Coach Jim Calhoun, Grit Week 2021 & Mt Rushmore Of Songs To Listen To While Driving

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, Grit Week 2021 is finally here. We're hitting the road.
We have an incredible interview with Jim Calhoun to start the week off. We actually went up to Connecticut to interview him on Thursday.
We're going to be on the road. We're going to be traveling around old school style in the grittiest parts of the country.
Kind of a throwback to our first grit week, second grit week as well. We also have preseason football, who's back of the week, monday reading from billy and the mount rushmore of road trip songs is that correct yes road trip songs ever had one of those days when it's just too cold to keep working nah neither has ariot ariot work jackets and boots are packed with all the cold stopping waterproof protection you need to get the job done under any conditions so you can take any job out there and always deliver.
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for email and weather whatever in Ariat work gear. Okay, let's go.
You can't blame me. I'll understand.
We're going to rock on two. Electric Avenue.
And then we'll take it higher. We're going to rock on two.
Electric Avenue. And then we'll take it higher.
Girl, you're so hot like a soldier. And I can't afford acting on TV.
You know, you woman said you lost. Even in my eye, I'm a warrior.
I can't afford acting on TV you know you when I said you lost even in my automobiles arena and I can't afford fit fit in the nickname with the unblood on the quick run on to electric avenue and that will take it higher higher higher higher we gotta run on to electric avenue's part of my take, presented by Barsical Sports Welcome to part of my take, presented by Chords Light It's the official beer of summer It's also the official beer of Grit Week 2021 Today is Monday, August 16th And welcome to Grit Week Did we do the special Grit Week music? Yeah, we did Yes, the special Electric Avenue Yeah Who's that? Is that Power Man 5000? A little PM5K? Who knows? Who cares? It's fucking Grit Week. Did we do the special Grit Week music? Yeah, we did.
Yes, the special Electric Avenue? Yeah. Who's that? Is that Power Man 5000?

A little PM5K? Who knows?

Who cares? It's fucking Grit Week. And guess what?

Football is back. Football is all the way back.

It's sponsored by Coors Light. I don't know if you've

seen these new cans. I have.

They're incredible. We finally made it in life

where our faces are on beer cans.

On a can. My face has been inside

beer for a long time.

It's beautiful. Now it's finally on it.
It's beautiful. And it's Grit Week week and it's your real face pift and it's my real face how about that getting out of the avi life you look good you look skinny i do yeah well they had the same photographer take this picture as one that came out just i look skinny too i don't know why but really yeah they really gave us jawlines grit week is here we're in the studio right now we're literally hopping on the bus as the minute we finishing the show.
We have Jim Calhoun, which some people are saying is a top 10 interview. That's pretty much just me and Liam, but I think you would agree too.
He was awesome. Incredible.
Incredible interview. I could have talked to him for three hours.
It's rare that we have those interviews where it's like, I don't want to leave. I just want to hang out with you.
He was definitely one of those guys. So we have that.
We're going to be on the road. We're going to be out.
We're going to D.C. We're going to Pittsburgh.
We're going to Cleveland. We're going to Buffalo.
If you see the van, if you see the RV on the way, give us a honk. It's a silver bullet.
It is literally a silver bullet. It's wrapped in Coors Light.
We look awesome on it. But, yes, preseason football is here.
Are we overreacting? Oh, yeah, yeah. For sure.
But I think you only have to react in the preseason. Everything is overreaction.
I do have my list of rookie rankings. Well, if Justin Fields isn't number one, then I don't know what you're doing.
Okay, well, no. He's 1A.
He's tied for 1A. Number one is the guy that thought that he actually became Aaron Donald while wearing an Aaron Donald jersey.
Yes, with the woman who threw a full drink at him with his back turned, and then he decided to take on the entire row in front of him. That guy had the off-white Aaron Donald jersey, probably the only person that owns that ugly ass.
That's the one that has the 17 different fonts on it. So he showed up wearing the Aaron Donald jersey, and he became Aaron Donald.
He was like, oh, you're going to triple-team me? That's fine. I'll take you guys all on.
The lady, the ultimate agent of chaos, who just lobs a Diet Coke over the top, hits the guy, and then he just goes fucking berserk. Crazy.
That guy, and yeah, he kind of did get his ass kicked. He did.
But in a hilarious way. They were punching his butt.
It was body shots. They were literally kicking his ass.
Some men pay good money to go to Thailand and have that same procedure done on them.

Yes. So

the Chargers played the Rams.

These jerseys make no sense. I saw

a picture afterwards of like Northwestern

players. I think it was actually Coach Fitz

tweeted out like Northwestern

NFL players and I couldn't figure out

who was on the Chargers and who was on the Rams because they're

wearing the same jersey. Yeah, it was ridiculous.

But yeah, as far as the actual

rookie rankings go, I think it's a tie

between Trey Lance, Justin Fields,

Mack Jones, and

Kellen Mond. Well, if we're going

just based on yardage

and having to throw a touchdown

pass, then Justin Fields is number

one. And I'm not going to overreact.
And Big Cat,

he did run for a touchdown as well. He did, so

I'm not going to overreact. I'm going to just

be cool with it. Nice dab

sneeze there, Billy. But

Thank you. number one and I'm not going to overreact and big guy he did run for a touchdown so I'm not going to overreact I'm going to just I'm going to be cool with it nice dab sneeze there Billy uh but it was fun it made me feel alive I have one problem with the preseason though I think that the preseason should should mimic the regular season and that we should have a full Sunday of football with a red zone to get us ready.
Because the random start times and like, oh, it's Sunday. It's Sunday.
That's normal. Sunday at 1 is a game.
But there was a Thursday night game. There was a Friday night game.
There was a game on Saturday at 1. There was a game at 4.
Let me actually practice what it feels like to get up on a Sunday and get my body ready and watch every team play.

It's preseason for us fans as well.

But it just comes at all times. I do need to get in the rhythm.

I need to get in the rhythm.

They need to have all the games on, at least in an easy way for me to watch.

I'm sick of having to look up every single time, like,

how do I watch this game?

What illegal site can I stream this game off of?

It's tough.

It's tough for us on fans.

But you know what?

This is our version of two-a-days in the offseason.

This is how we get ready during training camp.

I'll see you next time. game.
What illegal site can I stream this game off of? It's tough. It's tough for us on fans, but you know what? This is our version of two-a-days in the offseason.
This is how we get ready during training camp. Tim Tebow got a target.
That was it? Well, that wasn't it. He also had a devastating crackback.
Tim Tebow, you know what? People had a great time making fun of Tim Tebow because, yeah, maybe he missed his block and maybe he hit his own teammate harder than he blocked the real guy, but he did his job. He set the edge.
That's a plus play, as Danny Woodhead said. So I don't know.
I'd like to see Trevor Lawrence maybe target Tim a couple times. He did once.
Yeah. So that counts.
Tavon Austin caught the pass. Stole it.
Yes. Stole it from him.
Tim Tebow should get a half a reception for that. There was a lot of overreacting, myself included.
But there's a lot of talk, too, that maybe this is the best quarterback class of all time. That was also thrown out there.
It's a big time. The league.
The future is bright for the NFL right now. Good hands.
They're in good hands. And throw in Jordan Love, too, who looked okay, even though he had to have an MRI afterwards, which came back clean.
But why are you getting an MRI? Yeah, there's nothing to be worried about. He's just getting an MRI.
Interesting. The only other note I had from preseason football is the taunting rule fucking sucks.
It's going to be brutal, and it's going to be similar. What was the rule that they implemented a few years ago that we basically complained out of the league? It was the pass interference reviewable penalty.
It was one, right? No, but that one we unfortunately had to deal with for a full year. There was something that they did.
There was targeting on the offense, like lowering the crown of your head. People were like, you're going to call that on every single run.
There was some rule that I remember having to deal with it in the preseason in the first few weeks, and then we just complained it away. We need to do that with the taunting rule.
It is the dumbest rule ever. The Colts game was when a running back, I can't remember who it was, LeMay maybe, he ran for a nice first down, got up, flexed, 15-yard penalty.
And if you saw the way that the ref threw the flag on that, I actually have a problem with the ref. If you're going to expect these guys to not taunt after a play, as an official, you have to hold yourself to the same standard.
The ref did one of those things where he threw the flag as high as he could in the air. Yes.
Could have landed on anybody. It was very dangerous.
It was like playing lawn darts with the thing. And if you're a ref and you're calling a taunting penalty, you need to not taunt while you're calling that penalty.
Correct. And if you do taunt, you should get a penalty.
Yes. And you should have to go take it to the sidelines.
The players should get flags. Yeah, the players should get a flag.
Every player should have one flag. No, give it to the coaches.
Yeah, no, but they can't. You think that Belichick will be able to tell the difference between the red and the yellow flag? He's just grabbing anything out of his...
That's true. He's just grabbing anything out of his sock in disgust.
All right, then it should be the coach's son. Perfect.
The coach's son, Steve Belichick, should have the flag. Yeah flag.
Just run around with the flag, be able to flag the officials. Deuce Gruden should have the flag.
It was great though. Preseason football you can't tell anything but you also, like I said last week, you can just look at it however you want.
I watched the whole Bears game and I watched Justin Fields be electric and everyone's like, well dude, it's against the second team defense. I don't give a fuck.
And then I watched Trey Lance and I was like, well, he kind of sucks. Everyone's overreacting because he had an 80 yard pass.
Yeah, but that was the best. Yeah.
That's just how you watch preseason. I'm digesting the preseason by only watching the highlights that the NFL main account tweets out.
If I'm not specifically watching that game, I will only know what you did in that game by your most spectacular highlight. So if we're going off that, I would say Trey Lance, number one.
Justin Fields, number two. Trevor Lawrence had that one pass.
Yes, the 35-yard pass. The entire stands stood up and their mouths were wide open like they had never seen a quarterback before.
It is Jacksonville. It's been a couple years since Blake was in town.
But they flipped out, so I'm going to put that number three. And then Sam Ellinger had a really good match.
Right, Billy? Billy is amazing. Amazing debut.
And his hair looks awesome. He's got the spiky, kind of punky quarterback look going.
I'm just going to put this one in the tickler. I think, I'm going to zig well everybody zags, I think Mack Jones might be the rookie of the year.
Oh, okay. He looked good, too.
He looked good. He wasn't spectacular.
No. But Belichick doesn't need him to be spectacular.
Yeah. Just manage the game.
If Mac Jones goes, oh, fuck, I'm going to have to do math. If Mac Jones goes.
Probably he's not going to start, right? Maybe he will. I don't know.
Probably not. Cam Newton, I noticed that his pass didn't look like he had completely forgotten how to throw football.
Yeah. So he's maybe a little bit better than he was last year.
But let's just say Mac Jones gets in after week four. If he gets in week four, then how many games? 13 games? Yeah.
If he goes nine and four, I think he gets rookie of the year. But I think if Trevor Lawrence throws more than 20 touchdown passes, he gets rookie of the year.
You know what I mean? Especially because the Jaguars, he's not expected to win. He just has to worry about stats.
Drew Locke is kind of in a rookie season again. I noticed that.
We're just treating every year. Joe Love in another rookie season? Every year it's like, Drew Locke, he's a young kid.
He's still learning how to play this game. He did throw that one bomb, which looked good.
No, he looked pretty good for a rookie, for sure. Yes, for a rookie, he looked good.
Yeah, I'm still going to go with Mac Jones as my rookie of the year. I got something.
The Ravens have won 18 straight preseason games. I saw that, yes.
It's crazy. It's nuts.
Harbaugh is not taking his foot off the gas. But Jameis Winston looked good.
Jameis Winston looked good. Start Jameis Winston.
I saw some bad news, though. There was one article that said that Taysom Hill is the assumed starter for the year.
That's bullshit. It is bullshit.
Hashtag start Jameis. It's bullshit.
Give me Jameis. Feed me Jameis.
How can you start Taysom Hill? Because then you can't use him for the gadget plays. Right.
You need to start Jameis just so that you can bring him. Even start Jameis.
Start Jameis and then take him out after the first series and have Taysom Hill. Just let Jameis start, though.
Jameis is kind of a gimmick quarterback. He is like a gadget himself.
Yeah. He's a walking gadget.
They're both changes of paces from each other. Right.
That's what I'm saying like go old school like college football let them let them split it up by quarters or drives why don't we have them both on the field at the same time that works too i'd be they did that last year with drew breeze and tasem yeah yeah you can absolutely do that um all right anything else i mean it's fun to see football it does feel a little weird when you invest like a few hours you're like, and that didn't matter yeah like that like like even even little things where they're you know downing the ball with with way too much time left you know not even trying to win games like weird shit like that you're like oh yeah this game doesn't matter it is kind of a throwback if you're having to watch the game on like normal channels by normal channels i mean not the red zone yeah so if they're airing like a game on nfl network and then a game on cbs having to time the uh return from commercial bake break thing yeah where you get back to the game right before the snap happens i'm really good at that i haven't gotten to flex that muscle in a long time because i'm a red zone guy for the most part and when we're in the office we've got all the tv set up but it's good to just like smash that last channel button i don't get enough practice with that seriously though dude at least the third week of preseason should be all sunday games with a sunday night game and let us practice it was very cool to see ryan fitzpatrick in a washington football team yeah i didn't know how he was going to look he's worn almost every other uniform in the nfl he looks awesome in the burgundy he looks good in anything yeah you could put him in any uniform and he'd look like normal. Alright, other big news coming from the weekend.
Our lacrosse team, the Waterdogs are number one seed. And that's talking lacrosse.
Job done. Yeah, I mean, we...
They sucked. They were terrible.
We negged them into being good. We told them to shoot more.
They now lead the league in shooting. I didn't even watch because I knew they were going to win that's how that's how good hands they're in now i don't even watch i well also because football's back so it's like even pre-season football's better than lacrosse but i still knew that they were going to win real sports are happening so you don't need to watch we can follow along online and figure out what's going to happen but it is us against the world like nobody believed in the water dogs.
No one did. The mainstream media, all these talking heads that have podcasts out there, just hated the water dogs.
And you know what? The boys persevered. They fought through the hate.
You know what? A hungry dog is a dangerous dog. That's true.
Don't feed your dogs in the morning. Two wins away.
Don't feed them all at night. Don't feed them semifinals.
Bye to the semifinals? We're in the semis? Yeah, two wins away from winning the whole thing. So Rob them again, though, and I don't...
Listen, everyone should watch lacrosse because we do own the team, but pretty sure the playoffs are on NFL Sunday. No, so the semifinals are on Labor Day weekend.
Oh, okay, so we'll watch. All right.
The championship, so actually... Noon, week two, NFL Sunday.
If the Waterdogs want to be the best dogs possible, they would lose in the semifinals, so we don't have to watch them in the finals. I'm just saying it right now.
I wouldn't be... That would be...
I could spin that as, hey, that was a gross season. You can't win the whole show in your second year.
Worst case scenario is... It sounds like you don't want them to win no no no I don't I just said I do not I don't want to have to be burdened with them on an NFL Sunday worst case scenario is they win the semifinals they make it to the finals and then they embarrass us on an NFL Sunday and then throw us all the way off when we're having to like get focused and think about what we're going to bet on for the games.
We can't be dealing with the mental anguish of our water dogs shitting the bed. I'm no time expert, but doesn't football not start until 1? Football starts at 1? And what time's the game? The championship game's at noon Eastern.
So can they get the game in in 45 minutes? You can get a half time. Get a running clock.
If they could get the game in in 45 minutes, I'm in. I'm in.
I'm in for that game. Just hurry it up.
If they get to the championship, can Jake and I go? Yeah, sure. Yeah, whatever.
I don't care. It's NFL Sunday.
That would be the dumbest decision of your life. You can go, but you'll be fired just for making a terrible choice.
Yeah. BMT is our obligation.
I know, but we'd be back by. When? Yeah, Billy, you'll be back.
You'll be right on time. You can go.
You can have fun. You can go.
I will just judge you as a human being. I'll put it this way.
We'll have it on a... I was going to say a TV, but we're not.
We'll have it on a laptop if they get to the finals. I don't think that anybody should watch the finals unless Jake is announcing them.
Oh. I personally...
You want to play a little hardball with them? I might boycott the finals. I still wouldn't watch it because it's NFL Sunday.
I'll watch it. We'll put it on one of the televisions if Jake is announcing announcer.
I mean, it's either me or Siciliano. Oh, God.
Lacrosse or Siciliano. A rock in a hard place.
Yeah. Jesus Christ.
Devil's choice. I'll make it tough.
Death? Is death an option? If you want. Okay.
I did notice that our friend Randy Scott at ESPN had some bad words to say about us. Yeah.
Said that ownership was a suspect. Randy, listen, we're on good terms with you, Randy.
We like you, Randy, but we will turn on you so fucking fast. We'll put you in that Siciliano bucket.
You're going to get an opinion about you, which you don't want. Which is an opinion about you.
Right now, my opinion of Randy Scott is he's a nice guy. I like Randy.
Good guy. But I don't love you.
If I have to think about you Randy Scott, like for more than a minute it's gonna get bad. It's gonna turn bad on you.
Fast. Yeah, we're not suspect.
Suspect of being great owners. It's us against, you know what? It really is.
It's not even the team against it. It's me and you against the world at this point.
Absolutely. Hank is too.
Hank's an owner. We've got ESPN hating on us.
We've got our own Twitter account fucking being part of the lamestream media hating on us they're fake news are you not an owner Hank are you an O-word I still have to sign the thing you haven't signed the paperwork sign the papers sign the papers me and Big Cat we signed in blood yes blood in blood out of the water dogs order forever alright let's do who's back of the week and then we'll get to Jim Calhoun by the way uh yeah let's do who's back the week then we'll get to jim calhoun i was gonna say something but we'll save it for uh after the jim calhoun interview i used to think that sandwiches were just you know basic until i realized how easy it is to level them way up it's all about starting with the best ingredients lately i've been obsessed with this sandwich. Boar's Head Ever-Roast Chicken,

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Discover the craftsmanship behind every bite at your local Boar's Head deli counter. Who's back of the week? Henry.
How's your wiffle ball game? We lost in Sweet 16. God damn it.
Good run, though. But you've won it before.
We've won it before. It's an extremely hard tournament to win.
What was the youngest person you played against? Probably 18. Really? I thought you played against some 13-year-olds.
No, it's gotten more competitive over there. There's probably, I don't know, it's a 64-team tournament, so there's probably 10 teams of young people, some teams with all girls.
But no, I also was gone for most of the day. I came back for the playoffs.
Are there any brawls? One playoff game. There actually was a brawl.
There was an old guy. Hell yes.
Absolute asshole. He just throws too hard.
It's a charity tournament. Everyone's like, dude.
He's playing with his two sons. He's like, dude, what are you doing? We've had problems with him in the past.
That guy has. The whole big thing.
He lost the championship, lost the championship though do you know what though i respect that guy because he's got issues that he has unattended for many many years and he just takes them out in a charity wiffle ball tournament every year that guy and his family they're the o'doyle family yeah yeah pretty much but they but you know what i mean like he probably should have seen a therapist a while ago he has decided not to go to better help if you want to no just watch ted lasso yeah but your watch ted lasso uh or follow our friend bw carlin it's okay not be okay or you could just go to a charity wiffle ball game and fight with everyone and throw gas yeah just throw out or gas it's either or yeah it's either you don't have to say it's okay to not be okay because i think there's's just saying positive vibes only. Yeah, positive vibes only.
So if you say positive vibes only, then you don't even have to worry about not being okay. Yep.
Shout out to the Conner brothers, back-to-back champs. They were my neighbors growing up.
Dynasty? I'm not going to say that I influenced them, because I played with their cousins growing up, and they were too young to even play, and they just watched us. I'm not going to say I inspired their passion for the game, and I'm the reason they won back-to-back championships.
But I kind of am.

Dynasty?

I like that.

They've won two.

There's been a couple back-to-back champs. I don't think anyone's won three, so we'll see you next year.
You're like Jimi Hendrix to John Mayer. If it weren't for you, there would be no them.
Pretty much. It's beautiful.
But speaking of brawls, fights in the stands, we talked about it before, but the video is great. the lady it's one of those things where you see the video and then the the other video comes out of the lady just taking the coke and throwing it and just like literally just a match throwing it into a gasoline thing and just turns into a brawl the guy put up a good fight he had the upper ground and he was i don't know what you would call his punches well he did it was like it was like a windmill he punched four people with one punch did a full, like, how can you slap backhand across the entire row.

I also, and listen, there's going to be fights in NFL stadiums, but it felt a little wrong.

Like, that stadium's new.

It's like going to a new house and ruining it.

You know what I mean?

Wait a couple years.

Let it work itself in.

You know what I mean?

When you see a fight in the Oakland Coliseum, you're like, okay, this makes sense. In Philadelphia, but this one...
But it's like, who's who's... It's a new house.
Take your shoes off. Yeah, but whose house is it? Yeah, that's true.
They're trying to figure that out. So I actually think that...
But I think it might have been Rams fans on Rams fans. Fighting in public should be allowed as long as you all agree no face shots.
You should be allowed to just body everybody up all day long. It's called the we all have to go to work on Monday rule.
Exactly. Yeah.
Kidney shots, that's fine. Wedgies.
Break a couple ribs, go for it. Kick some shins.
Maybe one knee to the balls. That's okay.
In the late stages of the fight. Yep.
But that's pretty much it. All right.
Cool. Good who's back.
Awesome. PFT or who's back.
Appreciate it. My who's back the week is the taliban yeah taliban's back big time um fortunately they are so the united states were evacuating afghanistan the taliban is in the process of taking back over the country hank's shaking his head like no no no it's true is this hard factor it's true no i mean are you saying the taliban's not back did they ever leave? No, that's a good question.
Good point. Good point, Hank.
So probably, this is... Hank's actually a scholar here.
This is way too smart of a subject for us to really understand. The best way to describe it would be through a series of the office gifts.
So if you were to describe the Afghan war... We were Michael when the fire came.
Yeah, Michael when... Well, initially, yeah, we're Michael when the fire came at first and then uh we were kevin spilling the chili and then we were uh dwight and michael raising the roof after we won and then michael snip snap snip snap and then michael showing off his tiny little television the r kelly television and that's obama's drone strike program being like i got this and then uh at the end it did you think about this this weekend? No, I thought about it on the way into the office.
Got it, okay. And then at the end, it's the senile old CEO getting pushed out and that's Joe Biden and the Taliban is now hosting the meeting.
Got it. Boom.
That's all you need to know about Afghanistan. Okay.
So yeah, the Taliban is back. PFT is celebrating.
Also, my other who's back is just baseball. Major League Baseball is back.
Yeah, well, I was my... Can I do it? Who's back? Oh, I thought you were going to go Taliban.
No, I was going to go baseball because the Thursday night game, we taped early. We were up in Connecticut after our Jim Calhoun interview, but that game was fucking awesome.
The Field of Dreams game. It's rare that baseball does something that everyone is like, shit this was incredible they did it that was fucking sick and the uniforms were awesome and tom verducci was living out his like greatest fantasies by dress dressing up as an old-timey reporter by the way home runs into the cornfield he had that outfit ready to go he didn't have to go out and buy that yeah no he's got he's got a closet full of big funny hats.
He was waiting for the day for that to happen. Yeah.
And then, obviously, Tim Anderson hitting the walk-off was incredible with the fireworks and everything. So good job, baseball.
Good job, baseball. And the taunting.
And the taunting. Yes.
You know that Rob Manfred's going to be like, we're going to mandate corn be planted in every outfield. He's going to ruin it somehow.
He's going to overdo the Field of Dreams. It was a great game, though.
It was so awesome to watch. It was cool.
It was awesome. Tony LaRusso looking at the corn and being like, I could make just give me a bonfire and some metal.
I'll make it still out here in center field. Yeah.
Tony LaRusso, God, he's going to win manager of the year. He is.
Like, that's going to be so funny when that happens and everyone's going to be like, what do we do now? There's something about baseball where actually the drunkest team that fights the most is usually the team that wins. I don't know what it is about the sport, but I love it.
All right, Jake, you're who's back of the week. Who's back of the week, unfortunately, is father time because Roger Federer has opted out of the US Open.
He's getting knee surgery. He's out for many months.
So some are saying

this is the beginning

of the end.

So Djokovic is healthy though?

I believe he's playing

in the US Open.

That's coming up

in a few weeks.

So this is...

Sad.

You don't...

How old is Federer right now?

He's 40.

A 40-year-old doesn't really

get knee surgery

and then be like,

okay, I'm ready to come back.

It's not like an Adrian Peterson situation.

No, I'm sure it's just

a little cleanup.

You think so? Yeah, it's cleanup, right? He'll be back. He said he's out for many months.
Oh, what a shame. Many months.
And Djokovic is going to keep on trucking. You can't celebrate this.
Oh, I absolutely can. It's sports, baby.
My guy is going to win it all. Is Djokovic allowed in the United States? Yeah.
Why wouldn't he be? Are you sure? Are we going? US Open? No. Yeah, totally.
I'll be there. It's unfortunately when they're playing.
There's a lacrosse game on, so I can't make it. Yeah.
Why wouldn't he be? Are we sure? Are we going? US Open? No. Yeah, totally.
I'll be there. It's unfortunately when they're playing.
There's a lacrosse game on, so I can't make it. Yeah, so it's unfortunate.
Shame about football. It actually is.
For the sport. For the sport.
Yeah. I agree.
It is sad. He's a legend.
A legend. You took the words out of my mouth.
I can think of all the times that I watched Federer play. That one time when Djokovic beat him in Wimbledon, that was pretty much the only time.
And I have nothing but fond memories. So hopefully he's good in retirement.
Or he comes back. Or he comes back.
Is he the only Swiss person that you can name? I don't think there's another. I think it's just...
Stan Fabrinka, another. What about Caroline Wozniowski? Is she? Who's the Aki? Is she? Is she Aki? Swiss? No, is she Swiss? No, I don't think so.
The Swiss Miss Lady? Oh, yeah. She's Danish.
Danish, that's the same shit. Come on.
They're both red and white flags. Yeah, that's pretty much identical.
Come on. Yeah.
Just North Switzerland. Yeah.
Hopefully Fed comes back. If the Danes had come up with a fucking cool knife before the Swiss, we would be talking about them today.
Yeah. Or if the Swiss had learned how to clap in an aesthetically pleasing way.
Yes. So yeah, same thing.
All right, Billy, your who's back of the week. My who's back of the week is bulking season.
Summer is winding down. Our friend Roan commented that since it was time.
What? What? We talked about this, I think, on Friday's show. But that's okay.
Well, it was in follow-up to. Follow-up.
Oh, okay. This is a follow-up.
Yeah. It's like an encore to the song.
I think that we should all just start bulking. Okay.
That's not hard for me. I know.
It's football season. I've decided to lose weight.
Oh. But I'll probably be going back on that week three.
But it's a good time. Hank's going to get a six pack.
We're going to be on a caloric. If we want to just redo the whole segment.
Hank, are you going to get a six pack? Grit week next year? Can I call it? Yeah. Okay.
All right. I actually have come up with- When I said it, I really meant it.
I've come up with my own- But it didn't happen. Big Ben 7 diet that I think that we can stick to.
Oh, wait. The food's here.
You just- This is perfect. We're going to be operating a caloric surplus.
It's going to be after Grit Week. That will start.
Yeah, all right. We're coming out right now.
Our order of like 500 chicken wings just showed up. We're going to be operating a caloric surplus, so we have to do power lifting workouts.
Okay. We're ready to put on good mass.
All right, so what I'll be doing is I'm going to be doing just I'll eat a salad for lunch every day. And then on Sunday, that's my cheat day.
I'll eat whatever I want. Okay.
And then don't ask me what I eat on Saturdays. That's my diet.
That works. That works.
All right, Billy. Good.
Who's back? Can you go get the food? Yeah. All right.
Awesome. Yeah, we're going to bulk.
That's perfect. We're going to bulk.
All right. Let's get to our interview.
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www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org. Okay.
Here he is. Jim Calhoun.
Okay. We now welcome on a very, very special guest.
It is a basketball hall of famer, three time national champion. I know you're going to want me to list the big East championships too.
By year, please. Yeah.
So 10 big regular season 7 Big East tournament because I think, we'll get to it but I think that actually might mean more than the National Championship deep down. It is Coach Jim Calhoun thank you for joining us, we really appreciate it this is the start of Grit Week we figured you'd be the perfect guy to start off Grit Week because you embody grit and hard coaching and hard work.

So we ask this to every guest we have on Grit Week.

What does grit mean to you and what does it look like on the basketball court?

It probably like it says, get your fucking ass up the court.

And with a smile maybe at times too.

My point being is simply that life is something you need to attack.

And I've always felt this, that if you don't do it, okay, someone else will and beat you. And so I've always been, it probably is kind of a life story and you don't want to hear the whole life story, but losing your dad at 15, getting a full scholarship to UMass, but in turn having to come home and work for two years as a stone cutter, that kind of gave you some grit.
It's going to give you some grit. And that means you get up in the morning and have to do things that are pissed off at the world, go into Charlestown, maybe get in a fight, do the things that guys do at that day and age and all that.
Fighting was pretty good. I was actually not bad because I was a PAL boxer when I was a kid.
Point being, though, with four sisters home, a five-year-old brother, who now is, by the way, a cardiologist at Mass General. Point being is that I had a responsibility early,

and kind of the only way to get going, my high school coach was great,

and a lot of the tendencies I have as a coach,

he was there for me the whole time after I played for him, after I came home.

He says, you're going to get the hell out of this town

before you get some girl pregnant and you're here for life.

It's a great message.

And I didn't really have the smooth, my dad was incredible, you know, he had a Merchant Marine Academy graduate, engineer, incredible guy. Losing him was a big facet.
I had a great mother. My dad was like Cary Grant, the actor, kind of tall, silent guy.
He was the light heavyweight champ, by the way, of the Merchant Marines, which got to do with the boxing. And it would be a superintendent for the gas company and the whole area.
And when he died, he took a big part of me. And my mother was, you guys won't know this, you kind of know it, maybe Goldie Hawn, the blonde, cute, all that kind of stuff.
Anyways, my dad had lost his wife and childbirth of my older sister. So it's a family that, but we stayed together.
And through those years, stone cutting, find out who I was, find out who I was not. And then my high school coach pushed my ass to get to college.
We're back and things felt pretty good for me. But all that time, trying to find out who I was, how do I get there? And people said, where? I don't know.
Just be better today than you were yesterday. And I have a saying that I did years, we had a book about it, too.
You know, win every day. And I know you might have heard those things, but I was saying that years ago without knowing what I meant.
And I didn't really say it per se, but maybe I'd start reading again out of high school. Maybe I'd start running again.
Maybe through picking up 100-pound markers. That's without an hour.
Markers up. And every day I'd go from 183 pounds to about 200 by the time I got to college and looking a little different.
And my point being, it was all grit. It was all hard work.
And I didn't have automatic answers. It wasn't like you'd go to college.
You take this course, this course, bang, degree, here you go. It wasn't like that at all.
I was trying to find who I was, what I was. And I know one thing, I didn't want to go to a shed at 5 a.m.
and start cutting stone and picking up markers and doing those things. And I wanted to get out of there.
I remember an old Italian guy who was a toolmaker, makes those beautiful things you see on the tombstones, said to me, don't bang your hands up. You'll feel them in your 50.
He was right about that. But more importantly, he said, you want to get out of here.
He's just one of those guys who had philosophy, still broken with their broken English, okay? Italian accent, you want to get out of here. And I got out of there.
And I got back to college to help with my high school principal and my coach. But I can tell you, all it was a fight.
When people saw me, I guess, fighting, if they, I didn't ask them to, I didn't want them to, they kind of went back and say, this guy's had a little kind of different life than your average kid, goes to college, scholarship, etc., etc. And so that's kind of what my grit is.
My grit is finding a way when it doesn't appear to be one. Finding a way when nobody else thinks you can.
Was that motivation? Yeah. I'd be a son of a bitch lying to you right now if I told you that, okay, you think I can't? I might die doing it, but I can't.
I think you've got all of America ready to run through a brick wall right now. That's great.
Well, but we all face that.

I've faced cancer.

You know, I've faced cancer a couple of different times.

I've faced some other things in my life.

And I just think simply that the idea, you know, I don't want to be ever judged.

Sometimes when I say, like, get your fucking ass up to court.

I want to be judged on, you need me?

Hey, Ben.

Good.

Or whoever it may be, when you need me, call me.

I'm here for you.

I don't need Kimber. Kimber doesn't need me, excuse me, when he signed a $138 million contract.
I called him right after they traded him from Boston. That's kind of who I – he didn't – going back to New York, I'll get out, I'll go to practice, et cetera.
But he don't need me right this time. I just thought after that he could trade, it was a good time to call him.
Wasn't a change. He's still going to make a lot of money and still be the great Kimber he is or any of my other guys.
I want to be there when they need me, just like my high school coach and others, my sisters. My sisters did everything for me to help me get back to college.
And I think that sometimes I don't want to be understood to some degree. I just want to be accepted for what I've done and all the people in my life.
Yeah. I love it.
You mentioned win every day. I see you've got a bottle of sanitizer over there that says win the day.
I've heard you say win the day probably hundreds of times. How do you know if you're beating the day? Are you winning against the day or what are you winning? No, you always fight yourself.
We screw up our lives more than anything else.

I guarantee you that.

True?

Yeah.

Yes.

It's really true.

So you are in control of what you do.

Your destiny is what you're going to do.

Now, what are you doing today to get better?

You know, obviously you're here talking to somebody, doing your job, I guess it may be.

But how do you enhance your life when you don't have that time or when when you guys win, big deals. I haven't had a carb yet today.
It's like 1030. So I think as of right now, I'm winning the day.
I only hit my snooze twice this morning. That's pretty good.
You guys are making great progress. I feel it in the room.
We've got a 28-3 lead against the day right now. No, but it could mean anything when you don't have anything.
And you say, you know, when I ask these particular questions, let me listen to this other guy, see how he does it. Let me try to, and I don't mean like, you know, I've stolen from the very best.
I watched what Dean did, and the game was very simple. Well, him, he was obviously very innovative.
Dean Smith, who they came very close to. I watched people because I really wanted to learn from other people and then adapt it to who I am.
And I think the biggest fool to say, well, I did it all myself, bullshit. The reason I have a house in Hilton Head and a house down in Point Judith, played at the Donald Ross golf course and all the other things, is my kids.
If I'm not available for them, then I'd be trade. What I said to them the first day, if I recruit you now, I'm recruiting you for a lifetime, I'll be here when the ball doesn't bounce anymore.
I want you to understand that. And I just think that winning the day takes all kinds of different things.
And I think that's very, very important to everything in your life. And, you know, do we all have moments of despair? Without question.
Do we all have moments of questions? That people are very kind in talking about some of the things I have to fight back from, especially when the ESPN and the ESPN stuff did all that story. And that's cool.
But we have moments of in a car someplace saying, what the fuck? Here I am, 79 years old, driving to St. Joe's to coach a game.
And then I realize that these kids, that they need me. Well, I don't know if they desperately need me, but I do know this much.
I had good people at a point in my life when I used some direction. And for a lot of my players, they have some of the similar circumstances without maybe having male or other type of leadership in the house.
I have one of my kids, quite frankly, family, lives quite a distance from here. You know, any place to go.
And I think that's really important. I think – and when I get satisfaction, you said, you know, what's a win? That might be a win.
I make that phone call, hoping these guys, you know, someone's talking about the here because we're in our women's program and trying to get the kids more help. I said, understand, these dudes are going to be different.
He's not going to be Sally from Simsbury. He's going to be a kid from the hard inner city who's trying to, in many ways, at times get over.
You don not understand that. Because that's the way to get by.
I had one time, went from like the kid in the block whose family had one of the first TVs. I know that makes me ancient because I am.
But my point being to a guy then who didn't have much money. When my dad had died, it wasn't like all the stuff, the pensions didn't work.
I mean, all that. My mother, having a very difficult time.
we had some really, really, really difficult financial times where things didn't go well at all.

My mother was still a saint.

And my point to all this simply is that

you can be there for somebody.

That's a big deal, by the way.

One person.

You can be there for them.

I'll tell you one thing you don't realize.

About 2013, they had a testimony to a program and what it did and all

the guys who have high school teams i coached kids from northeastern university where i coached

and a whole bunch of my former players when they started telling stories

my throat got dry my eyes filled up because they told me things i didn't know things i might have

said to them that helped change things things i might have kicked their ass said don't you bring your fucking ass back into this gym until you understand it's you that's fucking you up you understand me it's you that's screwing this whole deal up i'm here for you but and i'll be here for you now but as soon as that ball stops dribbling ain't gonna nobody there for you. It's a whole new game, man.
And I just think, so it might be love, it might be a different kind of expression of love, but you've got to be there for them. I think that's love.
Yeah, I think that is a very pure definition of love, actually. It's like, hey, I'll tell you the truth when you need to hear the truth, and if you fall in hard times, I'm always going to be here's i think that's as close to love as anything that you can get i agree 100 and it's easy to come in and say hey you're wonderful you're great you're the big cat whatever it may be but man you gotta understand you're fucking up you're screwing this whole deal up for no reason yeah for no goddamn reason except your own you have so and then i'll tell you a number of years ago it's kind of a correlation and i get on the kids during the game but it's all instantaneous it's understand right after that next play next play next play and i found out you could open people's ears so you come over the sidelines you can tell them what you just like went for a steal the guy went and dunked first thing thing I say is, you know what? You're one of the greatest players I've ever coached.
Your ears are out here someplace. And so you lazy son of a bitch.
But your ears listen. Then you say you lazy son of a bitch.
You understand the point I'm making? I found out that when people hear kind of what they want to hear and then the message comes afterwards. If you start off with this this, and that, it doesn't.
And I want to tell them they are special. They're all special in your own particular way.
But you screw up too. And I'm not, you know what? I'm the one guy when I say I'm going to coach you, I take it seriously.
I take this shit really seriously. It's called a shit sandwich where you give them something nice, the ugly truth, and then something nice on the other end yeah so i want to talk about um big east basketball i know you're like i said at the at the start i think deep down you might be just as proud if not more proud of the big east titles than the ncaa titles because that stretch of big east basketball when you had so many legends hall Hall of Famers, Hall of Fame coaches, Hall of Fame players playing in the league.
So you built UConn. You came to a program that was not a lot and you made it a lot.
What was it like in that era of coaching against Hall of Famers and building a program and watching other guys build programs like all around the league in terms of toughness and what it was like to coach against those guys. Yeah, the first meeting I went to, we were very successful in Northeast.
I went to NCAA tournament five out of six years. I had really good teams.
I mean, we beat a great St. Joe's team, 29-1, and we had success.
We beat Fresno State with Rod Higgins and then lost to Utah. So we had really good players and got really good.
So I go to UConn, and the first coaches meeting was actually in Puerto Rico. I still remember it like yesterday.
You walk into the room, and there's Roley. There's Louie.
Hey, Irish. Hey, Irish.
That was his name. He never called me, Jim.
Never coached. Call me Irish.
Anyhow. And so, and Roley walking around and everything else, and Patino, who I don't like, he doesn't like me, and that's cool.
Tell you one thing, a man can coach. All the other bullshit aside, if you play for him, you've got a chance to win.
I mean it honestly. Once again, you don't have to love everybody.
P.J. Calismo, who was our social leader at the time, one of the greatest guys.
He was a bachelor. You know, a friend of mine from Nike went to his apartment to go out to eat someplace.
And he saw on the desk the mail. There were two Nike checks for the past four months.
He just went to his house, and he was a bad owner to run his life. He does now.
But, I mean, all the guys, Jimmy Boeheim. And, anyways, oh, I only got a birdie.
I'm sorry. Boeheim, come on, man.
Whatever the case may be. You know, I mean, but it was a great era.
Boy, do I miss it. Yeah.
Boy, do we all miss it. You know, Jimmy and all of us who aren't, it's not going anymore.
It's great being in the ACC.

It's not great.

It's much better fighting your own neighborhood. The guys you know, the guys you have to recruit against.
What caused the biggest problems amongst coaches? Recruiting, and then after that, recruiting, and after that, recruiting. Something is said during a recruiting meeting that's misinterpreted.
the story that people had about

a coach in Pittsburgh who said that

that me that misinterpreted the story that people had about a coach in Pittsburgh who said that that Louie had cancer and was going out of coaching, talking to her group. I have no idea, and quite frankly, just like the tide, it washed over.
But that's where, if you think some of these things develop, that's where they develop. We're going to get back to Jim Calhoun in a second.
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Not quite as great, but it was Billy Curley. Billy Curley wanted to play in the NBA.
As a college player, Billy Curley was one of the best guys. So the story is that his dad wanted to stay around Boston, which he did eventually.
And he was us, Villanova, BC, I can't think of the fourth team. Anyway, so he eliminates everybody and then went to a visit at BC for four or five hours.
Hey, he went home. We're going to get that phone call.
And he's going to call us tomorrow about five. He gets to be five, gets to be six, gets to be seven.
No call. And then word gets out.
He just committed to BC. And I guess, I mean, everything was set up, even the great delay because because his father was a great guy, and I love Billy Curl.
He was a terrific player. One of those guys that would win college games here.
Played some in the NBA, but he was a terrific player, hardworking son of a gun. And I really thought we had him.
We also had a guy you might saw in the Olympics. Kevin Durant committed to us on a visit.
And Kevin Durant was that, not a bad player.

Yeah, decent.

He can score as well.

Well, he didn't do anything in the tournament,

so you might have dodged a bullet on that one.

And he went on a trip.

Nike ran a trip, I believe it was to France.

And they'd put together freshmen and seniors.

And they sent like 12 kids over. Well, I called the people.
I said, look, we're recruiting a kid named Duran. His name wasn't quite that big yet.
Can you room with Rudy Gay? Not that I was thinking about those things, but obviously only 24-7. And they get back, and when they get off the plane, they shook hands.
They're going to be roommates. And then silence went away, and then he went to test.
I noticed you didn't say Ryan Gomes Ryan Gomes is a terrific kid I've actually talked with Ryan because I said you and I have been married in heaven or hell and well it's because you had to understand what the horde was there was 16 17 daily newspapers not like 3 or 4 now and all the different social media etc et cetera. And they'd come in, and I'd have guys, I'd look at them.
I'm overdoing something. They'd be looking at my desk and finding things.
You know, a lot of them are Wojo. Yeah.
It was now on. It was a pain in the ass.
I'm not sure he was. And he wrote one time in a column, as Calhoun drove away in his Lexus, which which is true I was going I was going I was going out to recruiting and all these poor kids at camp well their parents are paying 200 bucks ain't that poor number one number two it just was a stupid thing to put like at my camp I went away to recruit one day he saw me go away and left the poor kids there we had had counselors.
My point being is that, but that kind of was the atmosphere. Now that he's winning, he's got to be perfect and pure.
By the way, I need to get some words to put down. Yeah.
Did he expect you to get into the back of a cab? No, no. It wasn't just saying that.
It was saying I was leading the kids kind of afterwards, in the Lexus, he put it clearly. But he also thought, like, maybe I should stay at the camp all day.
I know, but I had to go recruit. I mean, that's our whole lifeblood.
You've got to keep the machine going. It is, you know, any of these guys tell you it's 24-7? I think we all try to make it more than that.
I think we try to make it, you know if we can. Because you can't find enough time in recruiting.
And today, it's a little different. I'm not sure it takes as much time.
It takes more awareness of every piece that's moving. I have no idea.
When I see, what, 1,500, 1,600 kids transferring? Yeah, no, it's a different game.

Well, it's a different game, but I don't think it's a good game.

I don't mean to say the game.

When the kids compete, the kids compete.

I still love it.

When my kids play out here, they want to win too, you know.

And so you still have some of the same things.

The problem is, are we in fact making, and once again, I know some,

we took, I think, in 26 years, three transfers total at UConn. Not that I feel building a program.
The guy who's got it right is Jay Wright. He discovered it through injuries, playing small, four out, because Jay's one of my favorite people of all time.
He's a great guy, great coach. I don't like to start him a bitch because he's too good looking with the nice suits and the money, all that bullshit.
But I keep telling you, you're not George Clooney. Just understand that.
So the biggie is obviously like you've got a bunch of coaches in there all coming up at around the same time. You refer to each other sometimes as being friends, but are you really friends with like a Boeheim or John Thompson? John Thompson, God rest his soul.
John Thompson, I'm very close to you. When I was tried out for the Celtics, I was a free agent, and I tried out for the Celtics, and I'm going to stay over to Camp Millbrook down in Marshfield, Massachusetts.
Red would have his, quote, glamour camp down there. Red wouldn't pay for anything.
So therefore you work. Bob Brandon played for the Celtics, ran it, and you came down, and you scrimmaged.
And so we scrimmaged and I'm going to go and take a shower and I walk into the door.

It was covered.

It was John.

Yeah.

You know,

all 6'11",

300 pounds of them.

Yeah.

And from that time

we became pretty good friends

and when we had a problem

with Alonzo

and the Dove

Hannafelt

where they were called,

supposedly names,

I don't know what all happened,

we didn't put them

on the phone late that night. That's how it was done back in the day, too.
But friends. Friends is a funny word, you know.
I only have a couple of really real friends. I mean, I have a lot of acquaintances people I like.
I hope they like me. But friends are a hard thing because you're doing something hard.
It's not quite like boxing in the sense of why you're in the ring, you're trying to kill a guy. But it's like boxing.
Coaching, I mean, it's competitive. It's not not being a good person.
You still can be a good person. I'm going to try to run my damn program.
I don't give a shit what you guys say. I'm going to run my program.
Are you going to bump heads?

Oh, without question. I mean,

it is so

set up. You know, when we first came

to UConn, we did something

different. Everybody was, the best

kids in the East we couldn't get, even out of Connecticut.

Some of the great Charles Smith

and some of these guys all went out to

BC, Villanova, other places.

So I said, we still get them though. You start thinking, thinking where they come from.
They came from Louisiana, Seattle, Washington, Darzel, South Carolina, Ray. You start going where the players came from, we'll find another way.
We talked before, I'll find a way to get players to become, at that time, find a way the Southeast Conference of Football and the Big East Basketball, the two hardest things I've ever seen at that time by the way the Southeast Conference of Football and the Big East Basketball the two hardest things I've ever seen at that time yeah six out of nine of us are in the Hall of Fame that coached in my first meeting and I mean like as you said legendary guys I always respected Raleigh he wasn't my favorite guy but that doesn't I'm sure I wasn't wasn't his. But my point being is that, boy, could he coach with a clock.

Yeah.

The moment the clock came, he became problems.

And I don't mean he could really coach.

Yeah.

And everybody in that league could do something.

You know what I'm saying?

There was nobody that lasted long if you couldn't do something.

You couldn't get players.

If you couldn't coach them up once you get them, if you couldn't motivate them, you said, keep it going.

Keep it going is much more difficult than building.

Yeah.

So was there ever a time when you were approached by an NBA team

that wanted you to come?

And did you ever actually give it serious consideration?

Maybe I can coach in the league.

Well, Richard Hamilton was the first draft choice.

And I remember going down with the people from Washington

and West, and so on people down with the people from Washington, and

Wes, and people, and

they said, would you like to coach?

And Wes was living out on the farm, and just an

incredible guy and great player.

And, you know, the more I thought about it, and for

once I was rational,

my ego said, yeah, I can coach these guys.

But it's not my personality. My personality

is not going to take me to get your fucking ass up the

court. That's not going to happen.
You know, I'm a man

coach. Yeah, you are.
And secondly,

coach, I make a few times as much as you, and I'm four times more valuable. Point being, my best thing is to take my own life experiences and attach them to a college kid who might need me.
Not that I couldn't help guys. If I ever went to the NBA, I did think about a couple things.
Your job in the NBA is to help them make them great. Help them get their minutes.
Help them get a long... You've got enough things there, a long career.
Those things are right there. That's your job.
And you've got to realize that. In college, it's getting them something they don't even know they want, a degree.
Getting them things, maturity, a kick in the ass.

Things that happen, you know, some of the things that I aspired and did because of my

own life circumstances.

I had plenty to build off.

I tell my kids all the time that I want you guys to understand, you know, there's nothing

racial, there's nothing regional about poverty, up in poor. They turned the lights up in my house when I was a kid.
That's when my dad died. So, like, this poverty shit, I don't want to hear it.
We've got to find a way to get around it. You know, you're going to beat the man.
You've got to be somebody in position to get the man. Get yourself to that position.
Then you'll have a fair voice.

That's an important thing.

I had a great guy who eventually became the chancellor of UMass Boston,

Keith Motley from Pittsburgh,

one of the great people I've ever had in my life.

Keith was a good player for me.

He was 6'7", 240.

He eventually got a black belt in karate.

Not a guy to screw with.

And he just simply encapsulated

what you're supposed to be.

He eventually worked at Nothi and eventually got his PhD, and we used to talk about this all the time, about all the different situations that can happen to you, like all of us. And I just think a lot of it's from your life experiences, from where you're from.
We were kidding one time. We had Gene Down at Disney when I was at Northeastern, and the kids are in the store.
And you know what's in the store at Disney, right? All the cameras. So we get out.
We go, let's get going, guys. All of a sudden, people come out.
Scary. Someone had put some things.
And I'm saying, you son of a bitch. The kid, get over there.
And he said, you stupid bastard. How'd you get caught? He's a guy with a PhD.
His idea was you the kid didn't recognize the room he was in. Cameras and all that stuff.
Why'd you allow that? I was pissed he had committed theft. Keith was saying that he'd been stupid in a social situation.
We both meant the same thing, but from a little different background. And I think that's really important.
I, you know, once again, if you ever knew what I learned from Keith Motley, from Kimball Walker about dignity, Reggie Lewis about joy, some of the guys I've had, a macroographer about me not being so smart. I mean, he's the smartest guy I ever met.
He really is. I always say that Bill Clinton, Obama, and Mech.
And my point is, your kids teach you so much. If you're willing to learn from them, you don't always say, oh, boy, that's brilliant.
God damn, he's got a better approach than I do. He can put life in boxes.
If you do strength training, okay, don't talk to him about basketball or school. If he's in the library, leave him alone.
He at academics yeah on the court and and and those are the things that i think people can teach you your life experiences you the great fortunate people you are to meet incredibly important okay so you mentioned a bunch of legends that you coached two-part question one best pure basketball player you ever coached and two the guy that you thought you did your best job with in terms of growth where they came in as one guy and they graduated and either went to the nba or on with life as something totally different yeah i really don't have quote a greatest the greatest scorer might have been either reggie lewis or ray allen yeah ray allen and people had no idea what a great athlete he was. The most funky player I had, that there's no way he should have been as great as he was, and he's one of my favorite people of all time, Richard Hamilton.
Oh, okay. Could run forever.
Yeah. People forget, two-time All-Star, MVP of the Final Four.
You know, he just would wear you out. We used to have small guys had to run like a 520 mile or something.
Richard ran like in some ridiculous, like, you know, 450 or something. Could run and that could tie it.
Yeah. But, you know, but I would say the guys could just score the ball.
Yeah. All-around player, it's hard because he had a lot of injuries.
Corwin Butler's right there. There wasn't much Corwin Butler couldn't do.
And by the way, when he left UConn, I went to a scene in Wisconsin, went into the, as he called it, the hood. Yeah, we had him on the show.
He told the story, yeah. Okay.
Yeah. And everybody was looking around and I'm saying, what are you looking at me for? Yeah.
Well, there's a reason. I was the only one that looked like me.
And Karan Butler was so special as a kid, but his hands, he could grip the ball and dunk anything. He could pass it.
I mean, he had an 11-year career, and now he's doing great with Miami. He was on ESPN, but one of the special guys I've had all the time.
As I said, you know, I went to school like a lot of people, started some graduate work, a lot of different stuff, read a lot of books. The best lessons that I ever had, and they don't know a lot of them, are the plays we had.
So, you know, clearly Karan could do more things than the other player I had. I think that the guy who made the most big plays for us is Kimball Walker.
Yeah. Only because two Final Fours, national Championship, and by the way, he did it by never disrupting, only encouraging.

Yeah.

So I have a question about that 2011 team.

All-time team, all-time run.

So for people who don't remember, UConn starts the season 17-2.

They're ranked.

They go to the Maui.

They win the Maui.

They're playing great.

End of January 2, the Big big east tournament lose 7 of 11 yep start the big east tournament win five in a row five straight days then go to the national the the march madness win six in a row so they they finish the season losing 7 of 11 then finish the postseason winning 11 straight what did you say to the guys before the big East tournament? Because it felt, I remember being like, oh, well, UConn, forget them. They're fading at the wrong time here.
And then everything reversed. Yeah, we were ready and first.
And the emergence was quickly in Hawaii, in the Maui tournament. This is one of the best Kimber stories, maybe indicative of who he is.

We're playing in Maui.

We beat a really good Wichita team.

We beat then Michigan State, and then we killed Kentucky.

Ray averages, I'm just giving you, Kimber averages 30-something again.

So it's over with.

We get on the bus, and it's hard as hell, like it is right now.

And we're waiting half an hour.

MVP. National people are all there in Maui.
That was, quote, the tournament.

And he gets

on the bus.

Swear to God, he's got

the big trophy. MVP.

The entire bus,

not solicited by

anybody, stood up and started clapping.

No, you might hear, hey, go ahead. No.
The entire bus, no one said a word, stood up and started clapping no you might hear hey go ahead no the entire bus no one said a word get up and start clapping the reason that is so profound because you know athletes and all of us are athletes i would have scored more if i got the ball yeah he started him he got all the minutes whatever it may be there was not an ounce of that on that bus and that's someone said to me how me, how much do the kids respect Kimba? That is indicative because if you're around athletes, we all think we can do better than you. We have to.
But that momentary, hourly, daily, at that particular time, saying like, he did this for us. Yeah.
It's amazing. That kind of correlates.
Eventually, we go through the season, we have injuries, and then at 17-2, they thought they had won the world. Yep.
And we then lose a three-pointer to Notre Dame. I can go right through it because we weren't that far away from being really good.
My job then, wasn't magical, was to stay on their ass. I mean, different maybe than other times.
But understand, you have it there. You've got to put this freaking thing together and stop worrying about records.
Lose a couple? Oh, like watching my Red Sox recently. Holy shit.
Why 20 last night? You know, why 20 runs last night? But anyways, just give me like four, save the other 14. But the point being is we just stayed together.
The hardest thing to do in losing is staying together. Well, which would you rather have happened? Would you rather lose like the Red Sox did last night and give up 20 runs? Or would you – What's that? They scored 20.
Okay. So would you rather suffer like a bad loss or would you rather have a really close loss like a six-overtime game in a tournament? I knew we were there.
I didn't know we could win a championship. I'd be stupid to tell you that because we had all freshmen.
But we did have three pros in the backcourt. Jeremy Lamb could score on anybody even by the end of that time.
Shabazz Napier and Kimball Walker. Alex Iriaki, who didn't play in the league, but probably should have, great, you know,

averaged like 11, 12 rebounds a game.

We had a shot blocker.

Guy led the country in rebounding it

when he transferred to Vegas, Roscoe Smith.

We had talent.

Giffey, who played in the Olympics for the German team.

We were pretty good.

We were young.

We had to, unfortunately,

we had to get punched in the face a few times

and then respond.

And we kind of always respond. Doesn't mean I didn't get on this shit.
You're going to blow this, whatever it may be. But we stayed together.
And you say that sounds easy. It's not easy.
Yeah, I mean, it was an incredible run, 11 in a row. And now I do, I'm not going to make you apologize for the national championship game, but that was maybe the worst basketball game ever played.
You say that. People, just a refresher, UConn, Butler.
UConn won the national title. They shot 9% from three.
Butler, I think, shot 18% from the field. That was tough to watch.
I wasn't joking. There's a really good column I've got at some place because it's good to see anything keeping me psychologically, well, not sound, but semi-sound.
And remember, we blocked 12 shots. All right, so good point.
We bothered 19 shots. These were taken by the analysts.
It was the most bothered shots we had all season. So we got into this shit and said, I don't care what you guys are saying.
We should score on this team. We only put up 54, although we put up 30-something in the second half.
I said, we're not going to let them score. By the way, you'll notice.
We don't take many threes in the second half. Take it to the rim.
They can't stop us. And eventually we wore them down.
Was it a bad game? When you win the game, it's never bad. Well, I'm speaking from a place, too, that pretty much any big game you know national title championship game i like to bet the over so 53 41 you really feel stupid well let me tell you something you know what the great thing about what we did at yukon we won a lot of different ways you know we could pressure okay back in the team when when layton makes a shot and all those great things final eight and stuff.
At one particular point with Emeka, Charlie Villanueva, Hilton Armstrong, Josh Bruno, keep on going, Rudy Gay, etc. We led the country in shot blocking nine straight years.
We led the country in steals at a particular point before that. We won in a lot of different ways because the coach was halfway smart, not real smart, but halfway smart because he adapted to his talent.
Fit my system. The system is what you have.
You try to get the plays you want. They've got to be tough with us, and they've got to be able to run with us.
But we won a lot of different ways to get – some teams want to play the margins so close all the time, they lose in the tournament. Do you know why? Because they can't play another way.
We could have pressed, but Butler wasn't a team to press. But I knew their size, lack thereof, we can beat them inside.
And my point being, we're a pretty good team because we beat a pretty good Kentucky team in the semis. No, you're a great team.
Just that championship game sticks out. But no, it wasn't good.
But once again, we got into a slugfest. Yeah.
And you know what? The guy who was coaching the team, I don't know know if you know he ended up with the celtics had a good career there now he's going to be a genius and he's a great guy i love brad a great deal but he got he made sure it stayed ugly yeah and and so simply what are you doing in a mud fight duck your head or you throw mud back we found different kind of mud to throw at them and we warded them to death my point being i love that you know i'm gonna steal that from you yeah but you're right because the coaching like we we talk about in all sports that the best coaches they don't have a plan they don't have a system their system is changes year to year game to game depending on the players they have we beat uh gonzaga i think it was 99 to to go to the national championship. And they were an entirely different kind of team then.
And you keep on going. Good coaches.
I mean, Dean is different, because you can tell Dean's up there for me as far as the kind of coach he was, the kind of person he was. But they had their system.
But they got pretty much from Perkins to Worthy. They got a lot of the same kind of players could do it.
That wasn't an ideal. We had all guards.
We pressed all the time. We had all great bigs.
All those big guys were first on draft choices. And Mecca was number two in the draft.
And my point being to this, so we had to adapt to our personnel. But keeping, some things never change.
We always ran. Not in that game.
But if that's all we could do, we would have lost that championship. And I think that's incredibly important.
It's really important to understand. You know, you get into that.
It isn't like, oh, shit, we're in that. No, how do we get out of that? And beat them.
And that's the most thing. The thing is being pissed.
God, this game sucks. It's awful.
What, are you going to quit? Go home? Take my ball? No, it ain't going to happen. So what do you just, I had a fear going in that we couldn't pace the game.
We wanted pacing space. That's us.
We've been at here at St. Joseph's.
We have this 90 game. Not surprising because that's how we play.
My influence in basketball initially was Red Auerbach. Why did they wear on the fast break they could see the flash of the sneaker they're the only one in basketball to wear them at the time they got them from converse and my point being i mean all that integrated stuff i look i work pretty hard at perfect myself i was never an external genius i'm not captain video that's not what i do i find out what you can do and then i try to beat you with what we can do or adjust in a game that i hated in the sense of stylistically but you know we when we put the trophy up that's a national champ and if i had been pissed about the game that it played yeah brad would host it because i i'd be fighting i'd be fighting reality You can fight reality.
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absolutely free and put ZipRecruiter to work for you. So what would you say is maybe not, maybe it's not the same team that produced the best results, but what would you say looking back over your career is the best year of coaching that you did, the one that you're most proud of? That team to some degree, because I was always, you know, grabbing a freshman.
So you can try to go home if you want something, but you need to stay here and become a man or whatever the case may be. I think the magical team might have been, oh, four is a fine way when people say how talented.
If we had lost the national championship, I would have been pissed because number two in the draft, Emeka Ogilfork, Ben Gordon, still could have played forever. Charlie Villanueva.
Josh Boone. Hilton Armstrong.
Marcus Williams. Six first round draft twos.
Not in that, not all at once, but okay, we don't have that. That's not like, that may be Kentucky and other teams.
That's not us. And that was the best team.
I should say best talent. The best team? No question, 99.
You remember Rip? You'll always remember Khalid Alameen. Always.
Khalid Alameen is one of the great characters who ever played basketball. Yes.
When I told him, he's telling all the reporters about Ramadan, and then I see him putting, you know, subs. Come on, man! Or hot dogs before games.
Ricky Moore, who's a terrific little defensive player. Jake Vosko, who did play 10 years in the league.
But two really legitimate Kevin Freeman, one of the toughest guys I've ever had, made that into a 34-2 team. By the time we got to that Sunday after being on Ohio State and getting ready for Duke, Duke didn't show up for whatever reason.
And they were really good. Everybody thought they were the best.
At one point, we were 24-0. People forgot that.
You all should notice, and I do bet only on horses, but I've been told the greatest differential before a championship game was 9 or 10 points, us. Yeah, 9.5 points.
You guys were 9.5 points. And we were 30, 3, and 2.
Yeah. And the only other team that had been number one that year.
And we were so – we knew and felt each other like a pulse in a heart. We knew.
So you knew if Rip wasn't doing that. I'm just saying we brought this kid, Albert Mooring, in the championship game, had 14.
We had answers, and everybody on the team, more importantly, accepted those answers and understood what we were trying to do. That was a pretty special team.
Yeah. Alright, so one of my favorite things is Jim Calhoun versus the media.
Okay. I alluded to it earlier with the Ryan Gomes.
It's one of my favorite clips. There's two that are my favorite, but the I fucked up, if you want to write it, write it five times.
And I did. Yeah.
I took that lousy play at Koran Vala. What a son of a bitch I was.
How stupid can I be? And you fucking asked me about that, man. I mean, just say you're stupid.
Okay, we both go out and have a beer, okay? Yeah, well, so that's my, the thing that I love about you versus the media is that you had sometimes an adversarial relationship, but I always thought that, like, you always were there to answer the questions. If you call me, even I was fighting with Jeff Jacobs here at the Huffington.
Okay, Jeff, what the fuck do you want? Here you go. Right.
I'll answer the question. Just don't ask me stupid questions.
Don't ask me if I'm going to give money back. And I keep saying that, not a thin dime.
We make $5 million at this university more than anybody else yeah I know that's my favorite from that I make a lot more than that and then the other line in that one that's the best is could you do me a favor why don't you shut up yeah and the last one was and my grandkids tell me this hey papa get some facts and come back and see me get some facts and come back and see me or if you'd like to meet me outside I'd be happy to do that too And my grandkids tell me this, hey, Papa, get some facts. Come back and see me.
Get some facts and come back and see me. Or if you'd like to meet me outside, I'd be happy to do that too.
You understand my grandson, 17 now, Sam has his own podcast, and he's like crazy. He would be in heaven here if he's with you guys.
But my point is. Yeah, I mean, you're, so like every time that I make a mistake, I just post the clip.
I just say, I fucked up clip. It's the best thing ever.
And I think that like, you don't see that anymore in sports and coaching. Well, let me tell you how you feel a little bit.
Why I like Belichick is because I knew Belichick a little bit, but more importantly, Belichick was in Cleveland. And it was a big quarterback controversy.
And he said he never ran it. The media did.
And eventually cost him his job. And he said, I'll never let those son of a bitches ever get the edge on me.
On the Cincinnati. I mean, that's kind of what it is.
My thing was simply, I'm here for you. I'll answer every question.
But don't insult my intelligence. Don't be a political reporter.
Come in and ask me if I'm going to give money back. You know, what the hell, man? I mean, and by the way, if you hear in the background, the other reporters are saying, shut up.
Once again, what's a good day? We'll probably start a little fight and then you go from there. But for somebody, I'll tell you this, this is a very honest, like I fucked up kind of thing.
It's not really that. But that's how I'm built.
And I can still love you and hug you. When David Solomon, one of the guys who used to bust my ass all the time, when he died in an Alville accident going home, it was like a loss of my life.
I mean, he's a terrific guy. Phil Chalas is now SIDD.
These are the guys who report us who just end up becoming good friends. And I think what they did eventually respect me because I'll answer any question.
I'm not running away from you. And I'll tell you exactly how I feel.
And it probably, as I said, if I knew your backgrounds, I'd kind of know why you are what you are in a lot of ways.

And I mean that

very honestly.

People read things,

listen sometimes.

I want to know,

kind of know what you say,

what you've done,

what you do,

and why did you

become who you are.

And I think that

there's no question

either.

If you're an 18-year-old kid

coming home from UMass,

full scholarship,

world on the plate,

but have lost your dad,

have no money,

have no work

in a stone-cutter Thank you. If you're an 18-year-old kid coming home from UMass, full scholarship, world on the plate, but have lost your dad, have no money, have no work on stone cutters and get up early every morning, pump gas.
I mean, when I was playing football, we'd have a 1 o'clock game. I'd be up at 5, pump gas for 3 hours, go up and play tight end.
And my point being, I don't want sympathy. It's just something I had to do to help my family.
And it was never one of those things that I wouldn't do it. By leaving school, I mean, once again, I don't know.
Some people say they don't know what a silver spoon is. Silver? God damn, you're lucky.
You know? You're lucky with platinum. But my point being, it creates a thing where I love doing things for people, whether it be Autism Speaks, I have a granddaughter, whether it be the Calvin Cardiology Center because I lost both my mom and dad through cardiac disease, whether it be helping people in charities.
I'm not saying Mr. Good Guy.
What I'm saying to you is when you're in the position to have this, the microphone,

make sure you use it for others who can't have one, can't be heard.

Make sure you become a voice for those to be heard.

I want to be judged by that on what my players think.

And I become the father I didn't have to a lot of my players.

My father would tell me stories about the Cape of Good Hope, about racial issues way back in the day, going around in the merchant ship, him as a ship's engineer, and just the different things. A hero took me to a football game, starting when I was eight years old, every Saturday.
I think the whole thing came down to me, why is he like he is? Well, he's half crazy. Okay, fine.
But he has things that have been instilled in him about values and family and love. And I think that's really, really important.
Being gritty, as we started off by saying, is a natural I think production product of my life. I mean, because I didn't like things.
I love things. You know, I used to have a friend who was a teacher coach, she used to say in high school, said, I've never seen a guy, my wife used to make meatloaf sandwiches, and he's fallen in love with his lunch.
Passion is something I have a lot of. I think that one thing that I've learned already through this interview is that, like, grit is fundamentally an expression of something that you love exactly right you'll never you'll never be able to truly demonstrate grit in something that you don't really care about and that's you can say i've got grit you can say hey coach i'll do whatever you say i'll be the first one in the last one out but unless you truly love what you're doing you will never actually show that grit i'm 79 years old sitting here ready to coach a bunch of division three kids i can tell you right now i know this is going to be shocking to you it's not for the money ball is life one thing the one thing the catholic and i'm catholic one thing the catholics do is we uh we take a vow of poverty i guess looking at my paycheck my more no but i'm of the kids.
Well, one thing I love is you retired from basketball to go coach more basketball. Yeah, yeah.
You talked to my wife. No, but I do think that when you're on the field and you say, and you couldn't be more accurate, by the way, what you said.
In August, middle of August August, it's easy to say how hard you're going to work. You know, about the third day, third week, it gets to be old hat.
And we're just getting started. You know, when I tell you you've got a chance to be a great player, I actually fucking mean it.
And I actually do take this shit really seriously. And if you tell me you want to go over and play basketball after this,

you know, it's kind of strange. I actually take that seriously.
They're actually not bullshitting me.

And that's where I'm going to treat you.

And then when I got in practice,

I said, are you going to goddammit run?

Are you sure you want to be

playing now? And

that's when the rubber

really

love it.

You've got to care about it.

And I don't get up in the morning to do anything

that I don't really love.

You know, I mean, I love theater.

I love watching people go into other worlds

and fascinated by that.

I love reading.

I love things where you watch people pursue things,

and I have great respect for those who do it. I don't care if you're born Brady.
I don't care if you're born like Brady. Obviously, he had a very good upbringing, great family, et cetera.
Brady's got a little different tool than most of us have, right? He don't want to just be good. He really wants to be good.
And I think when you see that, so you don't have to have a hard-scrabbled life to do that. You know, we get brought out in different ways.
You know what brings us out mainly? Circumstance. What did I fall back on? That 18-year-old guy coming back from college, running around, punching people, do all the different things, and then I turn that into what I can give to my players, how I got out of that.
Took my players to my house, and I live on, like, right behind Pompfitt School, a prep school, and we have about 50 acres. Trust me, there's nothing but beer and deer out there, so it's not exactly...
Sounds pretty good. A hidden ranch.
But it's all done over, it's et cetera, et cetera, and downstairs I had lined up, I think 40 rings, championship rings, national championship, whatever it may be, and trophies and keys to

the city. And I could see them all looking around.
And I said to them, you know, fellas, I started out like you. Actually, I didn't.
I started out like you, some of my guys who were better circumstances financially, but I ended up here. So you're all looking around, and I said, everything's obtainable if you understand what it needs to take to get to where you want to be.
Where you want to be, not where I want to be. It's all obtainable.
I can tell you that. And I just want to tell you a couple things.
In a few days, I felt like, really? I've got to put this much into that? And the passion I had for it, of course I do. Because I'm getting this incredible pleasure.
I mean, walk out of a gym after getting on a kid and said, just seeing that slight turn, it's progress. We're getting there.
He took his first step. He actually understands.
So I think all those things are incredibly important. And I tell you, my wife used to say to me, I love going to bed with you.
I said, it's really kind. I appreciate that.
I'd say nice compliment. And she said, but you can't keep bringing those 14 guys into bed every night.
And by that, she means mentally, I say, in the middle of saying, I say, do you see what DJ didn't do today? Yeah. How was it?

Yeah, what are you talking about?

Yeah.

What is this?

And I find nothing wrong with that.

I would find that my high school coach, Fred Herger, who died relatively young, but was

a great coach, kicked me in the ass.

Literally, if I didn't follow my shot, he kicked me in the ass.

Today, I guess I'd get him for abuse.

I wouldn't, because he got me to a full scholarship, got me to my life.

But my point

being is that he was there when I needed him. And that's what I really wanted to be all the time.

I guess I was trying to kind of replace kids' fathers of male figures in their lives,

who some who didn't have or didn't have the kind of situation that needed. Plenty of great fathers,

I don't mean that. But understand, it's really, really important to have somebody there.
You know, everybody needs somebody. And maybe I'm good in some ways because I understand what it's like to have, quote, privilege, white privilege.
I also understand what it's like to have no money. And in Jasper, if mom could Western Union way back in the day, 20 bucks for the week.
Yeah. All right, so I have one last question.
You were always great at working the refs. Who was your match in that? Who was the guy that when you went up against another team or another coach, you're like, all right, he's going to get every call, so I got to be on my A game today? Two things.
Time. So Jay Wright, one of his early games at Villanova, he's at this XL, 15,000 people like it used to be, all that kind of thing, gets thrown out.
Jay Wright, yeah, Jay Wright. So I go in afterwards.
I said, Jay, man, you don't have stripes yet. I said, when John does this with the towel, I used to turn to everybody, we're fucked.
Oh, Louie does. Mickey, Mickey.
Mickey Crowley might be yelling that. Oh, boy.
Stripes. The respect.
Jim Burr was the toughest guy. And you know what made him tough? He was so goddamn good.
Ornery, cranky. I remember yelling at him, Jim, you screwed that fucking thing.
Boom, boom, boom, boom. You know, Jim.
He looked at me and said, you don't think I know it? You don't think I feel worse? I started to have respect for him. And then I started doing tape.
I have no idea how he looked for human beings, but he could. He was a terrific official.
A lot of great people that I've met through officials. Some of those officials, I wouldn't do that for, I don't care how much I love anything.
I wouldn't have just both, everybody, 50 or 70 people are going to hate you on every call, and sometimes 100%. My point being, though, is that, you know, they're part of the game, and the good ones, you know, the guys who show about, you talk about the game changing.
And I wasn't a guy with a water bottle and the hair. And I don't think anybody would use the word self-promoter with me.
I would agree. You know, I mean, I talked to Luke Olsen about this.
He said, you and I are kind of two peas in the pod, even you more, because you're in that area of like, and I talk about the great coaches, Roy Williams, great coach obviously, Mike and stuff. They don't mention us.
Yeah. He said, haven't you won three times? It's true.
But you know yourself. So after a game at the Big East, and I'm not being anything but very honest, I had choices where to go.
You can tell I love the biggie just the greatest life ever Okay, um I'd take my family out to eat all the guys went to Whether media all went CBS and everybody went over there. That's the wasn't my deal.
I Mean and that probably gets back to lost my father My family's incredibly so close my brother, family. I always tell the story about first Final Four.
In the finals, we had 94 tickets for Calhoun's there. To give you an idea.
That's what my family means to me. I just simply think would I trade it to that? Of course not.
Yeah. Because I wouldn't trade the 17 championships.
I got there my way. And that's why, whether I like Rick or not, he's a terrific coach.
I actually like John Calipari. I do business differently than he does, but regardless.
My point being is that, you know, I don't have really, I mean, for me to get a guy like Rick who can really, really coach, I have no problem telling you he can really, really coach. I think that's respect.
And respect is probably what he'd want and I'd want from him. And you don't have to like everybody i do the same thing i don't like self-promoters and i watch guys they give it almost like a billboard at halftime i just coach a freaking game will you please i don't want to about we get a build championship thing you win games there'll be championships i like you just slipped in a would you please yeah those, yeah.
Would you please? I'm looking around the room here, and you have maybe the most impressive collection of pictures in any office that I've ever been in. You have Magic and Bird here.
That changed basketball. Changed basketball.
You've got Kimball Walker in this picture over here, hitting a last-second shot, saying, I will forever be your son in the the autograph you've got the winningest coaches in college basketball history of which you are one of the top eight that's pictured in this frame and then the biggest picture that you have in this office is your hole in one oh really right above your desk is that your most proud accomplishment pretty good yeah all i know is I tried a lot more to do that than I tried to win games. I only coached something like, let's see, I have 900 and something and 1,300, 1,400.
Thousands of those balls were hit to get that one to go in. Yeah, yeah.
Because you know what? And you use the word, and I think that anybody, you could hate me, you'd like me to make a difference. You can't say I'm not passionate.
I love to play golf. I love the passion of it.
I like beating your ass. I love when you hand me the 20 afterwards.
And I get pissed when you don't. I don't do the windmills.
Yeah. You know, the helicopter.
But when I was younger, I became a better golfer when I stopped fighting me because me was getting in the way of me. And a lot of things, by the way.
And golf is symbolic. You've got to stay with what you're going to do.
But I love getting out. A guy once told me, what a waste of time.
You guys knew how many deals I set on the golf course to do this for this company or speak or do all the different things. And great people, i've met on the golf course and find out more about people when you play golf with them and so i just think that that's great pleasure for me that's that's like having solitude only four of us okay and in turn intimacy with somebody at the same time i just think that's that's a cool cool thing but yes it was it was raining was great.
And, you know, once again, I just think accomplishments.

You know, here's my last thing about my life story.

So I'm a big Hamilton fan.

I'm at the O'Neill Theater and the Bushnell Boards because I told you I really like theater.

I think it's amazing what people can do.

And so Hamilton became big.

And at the O'Neill, Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote what is out now in a movie in the Heights. I saw it.
Great. Then he did Hamilton.
And I met him, sat down. First thing he said, I don't play.
He went to Wesleyan right up the street. So he was in school while we were going through our stuff.
And in that, after Hamilton dies and his wife is up there and she said. Spoiler.
I haven't seen it yet. That's okay.
He's already died. No, no.
Wait. He's already died.
Wait, Hamilton said? Aaron Burr? Spoiler. No, his wife.
Who did it? Okay. Says, who lives, who dies, who tells you the story? My son, who was president of Converse, president of Dockers at a very young age, does very well, etc.
Both my son, Jeff, he has his own company too. But my point was, who lives, who dies? I can't understand that.
They had terminal cancer, and they think, thank God we're able to save it. So who lives? Who dies, but most importantly at the end, for all of us, a legacy, I guess it's called, who tells you a story? It's who tells you a story and how they tell you a story.
And so, because she then goes into a siliquary all about starting the New York Times, starting this, Hamilton's things, all the things he did in his life. But no one told his story about the real Hamilton.
And I just think, I've taken that, who lives, who dies, because that helps you sometimes with grief, but who tells your story? Like, who's going to tell your story? Think about it. And what do you want them to tell? And I just truly think it's, that's why I never judge, you know, a book by its cover, or a story about someone in a newspaper, or someone telling me that.
I want to as i before what you did yeah and what you did tells me okay that's your story yeah that's great i i do have one very very last thing i promise it's the last thing i want to talk about i realized we didn't get a chance to mention it um i was i was doing a little bit of reading about you before we sat down and uh i didn't know the story, but you were participating in a 50-mile charity bike race at one point. My big race.
Your big race. Yeah, this was, what, like 15 years ago, something like that? 12, 15 years ago.
And you went over the handlebars of your bike. 35 miles an hour.
35 miles an hour. I read conflicting reports.
Some say you broke five ribs. five ribs some say you broke eight it's kind of like drew breeze situation where how many how many ribs did you actually break they came up with six at first he didn't have been eight i think but i went what i didn't it was a shadow so i couldn't see a small pothole hit it went over the top smashed my helmet helmet saved me but landed and broke the ribs but the Adrenaline we were probably close to 50 miles we were probably close to 38 39 miles out so i went over scrapes and all that kind of stuff and so i said i need a new helmet okay and they're trying to get the just scrapes and marks not realizing because the adrenaline and all the you know you're all that i was out doing that, you know, banged my ribs up pretty good.
So I get back on the bike, went the last 12, got there. I still see it like it was today.
Coach, you all right? You all right? I finished. I finished.
We're fine. We were raising this money for the Calhoun Cardiology Center, et cetera, standing against the car.
And Ray was there. Scotty Burrell was there.
Donnie Marshall was there. And I all of a sudden just slipped down.
I was riding with my doctor, my cardiologist. He was a great friend of mine, Peter Shulman.
And I still remember I said, I'm going home. He said, no, you're going to the hospital.
And so I guess I finished the race with eight broken ribs and a lot of scratches. No big deal.
Yeah. That's grit.
That is grit for sure. Well, Coach, this has been awesome.
We really appreciate your time. Justin, just one last, just for the record, you don't regret passing on Ryan Gomes.
Ryan Gomes is a great kid. Thanks so much.
Yeah. Appreciate it.
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All right. That was a great interview.
He also gave us balls on the way out. He signed three basketballs.
I got one that said I fucked up. I got one that said not a dime back.
Yep. What did yours say, Hank? They're not bad.
Just a fucking cool-ass guy. He's the man.
Yeah. And it is so funny that, I mean, PFT mentioned it during the interview, that he retired from coaching basketball to coach some more basketball.
That's grit. In a little bit lower stakes.
That's grit. Yes.
But you know what? I actually did learn from it. He connected a big dot for me about grit, that grit is love.
I like that. Yes.
So thank you to Jim Calhoun. That was a lot of fun.
All right. So we're going to do the Mount Rushmore.
It's brought to you by our friend at Coors Light. By the way, 8 p.m.
Eastern, Monday night. So tonight, the disc golf, the first ever, pardon my take, invitational disc golf tournament is going to be live on YouTube.
We will be in the chat, commenting, talking to the people. So please make sure you get in there.
Watch it with us as we premiere it. Like it.
Subscribe. Do all the good stuff.
Also, Tuesday night, we're going to be in Cleveland. We need an AWL's house to watch Hard Knocks at.
Really, the only requirement is don't be a creep. No freaks.
Actually, no, no, no. I take that back.
Freaks are okay, but don't be a creep. Creep.
No creeps. You can be a nerd.
Don't be a dork. Yeah.
So maybe send Jake an email. What's the email? Or should we? No, I was going to give it to Billy.
Holy shit. No.
I was going to give it to Billy. I was just thinking.
So I believe it's PMTintern at BarstoolSports.com. Billy, so we would be at someone's house.
We would be the guy in Ohio who had the zoo where the lions got released and and shit all right this guy's not a creep he just has 17 animals i would find us a house you guys might not like that yeah we do not trust your judgment okay we would be fucking sitting with all types of animals in our lap we would get brosalotus we get diseases that only cattle get but i'd be perfectly fine organizing it and accomplishing the task yeah Yeah, I know. That part, you're right.
You were right. You've been doing a great job, and you are right that you could do it, but I would prefer Jake to do this task.
It would just be a paintball facility. It'd be like, they got a TV in the waiting room.
That would actually be sick. So if you do have a paintball facility, maybe we'll consider it.
Or like a low-key zoo. Yeah, but send it to Jake, and we'll pick one AWO.
We'll come watch Hard Knocks with you on Tuesday night. Make sure you have HBO proper.
Not the fucking streaming shit. I would like to watch it live as it happens.
I'd like to watch it live, so proper. I want to see proof of the subscription.
Alright, we're going to do our Mount Rushmore. Mount Rushmore is brought to you by our friends at Coors Light.
All of Grit Week is. So this is Henry, who is now winning every Mount Rushmore.
Congrats to him. Hubba.
Hubba. Hubba? Hubba? Chubba.
Chubba Hubbard. PFT, we should team up.
Fucking everyone's creating super teams here. Do you mean you want to team up and then...
Maybe not for this one, but for the next one. Let's fucking do it and dominate these fools.
What if we went 1v1v1 teams? It actually would be... We actually have the perfect age gap for each team.
That's what I'm saying. Damn, you guys are consolidating? We might later on this week.
We might during Grit Week. Everyone else is teaming up.
Couldn't be me. You started the super team era.
Listen, we're trying to ring Chase too. If you can't beat him, join him.

Alright, well we'll decide later

this week if we want to team up. But

either way, Hank is winning everything.

Mount Rushmore of

road trip songs. So

songs you listen to on a road trip?

Songs to listen to while driving. Doesn't have to be a road trip.

We should actually do this

again, maybe next year or whatever

but we could do full albums too

because when I started thinking about it, I started Thank you. Songs to listen to while driving.
It doesn't have to be a road trip. We should actually do this again, maybe next year or whatever, but we could do full albums

too because when I started thinking about it, I started thinking full albums.

Because a full album speaks to you in a different way than individual songs can.

So, Hank, you're saying just songs in a car.

I texted what I said.

Songs to listen to while driving.

I was thinking road trip.

Mine will be road trips.

I think that's fine.

Whatever's in my mind. There is a distinction.
I can pull up the text. It literally says songs.
That's fine. No, I'm just going to do road trip.
Yeah, I mean, you interpreted however you chose to. I prepared.
I can only say the words. I prepared.
It's fine. A road trip, I mean, it's driving.
Right, right. It's just a longer driving session.
A short road trip. Every time you get in a car, it's a road trip.
We actually have to make a distinction.

No, we don't.

We should do road trips. Yeah, the distinction was made when I said songs to listen to while driving.

Okay.

I'm just going to stick with my list.

I'm prepared.

I'm fine.

I'm going to go.

I'm beyond confused.

I also think that this is going to be a very difficult Mount Rushmore because music tastes

subjective, so we'll throw some curveballs at people. All right.
Numbers. 17.
69. 18.
74. 7.
Fuck. Cank.
seven Hank just keeps on winning this guy is hot so hot let's go oh you don't want to go first no I'm going to go one wait no you got to go and you got to just I'm well aware Oh, you know't want to go first? No, I'm going to go one. Okay.
Wait, no, you got to go and you got to just pick a direction.

I'm well aware of, you know.

Hey, you don't sound like you're happy right now, and I'm happy.

I'm happy too, though.

No, so you should be happy if I'm happy.

I understand how it works.

I'm just thinking.

Okay, but I sense the little unhappiness, and I'm happy right now, so by law, you have

to be happy.

Right, you're right. I'm happy.
Okay, so by law, you have to be happy. Right, you're right.

I'm happy.

I'm so happy.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

One billion Jake second.

Okay.

Damn it.

I don't think I've gone first at all this Mount Rushmore season.

All right, here we go.

Hank.

Atlantic City, the band.

Great song.

One of the best songs ever written.

Yep.

Yep.

Good song.

Good choice. One of those times where the cover of the song is better than the original.
Good choice. Life is a Highway, Rastal Flats.
Good choice. No, as sung by the cars.
I think we're going to be very literal with some of these songs, because I'll go trucking. Grateful Dead off the Europe 72.
Okay. So we're just going to go literal songs.
I was hoping you were going to pick a different Grateful Dead one. I knew Liam was going to give you that one.
No, he didn't actually. Oh, whoa.
Okay. That was me.
Okay. I'm going to go with my 1-1 still on the board.
I don't think anything's going to get stolen. Bohemian Rhapsody.
Okay. Yeah, that's a good 1-1.
Great driving song. Thought it would have been off the board by now.
My second, I'm going to go with Highway to Hell, ACDC. Okay.
All right. I will go with my second pick.
I will go Reeling in the Years Steely Dan Great song to listen to We're going to have to listen to it Really? You don't know it? That's how it goes Reeling in the Years Oh yeah I know that It's one of those songs That you start thinking about Your whole life while driving I like to think about Either the day The weather of the the day, or your whole life when I'm driving. Those are the two options.
I agree. So, yeah.
And it gets like, it's like a little... I also like my driving songs to make me drive faster.
Reeling in the Ears is one of those songs. I think if you're listening to the Allman Brothers or Steely Dan, you should be ineligible to get a speeding ticket.
Or Queens of Stone Age.

Fast Car, Tracy Chapman.

Okay, so you are going very literal.

I like this.

That's a good pick.

I just thought these would all be picked already.

So you just thought car songs.

You're like car.

Yeah.

Billy's third round pick is Wheels on the Bus.

No, no.

Fast Car, we listened to that.

Not on...

No, it's a great song.

It's a great song.

There's no...

That's a life... You've run back your whole life life when you heard that song.
Remember where we live from? Slack, Google Drive. Hi, yeah.
I'm feeling like I'll be someone. I'll be someone.
And then you're like, shit, I'm no one. Not you.
No, but you're in a car going fast. That's true.
And then you're like, yeah, we're going somewhere. It's a good's a good pick Good pick Good pick I will go with The Gambler Kenny Rogers That's a great car song Yeah Okay And my Life perspective One would be Landslide Fleetwood Mac Ah Okay Good choice A little depressing But you know You want to feel something When you're driving Either really good Really bad You want to just Or not bad But like that That song will That song will make you think things that you forgot about for a while.
There are two kinds of road trip songs, I think. Ones where you just turn off your brain and rock out, and the others where you want to feel a feeling.
Right. That's a great feel of feeling song.
Yep. I actually had a Fleetwood Mac song that was going to be on my honorable mentions.
Not that. Me too.
Oh, what is it? Dreams? No, The Chain. Great song.
Great beat. Like a good driving beat.
I listened to the whole album when I was driving home yesterday. That's actually what that album inspired this.
Of all time. That album inspired this Mount Rushmore.
That album was inspired by cocaine. A lot of it.
And, whoa, Heartbreak number one. Heartbreak one, cocaine two.
That kind of go hand in hand. Yeah.
R.I Mays. Billy doesn't like my list, so I'm going to load management.
Do you have wheels on the bus? We're going to do load management for this game. I'm going to sit out.
Whoa. He doesn't like my list.
Trouble in paradise. Okay, well, then you'll say your list at the end.
Okay, go ahead. I have two songs on my list.
Okay. You're not a music guy.
All right, this one's awesome to roll around when you got the boys in the car. Boys are back in town.
Thin Lizzy. Okay, good one, Billy.
Good song. All right, I will go with Allman Brothers' Blue Sky.
That is one of my favorite songs to listen to on a summer day when the sky is blue, and it's a great driving song. All right.
Just a feel-good song. Okay, my last two.
I'm going to go Nice For What? Okay. That's such a fucking...
You made a mockery of everything. I love that song.
Yeah, okay. I actually don't love that.
I only love my mom and my bed. Oh my god.
Sorry. Okay.
And then my last one, Blinded By The Light, Manford Man. Okay.
Man for Man. They are actually the same band that sings Do a Diddy Diddy, that shitty song.
That's God's plan that you were talking about. Huh? Yeah.
That's also not Nice for What. You used the wrong lyrics for the song you said.
I'm singing Nice for What when I'm in the car, though. But you didn't.
Yeah, but the lyrics that you said are God's. Right.
I was just apologizing. Okay.
I was just using Drake, my muse, as another way to apologize. Got it.
But yeah, Blinded by the Light, Man for Man, great sing-along song in the car. Great intro song for this podcast.
That's right. Yeah, that's right.
That's right. All right, my last pick, I'm going to go with, this is, again, a very literal, we all do very literal things on this one, but Night Moves, Bob Seger.
Late at night, just fucking, when you're alone in the car. Night Moves.
When you're like the only one on the highway, there's fucking nothing like that. Nothing like that.
I don't remember when. Born to run Bruce Springsteen.
Billy, you crush this. Yeah.
You crush this. Can we hear Jake's? Wait, I still have a pick.
Do you think that he's going to steal one of yours no he's not I had all the small things blink 182 and home Philip Phillips which one is that can you sing me boy no that's Edward Sharp Magnetic Zeros Yeah That's a good song

That's a good driving song too

Edward Sharp

How did yours go?

So just know you're not alone

I'm gonna make this race

I thought those were the same songs

Is that like from an Apple commercial?

Yeah

Nah from camp

It's a good song

I thought that was Lumineers

From camp?

Yeah it was a camp song

My last song

This is like a

Beginning of a road trip

You and your boys are gonna get like

Thank you. Yeah, it was a camp song My last song This is like a Beginning of a road trip You and your boys are going to get First song you play on a road trip Steady Mobbin, Lil Wayne Oh, okay Alright, that was a good Mount Rushmore I feel like we all did a good job We all put our best effort Except for PFT's Drake pick I like that song a lot I know you do So much that you quoted the wrong lyrics No, I you quoted the wrong lyrics.
You also spent a long time hating on Drake. Without a follow, without a mention.
Yeah, but I've learned that I can evolve, and if I can change, then you can change, and everybody can change. I don't think you've ever played that song in a car.
I've listened to that song in a car many times. Billy, I just drove back from Asbury Park two days ago, and I played Drake on the way back.
I don't believe you. All right, let's go honorable mentions.
Road to Nowhere, Talking Heads is on my list. I had Dragula.
Okay. I had Rob Zombie on my list.
Yeah, that's a fucking sick song. Yeah.
Send Me On My Way, Rusted Root. Okay.
Divided Sky Fish is a great car song. It's got like three songs in one.
Boys of Summer, great driving song. A Thousand Miles, Vanessa Carlton.
Night Swimming. I had Ramblin' Man on there too.
That was my Allman Brothers. Higher Love, Steve Winwood.
That's a good one to turn up. You know what's a great one? Get you feeling good.
Is Radar Love, Golden Earring. Down by the River, Neil Young.
Oh, okay. Little Neil Young.
Paradise by the Dashboard Light. If you want to get some meatloaf, if you want to start screaming out lyrics in your car.
Paradise by Coldplay. Yep.
Time, Pink Floyd. Go with the Flow, Queens of the Stone Age.
Again, you shouldn't be given a ticket for that. Good for you.
Olivia Grass and High Tides. It's a good list.
Good list, guys. I think Billy won.
I think Billy crushed it. Billy did crush it.
He went, he went the literal route that like you can't, you can't not see yourself in a car listening to fast car. Like it was smart.
Did you have wheels on the bus? That's a bus song. Still.
That's when you get on the bus. Yeah.
All right. Okay.
So reminder,, 8 p.m. tonight.
Disc golf. Hammer it.
Let's get everyone watching. Billy, would you like to do your Monday reading? I would like you to read your blog, The Mincy Experiment, because it was so good and so Billy.
And I would like us to follow along The Mincy Experiment on this show. Yeah, 100%.
I'd like to co-op The Mincy Experiment, if we can. I'd like to get updates about Mincy, maybe even have Mincy on the show.
I don't know. He's a scale.
I don't know. He's a scale.
You can have him on your own show. He's a scale.
All right. So, okay.
I recently moved into an apartment next to a vacancy that I share a balcony. The way the two apartments are set up, there was a serious potential for whoever to move in having a problem with my several exotic animals, late night workouts, and a dog that poops on the balcony.
It's more of a fire escape. Basically just smell issues.
Wait, it's not a balcony? It's a fire escape type thing that leads to an outdoor area, but I'd have to share that with the neighbor was balcony on the like amenities when you got the apartment no it's a thought about good question it also sounds like that what billy is like the ultimate perfect uh example for you would be to have somebody that you know that moves in next door right because if not that would be like a four-hour conversation for you to explain your whole life, your whole thing that you got going on to them. Wait, so the fire escape leads to something else? Yes.
But you're not supposed to take it. But you take it? It leads to the little outdoor garden area.
But you take it often. Yeah, so I was supposed to share it with whoever moved in.
The garden area? Yeah. So I like split it, but now I don't have to split it.
What, with like a piece of tape? No, actually Hank had a cool fence from when he moved out. Oh, sick.
Okay, nice. Nice.
But now I don't have to use it because Mincy's moving in. We're going to share the garden.
Love it. So the garden's only accessible through the fire escape.
Yes. That feels weird.
Yes. How far above the ground is this fire escape? It's about 10 feet, but there's a stair way down.
And there's nothing, there's no basement apartment or ground floor? No, that's like, it's like a little. Storefront? Yeah, it's more of like where the super chills.
Okay. It's like a workshop.
Got it. The electrical stuff.
I think I got the got the layout. Okay.
So it would have really fucked you up.

If someone else moved in,

it could have been a lot of problems.

Yeah, right. Dog poop.

Noise. Hedgehog.

Frogs. Legal.

Normal New Jersey problems.

Squat rack.

We'll get to that.

Not that I don't like strangers. I'm able to vibe with everyone.

But sometimes strangers don't necessarily

vibe with me. I've been telling

Thank you. Hot rack.
We'll get to that. Yeah.
Not that I don't like strangers. I'm able to vibe with everyone, but sometimes strangers don't necessarily vibe with me.
I've been telling people I know who are looking at new places to move in rather than have someone I know live next to me than some random who would most likely not be chill through word of mouth and trial and error. I now have a new neighbor, the Louisiana legend, Ben Mintz.
Yes. Now, this is actually not a joke or a prank.
The Fran and Mintz roommate thing was a prank by Tommy Smokes. I don't really understand it.
I promise this is not. At first, I didn't believe Mintz was actually going to look at the apartment.
That was until one morning in bed, I heard that sweet southern drawl outside my window. Mintz-y was touring the place.
It was actually really funny. I was waking up, and I just hear Mintz-y outside my window.
Mincy was touring the place. It was actually really funny.

I was like waking up and I just hear Mincy outside my window on the balcony.

Love it.

That was not a balcony. Not a balcony.

Hit me.

Big Ed, do the impression again.

Sup, fellas.

That's pretty good.

Even though Mincy and I have over a 16-year age difference, we have many interests in

common such as grilling, fitness, and sports, which is more than enough for two dudes to chill yep wait wait listen again grilling fitness sports okay so that's pretty much everything what i love about that is yeah if you have that if you have that venn diagram overlapping you're good but also it's like fitness also includes grilling and sports inside of it so it's like it's the ultimate like super bro symbiotic relationship you've got the trifecta yeah holy trinity anyway after mince looked at his new place i showed him around mine and he noticed how i had a squat rack and weights in my kitchen and asked if he would be cool if he worked out there with me now trust me my kitchen is not that very large i live alone and there's just no point in putting a dime. Yep.

Yep.

This is perfect.

So what you guys are doing is you're creating one super dorm room where like you don't have to have all the normal stuff in your place because you also technically kind of live in Mincy's place. Right.
There's a chance that Billy tries to tear down one of these walls, a non-load bearing wall. Unfortunately, there's a hallway between the apartments, but the balconies connect and maybe do some- Maybe if you just start putting all your furniture in the hallway, people will get the picture that it's not theirs anymore.
That's your long hallway? What you should do is the thing where you're like, okay, let's pool all our money together and Mince, we'll put the big TV in your place. Yeah.
And then we can pool all your money together and put the beer pong table in mine. Exactly.
Now that... Wait, sorry.
Now that Mince wants to work out with with me there's a huge potential for me to put on serious mask because i'll have someone there to spot me i wasn't gonna i mean how terrible like that's my favorite part that you were you were not realizing your gains because you had no one to spot you in your squat rack in your kitchen well i was literally like lifting like lifting alone. Right.
You're not going to fucking push it. In the morning.
I'm like, it would be really, really terrible if I couldn't get the bar off me. It'd be hilarious.
Yeah, Ryan Russillo. Kill yourself with your squat.
Exactly. Honestly, you would be a legend if that's how you died.
I know, but that would just be really bad. Yeah.
I don't want you to die, but if you had to pick a way to go, would it rather be like, I don't know, a car accident? Or would it be like you got crushed under the weight of your own Max? Not alone with my dog in the apartment. Yeah, think about the dog.
Yeah, Whitey would eat you. Your dog would eat you? Yeah, when he got hungry enough.
Yeah. We would know that you were dead right away.
True. Because we'd just be like, we'd be so mad at you.
After like the fifth or sixth hour that you didn't show up, you'd be like, okay, something might be wrong. Yeah.
Listen, if you die that way, we don't want you to die, but if you ever die that way, we can't be held accountable for the anger that we feel for you being late until we figure out that you're dead. You see what I'm saying? You'll probably get fired in the time that you die in the time we realize you're dead.
don't have to pay out that insurance anyway totally irrational fear but um so now i will have someone there to spot me and mince will continue the insane transformation he's been on since his drinking days he's lost like 50 pounds yep he looks but he's you're gonna get to it yeah ben has dropped a ton of weight and he says he hit a plateau he would love for me to help him get to the next level. He asked me to actually be in charge of buying all the food for the both of us, and he will work out with me.
What he doesn't realize is I have already devised a complete diet, supplement, and exercise plan that I've been trying to get Big Cat and PFT to fully commit to for years. Now I have the perfect opportunity to control all the variables and in turn Ben Mintz

into a lab rat

turned muscle hamster

it's still crazy to me

that like

when you got hired

or when you were our intern

when you were 18 years old

we just put our like

nutrition in your hands

and you

you know a lot now

you knew nothing

remember he would be like

he almost killed us

we'd be like

hey is this Keto

and he'd be like

yeah wait

hold on one sec

and he'd just go google i think that billy actually gave us kidney stones yeah that's the reason why we have it because we didn't follow well so you say that you have like a strict nutrition and dietary and workout plan right you've already put together that you've been trying to get us on i'm gonna throw a flag on that, Billy, because I don't think that you actually have a plan because you've never told us what our plan is. Yeah, you haven't been trying to get us on it.
Your plan is just like if they ask me to work out, that'd be sweet and I'll work out with them. But you have never said like, okay, here's your dietary restrictions.
Well, basically it would be just low carb and I've been trying to get you guys to do that. But you keep saying.

I already said, I'm trying to do low carb. Well, I salad for lunch every day.

What I'd tell you guys to do is ketosis.

And then you accidentally don't do ketosis.

And then you just end up on a low carb diet.

Yeah.

And also.

That's actually smart.

That's like shooting for the moon.

Yeah, exactly.

So that's really the plan.

Okay.

So I now control Ben Mintz's diet and exercise.

So basically, he is my pet. This is a 34-year-old male? 38.
38? He's your pet. And you're being serious.
Yeah. I mean, basically, I'm going to really whip this guy in the shape.
All of your experiments, you can now take out on Ben Mintz. Well, basically, I control all the variables.
Like, literally, he's not going to be able to eat a meal. You should maybe chain him up in off hours so that you don't know.
Why don't you be like, let's get a deep freezer, and we'll get a big-ass fridge for your apartment, so that way you know that he doesn't have food in his. Yeah, you've got to make sure he has no food in his apartment.
I'll actually check. No, but he's got a meat guy hookup, so we're just going to be grilling all the time.

Oh, so you guys are just fucking...

It's going to be...

Bulking season is going to be insane,

and I got to grill.

Who's in charge of seizing the food,

Ben or you?

Probably Ben.

Yeah, I'd say it's smart.

I'd take a Louisiana guy over there.

I'm going to pump this guy full of creatine,

get him squatting heavy,

and see what happens.

We're about to add muscle mass

onto that newly slimmed mince frame,

and it's going to pump this guy full of creatine, get him squatting heavy, and see what happens. We're about to add muscle mass onto that newly slimmed mince frame, and it's going to be awesome.
Lots of stuff in the works. Expect to see some before photos from Mincy soon.
The Mincy sparence is about to begin. I love it.
I'm so excited for this. It was a great blog.
Billy's become a very, very good blogger, but that one was... I read it on Friday, and I texted you right away.
I was like, we need to talk about this because you have a pet and I'm excited to see the results. It's going to be really awesome.
It is a human being. We should say that again.
Ben Mintz is, yeah, he's a man. He's a man with his own.
He's 40. He's signed up for all this.
We should need to get him some consent form. So Billy, you have to be prepared for when Mintz goes his like first couple weeks and he puts on weight because i think you're mostly focused in in terms of like the traditional billy workout methods like how jack can i make this person right so he's probably going to put on like five pounds of muscle and then he's gonna be like billy let's go i like hanging out he'll get that he'll get that the plan is is we're gonna get him on a specific specific supplement regimen that will be able to break through that first wall of soreness when the muscles are really getting ramped up.
What supplement is that? We're going to go with dyspartic acid, arginine, creatine. I like when Billy counts on his fingers.
He cracks the knuckles. Yeah, we need these consent forms because if you kill him, we gotta be covered.
No, basically, he's gonna be high T Ben Mintz. This guy's gonna come in here.
Pick Central's gonna be insane. That's gonna be awesome.
This guy isn't gonna take any shit because his hormone levels are gonna be out of control. He's gonna probably...
He might try to fuck you. All natural, but it's gonna be fun.
pumped. What are your goals? Not for Ben, for you.

Oh, for me?

I've gotten pretty skinny,

and I want to get back to squatting around 400,

which is reasonable. Do you have that weight in your kitchen?

Well, when I got past 315,

385 was going to steal weights from here.

Got it.

Is that okay?

Yeah, no, that's fine.

So maybe you'll be able to start benching more than, what, 285? Well, I don't know if I'm going to break 300. The boxing got in the way of that, but I think we'll get back there.
Okay, but when I said, like, what are your goals for you? I meant like as a trainer. How are you going to know when you feel good about your experiment? Well, when I don't know, when Ben Mince is jacked and everyone's like, wow.
Yeah. Okay, I think that's actually a good goal.
I'm actually aiming to get it really going by Christmas, and then I think me and Chef Donnie are going to release a cookbook exercise plan, like life plan book. Yes.
By Black Friday. Yes.
That's the aim. But I'm testing it on Benz now.
Okay. I like that you are going to become some mix of the P90X guy and Tony Robbins.
I think this is your perfect self. Trying.
It's as close as we get to a Russian scientist in our midst. You know what you actually need to incorporate is check his piss.
Yep. See what nutrients he's lacking, that sort of thing.
Yeah, we got to put it to a lab. You got to send his piss away.
Yep. True.
That's, again, consent forms. We need to get him to sign his life.
But he's not going to be, we don't need to test him for doping. No, no, no.
You're going to doping. I actually got to make sure he's not doping.
Right. He's cheating.
No, you got to make sure he's not not doping. Oh.
Because you're going to dope him. No, I'm not.
But you do need to see, like, the nutrient've got to make sure he's... You've got to optimize his diet.
You've got to make sure he's taking the steroids you give him. I'm not going to give him steroids.
I promise. You're going to mix it into his peanut butter like a dog.
Maybe a little, you know, deer ant. Just vaping into his ear.
That's fine. It's fine.
Do you have any recap or should we just go to the numbers? Yeah. So basically here's a list of all of the empires that try to invade afghanistan okay the persian empire the greek empire the arab empire the turkish empire the mongol empire the moogle empire this is like going to play at vcu right not the roman empire surprisingly the british Empire, the Soviet Union.
I wouldn't consider it was an invasion

we did, but also

the... surprisingly the british empire the soviet uh union i wouldn't consider it was an invasion we did but also the u.s just kind of crashed at their house for 20 years they're the ultimate trap game they're a big time trap game yeah they're the team that no one wants to play yeah they've got rivalry like throughout the record books no matter who you are when you play afghanistan also in washington state two consenting adults can have.
It's sanctioned. Yeah.
Kwame Brown talks about that. Mutual combat state.
Yes. Regarding what we talked about earlier.
Yeah. That's all.
Alright. Numbers and then we're off on the road.
Reminder, 8pm tomorrow. 8.
What? I was just going to say, did we gentrify Afghanistan when we were there? 75. That would have been a good way to keep the Taliban from coming back.
Spilled like a Hooters. It's forbidden.
Paper source. Maybe there's the paper source.
A nice brunch place that nobody can get into. What is that? 66.
60. We're going to Grit Week right now.

Everyone tune in tomorrow night, 8 p.m.

to see you out on the road.

Oh, yeah, Talking Soccer.

There it was.

Squirrels can survive terminal velocity.

Love you guys. We're talking away I don't know what I'm gonna say But I'll say it anyway Days are not the day to find you Stying away I'll we coming for the little game? Take me Take me I'll be God In I ever talk I'll be left to say I'm all to man That's me, stop my way away It's totally learning that life is open Stay happy

It's no better to be safe than

It's only a day

Got it

Here we are

I'll be

God

In a day of time I'll become Insane of all Outro Music Oh, things like this hell Is it my fault? Time to blame my worries away Of all the things I've got to remember I'll away I'll become a fool away Take on me Take me on I'll be on I the same time I'll be gone Take me away I'll be gone

And I'll be gone

I'll be gone

I'll be gone We are We are