0:06

Hey, what I welcome in. I'm dog godlig. This is

0:08

all ball.

0:10

And as part of All Ball, we are going to

0:13

share with you a conversation, a

0:15

two part conversation that

0:18

I had with West Mollette. Wes

0:20

is the athletic director at UC Riverside.

0:23

If you know that name, you see Riverside

0:26

a couple different things. One they got Mike mcpio's the

0:28

head coach. He is a Filipino

0:30

American and was also

0:32

the coach of the Year, a Filipino Coach of the Year.

0:35

And together they not only won

0:37

at Uston Riverside, won the Big West, but

0:40

they've saved sports

0:44

at UC Riverside, literally

0:46

save sports. So with that

0:49

part of this conversation, big part of this conversation

0:52

is over an il, all

0:55

the changes coming, all the changes

0:57

that have already come by everything

0:59

that's going on in the in the

1:01

world of college athletics. And he's super

1:04

unique in his perspective. How

1:06

unique, well, he was a student AUTHT himself.

1:09

He's worked in the professional space at

1:12

BT at PAC

1:14

twelve. You know, he's

1:16

also worked in a high major athletic

1:19

department at cal Berkeley, and

1:21

of course now he works at UC Riverside.

1:23

Which is more low major what we all call mid

1:25

major.

1:25

Now, and so I

1:28

think it's a it's a fascinating

1:30

look, fascinating look at college athletics.

1:32

And oh yeah, by the way, his son

1:35

is a talented college

1:37

basketball player at Pepperdine.

1:40

And so there's there's a bunch of different

1:42

layers to it. Let's get into

1:44

our conversation here. It is with

1:47

Wes Mollett.

1:50

Well, she grew up where.

1:52

I grew up in North Jersey. So

1:55

where I grew up, I grew up in a town called form

1:57

Park, basically form Park, Madison,

1:59

mark Town, East Hanover, that area of North

2:02

Jersey, Marris County, New Jersey. So I

2:04

tell people all the time, you

2:07

know, growing up in North Jersey, I'm so thankful

2:09

for it every day because you learn so much

2:11

about yourself. You learn how to

2:13

deal with adversity, you learn how to do with everything that can

2:16

be thrown at you, including weather, that

2:18

wherever you go from there in the world, you

2:20

know, everything is easier.

2:24

So were you know, were you an all sport athlete

2:27

or just just football?

2:29

I was football, baseball,

2:32

track and field, but growing

2:34

up I actually played soccer, and

2:37

because my mom wouldn't let my younger brother and I played

2:39

football until we were a little bit

2:41

older. So

2:44

I'll never forget when my brother was able to negotiate

2:47

us playing football, and that was so we

2:49

used to I was just telling Michael. During

2:52

the summers, you know, my mom grew up in Membn, North

2:54

Carolina, and her

2:56

and my dad was from Willington, And

2:59

so every summer we would ride in

3:01

the station wagon and I'd be in the back. I'd

3:03

be in the back seat with my younger brother Chris, or six

3:06

of us all together, but my younger brother, Chris

3:08

and I we'd be in the back and we

3:10

were really seeing where we went instead of seeing where

3:12

we were going. It was that whole deal, no seatbacks,

3:15

you know.

3:15

Like, yeah, that's how we drove

3:17

across country. We moved here from New

3:20

York, and we were in the back of a station.

3:22

Wagon yep, and so you see, you

3:24

know, you're looking where you've been instead of where you're going. But

3:26

so at one point we were a little bit older,

3:29

and my mom used to hate driving

3:31

through tunnels. So on the way down

3:33

we used to go through I forget which tunnel,

3:36

maybe it was the tunnel in Baltimore.

3:38

There was one that you go and you go under obviously, so

3:41

you're going under underwater. And

3:44

my mom was used to hate that. So you used to say, okay, Chris

3:46

and West, I need you guys to talk to me, you know,

3:48

talk me through. So my brother Chris says,

3:50

on one condition, and my mom is like

3:52

what, and she's like, we get

3:54

to play football if we do

3:57

this, and so she's like, all

3:59

right, all right, just talk me through it. So he

4:01

did it and we ended up we started

4:03

playing football after that and the rest is history. But the

4:05

great part about is I could see my younger brothers

4:08

negotiation skills because Chris went on

4:10

to become a lawyer. He played at Princeton,

4:12

his wife played at Princeton, and he has

4:14

four boys, three of them. One played at

4:17

Northern Illinois, one's playing at Iowa right now,

4:19

and you know, he's got two more and his youngest

4:22

is getting recruited by everybody, you know. So

4:25

it's it's amazing how it started

4:27

this whole journey of football

4:29

and sport and life and how we kind

4:31

of give back in our respective areas. He's

4:33

a head coach at Chicago Hope Academy out

4:35

in Chicago, and

4:38

both of us find our passion and giving back through

4:40

through athletics.

4:42

And you went Jami, he went to Princeton and

4:44

those are great academic schools. How

4:47

how was academics in your household?

4:49

Like? How did how did your mom do it?

4:52

So my mom she raised

4:55

I have an older sister from my dad's first marriage, my sister

4:57

Nancy, and

5:00

and the gap between my

5:02

three my four older siblings, myself

5:04

and my younger brother between me and the next one up is

5:07

seven years, so you know we're

5:09

we're we're thirteen months apart. But education

5:12

was always critical. So oldest brother went

5:14

to Harvard, sister went to

5:16

Ructors. Cousins

5:19

went to Columbia. My mom

5:22

was either the valid I think she was the valedictorian

5:24

at Bennett College where she went. Then

5:26

she went to Mahari Medical School. My dad went to

5:28

MAHARII my dad they

5:30

divorced when I was little. But my dad was a

5:32

neurologist. My mom was a psychiatric nurse.

5:35

So the academic piece was never it

5:38

could never be compromised. And the

5:40

athletics component was as long

5:42

as you do well academically, you could continue

5:44

to play. But what we found was the balance

5:47

was so critical, and the better we did academically, the

5:49

better we did athletically. So and

5:52

our kids, all of our kids, my brother's sisters,

5:55

myself, all of our kids have done extremely well academically

5:58

too.

6:00

Psychiatric guys, Wow, she must have seen some stuff.

6:02

Huh yeah, yeah, So

6:04

it was again when we were little. She's

6:07

My brother and I were the test dummies

6:09

for all the things she had to do, like when she

6:11

had to work on the restraining holds and see

6:14

if this worked. And here, you know, my brother

6:16

and I were like high school football guys at the time,

6:18

figuring out where we're going to go to college and all that, and

6:20

here comes my mom. And my mom was a basketball

6:23

player. Because everybody said, where does my son get his basketball

6:25

skills? And I say from his grammy.

6:27

You know, my mom. But she played in a time

6:29

where, you

6:32

know, it was very tough for girls

6:34

to play, and her father found out

6:36

she was playing because she broke her finger in a game and

6:39

she, you know, had to tell them what happened, and that was

6:41

kind of it for basketball for her. But she

6:44

was the heck of a basketball player. And then I think that's

6:46

where my son absolutely gets it from. But

6:48

my mom used to tell she she we'd go

6:50

through the restraining holds with her, and here we are.

6:52

My younger brother and I are high school athletes, you

6:54

know, both of us had to play college somewhere,

6:57

and she's literally taking us down with

6:59

like one two moves like these grips.

7:01

Like I can't even begin to describe how painful it was.

7:04

But I was like, yeah, mom, I think you're gonna be okay running

7:06

that psyche unit if anything gets out of hand.

7:09

So crazy.

7:11

What was your college decision?

7:13

Like, so initially,

7:18

you know, we were this was a time obviously

7:20

before social

7:22

media, before videos and everything else, Like

7:24

everything was vhs, you know, you send

7:27

out. So I initially went to JMU

7:29

and I was running track and

7:32

after my you know, I moved through my freshman year,

7:34

I was like, god, I really missed football. I was going to

7:36

go to Rutgers to play, but at

7:38

the last minute, I just decided I wanted a different

7:40

experience and I went on a visit to JMU

7:43

and just fell in love with it. So

7:46

after a year a jam you after my freshman

7:48

year, I talked to the coaches and I was like, hey,

7:50

you know, it's like I kind of

7:52

want to get back in and they were like, okay, well we

7:54

know what you've done and where you've been. You're running

7:57

track here right now. So you

7:59

know, from that point I shifted over to football

8:01

and that was that. But recruiting

8:04

wise, you know, growing up in the

8:06

Northeast, you really

8:08

get recruited by a lot of schools in the Northeast,

8:11

especially back in the late eighties. So

8:13

I'm totally dating myself, but hey, it is what it is,

8:15

right, But back then

8:18

it was you know, everything was VHS tape. Coaches

8:21

will come out and see you. And the one

8:24

thing that I learned was your

8:26

recruitment is only as good as your head

8:28

coach, right, And so you have two types

8:30

of coaches at the high school level. You have the coaches

8:33

who are there who can really develop young

8:35

men and women for the next level, whether

8:37

it's D three, D two, D one, NAI,

8:40

whatever it may be. Then you have the coaches who are out

8:42

there trying to be the big person in the bar on the

8:44

weekend, right, talk about their teams

8:46

and everything else. So I tell parents, when

8:48

I talk to parents a lot now on the high

8:50

school side, make sure, I mean, obviously you

8:52

have to have the talent, but you want to make sure that your

8:54

kid has a coach who

8:56

actually has connections and can push them forward.

8:59

You know that's going to help them.

9:02

So I find you know, again, that

9:04

was thirty years ago, but now it's no

9:06

different. You know, you still have to have coaches

9:08

who can really connect and get

9:12

kids where they need to be. And that lesson

9:14

that I learned was prevalent and never more

9:16

prevalent when make a decision when

9:18

we moved down to southern California from the Bay

9:20

Area, because

9:22

you know, we moved between Houston's freshman and sophomore

9:25

year and he was

9:28

he was at Silesian College prep up in the Bay under

9:30

Bill Mellis and his whole staff. There just

9:33

great group of human beings. And the

9:35

hardest day of my life outside of well,

9:39

obviously, you know, there was a lot of hard days,

9:41

but probably the hardest day as a parent was

9:44

the day I drove over to Silligion

9:46

with him and he was telling his high school teammates

9:49

that he was moving to southern California between his freshmen

9:51

and sophomore year. I felt like the worst

9:53

parent in the world. It all worked out, you

9:55

know, Houston ended up all cif three

9:58

years in a row. Sophomore, junior, senior year. Absolutely

10:01

killed it at pacifica Christian. But more importantly,

10:03

he helped build the culture of a

10:05

school because the school was so new. But

10:08

the thing is, Doug, the reason we chose

10:10

pacifica Christian for him,

10:13

he and I when we talked it through, was Jeff

10:15

Barakoff, who's the head coach there, unbelievably

10:19

connected and had anywhere from

10:21

forty to sixty Division one coaches

10:24

in that gym every year, and

10:26

he was a builder of guards, right so,

10:29

Houston, when we moved down here, that's why we you

10:31

know, we landed in Orange County, and I just made

10:33

the drive back and forth to the riverside every day because

10:36

that's where he had is the best opportunity, and

10:39

it all worked out. He think he ended up with close

10:42

to forty one offers, you

10:44

know, but that all stemmed from the fact that he had a coach

10:47

who was connected, had relationships,

10:50

and was a good coach on top of that.

10:52

So let's go back to you.

10:55

You know, most stories

10:57

that have guys that go astray start

11:00

with a single parent. Okay, but now you're

11:02

painting the picture of Harvard

11:04

Princeton, Rutgers JMU

11:09

Columbia and whatever, and now you

11:11

go to school and you're running track and

11:13

then you're deciding to play football, Like,

11:16

how did you not fall through the cracks?

11:19

So I think it was basically the way our mom

11:21

raised us right, and

11:23

she taught us a lot of things about life. But

11:25

the biggest thing is my mom always said, like, the

11:28

biggest sin that you could commit

11:31

is squandering the gifts that God gives you, right

11:34

and recognizing the gifts that you have, do

11:37

everything you can to maximize those. You

11:39

know, it's not going to be easy. Nobody

11:43

said it would be, and especially you know, when you grow

11:45

up as one

11:47

of a handful of kids of color in you

11:49

know, the area of North Jersey that we grew up in, you

11:52

learn a lot of things really fast. But the

11:54

biggest thing that you learn is yes, you have

11:56

to really you have to excel at the level

11:59

that others don't necessarily have to just

12:01

to be in a position where you're on

12:03

level footing. And I think

12:06

the thing for me was, you

12:10

know, I knew, you

12:12

know, you ask how my

12:14

brothers and sisters and I ended up where we are today.

12:16

And everybody's doing great things,

12:18

making tremendous impact in the world because

12:22

we learned from her. You know how

12:24

important it is to follow your passion and

12:27

pursue that and everything

12:29

else will follow. And so, you

12:31

know, my mom would always tell me parenting is the toughest

12:34

job you'll ever love. I never really understood

12:36

that un till I became a parent, and I think all of us who are

12:38

parents now really understand what understood

12:40

understand what that means. But she

12:44

just instilled in us a work ethic that

12:46

was based on that was based on faith, family,

12:50

how you treat people, athletics,

12:53

and just really getting an enjoying life,

12:56

and matter where you are, no matter

12:58

what you're doing, how you treat people

13:00

is everything. My mom is probably the

13:02

kindest human being that I've ever been around. There's

13:04

a lot of people who are nice, there's a lot of

13:06

people who do nice things, but kindness

13:09

is something that it comes from

13:11

within. And so when I would watch how

13:13

my mom would maneuver through the most difficult and

13:15

challenging and circumstances. You know, she worked

13:17

nights at the hospital. You know, she worked eleven

13:19

to seven. And so when my younger brother

13:21

and I, because again my older siblings were older than

13:24

us, when we would

13:26

get ourselves ready for school. We learn

13:28

how to wash our clothes, do the dishes,

13:30

iron do all the chores

13:32

around the house, get ourselves ready to go. From

13:35

the time we were five, six, seven, eight years old.

13:37

So we had that level of discipline

13:40

and that was the thing, Like we are such a

13:42

discipline family across

13:45

the board, and we operate with, you know,

13:47

just an incredibly laser focus

13:49

when it comes to doing the things that we want to be successful

13:52

at and what it takes to do it and to be

13:54

successful. And so we learned,

13:57

like you're you know, it's like my boy Mike

13:59

Tomlin says, there is no secret. The secret

14:01

is work, right, you got to work and

14:04

you got to put it in. And so that

14:06

just like showed us, like we watched what she could

14:08

do what she did, and like, if

14:10

our mom can raise five of us by

14:13

herself and do the job that she did,

14:15

we have no excuses, you know. And

14:17

so I think that set us on the trajectory that we were

14:20

on. And then she also taught us the importance

14:22

of being you know, an

14:25

important, an important factor

14:27

in being a strong member in your community

14:30

is to make sure you treat people with

14:33

kindness. And you start there, you

14:35

know and everything else from their flows. So

14:38

that I think was the key is just how we were

14:40

raised. I always telling people like

14:42

I did the best of both worlds. I was raised

14:44

in the Northeast, so I learned,

14:47

you know, a lot about just

14:49

toughness across the board. But I was

14:51

raised by a mom who's from the South, so I

14:53

learned about compassion, kindness,

14:55

and just you know, southern hospitality,

14:57

if you will. So combining those things together

15:00

has been probably one of the most important things

15:02

for me and things I try to instill invoke my son

15:04

and my daughter.

15:05

So okay, so you hadn't

15:07

played what in a year when you went from track to

15:09

football?

15:10

Mm hm.

15:13

So when when you say, okay, I want to play football, defensive

15:16

back, wide receiver, Like, how did it go through

15:19

your decision on or their decision where to use

15:21

you.

15:22

So it was one of those things where you know,

15:24

high school, I was running back. Growing up, I was running

15:26

back. Got to college, you

15:29

know, we we ran we we had

15:31

moved to a three receiver

15:33

set. We basically

15:36

single back and

15:38

uh, you know, we had like nine running backs in the

15:40

room. So talk to a couple of

15:42

guys. You figured the fastest way to get on the field, special

15:44

teams and being in the top six and the

15:46

receiver rotation and you'll get on the field.

15:49

And so that was the plan and that's what you know I was able

15:51

to do. You

15:53

know, it comes back fast, it doesn't go anywhere. And

15:57

you know, again my my first initial plan

15:59

was go to Rutgers and play there. But

16:03

the hard thing was it's like I knew I needed and

16:05

wanted a different experience. And

16:07

with Rutgers, like I mean at the time, Dick

16:09

Anderson was the coach there. I mean, they were winning

16:11

one game a year every year. So it's

16:13

like you're going to go to Rutgers, You're going to get your head beat in and

16:16

you're not really gonna have a great experience. The

16:18

thing that I realized with JMU was,

16:20

holy cow, this is a

16:22

great experience. Like from a student perspective

16:25

and a student athlete perspective. The people

16:27

were great, you know, the professors and the faculty

16:29

tremendous. The culture on the campus

16:31

was fantastic, and I'd still

16:33

tell people to this day, I challenge anyone

16:36

to meet someone who competed at JMU in

16:39

any sport who had a bad experience.

16:41

And you know, Doug. When I look at it and I look at

16:43

the trajectory that that program has been on and where

16:45

it is now, it's

16:48

amazing. You know, it's really amazing to see

16:50

that, you know, where they are thirty

16:52

years later. But that's intentional, you

16:55

know, that's investing in your kids. That's investing

16:57

in the student athletes, investing in the culture

16:59

and what you're going to build around it. It's kind of what I

17:01

modeled UC Riverside around in terms of

17:03

how we want our student athletes to feel, what

17:06

we want them to experience, and how we want them, you

17:08

know, to walk away from their four or five years

17:10

here like, holy cow, this is tremendous

17:14

because again it's like you know as well as I

17:16

do, like these three four five

17:18

years, you know, four or five years in college.

17:21

Well, I guess now with the COVID year and

17:23

the portal could be up to six, right,

17:26

But you know, it's like it's it

17:28

sets the tone for literally for the rest

17:30

of your life and how you're going to show

17:32

up and what you're going to do and how you're going to be. So

17:35

I want to make sure and it's not possible

17:37

for every kid to have a great experience but

17:39

I want everybody to experience what I experienced, which

17:41

was great teammates, great

17:44

program, opportunity, opportunity

17:46

to be successful. You know, you

17:48

have a great experience, and thirty

17:51

years later, you know you're you're

17:53

still on text chains with your old teammates,

17:55

who are your best friends and your kids, aunts

17:58

and uncles, et cetera, et cetera, And it just

18:00

carries on and you have that

18:03

that tradition that you've really built and

18:06

the pride that you have, you know, from

18:08

where you went to school and where you competed.

18:11

Fox Sports Radio has the best sports

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talk lineup in the nation. Catch all

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of our shows at Foxsports Radio dot

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com and within the iHeartRadio

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app. Search FSR to listen

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live.

18:24

So what is what is so special

18:26

about jam You Like, I've been there, it's

18:29

an incredible campus. Obviously if Sildy's

18:31

now like new and mass Wrient, it's incredible.

18:34

But what what's it really like

18:36

to be there? What makes it so special?

18:38

The people and the culture. You

18:41

know, it's like it's it sounds so cliche,

18:44

but it's really true, Like and the culture

18:46

starts at the top. You know that when

18:48

I was there, Ron

18:50

Carrier was the president at the time he

18:54

was on campus. He's shaking your

18:56

hand. He may not remember everybody's

18:58

name, obviously you got you know, at the time

19:00

was fourteen fifteen thousand students

19:03

maybe and now it's twenty five thousand. But he was

19:05

involved. You know, he was a president who

19:07

was involved. The faculty

19:09

were the same way. You know, professors were

19:11

you know, when you were on campus and you run

19:14

into him, sit down, chat you up, have

19:16

a conversation, ask you about you,

19:18

how your life was going, how you were adjusting,

19:21

et cetera, et cetera. And from

19:23

an athletics standpoint, Casey

19:26

Carter was She's a legend.

19:28

She was our you know, student athlete, academic

19:31

person and just the advisor

19:33

for so many and here we are

19:35

like all these years later. The equipment staff,

19:38

the coaching staff in the different teams,

19:41

but your teammates, like, there's a

19:43

certain type of kid that would

19:45

go to JAMU and still does just an

19:47

all around good quality human being, right,

19:50

And when you're around that and it's

19:53

a feeling that you have. Right. We always talk about,

19:55

yeah, a program could be great on paper, and

19:57

you know, they could do all the right things, but the culture

20:00

is really the feeling right and what

20:02

it feels like to be part of it. Here at

20:04

UC Riverside, I built a culture for

20:06

us now that's listening and caring, and

20:09

it meets people where they are to help them get to

20:11

where they need to go. And I find

20:13

that from a leadership standpoint, I've

20:16

taken a lot of my cues from

20:19

what I learned to Jmu in terms of how

20:21

people lead, and I lead with joy,

20:23

passion, integrity, and purpose and a whole lot

20:25

of energy and enthusiasm. But I found

20:27

that again with doctor Carrier, JMU

20:30

and the presidents who you know succeeded

20:33

him since he retired, and the you know

20:35

and since he passed and everything else

20:37

it's been. It's been unbelievable

20:40

because everyone who goes there has a similar

20:42

experience. And I find

20:44

as a leader, you don't have to have all

20:47

this stuff right. We don't have a lot of the facilities,

20:50

and we're not competing in the facility's arm

20:52

arms raised the way we'd want to hear at UC

20:55

Riverside, right. But what we have is our people,

20:57

and people are the secret weapon because we have coach

21:00

just who can develop young men and women. We're

21:03

winning because everybody's bought in. People

21:06

are aligned, right, We don't always agree,

21:08

but we're aligned. We have a great Chancellor,

21:10

Kim Wilcox, who every step of the way.

21:13

You know, when we talk about stuff, we talk about stuff from

21:15

the standpoint of here's our endpoint of what we're looking

21:17

to do and how we want to get there. Then we talk

21:19

about how we get there together. You know, our Head of

21:21

Student Affairs, Vice Chancellor Brian Haynes, same

21:23

way, Our Head of University

21:26

Advancement Monique Dozers, same way, our

21:28

provosts Liz Walkin, same way. And

21:30

it trickles down. So when you have senior

21:32

administration and you have athletic

21:34

staff, ad head coaches administration,

21:38

it trickles down to the student athletes and it impacts

21:40

their experience. So to me, that

21:43

model of JMU, which is why I'm

21:45

always so high on it,

21:48

was everything and that's what makes

21:50

it different from other places. And I think when you

21:52

talk to people today, you still see

21:54

and feel that, you know, purple and gold passion

21:57

that everybody has for the place.

21:59

She did that, what

22:01

was your plan?

22:03

Go to Maryland? Got my master's degree at Maryland?

22:06

What was that was that? The plan? Or that that just

22:08

happened, Like, how did you.

22:11

How did you decide to go to Maryland and get

22:13

a master's.

22:14

So I knew. I knew initially I wanted to

22:16

go into broadcast journalism.

22:19

And this was one of the other reasons

22:21

that now I'm in college athletics, right, because at

22:24

the time I couldn't do the internships because

22:26

of conflicted with practice. Right, So

22:30

I went into PR and

22:32

then I went into I knew when I was then I'm like,

22:34

well, what do I want to do? So I knew I

22:36

wanted to get my master's degree, and I an opportunity to

22:38

go to Maryland, went to Maryland

22:40

College Park, got my master's there in journalism,

22:43

and from there I wanted to combine the undergrad

22:45

degree in communications in PR with the master's

22:47

in journalism and really move into entertainment,

22:51

in entertainment media, if you will. So

22:54

I'd like to say it was all part of a master's plan, but actually

22:57

just came together. So when I was

22:59

at Maryland getting

23:01

my master's in journalism, I met a

23:03

gentleman named Craig Muckel who was

23:05

at B E. T at the time. And you

23:07

know, Craig was a black entertainment Television and

23:09

I did an internship with them. The

23:11

internship two years later turned into a

23:13

job, and a couple of years after

23:15

that, I found myself enrolled as senior director of Communications

23:18

at b E. T. And I had a four or five

23:20

year run at BEET, which was fantastic,

23:23

and.

23:23

That all were working for Bob Johnson.

23:25

Yep.

23:26

I worked for Bob Johnson. I

23:28

worked under Curtis Simons

23:30

who was head of the EVP of marketing,

23:34

Clint Evans who was under him, and

23:36

a woman named she passed a few years ago, Dannette

23:38

Wills, who was absolutely fantastic

23:41

on the PR side, and they taught

23:44

me a lot, so much about, you know,

23:46

the entertainment side, strategic communications,

23:48

and really how to build a brand right. And

23:51

at the time, during my time at BT, we

23:53

had a lot of fun, and I think it was probably one

23:55

of the five, maybe one of the three

23:58

most impact and

24:00

fun experiences in my life, you know, professionally.

24:03

The other two probably my time at cal and

24:06

uc R here and then probably

24:08

the most the most impactful and the most

24:10

fun was launching

24:12

slam Ball with Mason Gordon and Mike

24:14

Tolan and that whole crew in two thousand

24:16

and two and two thousand and three, which made it me.

24:18

Okay, you're getting You're like, you're you're

24:20

getting ahead of you're gonna I want to get to slam

24:22

ball, Like, give me a second, bro Okay.

24:25

So so yeah, it'd be uh huh.

24:28

And then how'd you

24:30

decide to leave?

24:33

I'd done everything I could do at that point. It was time

24:35

to make the next step, you know, And I find

24:37

times in I've been there about four just

24:39

under five years, and there

24:41

was really there was no the growth opportunities

24:43

weren't there anymore. And I'm a lifelong

24:46

learner. I always want to grow. And so made

24:50

the decision to leave and went in

24:52

a slightly different direction at that point and went to

24:54

and to investor and media relations

24:57

for Victoria's Secret parent company Limited

24:59

brand and spent

25:02

a year and a half in Columbus, Ohio, managing

25:05

media and helping on

25:07

the internal or sorry, investor

25:09

relations side with on the Victoria's

25:11

Secret and the Bath and Body Works brand side.

25:16

Loved it, but entertainment

25:19

was really my thing, and I really am a coastal person,

25:21

so I knew, you know, I always wanted

25:24

to be in California. And then the opportunity

25:26

with MTV Networks came up, and that's how I ended

25:28

up in Santa Monica.

25:30

So that was Monica. You Movese,

25:32

san Monica, We're going to MTV. What was your actual job

25:34

to be.

25:35

Vice president of Communications at MTV Networks?

25:39

What were you doing?

25:41

All media relations, strategic

25:44

communications, events, brand

25:47

related stuff for the

25:50

networks? So like MTV, VH

25:52

one, MTV two, h

25:55

MTV Films,

25:58

Nickelodeon Movies and

26:00

they started a record label at the time, Nickelodeon

26:03

and Jive Records, and they did one and

26:07

really just helping that brand from one

26:09

to three. When I was there in Santa Monica.

26:12

How did slam Ball come to be?

26:14

Oh? Man, so slam Ball. So when

26:17

I was making the next move after MTV

26:19

Networks,

26:22

I worked on slam Ball

26:25

my last year there. It was just getting

26:27

started and then

26:30

I just went out on my own and

26:32

slam Ball was my first client. And

26:35

Mason Gordon, creator and founder along

26:37

with Mike Tolan, you know, Tolan Robbins.

26:41

They were like, Hey, we're gonna We're gonna build this thing,

26:44

and man, Doug, it was it

26:47

was it was so much fun. Man. It was

26:49

like you're recruiting. You're you're on

26:51

the road, you're recruiting guys. You're trying

26:53

to find individuals who like you're basically

26:55

building something that is a sport

26:58

that's airing on television, but

27:02

you're also building a league, right

27:05

and you're recruiting guys. And a lot of the guys

27:07

that we found either ex football, ex

27:09

basketball, or the combination

27:11

of who really

27:13

weren't afraid to mix it up in a sport that combined

27:16

you know, gymnastics, basketball,

27:19

football, hockey all rolled

27:22

into one, you know, and the

27:24

arena that it was played in, and it was amazing.

27:27

You know, we did my partners and I at

27:29

the time, we did all the

27:31

branding for him. We did all the communications,

27:33

all the media relations side, and

27:36

then we did whatever it took to

27:38

help that brand really get off the ground, you

27:40

know, and it was. It

27:42

was definitely one of the most impactful

27:45

things because everywhere we would

27:47

go, you know, when people would watch it, then we're like,

27:49

oh my gosh, it's the greatest thing ever. And here

27:51

we are twenty something years later and

27:53

Mason Gordon, you know, and the company that brought it all the way

27:55

back and I know they had to run this past year

27:57

on ESPN. So it's good to see.

28:01

How did you get into college athletics.

28:04

That's a great that's a great question. So

28:06

about fifteen years into my

28:09

corporate career, if you will, because

28:12

after MTV Networks, I went up to the Bay Area and

28:14

helped an ad agency build out its PR,

28:17

marketing and event management and

28:19

engagement department because

28:22

ad agencies at the time, in the early two thousands

28:24

were trying to really expand and figure out

28:26

what else can we do besides traditional advertising and

28:28

really expand the brands that we're working for.

28:31

So about

28:33

halfway through it, I

28:37

just realized I was like, you know, I

28:40

really missed college athletics

28:43

and I really missed building people. You know, the

28:45

corporate life was fantastic, it was amazing,

28:48

but like I said, going all the way back

28:50

to my childhood, leading a life

28:52

of impact and making an impact is so

28:55

important to me. So I

28:58

was doing a lot of consulting work at the time, and

29:02

you know, circa twenty thirteen,

29:05

connected with a gentleman named Phil Eston

29:08

who's now the athletics director in

29:10

Minnesota. Phil was at CAL at

29:12

the time. Now he's an ad in Minnesota,

29:15

and he took Saint Thomas from Division three to

29:17

Division one in one year. So

29:20

Phil and I talked,

29:22

and Phil's like, hey, we have a real issue here. And again,

29:25

when you look at all my background, the

29:27

thread, the common thread through all of it is

29:29

issues in crisis management, strategic

29:31

and brand communications and the external

29:34

relations sign and so Doug

29:36

he he's like, hey, man, we've we're

29:39

going to need a head of strategic communications,

29:42

an associating for strat comms here at

29:44

CAL. And you know,

29:46

I talked to him, met with Sandy Barber,

29:49

and then went to CAL. And the whole reason

29:51

I went to CAL at the end of thirteen was

29:54

to help them change the narrative because if you

29:56

remember, at the time, Cow was last in

29:58

the country in football and graduation

30:00

success rate, and that was a story that

30:02

their donors and their alums they

30:05

you know, someone told me when I got there, they were like,

30:07

some of the donors would rather not go to the Rose Bull

30:09

for fifty more years than be dead last

30:12

in GSR in the nation, not in an

30:14

institution like UC Berkeley. So I

30:16

got there and I worked with the crew there and

30:19

Herb Benison and everybody else there, and we

30:22

built a plan to really change the narrative, but

30:24

also tell the story on how we were going

30:26

to rebuild the athletics brand from

30:29

a narrative standpoint. We brought in a bunch

30:31

of media people that covered you

30:33

know, Cal athletics, talked them through,

30:35

this is what APR is, this is what GSR is.

30:37

This is why their GSR was last

30:40

in the country because the narrative

30:42

was guys were going to failing

30:44

out of school, but that wasn't the case. You

30:46

know, guys, a lot of guys were leaving early and going to

30:48

the NFL and not coming back to finish.

30:51

So it impacted the graduation

30:53

success rate. So we were able to do that,

30:55

worked with Sunny Dykes, who was the coach at the time, and

30:58

within two years we went from work the

31:00

first in the league and the conference in the PAC twelve at

31:02

the time academically and rose

31:04

to one of the top teams of the most competitive teams

31:06

in the PAC twelve during

31:08

the time that I was there. And so that's what

31:11

brought me back into college athletics and quite

31:13

frankly, just I missed it.

31:15

You know. It's like it was something that I had dabbled in here

31:17

and there as a professional, done some consulting

31:20

work with, but I knew I also wanted

31:22

to create opportunities for young

31:24

men and women in college athletics

31:27

to have a relatable experience with someone in administration

31:30

who had walked a mile in their shoes, and quite frankly,

31:33

for a lot of the kids, someone who looked like them and

31:35

someone who could guide them when things got really

31:37

hard and they didn't feel like they were on an island

31:40

or they didn't have people they could relate to, if you will.

31:43

So that's what brought me back into college athletics,

31:45

and you know, eleven years later

31:48

in the athletics director's chair.

31:49

So give

31:51

me your best Berkeley story.

31:53

Oh man, Oh,

31:56

there's so many.

32:01

I'm just trying to think of the ones that I could say publicly,

32:04

if you will, because I had many welcome to

32:06

Berkeley moments, so

32:08

well, one of them I learned

32:11

about, you know, Berkeley is the

32:13

home of the professional protesters.

32:16

We were in we were in the athletics building,

32:19

uh, and we're in the a D suite and at the time it

32:22

was myself, Mike Williams was the a D

32:24

took over from Sandy Barber. Chris

32:28

Pesman, who's now the a D. At Houston,

32:31

Jenny Simon O'Neill, who's still still

32:33

there, Oshrendport,

32:35

who's now the ad at Lasal I'm

32:39

thinking Jane Jackson was there too, and

32:42

a few other people. So we're in the AD suite

32:45

and all of a sudden we hear you know, you're

32:47

you're used to hearing the protest on campus, but

32:49

we hear this huge commotion, like

32:51

what is that noise? All of a sudden, he's getting

32:53

closer and closer, and the next time we know it's in our

32:55

building, right, and

32:58

it's getting louder and louder, And then the next we

33:00

know, we're overrun in the AD

33:02

suite by about probably

33:05

thirty forty fifty kids, however many could fit

33:07

in there, and they all sit down and they're sitting

33:09

on the floor and they're standing up and they're locking arms,

33:12

and I'm like looking like,

33:15

what's happening right now? Like why are you guys here? What's

33:17

the problem? What did we do

33:19

that would cause you to come in here and disturb

33:21

the day like this? And had nothing

33:24

to do with us, right, and had with some of

33:26

the issue on campus that were upset about. And

33:28

I'll never forget Like we sat there and we were

33:30

like we were literally we were trapped in

33:32

our offices for hours. So

33:35

we ended up they

33:37

ended up leaving after a period of time, but we had

33:39

to call campus police. They

33:41

had come in and they just started taking the kids out one at

33:44

a time, those who didn't leave on their own.

33:46

But I remember saying to the leadership of the group, I

33:49

said, here, here's my card, call

33:51

me and let me sit down and try to

33:53

help you through whatever your issue is. And so then

33:55

Doug we sat down in the conference room a couple

33:57

of weeks later, and I literally talked

33:59

them through how to be more effective

34:02

when they're trying to get their point across. For I

34:04

don't even remember what the issue was, something

34:06

with labor on campus, had nothing to do with us,

34:09

But they came back like a

34:11

year later. I ran into them on campus and they told

34:13

me how much it actually helped, you know,

34:15

because they were yoused to just we're upset.

34:18

So you helped the protesters protest more

34:20

effectively.

34:20

I helped protesters get their point across

34:23

more effectively without disrupting everybody's

34:25

day if you will, you know so, and

34:27

they were able to kind of move through it. But it was, yeah,

34:29

that was one Berkeley moment man there it is the home

34:31

of professional protesting. But

34:34

I remember in the time I was there, there

34:36

were a total of seventeen days that

34:39

I did not have an issue or something

34:41

that we had to work through. From an athletics

34:43

standpoint, yeah,

34:47

I tell people like, and I make no bones

34:49

about it, it was easier to save the athletics

34:51

program at UC Riverside from

34:53

being eliminated. Then three

34:56

months on campus in Berkeley and athletics.

35:00

You know, So the ucs are tough,

35:02

but that is far and away the toughest one.

35:05

Sometimes I feel like it's a you

35:08

know, when people necessarily

35:10

difficult. Sometimes I feel like, yeah,

35:13

we don't need to make it. It doesn't need to be that difficult.

35:17

Okay, So how

35:21

did the path leads your Riverside?

35:24

So from cal I went over to the

35:26

PAC twelve. Was

35:28

there for about a year and a half and

35:30

the opportunity Tamika Smith Jones

35:32

called me, who was the eighty year at the time, There

35:35

was an opportunity.

35:36

Let me take you back real quick. You're at the.

35:38

PAC twelve, okay, and

35:41

obviously the PAC twelve essentially is no more

35:43

now, right, didgit like,

35:45

what was that like, what was that the

35:48

atmosphere of work, Like.

35:52

I will say this, there's

35:56

a lot of really great people at

35:58

the PAC twelve who really care about cared

36:02

about the schools and

36:04

the direction that was going, and wanted to do great work.

36:09

How do I say this? I think it was. I

36:15

think if people are honest, those

36:18

who were in the PAC twelve, whether you you know I was school

36:20

side and conference slash network side,

36:25

I don't think anybody could honestly

36:27

say with the direction that it was going, that

36:30

you could see any other outcome than what happened.

36:32

You know.

36:34

Well, so let me let me give my read on it.

36:36

Okay, So I remember

36:38

when conference expansion happened,

36:41

when they got there and they got their new TV deal,

36:44

and my thought at the time was I

36:46

actually thought, obviously the PAC

36:48

twelve network and having all the kind of regional

36:50

networks, I thought that was a weird

36:53

strategy, right, so

36:55

weird.

36:55

I didn't like the.

36:56

Strategy and it proved to be

36:58

a real hard strategy to X you. But

37:02

the actual TV of deals they got, I

37:04

thought, we're home runs. Considering again,

37:06

this is from as talent

37:09

at ESPN at the time, and what I'd always been

37:11

told like those

37:14

are people associated

37:16

with the success of the sports teams.

37:18

It's not really how it works, right, because of the

37:21

time zone issues, you know, Pacific

37:23

time zone. You know, you can't have a game

37:25

at six, nobody shows up. You have a game

37:27

at seven that's a ten on the East Coast, and

37:29

two thirds of the viewers of college

37:31

sports are on are in

37:34

the Eastern time zone. So you're

37:36

kind of screwed either way. And TV

37:39

companies are kind of screwed because they

37:41

had to play top dollar for something that's not really

37:43

worth top dollar. So I,

37:46

you know, I understand there's lots of things

37:48

that were mismanaged, but

37:51

I actually thought that.

37:52

Deal was a decent was a good deal.

37:54

It was probably over the probably overpriced

37:56

because you're not going to get much value out of some

37:58

of those late games, right.

37:59

Right, right, So I

38:02

can't speak to the deals specifically, but

38:05

I think the challenges, obviously,

38:08

you know that we all face, were being

38:12

in a place where the

38:15

production quality of the games

38:18

was outstanding, right.

38:21

The coverage of the games, you know, with the with the producers,

38:23

the directors, the on air talent, the

38:26

studio shows outstanding. The

38:28

hard thing was obviously visibility and distribution

38:30

so people could see it, you know, and

38:32

it was a challenge that was you know, beyond

38:35

our control, if you will, those of us

38:37

in the day to day. But

38:41

to your point, I think, if it's in

38:43

a perfect world, I'm sure that if everybody went

38:45

back and could do it all over again, there's probably

38:48

a few things that they would do differently. But

38:51

I think also it's it's I will

38:53

say this, I think the lesson

38:57

if we always talk about like don't miss

38:59

the lesson, right, well, that was the lesson. I

39:01

think if you talk to the athletic directors who

39:04

were in the PAC twelve during

39:06

that time period from twelve to

39:08

to this year, twelve to twenty

39:10

three, if you will, and

39:12

those who've left in our different places now,

39:15

you'll hear a common theme which will

39:17

be consistent, and that is sometimes

39:21

you know, you have

39:23

to listen to the experts in the room, and

39:26

I don't think the experts in the room who

39:28

are the ads, were listened to enough.

39:31

You know, the decision makers,

39:34

the presidents and the chancellors, you

39:38

know, working with the commissioner and company.

39:40

Yes, they made decisions that they made,

39:43

but I don't think I don't think

39:45

that enough people when

39:48

a lot of decisions on whatever level they were

39:50

being made, were listening intently

39:54

or listening and really adhering to what

39:56

the ads were saying with the experiences

39:58

that they were going and what they needed to

40:01

really keep their programs competitive,

40:04

you know with the SEC the Big Ten

40:06

than what they were doing. And

40:08

quite frankly, when the ACC network came online

40:11

and launched and just you know, just

40:14

crushed it out the gate, you know. So I

40:16

think that the lesson is, as you go forward, conference

40:20

offices need to make sure they're really listening

40:22

to the leadership in the room from

40:24

an AD standpoint, and

40:26

that the ads are aligned with their presidents

40:29

and chancellors and that those discussions

40:31

are happening before decisions are made,

40:33

you know, at a higher level.

40:37

Okay, So now how do you get to riverside?

40:40

So so okay, So Tamaka Smith Jones,

40:44

she was looking for a senior associated for Strategic

40:47

Communications and external Relations and

40:49

it's in my wheelhouse. And I missed

40:51

being on campus and was the opportunity to get back on campus

40:54

and there was a they had a need and the

40:56

need was established a visual

40:58

in relevancy and that

41:01

you know, I'm one who will never back down from

41:03

a challenge like I love a big challenge,

41:06

said okay, we could do this, and so I said,

41:08

look, it's going to be a three year endeavor to really get

41:10

it to where it needs to be, and here's how we're going to do it. Two

41:13

years into it, yes, it

41:16

all worked out. Took the job, moved down here

41:18

southern California, and

41:22

three years in. Two years in we're

41:26

going through COVID

41:29

Andy.

41:32

There was the threat

41:34

that the entire program was going to be eliminated.

41:37

So now it's like, you know, we've worked hard to establish

41:39

the visual and relevancy and now we've got

41:41

to work and locks up with the

41:43

senior administration on campus to keep the

41:45

program the whole thing, not just

41:48

like five seven sports, one or two sports

41:50

all seventeen. So

41:52

it's like okay, again, big challenge, but going

41:55

all the way back. So what my mom had prepared

41:57

us for. No challenge in life is going to be too big

41:59

if you for it right. So we

42:01

prepare, focus, and execute. So what we do. And

42:04

so Tamica took

42:06

a job with Kennesaw State and

42:08

left to be their COO in

42:10

Atlanta, and I was made

42:13

the intermay d. And then I worked with

42:16

with all the appropriate people, we built

42:18

a plan, and the plan included

42:20

a financial sustainability model, included

42:22

an operational excellence model, operational

42:24

efficiency model, and the Excellence

42:26

model in terms of how we were going to compete in

42:28

spite of not having certain things, in

42:31

spite of having to cut almost three million from

42:33

the program during COVID to figure

42:35

and survive, to figure out how we're going to go forward.

42:37

So we're able to do it, and here we are.

42:40

You know, three years later, I mentoring year

42:42

six now for year four

42:44

is zad. But here we are. With all

42:46

the lessons, in my opinion, that I've learned throughout

42:48

my career all came full circle

42:51

with having to save the program. But the most

42:53

important one, Doug was really understanding like,

42:55

hey, there

42:57

are no days off of leadership. Right. Leadership

43:00

hard, but if

43:02

you do it the right way and you get people

43:04

aligned and everybody's on that same

43:06

mission, here's how we do it, and that's what we're

43:08

able to do. So now you

43:11

know, we're we just came off arguably

43:14

our most successful year ever, one of them

43:16

at the Division one level. Two Coaches

43:18

of the Year and men's basketball and men's soccer, multiple

43:21

student Athletes of the Year and different sports number

43:25

you know, double digit all conference, you

43:27

know players academically,

43:30

our entire program is it just under three

43:33

point two GPA every

43:35

team, all seventeen teams or above a three

43:37

point zero. People are happy,

43:39

the culture is great, and even

43:41

in the midst of everything that we're dealing with. And

43:43

by the way, I listened to I listened to

43:45

the pod that you did with bells Are that

43:47

was fantastic. By the way, and

43:49

we work with Jason with our collective. He's

43:53

probably, in my opinion, the smartest

43:55

person in the room when it comes to that stuff.

43:57

And if not the smartest, he's

44:00

in the top three. But

44:02

with all the issues that we're dealing with across the

44:04

NCAA landscape, to

44:07

me, we're going to be okay

44:09

simply because we have the core

44:11

things in place, the people, the culture,

44:14

you know, the alignment, the mindset, how

44:16

we work with campus and

44:18

just figuring out how we get to where we need to be

44:21

by being good stewards over the resources we have

44:23

while we work to acquire those that we want and those that

44:25

we need. So that's the long

44:28

and short on the journey, the path

44:30

two and where we are now at you see riverside.

44:33

Okay, So for people who don't know, Okay,

44:36

so you take over as ad exactly.

44:39

What January of twenty

44:42

one?

44:45

Okay, so you'd been is right into

44:47

the coast.

44:47

Twenty one yep. So twenty one, twenty two, twenty

44:49

three, twenty four will be

44:52

my fourth year.

44:53

Okay, so this is Smack Davin.

44:56

When was COVID was twenty? Right?

44:57

It was March of twenty until twenty

45:01

two twenty one, and COVID

45:05

was about two years, right, give or take.

45:08

It was like a well, it started in March

45:10

of March of twenty It.

45:12

Started in March, and yeah,

45:14

I guess it was over pretty

45:17

much the next end

45:20

of the next March, right, wasn't it? Or

45:22

we had the limit an NCAA tournament that next

45:25

year.

45:25

Yeah, we're still probably about a year and a half, give

45:27

her take. I mean, it's we all have COVID

45:29

brein now, right, like just trying to remember.

45:31

Yes, totally, So

45:34

okay, so when

45:36

what when?

45:38

What were you doing? When was the the

45:41

program is going to be eliminated?

45:42

When?

45:42

When when did that come?

45:44

That was made public? August

45:46

twenty ninth of twenty one, No, August

45:48

twenty twenty August twenty ninth of

45:51

twenty is when it come.

45:52

Oh yeah, it was made public.

45:54

When was it made privately known that,

45:56

holy cow, we may shut down our athletic

45:58

programs.

45:59

Don't know because I found out when it was made public.

46:02

So okay, So where were where were you

46:05

at that moment? M

46:07

M.

46:08

The moment I found out that it was out there, I

46:13

was at home and I

46:15

was in the garage because I'd set the garage up as a garage

46:17

office. And

46:20

I remember I got a call.

46:22

I don't remember who the call came from, but somebody

46:25

called me and told me that this was out

46:27

there, and I was like, we what? And

46:29

so I looked at it and I was like, how

46:32

public is this? Because it was kind of buried

46:34

on a website somewhere. And

46:37

then once I realized that, I

46:39

think it was about three or four days later, we

46:41

huddled and we started building a plan

46:43

on what we what we needed to do to

46:45

kind of turn this thing around. Tamaco

46:48

Smith Jones was still here at the time as a AD so

46:51

it might have been Tamac Goog called. I don't remember who called,

46:53

but talked to Tamaica, talked

46:55

to the senior athletics about leadership team

46:57

at that time, and we

47:00

just went to work and started building a plan on

47:02

what we needed to do to make sure this

47:04

didn't become a real, a real

47:06

thing, because here's the

47:08

thing we were watching. I think it was Stanford

47:11

had to cut seven sports, was it,

47:13

and then eventually had to bring them all back. Clemson had to

47:15

cut some William and Mary schools

47:18

all around the country were cutting because you

47:20

know, people were we were in COVID and nobody

47:22

knew it was gonna happen, and budgets were of concern,

47:24

et cetera, et cetera. And then I believe pretty

47:26

much all the programs that cut sports had

47:29

to end up bringing them all back, right, because

47:31

that's one thing you never really went on. So

47:35

so yeah, I think I was in my garage, you

47:37

know, in my garage office, at my COVID garage

47:40

office, and

47:42

I was just I was stunned. And

47:44

then when it became real, but it's like, Okay, this is actually

47:46

a real thing, and we have to really kind of figure this out.

47:49

It was about four days later when we were meeting on it,

47:51

early September, right before Labor Day that

47:53

time.

47:54

What was your idea how do you think

47:56

it was going to get fixed? Or do you think

47:58

it wasn't sayable?

48:00

No, I believe there was sayable. And

48:03

the reason for that is because I was like, there's

48:05

two things right. One. I

48:08

knew as we kind of went into it, we had

48:10

to make I had to make sure that I threaded the

48:12

needle of you know,

48:14

because it wasn't adversarial. So I didn't make sure that

48:16

it wasn't adversarial. It was it was out there

48:18

because literally was a financial decision that

48:21

our financial possibility

48:23

that people were talking about. But

48:26

so I knew, Okay, we just have to make the case, make

48:28

the point. But I knew we needed to win the court

48:30

of public opinion. We

48:32

need to make people aware of it, and

48:34

we needed to make sure that the campus knew, campus

48:37

leadership knew if we're able to

48:39

do this, here's how we can do it. Because the questions

48:41

were on the table, do we eliminate

48:43

it, does it go division three? Division two? Does

48:46

the state division one? What does that look like? And

48:48

how do we kind of maneuver in that space? And

48:51

so I knew there was only one way to

48:53

go, which was to remain Division one. So

48:55

we worked with them they put a task

48:57

force together. I worked with the task

48:59

force in Collegiate Sports Associates

49:02

CSA. They came into an assessment of

49:04

not just where our program was, but where mid major programs

49:07

of like similar size and like

49:09

mindedness with respect to the academic

49:12

uc deal and everything else where they

49:14

were and how they were faring. And

49:16

you know, as well as I do, Doug, a

49:19

handful of programs in the nation are profitable.

49:21

Everybody's in the red right. This is you

49:23

have the academic model for athletics, and you have the business

49:26

model for athletics. The business model is

49:28

a lot of what you and Bells we were talking about, you

49:30

know in your podcast with him. That's

49:32

where you know the money

49:35

game is being played, if you will, right, the

49:37

academic model is where ninety percent

49:40

of Division I universities

49:42

operate. At the mid majors, the Group

49:44

of five for the most part, and the lower level

49:47

pack fives where we're still in that academic

49:49

model. You know where it's not. You

49:51

know, if you have football, your

49:53

football program is not you know, bringing

49:56

in millions and millions of dollars to the university.

49:59

You're there and your educ hitting kids and you're building the

50:01

programs the right way, so bring it all

50:03

the way back. The

50:05

plan that we put in place to fix it involved

50:07

making sure all the stakeholders were apprized

50:10

of the situation. Our donors,

50:12

our fans, alums, the

50:15

alumni, our current student athletes,

50:17

parents, media, you

50:20

name it, you know, folks on campus. And then

50:22

it was how are we going to tell the story about

50:24

why we're here in the mission of athletics and

50:26

why it's important. So we engaged in

50:28

that. We

50:30

did a petition, an

50:32

online petition. I'm drawing a blank on what those things

50:35

are called again, you know the ones where everybody signs,

50:39

oh gosh, I'm drawing a blank on it. But we

50:41

did one of those and it garnered

50:44

fifteen thousand signatures. There

50:46

was a letter writing campaign to

50:49

campus administration to let them know how people were

50:51

feeling. And then I just went

50:53

on a media blitz and did a lot of interviews you

50:55

know, all over the country, halftime

50:58

some of our games on esp and

51:00

others, you know, talk shows, et cetera, et

51:02

cetera, and just told the story of why

51:05

athletics at this level really matters and

51:07

the ultimate impact of negative impact

51:09

of losing an athletics program

51:12

especially at a university it's following the education

51:14

model, and especially at a U

51:16

see, you know, and then

51:18

we were able to make the case and so we

51:20

you know, we were I May May

51:24

of twenty twenty one

51:26

or May of twenty twenty two, we

51:29

receive word that the program was going to go forward.

51:32

And it was a great day, you know. But what kept

51:34

me going through the whole thing every

51:37

night for eleven months or however

51:40

long it took. What I would

51:42

wind the night down on my screen

51:44

I would have. I'd go through each team, and

51:46

I'd look at the faces of all of our student athletes

51:48

and our coaches and our staff, and

51:51

I realized, like, hey, failure

51:55

is not an option here. You know, these

51:57

are the individuals that you're fighting for every day

51:59

to keep this program going. And

52:02

you know, when I would look at their faces, I knew, like it's

52:05

real. You know, when I was on campus, because

52:07

we were back on campus in October of twenty because

52:10

we were still doing games. You remember that we're trying to figure

52:12

out games with no fans for basketballs

52:14

were starting all that, so we were

52:17

full go the whole time. But

52:19

when I'd see the kids or student athletes, when

52:21

I'd see the coaches, see their families,

52:23

see their friends. I knew, like

52:26

you know, It's like, dude, you can't fail failures

52:28

not you cannot fail at this one. Losing

52:31

is not an option here. All

52:34

right.

52:35

That's it for Part one the

52:37

Combo with Les Mallett. Stay tuned

52:39

for part two. Reminder of The Doug Gottlieb Show airs

52:42

daily three to five Eastern Time. It's

52:44

also on a twelve to two Pacific. You

52:46

can download that podcast. Just type in Doug

52:48

Gottlieb Show. Wherever you download this podcast,

52:51

you can probably get that one as well. And

52:54

I truly appreciate you joining me. I'm

52:57

Doug gotlig This as all ballp