your order today. Okay, let's wrap up Fire Fest of the Week. Hank? I have bicep tendonitis in my right arm from hitting dingers. Wait. Sorry to hear that. Hold on. Is that bad for golf? It's terrible for golf. Why?

because I can't really lift my... It hurts to lift my right arm, so the backswing, there's a lot of pain. A lot of pain. Yeah, I saw you try to eat an ice cream cone today, and when you couldn't eat an ice cream cone, I knew it was significant. Yeah, I mean, it's not like debilitating pain and...

I talked to a esteemed doctor, a.k.a. a chiropractor at the office yesterday, and he gave me some exercises to work on. It feels better today than yesterday. But I keep doing things and reaching for things and going to lift things up and just being like, ah, ah. So yeah, I was trying to eat ice cream and almost. Here's a good exercise thing. Put your elbow kind of down at your side. Bend your arm at 90 degrees. Lower it a little bit. Lower your elbow. Yeah, drop your whole arm a little bit. Wing it down a little bit. No, no, like this.

Hank look at my arm like that bring it down bring down over to you bend it over to your now start moving your wrist back and forth you don't always yeah like that there you go that's good he's trying to get you to jerk off yeah yeah just do that a lot you'll be fine

I'm just searched it. That's that's like golfer's elbow. Is it the same thing as golfer's elbow? I don't know. Is that what it says? Yeah. Yeah. That's bad. So, Hank, when I fucked my elbow up a couple of years ago, you remember that I had like the UCL when my fingers went numb from swinging a golf club. I actually got injected. Billy football injected those research chemicals into my arm.

And they worked. Now, the downside to this is you have to let Billy Football inject you with research chemicals. But it worked. So the question is, how bad do you want to golf? We'll see. I'm just going to ride it out and just hope I wake up tomorrow and I'm fine. Oh, that's a good wait-and-see approach. Yeah. Okay. I don't hate that. Ice heat, ice heat. Is that medically advised? Ice heat. Have you done any of that? Yeah. What's the heat? Like a heating, like I have like a heating pad for my...

Blew my back out a few years ago. Yeah. I'm pretty sure you just have to go ice or you just have to go heat. I don't know what ice, heat, ice, heat does. Well, ice is right after you injure it. Yeah. First, like 48 hours heat. It can be used when you're like, if he's like actually going to go out and play, it can help warm up the muscles. I don't know if sitting on your couch, a heat does much, but I'm not a doctor. Well, good luck, Hank. Thank you. Ice is a great choice for the first 72 hours. Like I said, so maybe I am a doctor.

Heat, on the other hand, helps soothe stiff joints. So I actually nailed that. Heat is what you do when you want to go play and you want it to feel warm and good. Wow. Yeah, I just don't know if you should do both at the same time. No, no, no. Oh, that's hot ice. Well, hot. You said ice, heat, ice, heat. Like ice it and then...

Heating pad. Yeah. Okay. Well, good luck. Thanks. I really want you to be happy because I can't take this, Hank, for the rest of summer. Yeah. I think we said it would be a shame if he got hurt and couldn't golf. Now that we're here. It is a shame. It fucking sucks because I need. It's like having a dog on a rainy day, a hyper-aggressive dog. Like Leroy.

Yeah. You're like Blake. No, no, no. You're a hyperactive dog. Sorry, sorry, sorry. No, Blake is like that. And he had two elbow injuries. Yeah, but you're- And he couldn't go out and play. And yeah, he was a pain in the ass. Yeah, and you're stuck inside and you're like, man, I wish I could just get my dog to run around. Yeah. He would be a lot happier and sleep.

We need you to play some golf so you'd be a lot happier in sleep. I actually have some of his old anxiety medication that I use to keep him calm. Maybe Hank could use some of that. Put a cone on you? You'll have to talk to a dog to make sure that it's okay to take. So we'll have Pug see if you can take that medicine. Yeah, I think it should be fine. Yeah. Okay. My Fire Fest of the Week is I've gone down a rabbit hole and I've got a new hobby.

Because I've gone down a rabbit hole, too, and I think that the driver actually was the one who shot JFK. But go ahead. Oh, like way back in the day. Yeah. Well, you can bet your ass that it wasn't the story we're being told. Yeah. Because the Secret Service agent said he found that bullet. That bullet. That was.

Dude, I watched one video and it looked like the driver turned around. Either way, I'm down other rabbit holes. Go ahead. Back into the left. Yeah. So my rabbit hole is just about growing weed. Yeah. So I've been talking to a lot of people about it. I think I'm going to start growing weed on my rooftop, which is legal. It's totally legal for personal use. But they said I got to go to a store and ask for a clone.

And then when you get the clone, then you can grow it. And then the trick is to harvest it before it gets too mature. That way I can get my mids. Nice. My perfectly average weed. Nice. And then if it does well, maybe I'll experiment with it. It does well, then maybe we get into the weed business and we sell PMTHC. I like it. What do you guys think about that? I like it. I've gone down this rabbit hole before. The key is when it's...

you're ready to pluck it, it's drying it out. So you gotta wait. You gotta dry it properly or else you're just gonna spend months growing weed and then you go to smoking and it's just wet as hell and

Yeah. So I've heard. So I need to talk to somebody that has experience in this. My aunt actually grew weed when it became legal in Virginia. She had her own plants and then she gave me some of it like in bags and it was like the most 1960s shake ever with like seeds and stuff. I don't want that. I want like just decent weed. Also, I've heard if your friend that you're growing it with wants to like pluck it soon because they really just want to smoke it but it's like you're supposed to wait an extra couple weeks and you get a lot more. Yeah. Just wait.

Okay, if my friend tells me that. What would you say to people who say that you're a drug guy? I'm not a drug guy. Okay. Marijuana's not a drug. Growing weed. It's an herb. It comes from the earth. Watch this video. Watch this video. Is this Ravel? No, this is... I don't want to watch this. No, it's fine. This is Ravel. No, I know. No, it's not. It's not 8K. Look, the driver. The driver turns around. Bang. Oh! Yeah! I told you, I've been down some rabbit holes. I...

I unfortunately have gotten into a very bad. I mean, this has to be an edited video. That video of the guy is holding a gun and smashing him in the head. There's no way that that is the video. That is the most edited video of all time. He turns around with a gun in his hand. My algorithm is so toxic right now. There's no way. Yeah. I clicked on like three things a week ago, and it's gotten crazy. The internet that I've gotten into is crazy. So, yeah, I saw this.

And, yeah, now I think the driver's here. I'm not – my mind's still open about this. Yeah, okay. I guess JFK's is. That's fine. Just click. Is that too soon? No. You're good. Just click more of those videos and you'll see it.

Yeah, it probably is edited. You're right, Hank. Yeah, it's crazy. Have you guys seen The Octopus Murders on Netflix? No. So it's a crazy, crazy documentary series. One part of it is this dude who claims to be CIA brings somebody in, shows them the video, and then edits something into it and tells them, like, this is the video that you haven't seen your entire life. And then that person spends the rest of their life not knowing what video is real. Oh, shit. And drives them nuts. Now I don't know what's real. Yeah, that's...

It's all simulation. Yeah. Okay. My hiccup is hiccup. My fire fest on Tuesday night, we hit dingers. It was a lot of fun with the boys, but I think I'm officially officially washed because it was one of those things. I had so much fun being out with the guys. I'm not claiming I was ever a great athlete, but

I do think a younger self, I could have probably hit more dingers. And it was halfway through the whole competition. And I looked at the leaderboard and it was like me, Titus, Chief, Brandon. And I did the math and it was like every guy who's 37 plus. And Max obviously played college ball like Max was a fucking beast. So I would never thought that I was going to hit as many dingers as Max. But it just dawned on me that

It might be time. I might be washed. Hank did. What? Hank thought he was going to hit as many as me. I don't understand. I don't understand. Max, why are you going after Hank right now? No, no, no. This is crazy. This is good. I am a competitive person. We are a team. Max is by far and away the best hitter.

So I'm striving for something. Like, you want to be the best, and in order to be the best, you have to beat the best. Now, did I think I had any chance of beating Max? No. If we did that 100 times, would I beat him once? Maybe. But, like, I think you thought you were going to beat him at one point. I didn't think I wanted to beat him. Yeah.

But I never thought I was going to beat him. But I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to beat the person who's the best. Here's a question. Right? I'm not going to lie. It seems crazy. When Max was up at the plate, were you rooting for him to hit home runs? Yes, because I wanted to leave. Or were you happy when he didn't hit?

I wanted him to hit home runs. Was there any point where you were rooting for him to not hit home runs? No. If it had gotten closer, maybe. So at the beginning when it was close? No, because it took me a couple rounds to get hot. There was a point where I was maybe six or seven behind, but my arm was fucked. Yeah. Hank was awesome. Yeah.

Yeah, no, but I will say, like, when you came up to me and were like, how many did you hit last round? And then someone was like, are you trying to beat him? And you're like, it's keeping me in it. It's keeping me in it. And then that kept that, like, I was kind of, like, cruising, and then you said that. I was like, all right, now I just have to hit a home run on it. So that was good. Thank you. You did. Iron sharpens iron. Yes. But then people were like, I can't believe you wanted to beat Max. Like, yes. There's nothing against Max. It wouldn't have mattered who, you know, the best person was. Like,

Why do something if you don't want to try and win it? Okay. No, yeah. And it kept me more involved too. I can see both sides. Many fine people on both sides. Yeah.

It was fun. It was a lot of fun. So much fun. I'm washed. It was the first time. I mean, there's been other times, but it was the first real time where I was like, if I were 10 years younger, I feel like I would be hitting more home runs. And I was maxing out everything I had, and it wasn't that good. Well, you didn't have to swing that hard, right? Because it was only 215 feet. Right. You just make decent contact. No, I wasn't maxing out my swings. I'm saying I was maxing out the fact that I was tired after four swings. I think you hit the third furthest ball.

But still, I was just not... That actually proves my point even more, that I feel like it was there at some point and it's just completely gone now. So that hurts. That hurts. Shout out to Evo. He was a fucking beast, too. Yeah, Evo was a monster. And that's the thing. I'm not deluding myself to think if I were 25 years old,

I hit the fifth. Fifth. That's close enough. Yeah. If I were 25 years old, Max would still kick my ass. Ebo would still kick my ass. I just think I would personally have performed better. That school is hilarious. They put my fucking film school. Yeah, they put your film school. Also, Jersey Jerry's just barstool. Yeah. So, yeah, it was a lot of fun. Thank you for everyone who watched. Just hitting dingers. We got to do it again. It was just... We should just do it and not even...

Count it I'm down to do it just casually Yeah, it was so much fun Taking BP rocks Yeah, it was so much fun Okay, Matthew, did you get a Fyre Fest? Yeah Okay City living Very new for me Okay Grew up, my house is next to a farm You're a country mouse Yeah, that's all I know is fresh air and nothing else

So, yeah, just trying to get here. A 45-minute walk doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me. But when I said that yesterday, Jerry had a pissy fit when he was like, well, 45 minutes, that's a long walk. So, stuff like that. There's a bus. There's a train.

There's an Uber. Yeah. Plans, trains, and automobiles. Yeah. It's anxiety-filled. Just trying to pick which one is best for me at that particular time of day. So what's your commute like so far? Can you ride a bike? I mean, I'm fucking fat.

Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I also really like the way you're wearing your headphones. No one has worn their headphones like that at all. I'm sorry, Matthew. My dad thought about bringing an electric bike. Yeah. But I'm like, dude, I live on the fourth floor. So I'm just going to bring an electric bike up four floors every night. You're not going to be fat after that. Yeah. Yeah.

But yeah, just trying to get around and understand, you know, get a feel for my, the streets and the environment. Having roommates is a new thing that's not family. So that's, you know, I feel like I can't be as comfortable with them. Are they random roommates? Just random guys. Yeah. Yeah, they're dudes. They're normal, like 30-year-old guys, you know, normal jobs and stuff, nine to fives. So kind of can go off of that. But yeah. What do you think? Do you think they like your vibe so far? Do they like Barstool? Dude, I don't know anything about these.

people you don't see him i saw the one guy he leaves today and the other guy i haven't seen and he just we're just different times different time you know i'll hear him i got home yesterday at midnight i heard somebody come home at two in the morning oh but i think it was the guy leaving today so then i heard another guy there today at like 6 a.m and then he left but i heard somebody else in there so i don't know who there could be 13 people in that background i don't know

But I know there was one person in that front bedroom and that's me. Are you sharing a bathroom? Yeah. Yeah. One shared bathroom. Again, haven't even run into them. So it's been perfect timing every time.

All right. That's good fire fest. Wait, did you try to walk? Did you try to do the 45 minutes? No, I do plan on that. That's a weekend trip. I'm thinking I'm just going to make sure to do it on a weekend day. Make sure I kind of get the route, kind of get a feel for it. You're going to take a dry run on a weekend. Yeah, just take two hours back and forth. Well, Matthew, when you're here late, I'll take your Ubers, okay? So when you're here past dinner time-

We'll talk and I'll make sure that you can take an Uber home. Okay, that sounds good. Thank you very much. You don't need to take a bus at midnight. Yeah, well, yeah. Is that what you did last night? No, memes drove me home last night. Oh, shut up memes. Yeah, that was fun. What was that conversation like? I mean... Was there one? Yeah, there was. We had about 40 to 70 words said. Okay. Yeah, it was nice. It was a quick drive. We didn't have time to get into it. Yeah. But yeah, great guy. What did memes say? What did he lead off with?

Just asking the simple questions. How was the day? Everything good? Don't worry too much. Everything's going to be all right. I'm a little stressed out. It's a lot. So, yeah, everyone's been awesome. Okay. Yeah. If you start to post online and you get a lot of traction and maybe you're really good with social media, just don't take any more rides from memes. He also has experience coding.

because he will take you out. You're a coach? Yeah. I forgot about this. Three years. For what? Defensive coordinator. Middle school. Okay. Yeah, we went, what was our fourth? I think we got like eight wins, three seasons. Total? Yeah. And you came at me for my coaching? I got 12-year-olds on my hand. You got grown men. You know? Yeah.

I got kids trying to live dreams. So what was the most complex defense you were running? I mean, very similar to Coach Doug's, four plays. Okay, all right. We had an Alabama and a Michigan, and that was just blitz up the middle or blitz on the outside. Okay. So, you know, just switch it up every now and again. And middle meant Michigan. So, you know, middle, you know, just keep it simple for these kids. Yeah. One kid I coached, name was Marquise Johnson.

He's a third string receiver right now at the University of Missouri. Whoa. Yeah, literally knew him when he couldn't even tackle. And now he's, you know, catching balls down the field. Do you think he would recognize you? Yeah, I mean, I haven't changed much. Yeah? I only lost six pounds since. Six pounds, that's big. I didn't gain a single one. All right. All right. Numbers. Matthew, pick first. Go ahead. 42. 20. 56. 8.

He's going to get it. 40. That was so funny. What was your number? 99 pug. 56, Matthew? No, 42. 42. 47. Oh, my God. I thought that was it. That was incredible. Unbelievable. Love you guys.

to see

Take on me.

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