The Big Suey: What'd You Say? (feat. Ryan Blaney)

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Speaker 3 Welcome to the Big Sue.

Speaker 3 Presented by DraftKings. Why are you listening to this show? It's a podcast that seems very similar to the other Dan Lebetard podcast.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry, I'm not going to apologize for that.

Speaker 3 In fact, the only difference seems to be this imaging. I have been tempted in restaurants just walking past tables to grab somebody's prize if they're just there.
That hasn't happened to you guys.

Speaker 1 I've done it.

Speaker 3 And now, here's the marching man to nowhere, fat face, and the habitual liar.

Speaker 3 I was laughing on the way home yesterday because it is a particular kind of funny to speak to somebody who's not nicknamed Iceman and call them Iceman.

Speaker 3 Like, of all of the nicknames, calling someone Iceman who doesn't go by Iceman is funnier than just getting a nickname wrong.

Speaker 1 Like Frank Osila.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, just, it was ridiculous what I did yesterday.

Speaker 1 It actually restored my faith in humanity a little bit because I put that 100% on AI. That's what AI said.
Christopher Bell's nickname was.

Speaker 3 That is not just AI. It was also Wikipedia.
So we're joined now by Maverick.

Speaker 3 Ryan Blaney is with with us and I'm very pleased to have one of the most popular drivers around with us as Homestead Miami Speedway is hosting the NASCAR Cup Series this weekend.

Speaker 3 Sunday, March 23rd, that is FS1, 3 p.m.

Speaker 3 And I wonder about this because Zaz, I don't know how your ears are doing in radio. I know that I, all of a sudden...
My wife says bad.

Speaker 3 Yeah, all of a sudden, I'm asking my wife all the time to repeat things. And I've got to imagine, just given how loud.
Now, he's only 31 years old. Thank you for joining us, Ryan.

Speaker 3 But I got to imagine that one of the many drawbacks that happened from doing a dangerous thing like this for a living, this has to affect your hearing, how loud all of this is, correct?

Speaker 1 What did you say?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's why you're Maverick. That's why they call you Maverick.

Speaker 1 Very good. Comedy.
Iceman. Good job.

Speaker 4 Man, you're Oprah too. I'm actually Iceman,

Speaker 4 but it's fine.

Speaker 4 No, no, uh, no, thanks, thanks for having me, fellas. Um, I appreciate it, but yeah, I mean, it's loud, man.
I mean, I've been doing this since I was nine years old.

Speaker 4 I grew up watching my dad race, so I've been around the track forever.

Speaker 4 Uh, and it does, I mean, we do the best we can of like wearing in ears in the car, stuff like that to try to just muffle some of it. But it does digress a little bit.

Speaker 4 And you see a lot of drivers that have retired, they are on hearing aids now, but uh, it's just one of the drawbacks, you know.

Speaker 3 Uh, did you have a choice in terms of what you were going to be other than a driver? Because anytime I'm around you guys, everyone starts at eight years old and everyone inherits it from their family.

Speaker 4 Yeah,

Speaker 4 it's always what I wanted to do just because I grew up around it. And it was what I was most comfortable with just watching my dad do it.
I played other sports as a kid. I loved playing basketball.

Speaker 4 I love baseball.

Speaker 4 But then I kind of had to come to a realization, like, I'm probably not going to make it.

Speaker 4 If I have my father's jeans, I'm probably going to be five, nine and like 140 pounds. And racing is probably the best route for me.
Um, but my dad never like forced me to do it.

Speaker 4 Like, he was always, are you sure you want to do this? Are you sure you want to go to the next step? Uh, so it was something that I just wanted to do.

Speaker 4 What my dad did, and I got lucky that I was able to, you know, get the opportunities and make a living off of doing this.

Speaker 3 Do you have other places where you're an adrenaline junkie?

Speaker 4 I'm gonna be honest with you, like, not really. I don't really have to search for adrenaline too often.
People ask all the time, like, oh, it's just, is it just an adrenaline boost for racing cars?

Speaker 4 And, like, not really. Like, you're not white-knuckling out there all the time.

Speaker 4 I think it's just what you're used to. But I try to find things that are more like relaxing to me.

Speaker 4 Like going, you know, skiing.

Speaker 4 You know, I play a lot of golf. Those are relaxing things to me where I can just kind of decompress and just like be out there and not really have to worry about too much.

Speaker 4 So I don't really search for adrenaline too often.

Speaker 3 Do you drive too fast when you're away from the track?

Speaker 4 The opposite, complete opposite.

Speaker 4 I am a very slow driver on the roads. I have nowhere to be quickly.

Speaker 4 I always tell people like,

Speaker 4 I get paid to drive really fast for my job. And the only thing I get if I go fast on the roads is like a speeding ticket, a fine, or go to jail.
So it's like that, the trade-off is not.

Speaker 4 worth it to me. My wife is actually the speed demon behind the wheel.
I kind of, if she's driving, we're getting getting to the place we need to go to quickly. And I try not to be a passenger,

Speaker 4 you know, passenger driver, I guess, and tell her what to do. But she's the speed demon on the roads.
I, uh, I, I don't really get anything for that.

Speaker 3 Do you have a number of tickets you've gotten? Like, is there a number that you would assign to how often you have broken the law while driving away from the track?

Speaker 4 I mean, everyone gets tickets, right? I mean, it's everyone does it. Uh, I haven't had one in a, in a good amount of years.
I'll tell you, my last one I I had

Speaker 4 was I was a junior in high school

Speaker 4 and my mother put a stop to that right away.

Speaker 4 The fear of mom got put in me after that speeding ticket because it wasn't a great one.

Speaker 4 It was a moment. And so after that one, I've been very,

Speaker 4 like, I just think of my mom when I'm driving. Like, I can't

Speaker 1 be yelling.

Speaker 3 It wasn't a great one. Give me the details.

Speaker 1 What were you doing?

Speaker 3 You were going 175 miles an hour.

Speaker 4 No, I was going. i mean it might not be impressive but to me it was bad it was uh

Speaker 1 uh

Speaker 4 i was going i was going 80 and a 45.

Speaker 1 uh you crazy

Speaker 4 was not yeah yo crazy i was crazy guy uh yeah uh

Speaker 4 i i passed the cop i came over this hill and passed him and we locked eyes

Speaker 4 and and immediately i'm like oh no so i just i literally i just pulled over and stopped and i waited for him to turn around so i was already stopped by the time he even turned around and turned the lights on.

Speaker 1 Do you ever get road rage when you're driving a regular car on regular streets or the highway?

Speaker 4 Sometimes I get a little annoyed with

Speaker 4 drivers on the road, like everybody, like, you know, people merging, kind of being foolish.

Speaker 4 I'll tell you what bothers me the most is no turn signals. That really annoys me, especially if you're like stopping in the middle of the road to turn and you don't put your signal on.

Speaker 4 I'm like, what do you want me to do?

Speaker 4 That part really kind of grinds my gears a little bit.

Speaker 3 Put it on the poll, please, at Lebatard show.

Speaker 3 What annoys you more, a no-turn signal or somebody who has their turn signal on all the time? Because that's the problem we have in South Florida.

Speaker 3 The problem in South Florida is old people who always have their turn signal on, but we also have the other problem as well. So I just want to know.

Speaker 1 We have it all. Yeah, we have to twist you.

Speaker 3 Yeah,

Speaker 3 we have it. Well, have you noticed? I don't know if you've been driving very much around Miami when you're not at Homestead, but it's gotten really bad down here.

Speaker 3 You're not going to be able to get anyone while you're here, and you should travel by helicopter.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, I get down there today. I have noticed it's funny.
We travel across the country, and each state has its own work as far as people driving and kind of what they do.

Speaker 4 You know, you got like the big cities like New York and stuff like that, where I don't know how people drive in New York in the city. Everyone's just honking at each other.

Speaker 4 But then you got Miami, like you said, where, you know, people just are all over the place. I would say no turn signal bothers me more.

Speaker 4 If you have your turn signal on, you probably have your music playing too loud and you forgot to turn your turn signal off. I've done that before.

Speaker 4 But if you're still going and your brake lights aren't on, like, all right, you're not turning anytime soon. So I don't really worry about you.

Speaker 1 It's been a hard luck season for the 12-car this season so far. You've been having good cars and just, well, I guess the sentiment can be expressed.

Speaker 1 best by Cal Sheisty on X when he tweeted out, can't wait for a homestead where Blainey will lead the first 266 laps and then get struck by a f ⁇ ing meteor on the last lap.

Speaker 1 So I guess, Ryan, are you going to get struck by a f ⁇ ing meteor on the last lap this week?

Speaker 4 I tell you, if that does happen, I can't be upset about it. You know, that's a, that's a

Speaker 4 amazing scientific thing, right?

Speaker 1 A meteor coming against you.

Speaker 4 That's like, the odds have to be higher than getting struck by lightning on that one. It's like, all right, well, if it was meant to be, it's meant to be.

Speaker 4 I guess for our year, it's been like a super scrappy year so far.

Speaker 4 Like you said, last couple of weeks haven't really gone our way, but I've always related this sport, just because I can relate to it the most as like a big wave.

Speaker 4 Like just, you got, you're going to be down a little bit and then you got to learn when, you know, you're riding the wave and you're running really well.

Speaker 4 You have to enjoy that stuff, but like not let it bother you if you're sitting out in the ocean and no waves are coming at you or you're getting crushed by them. It's just part of it.

Speaker 4 And you just know that you're going to, you're going to go race next week and you can try to do something different. So we haven't really gotten too down about that.

Speaker 4 I think that gets better as you get older and just understanding that, you know, know, there's sometimes nothing you can do and you just got to keep going.

Speaker 3 Well, you're the 2023 Cup Series champion and the runner-up last year. So when,

Speaker 3 you know, some turbulence strikes, does doubt make an appearance or is your confidence so solid that you assign it to other things and it's not your fault?

Speaker 4 I think it's situational. Like, you know, I'm not really like the most, I don't lose confidence.
I've just never been that person.

Speaker 4 You know, so I try to just, you you know, not let doubt get to me. And I always just try to go back.

Speaker 4 If things aren't going our way, like, you know, we got to, our whole team is really great at what they do. You know, all the 15 guys that we got in our, in our camp are amazing.
And

Speaker 4 I have all the faith in them. You know, I feel like as a, as a driver, like if you make a mistake, you know, just you.

Speaker 4 You try, I try to learn from it right away. And I don't think you try to let doubt creep in your mind.
Like, oh, I don't know if I can still do this. Like, that's not a good way to think.
So

Speaker 4 if those creep, if those thoughts do kind of creep in, it's like, all right, how do you just get them out of here right away and just try to think positive?

Speaker 4 And uh, and if you do make a mistake, how do you learn from it and move on? Um, that's like the best way that I've tried to learn over my years of doing this for so long.

Speaker 3 You mentioned uh that you're not out there white-knuckling it. I suspect that there's not a lot of emotion.
I suspect that you're pretty uh disciplined about how you drive.

Speaker 3 Can thoughts make an appearance while you're driving about other things, Or are you so focused that thoughts about other things can't be allowed because you might hurt yourself?

Speaker 4 In moments, sometimes your mind will wander,

Speaker 4 you know, but those are rare.

Speaker 4 You know, in like certain spots, like if we're running around like Daytona or something, and you're kind of just saving gas and not really a lot of stuff's going on,

Speaker 4 you might think about other things a little bit.

Speaker 4 what you watched on TV, this new song you heard. But that didn't go on for very long.

Speaker 4 so it's it's it's very rare that that happens I don't know I can't speak for anybody else maybe I'm a little get a little like ADD or something like that that I have to like sometimes I think about other stuff but

Speaker 4 it doesn't happen very often you're you're so just engrossed in this you know competition that you're doing that you can't really let it wander so I would say like that's a 1% of the time that that'll happen the nature of what you do is so competitive and obsessive compulsive when you actually sleep do you you dream of racing like are there things that make appearances because you have to be obsessed with this the only times i dream about uh racing is like fears like one of my biggest fears is sleeping in and missing like the start of the race or missing practice i've had a couple of those dreams where i i wake up in the dream and like cars are on the track and like i've missed practice of the race like that's the biggest thing of me being late but other than that i don't really ever dream about racing it's always weird stuff you know, like normal dreams are.

Speaker 4 But those are the only racing dreams I have because I think it's just like a big fear of mine because I have slept in before and I've been late.

Speaker 4 That was way back in the day, but I think that's that's the only thing that ever creeps in.

Speaker 3 I don't know how common a dream that is for everybody, but I've found it to be a pretty common dream for people who have an enormous amount of responsibilities and constantly find themselves under a certain kind of stress.

Speaker 3 We talked yesterday with Christopher Bell about the pressure that surrounds this particular economy. So you love driving, but what about everything else around it?

Speaker 4 Yeah, there's a lot of stuff outside the racetrack that

Speaker 4 you have to do. And

Speaker 4 it's being on a great plane with your partners

Speaker 4 and

Speaker 4 doing all the stuff off the track that I don't think people really realize

Speaker 4 that stuff. you know whether it's i mean a great example like running through a weekend you know you'll get there on thursdays or Fridays.
Usually you have like a partner dinner on one of the nights.

Speaker 4 And then all race day, you probably have three to five like partner appearances, kind of meet and greets, whether with it with, you know, customers of that sponsor that you got, you know, people who work for that company.

Speaker 4 There's a lot of stuff you do right before you get in the car. And then even through the week, you know, I got to go to Raleigh next week to do a photo shoot for advanced auto parts, you know, so.

Speaker 4 you're kind of constantly running around. So that's that stuff's important.
And I think I got a good look at that growing up, you know, watching my dad have to do all that stuff.

Speaker 4 So So it wasn't just racing. It's how do you also can connect to people that help you out, you know, and kind of

Speaker 4 honestly put up the money to get you on the racetrack, right? And sponsors your race teams. So all that stuff is really important.

Speaker 4 And I've been really lucky to have great relationships with all my partners over the years. And it's neat because you get to meet awesome people that have the same interest as you.

Speaker 4 They're race fans and they love the sports.

Speaker 4 um and then they can you know ask you questions about kind of the inner workings of it so it works out it's just part of the job. And we're pretty fortunate to be able to do that.

Speaker 4 So I never get to like, oh, I got to go do this for a partner. It's always exciting because you're happy to have them with you.

Speaker 3 What is the worst part of the life?

Speaker 4 The worst part?

Speaker 4 Wrecking.

Speaker 1 That sucks. That's a good idea.

Speaker 1 That sucks.

Speaker 1 Like, that's the worst thing ever.

Speaker 4 Some of them are, hey, I got a pretty good gig, man. Like, I'm really really lucky to do what I do.
It's a privilege to be able to, you know, to drive cars for a living.

Speaker 4 You know, but

Speaker 4 and that's just part of it, right? Is you're going to get in wrecks, and some of them are going to be worse than others.

Speaker 4 But that stuff sucks, whether that you kind of get a little hurt or just know that

Speaker 4 you're done for the day. So that is by far the worst part of it.
That's the only complaint I have about. my sport is the wrecks don't feel very good.

Speaker 1 I started following NASCAR closely last season, and there have been really some spectacular-looking yet really awful wrecks and knock on wood every time.

Speaker 1 The driver gets out, gives a signal to the crowd that they're okay, and I'm astonished by that.

Speaker 1 All the science said has gone into protection, and then they show the camera inside, and I see the driver's neck get knocked around.

Speaker 1 I don't know if you ever get desensitized with the wrecks being having the job that you do.

Speaker 4 It's a part of the job, but does it ever change the feeling when you know you're about to wreck and you you close your eyes for a brief moment and you're like this could be it does that ever go away i'll tell you the worst wrecks are the ones that you see coming uh like okay i a good example probably the hardest wreck i've had in the last year was right right they tona you're riding around there in a big train and i got hooked in the right rear and you go right head on into the fence right going 200 miles an hour and that half a second by the time you get turned by the time you hit the fence it feels like an eternity you know, because you know there's nothing you can do about this and you're just waiting for a big hit.

Speaker 4 Those are the worst ones

Speaker 4 by far. Some of them, you know, happen a little bit quicker that you don't really expect it.

Speaker 4 But if you get to think about it before you actually hit, that's the worst part. But the safety side has gotten, you know, just in the last 20 years, I think has gotten pretty amazing.

Speaker 4 I mean, there's still things that

Speaker 4 need to get better. But yeah, the ones that take the longest, and I mean take the longest by like half a second, a second, you realize you're going to wreck.

Speaker 4 Those ones usually are bad because then you like, you tense up, you know, and everyone's always like, well, you know, if you're going to get in a car wreck, just relax.

Speaker 4 That's really easy to say

Speaker 1 if you've never been in a car wreck. It really is.

Speaker 3 It's super easy to say. Yes.

Speaker 1 You might die. Just relax.
Just relax. Yeah, just relax.

Speaker 4 It's fine. You're about to just hit this fence at 70 Gs.
You're fine. Just relax.
And it's like, all right, you've never been a part of this before.

Speaker 3 Can you give us the the most extreme example of you being a Star Wars dork?

Speaker 4 I have Star Wars tattooed on my body. That's probably a pretty extreme.

Speaker 4 They don't wash off, for those of you who are wondering, they're there for life, so you better be a fan of that thing for your whole life. So I got a couple Darth Vader tattoos.

Speaker 4 So I, yeah, I grew up. My mom took me to go see Phantom Menace.
I think it came out in 01 or 99 when I was like six years old. And I was hooked ever since then.

Speaker 4 So I got to go to the last Jedi premiere, which I thought was good.

Speaker 4 Think what you want in the movie, but it was pretty neat being in that atmosphere of like, you know, a Star Wars film coming out and I get to be the first to see it. That's very suck to you.

Speaker 4 So yeah, I have a huge obsession with the franchise. And it's been a little up and down lately, but I have hope for the future.
So we'll see.

Speaker 3 You knew better or know better than to try and insert any Star Wars theme into your wedding, correct?

Speaker 4 Oh, my wife knows better. And I know better now, too, because my wife taught me.

Speaker 4 All the Star Wars stuff is pretty much taken down in my house. Before her and I got together, I had a shrine.
And

Speaker 4 when she moved in, she was like, yeah, we're going to get rid of this. You have to put it somewhere else.

Speaker 3 I would imagine that a NASCAR wedding, if Baba, if you've got Baba as a groomsman, I would imagine that a NASCAR wedding would be a frolicking, debaucherous affair.

Speaker 4 I think any wedding is. Any wedding is

Speaker 4 full of debauchery. You you know? Like, I think, I don't know what it is about weddings, but people just go nuts.
It's like their free pass.

Speaker 4 If they go to one or three weddings a year, like it's their free pass and just get absolutely belligerently drunk and no one judges them. Like, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, it's a wedding.

Speaker 4 You can go do whatever you want. It's fine.
But yeah, we got married out in Aspen, my wife and I.

Speaker 4 a beautiful place. And yeah, it was it was a lot of fun.
So we did it right, which was, which was cool. Weddings, they go quick, though.

Speaker 4 That was the only bad thing about the wedding is it was over before you knew it. And um, and then you wake up the next day, you're like, man, we've we planned this for a year and now it's over.

Speaker 4 So let's go home. And so, but we had a good time.

Speaker 3 Put it on the poll, please. Uh, do you think that a NASCAR wedding is more debaucherous than the average wedding at Lebatard show?

Speaker 1 In honor of our guest, the Maverick, Ryan Blaney, I put together a top five list that I think plays well. This is top five guys in sports that can rock a cap.

Speaker 3 He wears a cap well.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 4 I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 You're about to find out. We don't know if he's on.
You don't know if you're on it, Ryan. We'll find out.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Number five. Okay.

Speaker 1 Fernando Rodney.

Speaker 1 Iconic. The best.
Iconic.

Speaker 4 I'll start wearing mine like that.

Speaker 1 Number four,

Speaker 1 Kyle Shanahan.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Come on. That is back name.

Speaker 1 Flat brim hat for Kyle Shanahan is a go-to. Your thoughts, Ryan.

Speaker 4 I like it. Yeah.
I got to meet Shanahan in Sonoma a couple years ago. Cool guy.
And yeah,

Speaker 1 rocking the ball gap.

Speaker 1 Number three, Cece Sabathia.

Speaker 3 You're just doing it sideways.

Speaker 1 Like, it's not. No, I'm not.
Kyle Shanahan wears the flat brims. And number two, Jay-Z.

Speaker 1 Strong.

Speaker 1 Obviously, ranked ahead of Cece Sabathia because he can make the Yankee hat more famous than a Yankee hat.

Speaker 1 And number one, race day, Ryan Blaney.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 Congratulations.

Speaker 1 This is another photo. Ryan Blaney with the hair flipped out in the back.

Speaker 1 That is peak.

Speaker 1 No one is better than that. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Long hair, full beard is pretty strong when it gets to November and I don't shave or cut my hair. It's a good one.
But hey, I appreciate that.

Speaker 4 I feel like it was skewed a little bit, only because I was your guest. I was number one.
But I'm ranked ahead of a lot of great athletes, great coaches. I appreciate that.

Speaker 4 I really got my morning started.

Speaker 3 Congratulations. The highest honor

Speaker 1 of your career. You're the inspiration.

Speaker 3 You could watch the number 12 team Penske Ford car as the NASCAR Cup Series hits Homestead, Miami Speedway. It's this Sunday, 3 p.m.
Eastern on FS1. A pleasure, sir.

Speaker 3 Thank you and congratulations on all your success.

Speaker 4 I appreciate it, guys. Thanks for having me.
Had a lot of fun. Thank you.

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Speaker 3 don lebatard what is the worst part of the life stugats

Speaker 1 the worst part of the life of what this is the dan lebatard show with the stugats

Speaker 3 I wanted to ask the group a few questions here.

Speaker 3 And the first one is I am asking everyone here including basketball expert Jonathan Zaslow to pronounce the name of the San Antonio Spur who scored 34 points in fewer than 20 minutes last night and then during the sideline interview brought out his good friend Flavor Flave to be a part of the shenanigans does anyone want to take a chance a shot at this person's name

Speaker 3 Sonaro is the first name, correct?

Speaker 1 Nope, everyone points out. No, it's not.
And Sandro.

Speaker 1 Sandro.

Speaker 3 Okay, Sandro is the first name, and the last name is... We've got nothing.

Speaker 3 No. Nobody here can name the spur who's not.

Speaker 1 Wait, did you really do that?

Speaker 1 Sonaro is the first name, and then it's actually Sandro. That's right.

Speaker 3 I misread my handwriting. That's what just said.

Speaker 1 Sandro Mamu Kalashvili.

Speaker 3 That doesn't sound right?

Speaker 1 Mamu Kelashvili. No, that actually sounds right.
It sounds like I kind of nailed it, actually. Zazzle, you keep shaking your head.
I want you to try. How about that? I'm afraid of this one.

Speaker 1 Don't be afraid. You're okay.
I'm with Sandra Mama Kellasphili. No, I can't see it.
I don't know his name.

Speaker 3 He was 13 for 13 from the field.

Speaker 3 I'm sorry, 13 for 14 from the field and 7 for 7 from 3. That was a good game.

Speaker 3 In fewer than 20 minutes.

Speaker 1 He was awesome.

Speaker 1 Spurts are trying to lose games. I don't know if they would say he's awesome.

Speaker 3 He was wandering around the locker room saying, I don't know what just bleeping happened. That's got to be a pretty good feeling, right?

Speaker 3 I I can't imagine that there is stuff that feels much better in sports than feeling like you're six for six for three and taking that seven three and you just know everything is going to go in.

Speaker 3 I've only felt anything like that one time in like an intramural basketball game I was playing in college where I just, you know, I was able to make four shots in a row.

Speaker 1 One of those nights, huh, Dan? Everyone still talks about it, Dan. One of those nights.

Speaker 3 I can't imagine how good that has to feel to be wandering around after an NBA game saying that you don't know what happened.

Speaker 1 I want more details about that pickup game. How old were we?

Speaker 1 What type of shots were you respect on it? It was not pick mural. Intermural.
Thank you. At what point did you know you were in the zone? Were you wearing a headband to heat check?

Speaker 3 Yes, I took shots from further and further out, but what I remember about that game is how the shorts I was wearing and how short they were.

Speaker 3 And I'm pretty sure they were terry cloth because I'm pretty sure they were

Speaker 3 something that something like the material. Scared Terry.

Speaker 3 How dare I wear Terrycloth shorts?

Speaker 1 To an intermural game? What's wrong with you? Did you do like the three goggles?

Speaker 3 Put it on the poll at Lebittard Show. We were overmatched.
We did not have a very good team, and I was the only player on our team. We lost by a lot,

Speaker 3 but I was making a.

Speaker 1 You had to put the team on your back.

Speaker 1 You wore the Horace Grant goggles, yeah?

Speaker 3 For a stretch, they were coming out to guard me a little deeper than they would. Guard terry cloth shorts over there.

Speaker 1 Thick wristbands on both wrists. Knee braces.

Speaker 3 That was when I was younger. My father still hasn't let go of the fact that I was a hot dog as a soccer player when I was young, wearing headbands and wristbands.

Speaker 3 And he would always say to me, What are you doing? What are you doing? Why do you have to do that?

Speaker 1 That's generally not the aesthetic for that sport in particular.

Speaker 3 And terry cloth shorts, usually not what you go with in intramural basketball either. Short, but I remember they were short.
too.

Speaker 1 Short is back, by the way. Short is back.
Yeah, but this was the 90s.

Speaker 3 Yes, Tony, thank you. I've noticed this.
I don't know when this happened, but this recently I have noticed that very short ass hanging out of your shorts is back.

Speaker 1 It's back in. Yeah, but also Baggy is back.
It's a weird time. Baggy is back in some cases.

Speaker 1 Not in sports. In hoops, you cannot wear baggy shorts and go out there and play unless you're Adam Salem.

Speaker 1 My favorite is when they like show highlights of the 2008 March Madness, and you're like, what is this? Skinny tops, but like they got

Speaker 1 three pants. Ice is the ultimate example of this.
The tightest jersey you've ever seen and then pants down past his knees. Blousy.
Dan, we have an issue.

Speaker 1 Look, we've knocked it out the park with both of our NASCAR interviews. They both went so well, Iceman and Maverick.

Speaker 1 Maverick went so well that we actually once again forgot to play Vroomer Vroom Vroom, which is a game that

Speaker 1 we've spent a lot of time in pre-production for. So we need to find another NASCAR driver named Goose, preferably, and play Vroomer Vroom Vroom because these are really good questions.

Speaker 3 I'm sorry that that has shifted the last couple of days. I haven't really been buying in on Vroom or Vroom Vroom.

Speaker 1 What is Vroom or Vroom Vroom? I'm glad that you asked. It's a game that we play with our guests.
And Vroom is just like,

Speaker 1 you know, that's okay. Vroom is like, meh.
Yeah, I kind of like that. That's all right.
But Vroom Vroom. I really like that.
You're in on that. I'm good at that game.
I'm on that.

Speaker 1 I'm good at that game.

Speaker 3 Do you want to play the game with us or you only want to play it with NASCAR drivers?

Speaker 1 Well, it doesn't make sense with you guys.

Speaker 3 Well, are they just racing questions or are there other questions?

Speaker 1 No, no, no, they're not questions about racing whatsoever. Wow, that's how you get them.
But that's how you get them. But you don't, I mean, it went so well.

Speaker 1 NASCAR drivers' personality types, by the way, have come a really long way since I was a kid. And it's something that these teams, they look for because his schedule is insane.

Speaker 1 With all these events, I mean, when you think about sponsorships sponsorships in sports, a lot of people think about NASCARs.

Speaker 1 They have obligations for like every single one of those on race week. They're doing interviews moments before they hop in the car.
They're doing interviews while they're racing. It's pretty crazy.

Speaker 1 And they have to be good at it now. They really value that.
You have to essentially be an alien from another universe. You have to be like Verstap and level to not be marketable.

Speaker 3 Well, this is something that I have found interesting in a couple of different places when it comes to how do you go about selling your sports, and when you get to the most popular of sports, how do the burdens of fame make athletes or coaches be in a position where they don't want to be doing sales, which is what it is?

Speaker 3 So,

Speaker 3 obviously, in NASCAR and racing, it's the sport most associated with sponsorships, and you have to take care of the sponsors.

Speaker 3 But one of the reasons over the years that I have always objected to having college coaches on

Speaker 3 any form, television, radio, anywhere, is just because

Speaker 3 the whole job is sales. So much of their job is just to be a sales person,

Speaker 3 and so they just say anything that fits under the umbrella of sales.

Speaker 3 And it's not quite what that interview was, where you've got a willing participant who's answering questions honestly as opposed to going to his sales talking points, which are meant to reach recruits.

Speaker 3 It's one of the reasons that I hate talking to coaches so much because I don't want to spend a lot of time

Speaker 3 in any place that I am talking to salespeople.

Speaker 1 Well, it's stock car racing. So they kind of legislate parity within the sport.
Some teams have more resources. Some teams have charters and

Speaker 1 they've been doing this a long time and some teams are just better when they build out better pit crews.

Speaker 1 But there's not what I'm trying to get at is there's not that a lot that separates these drivers because all the cars are meant to be kind of equal.

Speaker 1 You have faster cars, no doubt, but they're meant to be equal. In coaching, what makes a great coach, I imagine, the distance between, hey, can this guy sell our program?

Speaker 1 Like, you don't care about that so much. Give me the best coach.
Give me a tactical advantage.

Speaker 1 Yeah, give me some guy that can recruit and maybe his team is good enough that the program can recruit itself. But in NASCAR, you need the total package.
You've got to be a good driver, absolutely.

Speaker 1 But you have to knock these media availabilities out of the park because we're trying to grow the sport. And people forget, like, NASCAR is an immense weekly property.

Speaker 1 You get 4 million people tuning into a race on average so far this season. That dwarfs the NBA.

Speaker 1 When it comes to appointment television on the weekends, when there's not NFL football going on, it's this right here, NASCAR.

Speaker 1 So you have to essentially be a CEO of your team because you're often representing them in public and you have to try to win new people over constantly.

Speaker 1 Well, so he was a good talker, so they're all good talkers now, all these NASCAR guys. They're all out there.
My favorite button, good promos.

Speaker 1 My favorite driver, Kyle Larson, is probably one of the weaker talkers of the big drivers.

Speaker 1 And that's because, if anybody, Kyle Larson won a Dirt Track race last night, and now he's headed to homestead. He's the guy that is like Verstap in level.

Speaker 1 You have to be an insanely talented driver to overcome deficiencies in marketability, at least from what I've gathered.

Speaker 1 I am a Johnny Cumb lately to the sport, but it is night and day from when I was growing up watching these guys.

Speaker 3 Do you think that most people listening to this as sports fans are ever doing any kind of conscious watching of the college basketball coach when they're being interviewed, Bruce Pearl or whatever, and saying, that person's good at sales.

Speaker 3 That person's job is to be a sales person.

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 1 No, I don't think regular sports fans see it that way. I think they, especially fans of the team, they just like

Speaker 1 seeing their guy on television. They like hearing from their guy.

Speaker 1 And they love the idea of him going out there and sounding like he knows what he's talking about, like he's personable, like he's affable.

Speaker 1 I don't think they see it as everything that's coming out of his mouth is a sales pitch.

Speaker 3 Well, but part of the job, I don't know what you would say it is, but whenever it is that these interviews are taking place,

Speaker 3 one of the things that's in play is very often, is that person qualified to be face and voice?

Speaker 1 for our team.

Speaker 3 It's not just coach the players, right? Like obviously, someone like Belichick was aggressively against that.

Speaker 3 And football coaches don't actually have to do this because their sport is so popular, they don't have to do sales.

Speaker 3 They have to do media obligations, I suppose, but they don't, they don't, there's no importance in them having any charisma because the point is almost to get away with them from the microphones without showing anybody everything.

Speaker 3 But your sport is so popular that you don't have to do anything in the way of selling it.

Speaker 3 But college, college sports, college basketball and college football, every time you're at a microphone, if you're a coach, you have somewhere embedded in your understanding, you may be talking to a recruit's parents while watching for the first time.

Speaker 3 And so therefore, what it is that you're doing has to be packaged a certain way.

Speaker 1 And it's like prime example with Deion, right?

Speaker 1 Like Deion can go in, he knows he's always on, he's always on camera, he's always doing something with the idea of I'm going to get the next guy who can change the program that I'm at.

Speaker 3 I'm surprised, though, that more of them aren't more charismatic, right?

Speaker 3 Because when I just go, when I run through that list of over 65 coaches that are now in the tournament, Bruce Pearl is that, Tom Izzo is that, it's just, it's a likability. It's a charisma.

Speaker 3 It's slap you on the back, hit you on the knee, and make you forget that they're in sales mode because

Speaker 3 they're presenting as a leader instead of a salesperson.

Speaker 1 I feel like the older guys are the ones who are most charismatic in the college basketball game right now, right?

Speaker 3 Patino is good at that.

Speaker 3 I wouldn't say Rick Barnes is particularly good at that.

Speaker 1 I think there's something about the hiring process that kind of

Speaker 1 diminishes that aspect of it. It's such an incestuous business, such a networking-based thing.
Guys, they have their career arcs.

Speaker 1 They get taken from one staff to another, and it's just all who you know.

Speaker 1 I mean, maybe the older guys are more charismatic because they've been around long enough to know that they have the security so they could just show

Speaker 3 it. It's also reps.

Speaker 1 yeah but it's just not they're not often

Speaker 1 when you get to the high level of running like a big-time program in college basketball like they they offer you the job you don't necessarily always have to interview for it so you don't have to peacock and you you just get fortified in your ways are we calling rick patino charismatic absolutely yeah he has a lot of charismatic

Speaker 1 things that he's had people do to him under a table i do not see charismatic i do not see what you guys are seeing you don't think patino's a good interview i don't i haven't i haven't really listened to a lot of interviews with him, but I just, when I see him at a press conference, I'm not like, oh, man, that is a kid.

Speaker 1 When you see him at a coach. Press conference, he's saying things like Larry Bird ain't walking through that story.
He's got one of the most famous lines ever.

Speaker 1 I'm not saying he might be a decent quote, but just like, he doesn't ooze charisma. No,

Speaker 1 he has charisma. He's a lot of charisma.
He's got a Riz.

Speaker 1 He's got Riz.

Speaker 1 Agree to disagree. Okay.
Does he know? Honestly. Riz Petino.

Speaker 3 That doesn't really work in terms of the sports debate culture. Let's create a show, agree to disagree.

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