Latest / Sports Done Wright w/ Vince Wright / WCCO Radio’s Henry Lake joins The Sports Done Wright Podcast
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Yo, it's Sports Dumb Right coming in hot. Vince, the
- 0:03Speaker 1: sports governor, giving it all. He's got tall, dark, handsome.
- 0:07Speaker 1: In the room he stands, breaking down the plays with
- 0:10Speaker 1: them insightful plans. Minnesota's rep with the mic in hand,
- 0:13Speaker 1: talking sports truths from the court to the land. Hoops
- 0:17Speaker 1: the grid down and always in command, bringing the heat.
- 0:20Speaker 2: Everybody understands.
- 0:21Speaker 3: Sports Dumb Right, where the knowledge flows.
- 0:24Speaker 4: Vince on the mic. Everybody knows. Tune in, turn up,
- 0:28Speaker 4: hear the latest shows. Sports Governor's here.
- 0:31Speaker 3: Watch the magic grow, grow. Stats and facts, he's bringing
- 0:34Speaker 3: the fire. Discussing the legends who we all admire. From
- 0:38Speaker 3: the hometown teams to international wire. Vince got the scoop,
- 0:42Speaker 3: taking us higher. Running down the field, breaking all the news.
- 0:45Speaker 4: From victory sweep to the bitter blues.
- 0:48Speaker 1: Analysis so sharp, cutting through the rules.
- 0:51Speaker 3: He's got the insight, trust me, no excuse.
- 0:53Speaker 5: Sports done right, where the knowledge flows.
- 0:56Speaker 4: Vince on the mic, everybody knows. Tune in, turn up,
- 1:00Speaker 4: hear the latest shows. Sports Governor's here, watch.
- 1:03Speaker 1: The magic grow.
- 1:15Speaker 5: Yeah, running down the field, breaking all the news. From
- 1:18Speaker 5: victory sweet to the bitter blues. Analysis so sharp, cutting
- 1:21Speaker 5: through the rules.
- 1:21Speaker 4: Got the insight, trust me, no excuse.
- 1:23Speaker 2: What's done right, where the knowledge flows.
- 1:25Speaker 4: This on the mic, everybody knows.
- 1:27Speaker 5: Tune in, turn up, hear the latest shows.
- 1:31Speaker 4: What's coming is here, watch the magic flow.
- 1:34Speaker 1: Watch the magic flow, yeah.
- 1:45Speaker 5: Watch the magic grow.
- 1:47Speaker 4: Hey, what's going on, everybody? Vince Wright, the sports governor,
- 1:55Speaker 4: coming to you. And we have another Sports Done Right
- 1:58Speaker 4: podcast dropping here. And a very special guest, the one
- 2:03Speaker 4: and only Henry Lake will be joining us here momentarily.
- 2:07Speaker 4: Recorded a great interview with him earlier here tonight. But
- 2:11Speaker 4: first up, shout out to 7th Avenue Pizza, our sponsor
- 2:14Speaker 4: here on the Sports Done Right podcast. The Nelson family,
- 2:17Speaker 4: Matt Nelson and crew, everybody, just huge thank yous for
- 2:21Speaker 4: all their support over the years. You know, you hear
- 2:24Speaker 4: me talking about the best frozen pizza in Minnesota, and
- 2:28Speaker 4: I say that honestly. I felt that way before I
- 2:32Speaker 4: was working with them, and I still feel the same way.
- 2:35Speaker 4: It's all about the ingredients and also what they do
- 2:38Speaker 4: in our community as well, you know. All the other
- 2:41Speaker 4: companies do great jobs, but Seventh Ave really does a
- 2:45Speaker 4: lot of charity and giving back.
- 2:47Speaker 2: So much appreciated there.
- 2:49Speaker 4: So make sure you get you some Seventh Avenue pizza.
- 2:54Speaker 2: All right.
- 2:55Speaker 4: So one thing I just wanted to mention before we
- 2:58Speaker 4: get into the H Lake interview here, because I have
- 3:01Speaker 4: not talked a lot of baseball, really, if any, because
- 3:04Speaker 4: the twins are.
- 3:05Speaker 2: Just sucking so bad this year.
- 3:07Speaker 4: 65-72, seven and a half games back, dropping like a
- 3:12Speaker 4: rock behind the White Sox.
- 3:15Speaker 2: And do they wind up selling?
- 3:19Speaker 4: Do the owners just finally just say, let's just have
- 3:22Speaker 4: somebody else deal with this?
- 3:25Speaker 2: Because, yeah, I don't know. Rhymes aren't really into it.
- 3:28Speaker 2: Who knows? But twins falling back. Now the Tampa Bay Rays.
- 3:32Speaker 4: 82 and 55 they're four games up on the yankees
- 3:36Speaker 4: and i don't know if you heard the impossible has
- 3:39Speaker 4: happened in tampa bay the rays are getting a new
- 3:42Speaker 4: baseball stadium finally after all this time you didn't think
- 3:46Speaker 4: it could happen did you didn't think so but it
- 3:49Speaker 4: finally happened tampa bay getting a new baseball stadium should
- 3:53Speaker 4: be ready in a couple years i think so props
- 3:56Speaker 4: to them Over in the American League West, we got
- 4:00Speaker 4: the Astros on top of the Texas Rangers by a
- 4:03Speaker 4: couple games. Seattle hanging by a thread there. Over in
- 4:08Speaker 4: the National League, the Braves doing that tomahawk chop. Four
- 4:12Speaker 4: and a half games up on the Phillies. Brewers and Cubs. Yeah,
- 4:16Speaker 4: Cubs sinking like a rock, unfortunately. My Chicago Cubbies, well,
- 4:21Speaker 4: what can you say? Brewers are eight games over them.
- 4:25Speaker 2: Dodgers, even without Shohei.
- 4:28Speaker 4: Nine and a half games up on the Diamondbacks. And
- 4:31Speaker 4: the Padres are 10 back. Damn, that sucks. Thought the
- 4:35Speaker 4: Padres were going to have a better year this year.
- 4:37Speaker 4: But I digress because let's get into our guest of.
- 4:42Speaker 2: The evening, the one and only Henry Lake. Look, you
- 4:45Speaker 2: know him, you love him.
- 4:46Speaker 4: He's been with WCCO Radio forever. Started over at K-Fan
- 4:51Speaker 4: with a little pit stop down in Kansas City. And
- 4:53Speaker 4: we're going to talk about it all. And I was
- 4:56Speaker 4: just glad that he joined us. Now, we had some
- 4:58Speaker 4: initial technical issues. I normally use my laptop to record.
- 5:03Speaker 4: Laptop just died right after we started recording the interview.
- 5:06Speaker 4: So I had to jump on my phone with StreamYard,
- 5:10Speaker 4: all that stuff. But anyway, I think it came out good.
- 5:14Speaker 4: So without any further ado, the one and only Henry
- 5:17Speaker 4: Lake here on the Sports Done Right podcast. All right, everybody,
- 5:24Speaker 4: what's going on? Vince Wright, sports governor here on the
- 5:27Speaker 4: Sports Done Right podcast. And you'll have to excuse me,
- 5:29Speaker 4: had a little issue here in the situation room with
- 5:32Speaker 4: the laptop. So I am on the phone with the
- 5:35Speaker 4: gentleman over here, the one and only Henry Lake, WCCO radio,
- 5:40Speaker 4: also formerly of K-Fan. Everybody loves Henry, man. If you're
- 5:44Speaker 4: local here, he needs no introduction. But Henry, thank you
- 5:47Speaker 4: for joining us tonight.
- 5:49Speaker 5: Hey, it's a pleasure to be on, Vince. I know
- 5:50Speaker 5: that it's been a long time coming.
- 5:52Speaker 2: Hey, I appreciate it.
- 5:53Speaker 5: All right.
- 5:54Speaker 4: So Henry, I want to, before we get into the sports,
- 5:56Speaker 4: I want to get into you because you are not
- 5:58Speaker 4: the only Henry Lake. You are one of three. And
- 6:02Speaker 4: I want you to talk a little bit about your
- 6:03Speaker 4: family growing up in North Minneapolis and especially your parents
- 6:06Speaker 4: and what they mean to you because your mom, especially
- 6:09Speaker 4: being an educator, kind of got you going on that
- 6:12Speaker 4: path to where you are now. So, you know, give
- 6:15Speaker 4: us a little bit about the backstory of the Lake family.
- 6:17Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 6:18Speaker 6: So, you know, my, um, my mother and father, um,
- 6:22Speaker 6: They met at the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff. So
- 6:24Speaker 6: they're from the Deep South. My mother from Memphis, Tennessee.
- 6:27Speaker 6: My father from Newport, Arkansas. I actually was born in Memphis, Tennessee.
- 6:32Speaker 6: So for the record, I was born in Memphis, Tennessee.
- 6:35Speaker 6: But right after I was born, literally right after I
- 6:37Speaker 6: was born, my mother got a job with the public
- 6:40Speaker 6: schools here in Minneapolis. And my father got a job
- 6:43Speaker 6: at Honeywell. And so they immediately moved to Minnesota. So
- 6:47Speaker 6: this is what I know. I never lived in Memphis,
- 6:49Speaker 6: Tennessee at all, even though I haven't, you know, I
- 6:50Speaker 6: would go down in the summertime and visit my grandparents
- 6:52Speaker 6: and stuff like that, whatever. But, um, North Minneapolis, that's
- 6:56Speaker 6: where I'm from. Uh, graduated from Minneapolis North high school. Um,
- 7:00Speaker 6: I have one sister, Sarah, she's 10 years younger than me.
- 7:02Speaker 6: Cause I kept begging and begging and begging my parents for,
- 7:06Speaker 6: I want a little brother. I want a little brother.
- 7:07Speaker 6: I want a little brother.
- 7:08Speaker 5: Somebody I can beat up on. Right. I got a
- 7:10Speaker 5: little sister. Right.
- 7:12Speaker 6: So, um, So, yeah, my mother was an educator. She
- 7:15Speaker 6: was an esteemed educator, Dr. Joyce Lewis Lake, in Minneapolis
- 7:18Speaker 6: for a long time. She started as an English teacher,
- 7:20Speaker 6: then became an administrator, then became a principal after being
- 7:25Speaker 6: an assistant principal, and then eventually being an assistant superintendent
- 7:28Speaker 6: and superintendent in Beloit, Wisconsin, and then coming back here
- 7:32Speaker 6: to be a principal again in Minneapolis before she passed
- 7:35Speaker 6: away in 2004. My father retired from Honeywell back in 2010.
- 7:41Speaker 6: My sister, she's unbelievable. She lives in Los Angeles now,
- 7:45Speaker 6: but she's a graduate of Howard University. And so, you know,
- 7:50Speaker 6: this is what I know, man. I'm proud to be
- 7:51Speaker 6: from Minnesota. I'm proud to be from Minneapolis. I'm proud
- 7:53Speaker 6: to be a North Sider NFL for life. There's so much,
- 7:58Speaker 6: I think, rich tradition and history in terms of being
- 8:02Speaker 6: from North Minneapolis. You know, you think about, you know,
- 8:06Speaker 6: you think about just what happened over the weekend with
- 8:09Speaker 6: Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, you know, and And my
- 8:12Speaker 6: mother was somebody that was a teacher and also babysat,
- 8:16Speaker 6: you know, Terry Lewis and his brother, John Benton.
- 8:21Speaker 5: Right. So, like, you know, so, I mean, there's so much.
- 8:24Speaker 6: Prince.
- 8:25Speaker 5: I'm just proud of being from North Minneapolis, man.
- 8:27Speaker 4: It really is a great city. I mean, obviously, we've
- 8:30Speaker 4: taken our hits and we're going to talk to Henry
- 8:32Speaker 4: about that because one of the reasons I want to
- 8:34Speaker 4: have H Lake on tonight at Henry, he ain't running
- 8:37Speaker 4: from a confrontation. He ain't running from, you know, the
- 8:40Speaker 4: current issues and how they delve into the sports side
- 8:43Speaker 4: of things. And we'll get into that in a second.
- 8:46Speaker 4: But tell the folks where you went to college.
- 8:49Speaker 5: Yeah, I went to Morehouse College.
- 8:50Speaker 6: So, you know, growing up in the 80s, I was
- 8:55Speaker 6: just I was a product of the Cosby show.
- 8:58Speaker 3: Right.
- 8:58Speaker 6: Like you look at the Cosby show, you see all
- 9:00Speaker 6: the stuff that was happening on the Cosby show in
- 9:03Speaker 6: a different world. And, you know, being in a household
- 9:06Speaker 6: where my parents both went to college, I said that
- 9:11Speaker 6: Morehouse of all the schools, that's where I wanted to go.
- 9:14Speaker 6: That was like the dream school because I wanted to
- 9:16Speaker 6: follow in the footsteps of Martin Luther King Jr. I
- 9:19Speaker 6: want to follow in the footsteps of Spike Lee. I
- 9:21Speaker 6: want to follow in the footsteps of Samuel Jackson. So
- 9:25Speaker 6: Morehouse was my number one choice.
- 9:29Speaker 5: And I got in.
- 9:30Speaker 6: And actually in the year that, um, that I graduated
- 9:35Speaker 6: because I graduated from Minneapolis North in 1991. That was
- 9:38Speaker 6: the most Minnesota young men that ever went into Morehouse College.
- 9:45Speaker 5: Wow, nice. I believe there were seven of us that year.
- 9:48Speaker 6: It was myself and Erskine McDaniel and Malik Edwards, Rucker Johnson. Yep.
- 9:56Speaker 5: Rest in peace to Lester Collins.
- 9:59Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 10:01Speaker 6: And then my other roommate my freshman year, Christopher Robbins. So, yeah,
- 10:06Speaker 6: it was a ton of us that went.
- 10:07Speaker 5: It was awesome. Best choice I ever could have made.
- 10:11Speaker 6: The other schools that I was looking at, Hampton, FAMU,
- 10:16Speaker 6: Virginia Union.
- 10:17Speaker 5: I got into Michigan State. But definitely, I always wanted
- 10:20Speaker 5: to be a Morehouse man.
- 10:21Speaker 2: There you go.
- 10:22Speaker 4: And, you know, having friends that are Morehouse men, you know,
- 10:28Speaker 4: I mean, shoot, I wish I would have went to Morehouse,
- 10:31Speaker 4: to be honest with you. But, you know, it really
- 10:35Speaker 4: is cool because the thing, and as we transition here
- 10:39Speaker 4: into how you delve into current issues with your sports program,
- 10:44Speaker 4: you know, tell us how Morehouse prepared you you know,
- 10:49Speaker 4: as a man, but also, you know, you're figuring out
- 10:52Speaker 4: your way in life. What was it about? What is
- 10:54Speaker 4: it about that term? Maybe here's the question. Morehouse man.
- 10:57Speaker 4: What does that mean to you?
- 10:59Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 10:59Speaker 6: You know, when you think about being a Morehouse man
- 11:03Speaker 6: and what it meant, what it means to go to Morehouse,
- 11:07Speaker 6: you know, that you have to be a person of substance.
- 11:10Speaker 6: You got to be a man that's going to stand
- 11:11Speaker 6: for something. You have to be a man that is
- 11:14Speaker 6: always going to use your, your, your brain and be,
- 11:17Speaker 6: and intellectual and take pride in that and also be
- 11:21Speaker 6: somebody that cares about the world around you and your
- 11:24Speaker 6: community and uplifting people. That's part of the, that's part
- 11:27Speaker 6: of what being a Morehouse man is. And so, you know,
- 11:31Speaker 6: if I was to go to college, specifically to go
- 11:34Speaker 6: to Morehouse college and not come out of Morehouse and
- 11:38Speaker 6: not try to uplift my community, wherever I live in
- 11:41Speaker 6: the world, if I'm not trying to help pull somebody
- 11:45Speaker 6: up out of their circumstance or situation, if I'm not
- 11:49Speaker 6: trying to continue to go down the journey of developing
- 11:54Speaker 6: my mind and developing who I am spiritually and emotionally,
- 11:59Speaker 6: then I just wouldn't rise to the level of being
- 12:02Speaker 6: what we believe a Morehouse man is. Because when you
- 12:04Speaker 6: think about the people that have come out of Morehouse,
- 12:07Speaker 6: all the great people that have come out of Morehouse,
- 12:11Speaker 6: and most notably Martin Luther King Jr., And you think
- 12:15Speaker 6: about Spike Lee and him always pressing issues that we
- 12:19Speaker 6: need to be concerned about in our society. And now
- 12:22Speaker 6: you see Samuel Jackson and what he's talking about all
- 12:26Speaker 6: the time.
- 12:27Speaker 5: So it's something in you that says that.
- 12:32Speaker 6: You have to be cognizant of the world around you
- 12:35Speaker 6: and you have to care.
- 12:37Speaker 5: Right.
- 12:37Speaker 2: Well said. Well said.
- 12:39Speaker 4: So you're at college. Is that where you got your
- 12:43Speaker 4: is that where you start getting into the sports journalism
- 12:46Speaker 4: side of things?
- 12:47Speaker 5: Nah.
- 12:48Speaker 6: So so so I actually so, you know, at Morehouse
- 12:53Speaker 6: for the first year, I wasn't sure, you know, you're
- 12:57Speaker 6: doing the general study stuff and you're not really sure
- 13:00Speaker 6: what you want to do. You know, I was leaning
- 13:01Speaker 6: into education because my mother was an educator. But at
- 13:04Speaker 6: the same time, I was thinking about, man, you know,
- 13:06Speaker 6: I want to go to law school. And so I
- 13:08Speaker 6: was doing like the pre-law society and all that stuff, whatever. Ultimately,
- 13:12Speaker 6: I ended up getting my degree in political science. And
- 13:16Speaker 6: I always thought that maybe I would go down the
- 13:19Speaker 6: road of going to law school. But as we got
- 13:23Speaker 6: about maybe like a year, year and a half away
- 13:25Speaker 6: from graduating, I started thinking about, well, how can I
- 13:28Speaker 6: get into sports? Because I'm a sports fan. I've always
- 13:30Speaker 6: been a sports fan, right? But I never really thought
- 13:32Speaker 6: about sports media. I actually wanted to get into working
- 13:36Speaker 6: with a sports team in like a front office type
- 13:39Speaker 6: of capacity.
- 13:40Speaker 2: Gotcha.
- 13:41Speaker 6: So my senior year, I sent out letters trying to
- 13:45Speaker 6: obtain an internship because I knew I was going to
- 13:47Speaker 6: be graduating within a year. And I wanted to, you know,
- 13:50Speaker 6: work in somebody's, you know, front office or, you know,
- 13:53Speaker 6: intern or whatever. And so I sent out a letter
- 13:55Speaker 6: to all the NBA teams. And some of them, you know,
- 14:01Speaker 6: sent me letters back saying that, you know, we don't
- 14:03Speaker 6: have anything available. But thank you for reaching out. There
- 14:06Speaker 6: were some teams that never sent me a letter back.
- 14:09Speaker 6: And then there were a few people that sent me
- 14:11Speaker 6: something back stating that they got it. We don't we've
- 14:15Speaker 6: already filled our internships or whatever. But, you know, reach
- 14:19Speaker 6: back out a little bit later. But there was one
- 14:21Speaker 6: individual specifically that that wrote me a handwritten letter. And
- 14:27Speaker 6: his name was Pete Babcock. And he was the he
- 14:30Speaker 6: was the the president of the Atlanta Hawks. And so
- 14:36Speaker 6: after graduating, I was our sports information director at Morehouse
- 14:42Speaker 6: got me.
- 14:45Speaker 5: I wouldn't call it an internship. It was it was
- 14:47Speaker 5: realistically a job.
- 14:48Speaker 6: I was a press steward and a media assistant for
- 14:51Speaker 6: Olympic basketball. And so in that capacity, what I did
- 14:55Speaker 6: was I covered all the games that worked in the
- 14:58Speaker 6: press section. And I was responsible for polling all the
- 15:02Speaker 6: media members on who they want to interview at the
- 15:04Speaker 6: end of games.
- 15:05Speaker 5: Oh, everybody, all the stats.
- 15:07Speaker 6: And so what I was doing on a daily basis
- 15:10Speaker 6: was I'm seeing the Michael Wilbon's. I'm seeing the David
- 15:14Speaker 6: Dupree's from USA Today, the Tony Cornhead, all those different people.
- 15:17Speaker 3: Right.
- 15:18Speaker 6: And I'm going around and doing whatever they needed done.
- 15:21Speaker 6: Who do you want to talk to at the end
- 15:22Speaker 6: of the games? What stats do you need? And so
- 15:25Speaker 6: it was really, really cool. Well, probably about three or
- 15:28Speaker 6: four days before the Olympics is over or at least
- 15:33Speaker 6: the basketball competition was over, I was walking down the
- 15:37Speaker 6: hallway and I saw Pete Babcock. And I was a
- 15:40Speaker 6: big fan of his. And so I went up to him.
- 15:43Speaker 6: I introduced myself to him. I said, hey, thank you
- 15:45Speaker 6: so much for writing me back. My name is Henry Lake.
- 15:48Speaker 6: You know, and he knew, you know, because clearly he
- 15:50Speaker 6: wrote me.
- 15:51Speaker 5: The letter back. He says, hey, what are you doing
- 15:54Speaker 5: once you, you know, now that you're done?
- 15:56Speaker 6: I said, well, I'm heading back to Minneapolis. I got
- 15:59Speaker 6: a job kind of lined up in the field of
- 16:01Speaker 6: education and everything and all this stuff. And he says, well,
- 16:04Speaker 6: I want you to do this. When you get back there,
- 16:06Speaker 6: I want you to reach out to my brother, Rob.
- 16:09Speaker 6: And so Rob Babcock, rest in peace to Rob. He
- 16:11Speaker 6: passed away a few years ago due to cancer. But remember,
- 16:14Speaker 6: he was in the front office. with the Minnesota Timberwolves,
- 16:18Speaker 6: working with Flip and all of those guys. He says,
- 16:20Speaker 6: my brother Rob is there. I want you to connect
- 16:23Speaker 6: with him, tell him that you met me. And that
- 16:26Speaker 6: was super cool. So when I got back home, I
- 16:29Speaker 6: was working in the school system, and I actually worked
- 16:31Speaker 6: in schools for like 15, 16 years. But the first
- 16:36Speaker 6: couple years back when I got back home, I got
- 16:39Speaker 6: into the school system, and working in schools was a
- 16:42Speaker 6: lot tougher than I thought. So I did it for
- 16:45Speaker 6: a year. Then I hopped out because I needed to
- 16:46Speaker 6: take a breather. And I worked for like two years.
- 16:52Speaker 6: I worked at, and this place doesn't even exist anymore,
- 16:55Speaker 6: the Wyndham Garden Hotel out in Bloomington. And I also
- 16:59Speaker 6: started doing an internship at KFAN.
- 17:04Speaker 5: Yes.
- 17:06Speaker 6: And so, well, actually, I take that back. At the Timberwolves, rather.
- 17:10Speaker 6: I was Timberwolves before I got to K-Fan.
- 17:13Speaker 2: Right.
- 17:13Speaker 6: So I was doing an internship with the Timberwolves in
- 17:16Speaker 6: basketball community relations.
- 17:18Speaker 2: Okay.
- 17:19Speaker 6: And I did that for two years. And so at
- 17:23Speaker 6: the end of the two years, it was summertime and
- 17:26Speaker 6: we're at a basketball camp because we did basketball camps.
- 17:29Speaker 6: So I would travel around the state with Flip Saunders
- 17:31Speaker 6: and all those guys, whatever. And we do camps in
- 17:33Speaker 6: Hutchinson and all over. And we were in Burnsville. And
- 17:38Speaker 6: there was going to be a press conference at the
- 17:41Speaker 6: end of the camp because it was going to be
- 17:43Speaker 6: announced that Flip Saunders was basically signing his first, like,
- 17:47Speaker 6: really nice deal as head coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves, right?
- 17:51Speaker 6: And so at that press conference, I met Darren Doogie Wilson,
- 17:56Speaker 6: who works at KSTP. And at the time, he was
- 17:59Speaker 6: producing at KFAN. And so he knew that I was doing, like,
- 18:03Speaker 6: a lot of basketball stuff. I knew a lot of
- 18:05Speaker 6: basketball coaches, AAU stuff, whatever. He says, hey, you ever
- 18:08Speaker 6: thought about getting into radio? I was like, no, never
- 18:10Speaker 6: thought about it. And so he gave me his information.
- 18:13Speaker 6: I went to K-Fan. I interviewed, got an internship. I
- 18:17Speaker 6: interned for the Chad and Barrero show.
- 18:21Speaker 2: Absolutely, man.
- 18:22Speaker 4: And such a great time, too, at K-Fan. I mean,
- 18:26Speaker 4: you know, when Doogie was there, before he blew up
- 18:29Speaker 4: into what he's doing now, like you said, Hartman, Barrero.
- 18:34Speaker 4: I think PA was just at the time just doing
- 18:36Speaker 4: kind of announcements. You know, he didn't have his show.
- 18:38Speaker 4: This is pre his show and everything.
- 18:40Speaker 5: Yeah, no, no.
- 18:41Speaker 6: So, so, so yeah, so a hundred percent. So when
- 18:44Speaker 6: all of this jumped off, I mean, I was there like,
- 18:49Speaker 6: so people really grew to know who I was based
- 18:53Speaker 6: off of the PA and Dubay show, because they were
- 18:55Speaker 6: the ones that gave me an opportunity to kind of
- 18:58Speaker 6: showcase myself in terms of basketball knowledge and stuff like that, whatever.
- 19:01Speaker 6: But at the time, Paul Allen, he didn't have a show.
- 19:06Speaker 6: Jeff Dubé didn't have a show, although Jeff was on
- 19:09Speaker 6: with Bob Yates in the morning.
- 19:11Speaker 4: It was Yates in the morning.
- 19:13Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
- 19:13Speaker 4: Can I just say something? Bob Yates, wherever you are,
- 19:16Speaker 4: rest your soul, man, Bob Yates was the dude. I mean, that, man.
- 19:22Speaker 4: He was hilarious. He had me cracking up all the time.
- 19:26Speaker 5: So I was responsible.
- 19:27Speaker 6: So after doing the internship for– Chad and Barrero, I
- 19:33Speaker 6: was the overnight board op. So I would come in
- 19:35Speaker 6: late night and I would have to prep for all
- 19:38Speaker 6: the morning stuff. I would have to, you know, record
- 19:41Speaker 6: on the reels. This is back when reels are going
- 19:43Speaker 6: and you got to prep every commercial and stuff. Nowadays,
- 19:46Speaker 6: it's automation, right? Like when the last person goes home,
- 19:48Speaker 6: you just put in the automation and it's is good.
- 19:51Speaker 6: But back then, you had to have somebody there. So
- 19:53Speaker 6: I was kind of in charge of that. And so, yeah,
- 19:56Speaker 6: I was there when PA was just doing like updates
- 19:59Speaker 6: at the time.
- 19:59Speaker 2: Right, exactly.
- 20:01Speaker 4: All right, so K-Fan, you're starting to grow. And then
- 20:04Speaker 4: all of a sudden, kind of an interesting pivot happened.
- 20:08Speaker 4: Henry Lake winds up going down to Kansas City.
- 20:11Speaker 5: Yep.
- 20:12Speaker 4: How did that come about? Because that was one that
- 20:14Speaker 4: kind of threw me for a loop. I was like, man,
- 20:16Speaker 4: Henry's leaving. But, you know, I mean, obviously happy you
- 20:19Speaker 4: got a new opportunity. But how did it come about
- 20:22Speaker 4: and what was Kansas City like before you came back
- 20:24Speaker 4: to the Twin Cities?
- 20:25Speaker 6: Yeah, so, you know, for me it was– so I
- 20:28Speaker 6: was at K-Fan from– I interned there in 1998. So
- 20:32Speaker 6: that was, you know, Randy Moss, all those guys coming in.
- 20:36Speaker 3: Right.
- 20:36Speaker 6: And I didn't leave K-Fan until 2013. And I got
- 20:42Speaker 6: an opportunity in Kansas City because at the time, a
- 20:45Speaker 6: gentleman here by the name of John Hanson, who was
- 20:49Speaker 6: part of Twin Cities Live. Twin Cities Live on Channel 5.
- 20:55Speaker 3: He.
- 20:56Speaker 6: Originally, his background before the TV part was radio.
- 21:01Speaker 5: And so he ended up landing and getting the.
- 21:07Speaker 6: the job at 610 Sports Radio in Kansas City, which
- 21:11Speaker 6: is the all-sports station there, home of the Royals, and
- 21:15Speaker 6: also at the time it was home of Kansas Jayhawks basketball.
- 21:18Speaker 6: And everybody knows I'm a massive Jayhawks fan, Rock Chalk.
- 21:22Speaker 6: And so he had reached out to me after landing
- 21:25Speaker 6: there and says, hey, would you ever think about, you know,
- 21:29Speaker 6: moving out of market or whatever? And for me, you know,
- 21:31Speaker 6: no kids, not married.
- 21:33Speaker 2: Right, yeah.
- 21:34Speaker 6: I wanted to grow. And I wanted to get better
- 21:37Speaker 6: in the business. And I just, you know, props to K-Fan,
- 21:41Speaker 6: but like the lineup is stacked. So there was really
- 21:45Speaker 6: no real opportunity for me to get consistent airtime because
- 21:51Speaker 6: at that particular time, you know, we were done doing
- 21:54Speaker 6: the Sludgeon Lake show.
- 21:56Speaker 5: And so for me, I was doing weekends.
- 21:57Speaker 6: And so I wanted to do it and really, you know,
- 22:00Speaker 6: kind of like jump into a full time. And so
- 22:02Speaker 6: that's how I got to Kansas City. was when I
- 22:05Speaker 6: got the offer from John, and I was there for
- 22:07Speaker 6: five and a half years. I never would have imagined
- 22:09Speaker 6: that I would go to a World Series and all
- 22:11Speaker 6: these other things. Going up to Lawrence and hanging out
- 22:15Speaker 6: and getting a chance to meet Bill Self and watch
- 22:18Speaker 6: some Jayhawk basketball, that was a lot of fun.
- 22:20Speaker 2: Nice.
- 22:21Speaker 4: So before we jump back into the Twin Cities here,
- 22:25Speaker 4: and the folks can't see Henry Lake joining us here
- 22:29Speaker 4: on the Sports Done Right podcast, What is Kansas City
- 22:32Speaker 4: like as a sports town? You know, we know we
- 22:34Speaker 4: got some good barbecue down there and all that. But,
- 22:37Speaker 4: you know, what's it like as a sports town? And
- 22:41Speaker 4: one of the reasons I asked, I was driving back
- 22:43Speaker 4: from Arizona coming through Kansas. And it was, you know,
- 22:46Speaker 4: kind of mid-afternoon, and we hit the outskirts of Lawrence.
- 22:49Speaker 4: And I totally forgot how close. Lawrence is just right
- 22:52Speaker 4: outside Kansas City, basically.
- 22:54Speaker 5: Yeah, it's about 25, 30 minutes.
- 22:56Speaker 2: Exactly.
- 22:57Speaker 4: It's not in the middle of the state, in the
- 22:59Speaker 4: middle of nowhere. What's it like as a sports town
- 23:03Speaker 4: down there? What's the vibe like? What do they want
- 23:05Speaker 4: to talk about?
- 23:07Speaker 6: So, Kansas City, those fans in Kansas City, and when
- 23:12Speaker 6: I say Kansas City, I'm talking about Kansas and Missouri.
- 23:14Speaker 2: Right.
- 23:15Speaker 6: They love their sports. It's real. The fandom is real.
- 23:21Speaker 6: It is not fair weather. We are a fair weather state.
- 23:27Speaker 6: That's just the reality of it. There, they are all
- 23:30Speaker 6: about their Royals. They're all about their Chiefs. The college
- 23:34Speaker 6: scene is dramatically different than here because you've got K-State,
- 23:39Speaker 6: you've got KU, you've got Mizzou, you've got UMKC, you've
- 23:45Speaker 6: got a gazillion schools that you can be a part
- 23:48Speaker 6: of there in terms of the fandom for college athletics. So,
- 23:52Speaker 6: college athletics is something that is like, like a 10 there.
- 23:58Speaker 6: It here is probably maybe more so like a four
- 24:01Speaker 6: or five. And so to, to be there and to
- 24:04Speaker 6: be able to cover so much, so many different colleges
- 24:08Speaker 6: was super cool, but also just like the way that
- 24:11Speaker 6: the fans are passionate about this sports, it's just way,
- 24:16Speaker 6: way different.
- 24:16Speaker 5: In there to, to be, to be fair here.
- 24:20Speaker 6: We are more diverse in terms of what we want
- 24:23Speaker 6: to talk about in terms of like sports stations. We
- 24:27Speaker 6: are willing to interject, you know, not just sports, but
- 24:30Speaker 6: other stuff and have fun and crack jokes and maybe
- 24:33Speaker 6: sprinkle in some politics, stuff like that. In Kansas City,
- 24:36Speaker 6: they really, they're not about that. They just want to
- 24:38Speaker 6: keep it sports, which kind of, you know, in a
- 24:42Speaker 6: way for me, as much as I love sports, I
- 24:45Speaker 6: got to keep it real about certain things going on too.
- 24:48Speaker 6: Because when I was there, You had Ferguson happen. You
- 24:51Speaker 6: had the college stuff that was jumping off. So there
- 24:53Speaker 6: was a lot of things that were happening, too. So
- 24:55Speaker 6: but Kansas City is a phenomenal sports town. But I
- 24:58Speaker 6: think the only thing about Kansas City for me, it
- 25:01Speaker 6: was a little bit small, you know, because we're a
- 25:04Speaker 6: big city here. And I would say that it's a
- 25:06Speaker 6: big town there.
- 25:07Speaker 2: Thank you. Well said.
- 25:09Speaker 4: And, you know, that's the thing, because, you know, and
- 25:12Speaker 4: we got just a few more minutes here. So I
- 25:14Speaker 4: just wanted to jump to Henry because, again, the way
- 25:17Speaker 4: that you delve into current issues and whatnot. So obviously
- 25:20Speaker 4: with the George Floyd stuff that happened here and everything
- 25:23Speaker 4: else that's been popping off and ice recently, how do
- 25:27Speaker 4: you balance it between, you know, sports current issues? And
- 25:34Speaker 4: also how do you delve or deal with the folks
- 25:36Speaker 4: that come back hard at you on your show? Because again,
- 25:40Speaker 4: You know, when you start talking sports, politics, all this stuff,
- 25:43Speaker 4: it ain't meant for everybody, and people get real in
- 25:46Speaker 4: their feelings. I was listening to a conservative dude called
- 25:49Speaker 4: in on your show last week, and, boy, he was
- 25:52Speaker 4: fit to be tied, man. And I was just like,
- 25:55Speaker 4: how do you deal? How do you keep your cool, Henry?
- 25:59Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, sometimes I don't. I just got to
- 26:03Speaker 6: be honest. Sometimes I don't always keep my cool. Even
- 26:07Speaker 6: after the day after getting into it with a caller,
- 26:10Speaker 6: The next day, I apologized, not because of my take,
- 26:15Speaker 6: but because I felt like, you know, I shouldn't have
- 26:17Speaker 6: went after him in the way that I did. But
- 26:20Speaker 6: my take on it is this. In the world right now,
- 26:26Speaker 6: we have to call out what's wrong, okay? What's right
- 26:29Speaker 6: is right, and what's wrong is wrong, all right? Vince
- 26:33Speaker 6: Wright is right.
- 26:34Speaker 5: Right.
- 26:34Speaker 4: To me.
- 26:38Speaker 5: We have to just speak to that.
- 26:41Speaker 6: I don't, and I say this all the time, and
- 26:42Speaker 6: I know you probably heard this on the Lake Show,
- 26:45Speaker 6: but all this stuff about putting people into labels, conservative, liberal, Democrats, Republicans,
- 26:50Speaker 6: all that stuff, whatever.
- 26:51Speaker 5: I don't care nothing about that. I really don't.
- 26:53Speaker 6: At the end of the day, it's about the topic.
- 26:57Speaker 6: It's about the subject matter. It's about what we should
- 27:00Speaker 6: be saying and doing or what we shouldn't be saying
- 27:04Speaker 6: or doing. And to me right now, we are we
- 27:08Speaker 6: are dealing with a lot of foolishness and we're dealing
- 27:10Speaker 6: with a lot of negativity and we're dealing with a
- 27:12Speaker 6: lot of serious topics. So for me to try to
- 27:15Speaker 6: navigate the world and not be serious about what's going on, nah,
- 27:20Speaker 6: I'm not ducking no smoke. I'm not ducking no conversations.
- 27:23Speaker 6: We're not doing none of that because the times are
- 27:26Speaker 6: too important and the issues are too significant. We have
- 27:31Speaker 6: to continue to talk about voting rights. We have to
- 27:35Speaker 6: be protective of all people In all communities. And so
- 27:39Speaker 6: that's the reason why I'm super passionate about things that
- 27:43Speaker 6: are non-sports related.
- 27:44Speaker 5: Yeah, I love my sports. I love my basketball.
- 27:46Speaker 6: I'm a season ticket holder for the Minnesota Timberwolves, stuff
- 27:48Speaker 6: like that, whatever. But I care about the little kid
- 27:52Speaker 6: that maybe is not going to have enough food to
- 27:56Speaker 6: eat when they leave school. That matters to me. I
- 28:00Speaker 6: think it matters to all of us, right, that the
- 28:03Speaker 6: gas prices are high. Or the grocery prices are high.
- 28:06Speaker 6: All that stuff matters to all of us.
- 28:08Speaker 5: But you know what?
- 28:08Speaker 6: It impacts a certain group of people more than another
- 28:12Speaker 6: group of people. So when we start talking about the
- 28:15Speaker 6: country and inequality and injustice and all the things that
- 28:19Speaker 6: are happening, I'm definitely going to always speak to that.
- 28:21Speaker 4: Hey, preach, man. And Henry, that's why a lot of
- 28:24Speaker 4: people love you. Some people don't. But I'll tell you what,
- 28:27Speaker 4: they listen. They listen to you.
- 28:30Speaker 5: Absolutely. And I'll take the haters any day of the week.
- 28:34Speaker 5: You know what? That's part of the territory. That comes
- 28:37Speaker 5: with the territory.
- 28:40Speaker 6: I'm not going to be everybody's cup of tea.
- 28:42Speaker 5: That's fine.
- 28:42Speaker 6: I don't have an issue with that. But the people
- 28:44Speaker 6: that really get to know me, the people that actually
- 28:47Speaker 6: listen and don't prejudge me, the people that see the
- 28:51Speaker 6: work that I do in the community that gets highlighted
- 28:53Speaker 6: in the stuff that doesn't get highlighted, because I don't
- 28:55Speaker 6: do all the work that I do in the community
- 28:58Speaker 6: and the money that I raised for nonprofits, stuff like that.
- 29:00Speaker 5: I don't, a lot of stuff. I don't even, I
- 29:03Speaker 5: don't want it advertised. You know what I'm saying?
- 29:05Speaker 6: Some of this stuff has to be just because that's
- 29:07Speaker 6: the nature of the business. But the people that really
- 29:10Speaker 6: get to know me, yeah, they know.
- 29:13Speaker 2: I'm a good. Absolutely.
- 29:15Speaker 5: All right.
- 29:16Speaker 4: Last few minutes here. Let's, let's get into a little
- 29:18Speaker 4: sports here, Henry. So Minnesota Vikings, then we're going to
- 29:21Speaker 4: end up with the Timberwolves here, but Minnesota Vikings, Kyler Murray,
- 29:26Speaker 4: finally you know he was finally named the rosters out
- 29:29Speaker 4: as of now JJ is still on it and you
- 29:32Speaker 4: know I thought that that was appropriate I thought you
- 29:35Speaker 4: know from what I saw to have him as quarterback
- 29:37Speaker 4: three you know I thought was good. Brosmer has been released,
- 29:43Speaker 4: so I imagine he may wind up on the practice
- 29:45Speaker 4: squad with him. But as we are now ready to
- 29:48Speaker 4: head into the season here in just over a week,
- 29:50Speaker 4: what are your initial thoughts on the Minnesota Vikings now
- 29:54Speaker 4: with Kyler Murray in the lead?
- 29:56Speaker 6: I think the team should be much better this year.
- 29:59Speaker 6: I mean, Kyler Murray's a better quarterback than J.J.
- 30:01Speaker 5: McCarthy.
- 30:01Speaker 6: If they could do what they did last year and
- 30:03Speaker 6: have an upgrade at the quarterback spot– and I'm not
- 30:05Speaker 6: saying that Kyler Murray is like some Super Bowl-level quarterback
- 30:10Speaker 6: because we're not there yet with him, right? Like he's
- 30:12Speaker 6: got to show that he can stay healthy. He has
- 30:15Speaker 6: to show that he can get back to being a
- 30:17Speaker 6: Pro Bowl performer and all that stuff, whatever. But clearly
- 30:19Speaker 6: the defense is going to be really good. I do
- 30:22Speaker 6: like what they have in the backfield with the running
- 30:25Speaker 6: backs and stuff. I just think that when you have
- 30:27Speaker 6: a guy like Justin Jefferson– Able to do what he
- 30:29Speaker 6: can do in the special playmaker that he is. As
- 30:32Speaker 6: long as you can get him the football, Jordadison, TJ Hockerson,
- 30:35Speaker 6: hopefully we'll have a bounce back. I think this team
- 30:37Speaker 6: is going to be much better this year than last year.
- 30:40Speaker 4: Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, you know,
- 30:42Speaker 4: look what they did last year with, if you want
- 30:45Speaker 4: to call him a bad quarterback.
- 30:46Speaker 2: Yep.
- 30:47Speaker 4: You know, I mean, Justin, it took him all season, but,
- 30:50Speaker 4: you know, he did get a thousand yards. And like
- 30:51Speaker 4: you said, with an upgraded quarterback, I am excited to
- 30:55Speaker 4: see if they can really make a nice little playoff
- 30:58Speaker 4: run here. obviously we need Kyler to stay healthy. That's
- 31:02Speaker 4: the other issue. But no, I agree with you, man.
- 31:05Speaker 4: The upgrade at quarterback has me excited for the season.
- 31:09Speaker 4: What do you think about KOC as a coach? Now,
- 31:12Speaker 4: you know, because the past couple of days I've been
- 31:14Speaker 4: listening to a few podcasts talking about, you know, does
- 31:18Speaker 4: he get the blame that he should be getting in
- 31:21Speaker 4: terms of the Vikings quarterback questions? And I don't know
- 31:25Speaker 4: if misfiring may be a strong term here, but you know,
- 31:29Speaker 4: was put on a crazy back in the day. He's gone.
- 31:33Speaker 2: Yup.
- 31:34Speaker 4: You know, when, when does KOC have to start answering
- 31:37Speaker 4: some questions?
- 31:38Speaker 6: Well, I said this all last year, you know, I
- 31:40Speaker 6: do a podcast on channel nine with the Ahmad Hicks
- 31:43Speaker 6: called the H and H not the H and H podcast.
- 31:45Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 31:46Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 31:46Speaker 2: It is.
- 31:46Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 31:46Speaker 5: Yeah. The H and H podcast. I'm sorry.
- 31:48Speaker 6: And the bottom line is this, if you're Kevin O'Connell,
- 31:53Speaker 6: you gotta be on, I don't want to say the
- 31:55Speaker 6: hot seat, but under the microscope.
- 31:57Speaker 5: Because, You've been termed the quarterback whisperer. Yes. You ain't
- 32:03Speaker 5: developed J.J.
- 32:04Speaker 2: McCarthy.
- 32:05Speaker 5: And look, I get it.
- 32:06Speaker 6: You know, if Kweisi, Kweisi is not out of a
- 32:08Speaker 6: job just because of J.J. Like he had some other
- 32:12Speaker 6: issues drafting wise.
- 32:14Speaker 5: He didn't draft well.
- 32:15Speaker 6: But if you're Kevin O'Connell, there's no way that J.J.
- 32:18Speaker 6: McCarthy landed with this organization. And he had no say
- 32:21Speaker 6: at all.
- 32:22Speaker 5: All right.
- 32:23Speaker 6: So so he has to take on some of that, too.
- 32:26Speaker 6: He needs to continue to develop JJ, but how much
- 32:29Speaker 6: is he going to develop now? Because he's not the
- 32:31Speaker 6: starting quarterback. So I think that KLC is a good coach.
- 32:36Speaker 6: I got no issues with KLC, but he's got to
- 32:38Speaker 6: go take the next step. And that starts him winning
- 32:41Speaker 6: playoff games. If KLC has another year in which he
- 32:44Speaker 6: doesn't win a playoff game, then the seat gets real hot.
- 32:48Speaker 4: I couldn't agree more, and yes, I think it will happen.
- 32:52Speaker 4: If they do not win a playoff game this year,
- 32:54Speaker 4: I think finally he's going to be feeling it. Defensive
- 33:00Speaker 4: side of the ball, Hitman Harry, people are still kind
- 33:04Speaker 4: of hoping, praying maybe he comes back for a year.
- 33:06Speaker 4: What are your thoughts on the defensive side of the ball?
- 33:11Speaker 4: There's a lot of youth on the defensive line. And,
- 33:15Speaker 4: you know, I'm just, I would love to see a
- 33:18Speaker 4: return of a dominant Vikings defense like we've seen in
- 33:21Speaker 4: years past.
- 33:22Speaker 6: I think we'll be good. I think that this is
- 33:25Speaker 6: going to be a breakout year for Dallas Turner.
- 33:27Speaker 5: I really do.
- 33:27Speaker 6: I think it's going to be a breakout year for
- 33:28Speaker 6: Dallas Turner.
- 33:30Speaker 5: I am questioning the Kayla Banks selection.
- 33:34Speaker 2: Okay.
- 33:36Speaker 5: Not because I don't think that Kayla Banks isn't any good.
- 33:40Speaker 2: Right.
- 33:40Speaker 5: I don't think that you draft a guy that high
- 33:43Speaker 5: in the draft. That's got health issues.
- 33:45Speaker 4: Health issues, yes.
- 33:46Speaker 5: He hadn't played in, what, like a year and a half?
- 33:49Speaker 6: Yep. So that's the one where I'm kind of like, whoa,
- 33:52Speaker 6: what are we doing here? Hopefully he proves all of
- 33:54Speaker 6: us wrong.
- 33:55Speaker 5: Absolutely.
- 33:56Speaker 6: But, yeah, I got no issues with the defense because
- 33:59Speaker 6: we know that Brian Flores is a genius.
- 34:01Speaker 5: He is a mastermind.
- 34:03Speaker 2: Absolutely.
- 34:03Speaker 4: Absolutely. Let me ask you this. What does a successful
- 34:08Speaker 4: Viking season look like for you, Henry Lake?
- 34:12Speaker 5: A playoff win. Just getting into the playoffs.
- 34:15Speaker 6: And I know that this division is wide open. People
- 34:19Speaker 6: can sit there and they can talk about the Chicago
- 34:21Speaker 6: Bears all they want. I think they're going to take
- 34:23Speaker 6: a little bit of a step back. And I actually
- 34:25Speaker 6: think that DJ Moore was a better player than what
- 34:27Speaker 6: people gave him credit for in Chicago. Chicago is going
- 34:31Speaker 6: to be in the mix. Detroit, to me, clearly in
- 34:33Speaker 6: the mix. Green Bay in the mix. Minnesota in the mix.
- 34:36Speaker 6: I think the division is wide open and it's a
- 34:38Speaker 6: tough division. But I definitely feel like if you're KOC,
- 34:42Speaker 6: you've got to get back to the postseason and you've
- 34:44Speaker 6: got to get a playoff win.
- 34:45Speaker 2: All right.
- 34:46Speaker 4: Okay, so let me transfer it to the Timberwolves here.
- 34:49Speaker 4: We've got about another eight, nine minutes here with Henry
- 34:52Speaker 4: before he has to take off. So Timberwolves, new look Timberwolves.
- 34:57Speaker 4: What are your initial thoughts with the changes they made
- 35:01Speaker 4: via trades?
- 35:04Speaker 6: So I'm on the fence about the LaMelo Ball trades.
- 35:08Speaker 6: Not because I'm a LaMelo ball hater. I think the
- 35:12Speaker 6: sample size in terms of what we are expecting to
- 35:16Speaker 6: see out of LaMelo is not that big. He had
- 35:19Speaker 6: a great year last year. But remember now, prior to
- 35:22Speaker 6: last year, he's had all these injuries. So hopefully, knock
- 35:28Speaker 6: on wood, he will remain healthy. I love Jay McDaniels.
- 35:33Speaker 6: Everybody knows that. I've been, from day one, even before
- 35:36Speaker 6: Anthony Edwards got to Minnesota, I was the person that
- 35:39Speaker 6: was screaming at the top of our lungs, if we
- 35:40Speaker 6: get the number one pick, that's the guy we need.
- 35:43Speaker 5: Rudy's been better than I expected him to be.
- 35:46Speaker 4: It is a.
- 35:47Speaker 6: It's tough to see Nas Reid, you know, exit and
- 35:50Speaker 6: go down to Charlotte. I wish him nothing but the best.
- 35:54Speaker 6: But I think that we're a deeper team. I think
- 35:56Speaker 6: that this, arguably, going into a season, could be the
- 35:58Speaker 6: deepest Timberwolves team that we've ever seen. I love how
- 36:02Speaker 6: we got... Ayo, again, he's back in the mix. We
- 36:05Speaker 6: signed him to an extension. I love the move that
- 36:09Speaker 6: they just made heading into the weekend of getting Cody
- 36:12Speaker 6: Williams because we needed to kind of free up some
- 36:15Speaker 6: money with the whole Jonathan Kaminga signing. And so you
- 36:19Speaker 6: send Josh Green to Utah, and then we get Cody Williams.
- 36:22Speaker 6: Cody Williams is a good player. He's a young player.
- 36:25Speaker 6: He's just two years removed from Colorado. I love that move.
- 36:30Speaker 6: So I think that this team– At the end of
- 36:33Speaker 6: the day, even though at the power forward spot, we
- 36:37Speaker 6: have continued to get a little bit worse off. You
- 36:41Speaker 6: go from Cat to Julius Rando, now to Jonathan Kaminga, right?
- 36:47Speaker 6: That's a drop off. But across the board with the roster,
- 36:52Speaker 6: I think we'll be fine. It'll be a new brand
- 36:55Speaker 6: of basketball because realistically, you've got Rudy in the paint.
- 37:00Speaker 6: And we'll see how the development of Yohan Baranje, how
- 37:03Speaker 6: that kind of progresses here.
- 37:05Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely.
- 37:06Speaker 4: And I think you hit it. That's what the fans
- 37:07Speaker 4: are going to have to maybe get used to. Just
- 37:10Speaker 4: like you said, a new look kind of Timberwolves team there. Henry,
- 37:15Speaker 4: let me ask you this before we get you out
- 37:16Speaker 4: of here, man. You've been doing sports for a long,
- 37:19Speaker 4: long time. And I want to ask you this. What is.
- 37:26Speaker 4: Maybe your biggest gripe with the sports business today as
- 37:30Speaker 4: opposed to what you truly like about what you do?
- 37:34Speaker 6: I think one of the gripes probably would be that we,
- 37:41Speaker 6: we have to continue to make it accessible to a
- 37:44Speaker 6: lot of different people and we should continue to make
- 37:46Speaker 6: the views, viewpoints of people across the board.
- 37:52Speaker 5: Shared a lot.
- 37:53Speaker 6: And what I mean by that is, like for instance,
- 37:55Speaker 6: I'm a big ESPN fan, right? Like I grew up
- 37:58Speaker 6: on ESPN. I love ESPN. I don't care what people
- 38:01Speaker 6: say about ESPN. I love ESPN. But it can't be
- 38:05Speaker 6: Stephen A. Smith, Pat McAfee, and then everybody else. That's
- 38:09Speaker 6: not what it should be about. Like it should be
- 38:12Speaker 6: about more people part of the platform. The same thing
- 38:18Speaker 6: can be said here locally. You know, when we start
- 38:22Speaker 6: looking at all sports radio or news and this, that
- 38:26Speaker 6: it should be pretty diverse across the board. So to me,
- 38:30Speaker 6: when you start thinking about where we're going, I want
- 38:34Speaker 6: all viewpoints to be shared, whether it's conservative, whether it's liberal,
- 38:38Speaker 6: whether it's, you know, developing more conversation and talking points around,
- 38:42Speaker 6: around the WNBA or, more stuff happening with the NFL.
- 38:46Speaker 6: I just want to see a lot more people be
- 38:48Speaker 6: a part of the conversation, not just a few talking heads,
- 38:51Speaker 6: but a lot more talking heads.
- 38:52Speaker 4: Hey, Henry, we got you for about five minutes here.
- 38:55Speaker 4: Let me actually jump in on the WNBA. I actually
- 38:58Speaker 4: had that on my list, so I'm glad you brought
- 39:00Speaker 4: it up because I would have forgot. Obviously, everything we've
- 39:03Speaker 4: been talking about is in play at the WNBA. Nobody's
- 39:07Speaker 4: a fan of the commissioner. You know, you're either Team
- 39:11Speaker 4: Caitlyn or Team Reese seems like, you know, all the
- 39:17Speaker 4: culture stuff is always being talked about. Everything but basketball
- 39:20Speaker 4: and the play of the league. And obviously with the
- 39:23Speaker 4: team we got here in Minnesota, Miss Olivia Miles, who's,
- 39:26Speaker 4: you know, not only making, her obviously wrapped up rookie
- 39:28Speaker 4: of the year, making a run at MVP, you know,
- 39:32Speaker 4: if you were commissioner of the WNBA, Henry Lake, what
- 39:37Speaker 4: would commissioner Lake be looking to do with this league? Because,
- 39:40Speaker 4: you know, they're on the precipice, they're getting the, you know, the,
- 39:43Speaker 4: the contracts, the money, And now it's all about, you know,
- 39:47Speaker 4: you either hate Kaitlyn Clark or you don't, or you
- 39:50Speaker 4: hate Angel Reese or you don't. What does Commissioner Lake do?
- 39:53Speaker 6: Well, I just think that, you know, that the biggest
- 39:57Speaker 6: thing for the WNBA is continuing to promote the brand.
- 40:03Speaker 6: You know how, like, the NFL talks about, you know,
- 40:06Speaker 6: protecting the shield? The WNBA needs to continue to push
- 40:11Speaker 6: the entire league. And I think that one of the
- 40:14Speaker 6: issues right now is that because i'm a caitlin clark
- 40:17Speaker 6: fan but we have a couple different groups here we
- 40:22Speaker 6: have the bandwagon people that are jumping in on the
- 40:24Speaker 6: wnba because of caitlin clark in the fever and then
- 40:27Speaker 6: you've got the people that have been supporting the wnba
- 40:30Speaker 6: from its inception and i'm one of those like when
- 40:33Speaker 6: i think back to old school basketball i think about
- 40:36Speaker 6: theresa edwards i think about nancy lieberman i think about
- 40:40Speaker 6: ann myers like those are ogs those are the old
- 40:43Speaker 6: school people uh um I think about Cheryl Miller. That's
- 40:49Speaker 6: what I go back to, right? I've been supporting women's
- 40:51Speaker 6: basketball my entire life. So I'm not new to this.
- 40:55Speaker 6: We have people out here that it's either I'm supporting
- 40:59Speaker 6: Kaitlyn Clark or I'm not supporting nothing. And to me,
- 41:02Speaker 6: those are the people that end up being problematic to
- 41:05Speaker 6: the league because their identity is just about one player.
- 41:11Speaker 6: And so the reason why I say that, and I'm
- 41:13Speaker 6: not saying that you can't be I'm a Caitlin Clark fan.
- 41:16Speaker 5: You should be like we all have.
- 41:17Speaker 6: Like, I'm a fan of a lot of different players.
- 41:20Speaker 6: But what it ends up being, though, is is now
- 41:22Speaker 6: you start pitting one player or one team against the
- 41:26Speaker 6: rest of the league. And that does not show that
- 41:28Speaker 6: you appreciate the sport or the league as a whole.
- 41:32Speaker 5: And to me, that's a problem.
- 41:34Speaker 2: There you go.
- 41:35Speaker 4: All right, Henry, I'm going to let you go, my friend.
- 41:37Speaker 4: I know you got things to do tonight.
- 41:40Speaker 5: I'm headed to Target Field.
- 41:41Speaker 4: There you go. There you go. Hey, man, first off,
- 41:45Speaker 4: thank you. We'll reach out to you down the road. But, man,
- 41:48Speaker 4: just on a personal level, like I said, I've been
- 41:50Speaker 4: listening to you for years, been a big fan. Appreciate
- 41:53Speaker 4: what you do for our community as well. And, man,
- 41:57Speaker 4: just keep doing you, man, because I love your show and.
- 42:00Speaker 2: You got a good one.
- 42:01Speaker 6: I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on the podcast, Vince.
- 42:03Speaker 6: I appreciate you, my man. Just continue to grow, continue
- 42:06Speaker 6: to grind away because I see you working, bro.
- 42:09Speaker 5: I see you working.
- 42:10Speaker 4: Hey, I appreciate it, man. All right, have fun out
- 42:12Speaker 4: at the stadium tonight.
- 42:13Speaker 5: All right, take care.
- 42:14Speaker 4: All right, take care.
- 42:15Speaker 2: Peace. All right, the one and only Henry Lake, y'all.
- 42:25Speaker 2: I got to tell you something, man.
- 42:26Speaker 4: Great dude. So glad he joined our show tonight. And
- 42:31Speaker 4: what more can I say, man?
- 42:33Speaker 2: Henry's the best.
- 42:34Speaker 4: And you see why he's made a lot of friends
- 42:37Speaker 4: along the way.
- 42:40Speaker 2: Just a cool guy, cool dude.
- 42:42Speaker 4: And I love how he just jumps right into it.
- 42:45Speaker 2: And if you listen to his.
- 42:47Speaker 4: Show, he takes on all comers. And that's what I
- 42:52Speaker 4: like as well. So, Henry, thank you for joining us tonight.
- 42:56Speaker 4: Thank you for tuning in, peeps, to the Sports Done
- 42:58Speaker 4: Right podcast. The latest in our local Sportscaster edition here.
- 43:03Speaker 4: Henry Lake joining us. More guests coming. I'm going to
- 43:07Speaker 4: get on out of here. You have a good night Monday. Yeah,
- 43:11Speaker 4: a Monday drop. Very rare in a Sports Done Right
- 43:13Speaker 4: podcast world. But I hope you enjoyed my interview with Henry.
- 43:18Speaker 4: Thank you for all the support. It means the world
- 43:20Speaker 4: to me. Everybody that hits me up on the socials
- 43:24Speaker 4: that I've met in person. I truly, truly appreciate it.
- 43:27Speaker 4: So thank you for supporting the Sports Done Right podcast.
- 43:30Speaker 2: Peace.
- 43:34Speaker 4: You can get your sports scattered, smothered, or covered.
- 43:38Speaker 3: But why would you when you can get your sports
- 43:41Speaker 3: done right?