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3 Guys Before The Game - Brian Jozwiak Visits (Episode 559) · 3 Guys Before The Game

• 0:09
  Hey, what do you say? It is time for another episode of Three
• 0:13
  Guys Before the Game. I don't know if I've ever said this before,
• 0:17
  but I got a good one for you. We got a good one for
• 0:21
  you. Summer series continues, and we are delighted to be joined by one
• 0:25
  of the all time great Mountaineer football players, consensus All American first round NFL
• 0:31
  draft pick Bryan Joe's weak is our guest. We're about to have fun.
• 0:38
  Look at that, dude. I think he's kind of like wine. I
• 0:42
  think you're improving with age. I really did, if I mean looking good.
• 0:45
  But you know, there's two ways to improve. You could be a
• 0:48
  fine wine and improves or you're a boldy old cheese, which is pretty good
• 0:53
  too. So I'll take you. You know, I never thought thanks for
• 0:59
  having you this. This is really cool. I watch us all the time.
• 1:02
  I hope you know that. I don't know that. Oh, I
• 1:03
  watch all the time, and I enjoy the awesome aspects of this stupidness.
• 1:10
  Of this stiffidness is probably where guys are good. You're entertaining. I guess
• 1:15
  that's the fact that we're looking for. That's why you're here. Three Guys
• 1:17
  Before The game is brought to us by Comac's Business Systems, keeping West Virginia's
• 1:21
  business data safe, secure and deficient for twenty five years. Three guys brought
• 1:26
  to us by Gomart. Go for good times, Go for Gomart, and
• 1:30
  go get that Gomart rewards card where right now you can save on food and
• 1:37
  fuel. Every time you go there, the rewards pile up, and so
• 1:41
  do your savings. Three guys also brought to us by lou Wendell Marine Sales
• 1:46
  in Saint Albans Day. They sell family fun. Visit lou Wendelmarne Sales dot
• 1:52
  com. Joe's lives in Florida. He's surrounded by water. You talk about
• 1:57
  a guy that knows a few things about pontoons. He knows ontoons, he
• 2:00
  knows try tunes, he knows the whole. Probably everyone that he sees is
• 2:04
  from lou Wendell takes down there is that confirmed? Well, this is unconfirmed.
• 2:08
  He he he, He came up from Florida just recently. And we'll
• 2:13
  tell you why he's here. He came up the Eastern Seaboard in a in
• 2:16
  a pontoon from lou Wendell Marine South. There was a bit there was a
• 2:20
  couple of bumps here and there. South Carolina was a little rough, but
• 2:23
  other than that, he made it into the Baltimore area and then just got
• 2:27
  into the Inner Harbor. The Harbor, came in Inner Harbor, took the
• 2:30
  Erie Canal. Then he got here in a pontoon. Yeah done, confirmed,
• 2:36
  unconfirmed confirmed that all right, good to have you man, all good
• 2:39
  to be here. Wasn't a pontoon? Yeah, I know. So.
• 2:43
  Joe's Jose and I hold a hold a special bond in that we're the same
• 2:47
  age. And so when I came to West Virginia, my very first season
• 2:53
  was Jos's second to last season he was a junior, which was the eighty
• 2:57
  four season, which which long time outs and your football fans remember as just
• 3:01
  this incredibly eventful and enjoyable season. It had the it had the highest highs,
• 3:08
  and then it had a couple of valleys after everyone got hurt, and
• 3:12
  then it ended on a peak when they beat TCU in the Blue Bonnet Bowl.
• 3:17
  And then the next year, Joe's finishes his career consensus All American,
• 3:23
  which back then meant it was awesome. Back then it meant they got plexiglass
• 3:30
  and they enclosed or entombed your locker, and so like if you're in the
• 3:36
  Mountaineer locker room, there's locker, locker, locker used, everyone's using it,
• 3:38
  and then if your consensus, they put plexiglass on it. It's kind
• 3:43
  of like it would be the Mountaineer football version of being like a one of
• 3:47
  those mummies. Right, they mummify your stuff. You got your helmet in
• 3:52
  there, you got your jersey in there and everything. Two of them.
• 3:53
  Yeah mean Tally Yeah, Tally was first, second Darryl Talley, and so
• 4:00
  Joe's is a special dude and then obviously drafted in the National Football League by
• 4:05
  the Kansas City Chiefs and you know, seventh overall pick pretty dog gone wild
• 4:13
  and here he is, say, and here he is? Now what is
• 4:17
  that? How many years after it's all done? Like closing in on forty
• 4:21
  closing in on forty years later? And you know we were talking here before.
• 4:26
  Now I've used this analogy. So like when we talk about the eighty
• 4:29
  four season, we talk about it like it was yesterday, right, yeah,
• 4:33
  But if you do the math on it, like younger people now,
• 4:36
  they look at us like we're talking about like was it in color back then?
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  Or was that black and white. How did that look? And it
• 4:45
  goes by dog gone fast. So to further that, it'd be the equivalent
• 4:49
  of an eighty four if you guys were talking and someone brought up the nineteen
• 4:54
  forty fourteen, right and we and you guys going, what are you talking
• 4:57
  about it? What do you stop bringing that up? That they didn't?
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  Did they even move then? Like? But it stopped? So like it
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  proves a couple of things. Time never stops, time goes by fast,
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  and we're super old and we're super old, but feel good. Hey,
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  I'll tell you what. It also reinforces the fact that we got a heck
• 5:14
  of a dag on timeline here at West Virginia University. Yeah, what we've
• 5:16
  accomplished in all those years you're talking about and here where we are right now,
• 5:20
  I think we're uh, hell, I think we're we're doing pre dagon
• 5:25
  good in the grand scheme of things. And you know what, I'll say
• 5:28
  this, I wouldn't I wouldn't trade I wouldn't trade all the nil money you
• 5:32
  got, seriously for the experiences in those early eighties locker rooms that that right
• 5:38
  there now, I'd have taken a little extra money back then you know,
• 5:41
  picture bearing some wings. That was enough. I'd stay all day. But
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  you know, honestly that that that time frame, that experience and those guys
• 5:49
  that I shared the battlefield with, that was that was awesome stuff. Man.
• 5:54
  I wouldn't trade that. When you look at that now, that is
• 5:59
  an absence historic piece of West Virginia football. Because Don comes in eighty and
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  he starts to build it, right, and they won six games his first
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  year. Then they won nine and eighty one, nine and eighty two,
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  nine and eighty three, and we got to was it seven and eighty four,
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  but it included the victories over Penn State and Boston College and Syracuse and
• 6:19
  the bowl game, and then words that after you did all that, then
• 6:23
  they had the the injuries and you lost to Temple, Rutgers, Virginia yep,
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  right and so in some order and so but you're right, So the
• 6:31
  guys that were here then that was the seed plant for what became the eighty
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  eight team because the under Johnson's and all those guys that came in eighty four,
• 6:42
  they red shirted in eighty four, played eighty five, eighty six,
• 6:45
  eighty seven, and they seniored out when they were eighty eight and that was
• 6:47
  the national championship undefeated season. Absolutely, So you're right, you were right
• 6:51
  in when, like if you were a startup like you guys were, like
• 6:58
  employee one, two, three, four and five at Facebook or at Google,
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  like you guys were the first in to start the whole thing. Yeah,
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  and what a special time that was. And you know, it's you
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  know, we build empires on the shoulders of those that laid the foundations.
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  And of course our foundation was laid long ago, you know, our our
• 7:16
  history. That's what I was talking about, this timeline that we've been on.
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  You know, we've all stood on the shoulders of those that came before
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  us. And you know, there's always been an attitude at West Virginia,
• 7:27
  you know, the the taking the pail to work, putting on the hat
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  mentality, you know, and and that was passed on from generation to generation.
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  And when coach Neilan arrived, he latched onto that concept. Man,
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  it's all about the it's all about the fans, it's all about the people
• 7:44
  of West Virginia. This is for them. What we're doing is for all
• 7:47
  of us, and that's a heck of a responsibility. And I think that
• 7:50
  that that mentality. I've seen that modernly with with Neil Brown and what he
• 7:57
  his philosophies are. You know, different lands, same game, and same
• 8:03
  fan base that we're talking about. So you know, it's it's it's all
• 8:07
  interconnected, Tony. Yeah. Something else happened in that eighty four season.
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  Eighty four season, Don Neelan began to visit WVU at that time, it
• 8:16
  wasn't dou WVU Medicine, it was WVU Hospital, yep. And he would
• 8:20
  go over and bring players with him over to visit the children. And that
• 8:24
  began then. And that also began the spring game donation of fans going to
• 8:31
  the game and donating the dollars from that. So with that being said,
• 8:35
  you're involved in that and thirty four years ago you begin to continue that legacy
• 8:45
  and tradition. And you started as a golf tournament. And this is what
• 8:50
  I was thinking about when we had the opportunity to get you in here.
• 8:54
  Man, it could have been so easy for you if you did it for
• 8:58
  about five, eight or ten years, right and just go like, hey
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  man, it's been a great run. Ten years. I don't live in
• 9:05
  West Virginia anymore. Hopefully someone can carry the torch and go forward. But
• 9:09
  you come back every single summer and we're getting ready to do it again next
• 9:13
  week. We're recording on three of July and this is the thirty fourth Brian
• 9:20
  Joe's we had golf tournament. That's pretty cool, man, that's great.
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  Good for you, d good for you. I mean, that's the one
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  thing being said. My dad told me, I don't raise a quitter,
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  so I don't quit. So you know, you got to run me out
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  or just take me for what it is. And thirty four years later,
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  this thing is just bigger than it's ever been. It's so exciting to be
• 9:45
  still attached to university and more importantly to the kids at Children's Hospital. You
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  know, my son was born there being part of that what you talked about
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  those times the coach Neelan would take us over there to visit those kids and
• 10:00
  they kids on the New York Mom and dad did you know, but you
• 10:03
  got your jersey on and you walk in and they just light up and if
• 10:07
  you give them just a second to get off the track of the mundaneus of
• 10:11
  and the fight that you're in, you know, and we'd go visit them
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  kids, and of course coach Neiel and used it all the time on our
• 10:18
  practice field. You know, you know you're running Fordies out there complaining,
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  and all he had to say was, Hey, think about them kids and
• 10:24
  what they're going through right up there on the hill, so suck it up.
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  You know you got another one in yet, let's go and and it
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  worked. But for me, it resonated even more because you know, the
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  fight that a lot of those kids and parents and folks are going through.
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  And then having the support of a really great hospital, people that care,
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  that just mattered to me. And when I was done in Kansas City and
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  came back, you know, being involved, I had to give back.
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  That's the other thing that my parents and of course reinforced by Coach Neil and
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  always give back, never take for granted, give back as much as you
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  can in time and value. And uh we started that golf tournament, Scottie
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  Sears and I and got some got some local folks together and we kicked it
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  off. And uh yeah, thirty four years later, all the all the
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  businesses and the supporters and the sponsors and the folks that have come and gone,
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  and and you know, we even have a couple of teams honestly goodness,
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  thirty four years later, have never missed four in a row. Thirty
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  four in a row. And I think there's two teams them have done that.
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  And I can't thank all these folks enough. We got a heck of
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  a committee. It's involved and it's just a really it's just a really cool
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  weekend. Now it's all weekend raising money and awareness for a ten story facility
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  that's right here in Morgantown that is a gemstone of children's hospitals in this country.
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  Uh. Pretty cool. So it's one thing to want to give back
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  like you did, but to see it and watch it grow to the level
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  that it has. And you mentioned it's not just a golf turn anymore.
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  What's what else has it has it gone to at this point? Is they're
• 11:58
  bowling now involved in brother, we kicked this thing off. First of all.
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  You know it's called the Legends, the Legends, right, So,
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  like you were saying, Tony Man, we're sixty one years old, brother
• 12:09
  man, we're talking forty years ago the Legends, right, you gotta you
• 12:13
  know, you gotta be dead. That was Sam a Legends right back then.
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  It was Sam Hoff, it was Freddie Line, It was all right,
• 12:18
  it was Marconi. It was Jerry West, Jerry Wes. You know,
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  so you know, legend, we're all gonna go there. Yeah,
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  but here, here we are, and a lot of great guys come back.
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  You know, if I start naming them, I'll miss out on them.
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  But you know, the the Borlandos, the Timmy Ages, the the
• 12:37
  Mike Foxes, the Mike Comptons, the Darryl Tally's rolling in, Curling Beck's
• 12:43
  coming in. You know, we started doing this this kickoff meet and greet
• 12:48
  the Legends Thursday at Tropics. That's where it kicks off, six pm this
• 12:52
  year. You know, Tony you mentioned about you know, Coach Neelan's involvement
• 12:56
  with Children's Hospital. Now forty plus years, we're sell breaton Coach Kneeling.
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  You know, Coach Neeling is the one, and all these guys are coming
• 13:03
  in and we're gonna rust start together. We're gonna well, it's not gonna
• 13:09
  be like that, Tom Brady, bro stop promise you that, because there
• 13:11
  ain't enough. Ain't nobody got enough fodder against Coach Neeling. You know,
• 13:16
  we got a crooked finger to make it. He said, you said last
• 13:20
  night that the first one out. Yeah, you very much, you know,
• 13:22
  but we all have our little our little things that we're gonna have some
• 13:24
  fun with it. It's more of a tribute. It's more of a thank
• 13:28
  you for all you've done for not only Children's hospital, that's happening, where
• 13:31
  that's happening, where that's a tropics that's so you're doing that the night before
• 13:35
  the tournament that's on Thursday, that starts at six, and those tickets are
• 13:39
  still available. Yeah, you could come up to the door. I'm almost
• 13:41
  it's like a hundred bucks a ticket. It is, I'm looking at it
• 13:45
  right now, six o'clock July eleventh, six o'clock July eleventh, one hundred
• 13:48
  dollars per person. You're also gonna do a live auction, live music and
• 13:54
  honoring Don Neeling and the eighty four team. Let me just do this whole
• 13:58
  thing the next day. Sorry, if you want to play, the golf
• 14:01
  tournament is sold out. But wait, there's more the day after that,
• 14:07
  which is the thirteenth of July, the Saturday. It's a first It's Suburban
• 14:13
  Lanes, all right, Jerry Lorenz and the Gang and the first annual Let's
• 14:18
  go bowling with the Legends and each team of five people can enter for two
• 14:24
  hundred and fifty bucks. If you're just a spot on person by yourself,
• 14:26
  fifty bucks. Each team bowls with a former Mountaineer football player, family friendly
• 14:31
  two games of bowling appetizer and that's available and you can register at Suburban Lanes
• 14:39
  dot com and then after that's over, that goes six to eight. After
• 14:43
  that's over, you go up to Kegler's clubhouse upstairs and this is free and
• 14:46
  open to the public. Free, always works, and there's gonna be Daryl
• 14:50
  Tally will be there. You can mingle with Daryl and other Mountaineer legends,
• 14:56
  and it will mark the official launch of Darryl's NFL Hall of Fame campaign and
• 15:01
  they're going to announce exactly what the plan is there to get Darryl inducted into
• 15:05
  the NFL Hall of Fame. And you can follow this on Kegler's social media
• 15:09
  and Brian's which is Joe's Knows Kids j o Z n o z k I
• 15:16
  d Z Joe's Knows Kids. All proceeds from all of these events we'll go
• 15:22
  to WV Medicine Children's and the Has Foundation. There. You go, yeah,
• 15:26
  that I need to re mention that because you know, we got some
• 15:30
  title sponsors. If am I allowed to these guys out there? The only
• 15:33
  rule is so important. The only rule we have is this, there aren't
• 15:37
  any rules. Go ahead, got it? I love it. I could
• 15:39
  play by them rules. That's easy right now. I honestly, you know,
• 15:43
  all the people that support it and come out and be part of it,
• 15:46
  but you know the title sponsors, the folks that that that put up
• 15:50
  the money that that really allows us to do what we do and do it
• 15:54
  right. Uh, you know, are are just tremendous people that The Thursday
• 15:58
  event we start off with, uh is fantastic because Iron Synergy steps up gives
• 16:06
  us a donation that basically covers the night and then everything that we do above
• 16:11
  that, after we pay the bill all that from Thursday night, which is
• 16:15
  a pretty good chunk, we do a live auction. We got some really
• 16:18
  cool stuff that we do and it's it's a fun it's a fun time.
• 16:22
  That all goes directly to has and Jeff Hosteler and his foundation and what he
• 16:26
  does because you know he's able to you know, he knows the ropes.
• 16:30
  I mean, he's he's on the board up there. He's part I mean,
• 16:33
  he's he's the spearhead for Children's hospital. He knows how to push that
• 16:37
  money where it goes, so all that money goes there. And then Friday,
• 16:41
  uh Vision Homes and Pepsi. Uh you know, uh, Rocky Simmons,
• 16:48
  I don't know if you've got a Russian guy. We got into a
• 16:53
  bit of a thing, you know, because again, you know, sponsors
• 16:56
  come and go and and when when one steps down, you got to find
• 17:00
  another to keep it rolling, which thirty four years later, I might say
• 17:03
  it's pretty cool because you know, folks have stepped in and stepped out and
• 17:07
  then someone else steps in, so it's been apparently it's a good thing that
• 17:11
  we're doing. So you know, Rocky stepped up and and and Pepsi's always
• 17:15
  been our guy, and you know, so that's good stuff. Absolutely,
• 17:21
  thanks, But it's full. The Saturday gig though, I mean, if
• 17:26
  you're a bowler, or you just want to meet some mountaineer as we call
• 17:30
  them legends, if you want to come out and hang out and visit with
• 17:33
  Darryl Talley. This thing that we're doing at Suburban Lanes, this was the
• 17:37
  brainchild of none other than College football ballot this year. Aaron Beasley, this
• 17:42
  is his brain. He brought the bowling bees is the one we got the
• 17:47
  bowl man, there's gonna be some trash talking. We're gonna get in there,
• 17:51
  and so we're gonna be bowl regularly, do you know? Yeah,
• 17:53
  yeah, I doubt it, but yeah, you know, he doesn't try
• 17:56
  to I hope he doesn't try to intercept it. Oh, I hope the
• 18:00
  balls just don't start flying across lanes. Jarrel'll be up there losing his mind.
• 18:04
  Yeah. Now generously, uh, suburban lanes and keglers said, hey,
• 18:11
  whatever you guys make here, they're not they're not they're not taking anything.
• 18:15
  So that that two fifty that we bring perteam at two fifty right the
• 18:21
  house. So you know what I mean, we're just we're just we're helping
• 18:25
  raise the money, you know. And but it's it's the business owners and
• 18:27
  these folks that are out there that have the means to do that and support
• 18:32
  that step up and say hey, it's all about the kids. It's all
• 18:36
  about that children's hospital, and I want to be involved. I'm so I'm
• 18:40
  so thankful and appreciative of all those that we have brought to the table.
• 18:45
  Over the years that you know, hey, they do it to see us
• 18:48
  and hang out with us, but now they don't they do it because I
• 18:51
  think we all know, we all know someone that children's hospital has been,
• 18:56
  you know, uh part of and we're a part of that. So you
• 19:00
  know, it's just it's pretty cool. It's going to be a heck of
• 19:02
  a weekend. Man. I can't wait. I'm trying to get some little
• 19:04
  extra sleep and kind of you know, I might have to go get that
• 19:08
  that extra shot, you know, just to make sure I'm good to go.
• 19:11
  Yeah, well they got this. You got You're not as young as
• 19:15
  you used to be. You just turned sixty one. Huh. How about
• 19:18
  this turn sixty one on West Virginia's birthday June twenty. That's pretty appropriate.
• 19:22
  Centennial birthday, pretty appropriate, the centennial birthdayeen sixty three night. Yeah,
• 19:27
  sixty that's pretty cool. That's really neat. You were destined to play here
• 19:32
  because you were born on West Virginia's birthday, or you were destined to be
• 19:34
  here. This is well. I believe that, I truly believe that.
• 19:40
  How did Maryland not get you? Farland? Maryland called one morning at like
• 19:45
  five thirty a morning It was Jerry Clayver and it had just snowed. Was
• 19:48
  the end of December? Phone rings? My dad answers it. I get
• 19:52
  on the phone. He says to me, oh, listen, son,
• 19:56
  you might not want to go to school today because if you're slip and fall,
• 19:59
  that sky will be given to someone else. Okay, yes, sir,
• 20:03
  Coach Claver, and I'll talk to you later. Bye. Click.
• 20:06
  My dad was like, what do you want? I said, he told
• 20:07
  me not to slip on the ice. He goes, what you ain't going
• 20:11
  there? I said, okay, good, no man, I hey whatever,
• 20:17
  I'm good. Who recruited you? Oh? Bob Simmons? Oh was
• 20:19
  Bob Bob Simmons first thing he ever said to me. I'm Bob Simmons from
• 20:23
  West Virginia. You need to buy a jump rope? Son? I was
• 20:27
  like, what buy a jump rope? You wanted to get your feet going?
• 20:32
  Oh, I'm telling you man. You know. So he came to
• 20:34
  the school. Oh he was in the gym there. Yeah, yep,
• 20:37
  they came. You know my senior year. I was a big kid growing
• 20:41
  up. Katon's will nah. You know, But how was it? You
• 20:44
  didn't start playing football until tenth grade. Okay, so I didn't have a
• 20:48
  long history of playing football. I was as raw as raw could be.
• 20:52
  But you know, at six five and a half, you know, two
• 20:55
  hundred and eighty five pounds at that time, that's a big kid back then.
• 20:57
  And uh, there was a It was at Mount Saint Joe, which
• 21:00
  was the local parochial school in the area, and they had droves of recruiters
• 21:06
  back then. You course couldn't do it electronically back and you had to physically
• 21:08
  go and meet these kids. So this guy would say, Hey, you
• 21:11
  got to go check out that big kid over Caton Zoe. And that's how
• 21:15
  that started. And these guys started finding out, Hey, man, watch
• 21:18
  his kid. You know he can he can actually walk in chew gummet at
• 21:21
  the same time, and he's a big kid. A lot of times they're
• 21:23
  kind of floppy and you know, like them young. You know, I
• 21:27
  must have had something that appealed to him, and maybe it was more like
• 21:30
  it should be. You know, we're not we're not doing We're not doing
• 21:33
  this for what you've done. We're doing it for what you could possibly be
• 21:37
  the potentiality of the development process. How good can this kid be? So
• 21:41
  there saw something in me, and and you had Bob Simmons. And I
• 21:45
  took my trips to Wake Forest, North Carolina, Nebraska. UH went unofficially
• 21:51
  to Maryland, officially to Penn State. You went to Nebraska. I took
• 21:55
  the Nebraska trip. Remember back in my day, you signed a letter of
• 21:59
  intent and then you signed a national letter of intent. So the letter of
• 22:03
  intent back there bound the university to you and said we have a scholarship for
• 22:07
  you no matter what. But it didn't bind you to that until you signed
• 22:11
  on National signing Day. So the week after I was here on my visit,
• 22:15
  I called Bob Simmons on Monday and said, Hey, I'm going to
• 22:18
  take a trip to Nebraska. And he about he about lost it. He
• 22:22
  goes, wait, wa, wait a minute. That was their role in
• 22:25
  the in the eighties when you were going to visitoria like there at the height
• 22:27
  of the college football. They picked me up in a lear Jet with a
• 22:30
  big ann on the title on the on the tail. I was in the
• 22:33
  I was in that with Tim Harris and John L. Williams, remember them
• 22:37
  two names. And we flew to Nebraska, and of course I got out
• 22:41
  there and you know it's halfway across the country. It was intimidating as all
• 22:45
  get out. Like you said, that was the big air of tom Osborn
• 22:48
  Board Eppley was the who was there? Great lineman that may have given him.
• 22:56
  Come on, now, Turner Gill was a quarterback. They played,
• 23:03
  They played for the national champions. What okay. So I'm out there and
• 23:07
  it's winter conditioning and I go into this like shell building. They got to
• 23:11
  have three hundred guys and they're all and I looked at that and went it
• 23:15
  was a little intimidating. I mean, I could play there, but it
• 23:18
  was a little intimidating. And I said, you know what, it's too
• 23:21
  far away. So I got back. My dad picked me up from the
• 23:22
  airport there in Baltimore, and we're driving back on Sunday. I said,
• 23:26
  Dad, I said, I need to go back to West Virginia. I
• 23:29
  need to know if that's if that's the if that's where I'm supposed to be.
• 23:33
  In other words, filling the gut, all right, filling the gut.
• 23:36
  So he took off work drove me back on Monday. I got here
• 23:40
  and and just I knew as soon as we got into the mountains, man
• 23:42
  I was like, I feel home, man, I feel home, And
• 23:45
  and it was just it was so special to drive up to that new stadium
• 23:48
  and going there and be greeted like family and everybody. You know, it
• 23:52
  was really special. But the deal seiler happened later on that week because we
• 23:57
  didn't spend the night. We went back home. My dad had worked tomorrow
• 24:00
  on Tuesday. About Thursday, there's a knock at our door. Here he
• 24:04
  comes, and there's Coach Kneeling, Donny Young, Bob Simmons, Donny Young
• 24:10
  and Coach Kneeling are both standing there holding a big paper sack foot raw kilboso.
• 24:15
  My dad Polish from Buffalo. My dad's sitting in a chair is from
• 24:18
  Buffalo. He's like, hey, man, I smell Cobosa. Yeah,
• 24:21
  he's your Buffalo. All the Polish are up in Buffalo, he smelled.
• 24:26
  He goes, I smell Cobosa. Who is that? My mom says,
• 24:29
  it's coach Kneeling. He goes, well, get his ass in here.
• 24:33
  I was like. He comes in, He's like, what's in the bag,
• 24:36
  coach, Oh, we got you some fresh kilbosa. Monica Livandowski was
• 24:41
  his secretary back then, and her old man made it in the garage.
• 24:44
  All right, this sausage comes in my dad's differ. You're signing at West
• 24:49
  Virginia tomorrow, I said, you bet you I am? I said,
• 24:52
  oh yeah, that's sealed the deal. That's a heck of an anti deal.
• 24:56
  Get signed from two bags of sausage. Now it's a seventh figured up.
• 25:00
  He had different different bags. If they knew he was going to be
• 25:02
  a consensus All American and the seventh pick in the draft, how much would
• 25:04
  it have cost him just to walk in and talk to him? Sausage,
• 25:08
  all of it, would bring, all of it the factory, the Malachi
• 25:12
  factory. I always say, Tony, as long as you've known me,
• 25:18
  man, I ought to just put a sign on the back of my car.
• 25:19
  I worked for food. I've told you. Give me a give me
• 25:23
  a freaking picture of Beard, a couple dozen wings, I'll stay all day.
• 25:26
  Yeah, oh, man, that's a fin. But Mike Jacobs was
• 25:30
  your line coach when you got here, right, or was it McMichael.
• 25:33
  Well, when I got here, I was recruited as a defensive lineman.
• 25:37
  I was a noseguard, and so me and Ernie Anderson was surely two guys
• 25:41
  signed in nineteen eighty one, and who are we with every day? Bilker
• 25:45
  Labage. For three days, me and Ernie and Bilker Labage cussing at us,
• 25:49
  spitting at us, throwing stuff at his sweat, stuff flying out of
• 25:53
  his mouth, and me and Ernie are beating a living crap out of each
• 25:56
  other three days. This is for those that I don't undergot. This is
• 26:00
  when the freshmen used to come before anyone else. And so you do it
• 26:04
  by position. And so for three days, like you say, there was
• 26:07
  only two kids at Kerlave, and we just beat the living dog out of
• 26:12
  each other man. And then all of a sudden, the upperclassmen show up,
• 26:15
  which is the Darryl Talley's a Dennis Folks relux. That crew comes in,
• 26:19
  and of course we're forgotten. They don't know us from Adam right,
• 26:23
  and you know what happened all the love, you know what I mean,
• 26:26
  Nobody cares well. You know, I'm this big kid, and it was
• 26:32
  tough to block me if you were two hundred and forty pounds and I'm you
• 26:33
  know, two ninety, you know, so I kind of worked into the
• 26:37
  starting lineup and going into the opener nineteen eighty one, I was the starting
• 26:41
  noseguard, and on a Thursday before the Saturday game, I was in a
• 26:48
  goal line scrimmage. We did ten scripted plays every day on the goal line,
• 26:52
  which was live. This is full equipment. This is two days before
• 26:56
  a game. You understand what I'm saying. It's amazing. And we get
• 27:00
  out there and we're beating each other up. Well, I blew my left
• 27:02
  knee. Monday morning. I'm in surgery. Doc Bowers is scoping me,
• 27:06
  fixing my medial moniscus, and I got was it a scope? Back then?
• 27:10
  It was probably a cut. I was the no. I was scoped.
• 27:14
  Doug Bowers was on the like original team that actually started arthroscopic surgeries,
• 27:21
  which was again non invasive back then, and so you know, hey,
• 27:23
  I had the surgery. I like four weeks later, I was out there
• 27:27
  running. I came back and I got back in the lineup. Dave old
• 27:32
  Black then became the nose and I was old Black's back up. I worked
• 27:36
  back in as the number two guy. We're getting ready. There's like two
• 27:40
  games left in the season. I do my right knee. So I'm laying
• 27:44
  in bed, my mom and dad are up there. I'm up there at
• 27:45
  Ruby Man just had my knee repaired, and uh, was this another scope
• 27:49
  or was this a cut? This was this was another scope? God,
• 27:52
  thanks Doug. But anyway, we go in there and coach Kneeling Glave Carl
• 28:00
  Battershell standing at the foot of my bed. Cur Labs got his head down,
• 28:03
  all bummed out looking, and Coach Kneeling stands there to inform me and
• 28:07
  my mom and dad that we're going to move you to offense because again there
• 28:11
  was no knee brace protection back then, right, so the protection was,
• 28:15
  Hey, this guy's tall, he's gonna have problems getting cut. He's going
• 28:18
  to be standing up a little bit. Let's move the offense. Which,
• 28:22
  thank you, coach Neelon, because that was the best move that could have
• 28:25
  ever happened to me. Taking a defensive disposition onto the offensive line and now
• 28:30
  you give me the snap count. That means I can move before you.
• 28:33
  We're going to have where I have some problems. So that was a great
• 28:36
  move for me, and I didn't. I didn't. Actually eighty two again
• 28:41
  was my then red shirt freshman year. We go out there, we beat
• 28:44
  Oklahoma, another Pinnacle game, and you know don Nieling's timeline, but I
• 28:49
  didn't make that trip. I didn't actually, I didn't actually play until about
• 28:53
  halfway through the season when Kirk Keel sprained his ankle and they called my name
• 28:57
  and man, my butt. I don't like this. I went and I
• 29:02
  was going out to play Rutgers. They had a defensive lineman out there,
• 29:04
  played for Rares, guy named Bill pikel Oh, yeah, And I go
• 29:07
  lockhorns with this guy as a as a wet behind you, Trinky, and
• 29:12
  I held my own. I'm not gonna lie to you. I held my
• 29:15
  own and and that was the that was the start of it. And once
• 29:18
  I took that job. You know, I might have even said on the
• 29:21
  way out, Kurt, I hope you enjoyed the ride, buddy, because
• 29:25
  you you know, you was mine now you Louke Gerrig Yeah, yeah,
• 29:29
  you know. Hey, so when you were being recruited at a high school,
• 29:33
  then what were they recruiting you to be doug when you came to West
• 29:36
  virgin Central Line, Nebraska too, Yes, sir, I never knew that
• 29:40
  part of it. Yeah, I had a I had a little bit of
• 29:42
  quickness. Uh, I had a little bit of a I don't know even
• 29:47
  know what that was called, because I was always raised as a kid,
• 29:49
  you know, turn near the cheek, be nice, don't be there.
• 29:52
  But something, man, I got out there on that field, and that
• 29:55
  little animal used to like to come out. And I think they saw that.
• 29:59
  You know, I could handle my body as a big, raw young
• 30:03
  kid. Again, when I first got to West Virginia, I couldn't bench
• 30:06
  to twenty five once it fell on my chest. But I had that maybe
• 30:10
  what we used to call it, you know, that that cornfield strength.
• 30:12
  You know, I could pick up a bail of hay to throw it,
• 30:15
  but I couldn't bench breast for twenty five. Right. So but but again
• 30:19
  we're looking at it in potential, and I think that's what they saw mostly
• 30:23
  was was that that movement I could. I could move. I wasn't afraid.
• 30:27
  And again, you know you got you got two hundred and eighty five
• 30:33
  to three hundred pounds in the early eighties. That's a that's a big body
• 30:37
  bend. Then, so I'm gonna I'm gonna require a double team. You're
• 30:41
  gonna have to hit me with two guys and then let that linebacker do his
• 30:44
  job. So you know that's how that all started. Like I said,
• 30:47
  I'm tickled, I got moved off. So that was a fun run.
• 30:49
  Man. We talked a little bit for a show start about just mentality.
• 30:52
  You have to have to play the game of football, whether it was back
• 30:53
  then or now. So did you have that right away? You said you
• 30:56
  didn't start till late, and you said that wasn't your general demeanor off the
• 31:00
  field. But when you took the field the very first time, did you
• 31:03
  feel that you could feel the switch flip and you're like, okay, I'm
• 31:07
  an attack mode. Now. You had to grad You had to, and
• 31:11
  you know, I think honestly that developed after my very first high school football
• 31:15
  game tenth grade is when I figured it out. When my mother, who
• 31:18
  fought tooth and nail not to let me play football, finally agreed. And
• 31:23
  of course my dad was pretty tackled about dad. But after my first game
• 31:29
  against Cardinal Gibbons, I was met at the gate by my mother. You
• 31:33
  ever played like that again? You ain't never playing. You're wearing my name
• 31:37
  on the back of your shirt. I went, so I better start letting
• 31:41
  the inn win out a little bit more, you know what I mean,
• 31:42
  And that mentality kind of was laid then I didn't I didn't really understand the
• 31:51
  game from that mental standpoint until I met my roommate in college, a guy
• 31:57
  by the name of Jack Kessler, and he taught me to cross the line
• 32:04
  and get a little Yeah. I mean, you gotta be a come on
• 32:07
  man, I mean football. You gotta be a nut job to play this
• 32:10
  game. I mean, you really do. I don't care how eloquent you
• 32:13
  are. I don't care how much money you make. I don't care when
• 32:15
  you get out there on that grid, man, You're on a battlefield where
• 32:20
  you're battling for inches. Man, you know, there's eleven guys trying to
• 32:23
  take that piece of real estate, and there's eleven guys over there saying you
• 32:27
  ain't that ain't changed, right, It's the same game, and to do
• 32:30
  that, you gotta be nuts. I mean, you really do. Well.
• 32:35
  I didn't really understand that until, you know, until I started hanging
• 32:38
  around with Jack and shaved our heads into mohawks and cut the sleeves off our
• 32:44
  flannel shirts and walked around Morgantown going, yeah, so you know, I
• 32:49
  hope I never heard anybody along the way. It was unintentional, but again,
• 32:53
  you have to you have to learn how to throw you said that switch,
• 32:58
  you know? Now, you know, it took me a while to
• 33:00
  disseminate. Once I learned how to throw the switch, I had to really
• 33:04
  learn how to shut that switch off because that switch always went on. So
• 33:08
  I had to be the number one guy on the football field. I had
• 33:10
  to be the number one guy in the sprints. I had to be the
• 33:14
  number one guy at the party, last man standard. I ran that thing
• 33:17
  hardcore, that mentality, you know, So it took me another couple of
• 33:22
  years to really learn how to throw that switch down. And then by that
• 33:28
  time, you know, I spent three seasons in Kansas City and and had
• 33:31
  that mentality in my hand, in my head. You know, to this
• 33:35
  day, I have to really control myself, like walking through Walmart and stuff.
• 33:38
  Sometimes I just wanted to just and but you know, you can't do
• 33:44
  that, so you know what I mean. But I think I got a
• 33:46
  handle on. It might have took sixty one years, but I think my
• 33:51
  perception of you though, is that, yeah, you could be you could
• 33:55
  be really loud, and you could be very intimidating, but you crossed over
• 34:00
  the line like you weren't like a knucklehead, as you know, there was
• 34:04
  a lot of knuckleheads that are just constantly how you had the ability, that's
• 34:07
  why you you're still doing what you're doing. If you were a ding dong
• 34:10
  people long ago with good the hell out of here. But you're always you've
• 34:14
  always been beloved because of that ability. But yeah, when you were out
• 34:16
  there, I got lucky along the way because there's been a lot of folks
• 34:21
  in my world that have been guardrails, a lot of people that have taken
• 34:24
  this hardhead and and you know, push you back into the lane a little
• 34:30
  bit, to give you the old chill. Yeah. And and like I
• 34:34
  said, I like that term guardrail. You know. Now, hey,
• 34:37
  if you're going fast enough, you can smash through a guardrail and go over
• 34:40
  a ravine, you know what I mean. So they don't always, you
• 34:45
  know, keep you safe. But I've I've been blessed to have had so
• 34:47
  many folks along the way that saw enough in me to take time out of
• 34:52
  their world to kick me back into the lane, you know what I mean.
• 34:57
  And uh, yeah, thank goodness, they didn't have this kind of
• 34:59
  stuff back in my day. There's no evidence, everything's plausible deniability. That
• 35:05
  wasn't me. But there's a lot of people got stories about there out there,
• 35:09
  and that got stories that you know because they're out there. Also statute
• 35:14
  limitation has expelled, expired, and a lot of different things as well,
• 35:17
  Like that's that's good. No, I never heard nobody I know. That's
• 35:20
  like you saying, I never knew, you know, there was that guy
• 35:22
  had to throw it out of steps of Fat Daddy's and and you know,
• 35:27
  if you're listening, sorry about that. But you brought it on yourself.
• 35:30
  Were you bouncing? Was bouncing area? Were you bouncing? Oh? Yeah,
• 35:36
  that was probably everything was a violation back then. But end season,
• 35:39
  this is in spring. What was it? No, we didn't do this,
• 35:43
  Uh, I don't. I don't remember really doing it. During the
• 35:45
  season. We'd go hang out there. So when you bouncing, what happened
• 35:49
  with this one particular case, what happened? What was the situation? Well,
• 35:52
  he he he was talking jonk on some gal and the gal looked at
• 35:57
  me and gave me that look of you know, help me. And I
• 36:00
  went over there and said, hey, buddy, quit doing that. He
• 36:01
  turned around, he took a cut at me. So I grabbed him by
• 36:05
  the back of his hair and up underneath his arm. And I took him
• 36:07
  out. You remember fat Dad. He's that big giant wooden door with the
• 36:10
  stairs that went down. Man, I took him out that door with his
• 36:14
  face bob and I turned around and I tucked him down the steps. Then
• 36:17
  I went to the manager and I said, hey, I think I just
• 36:22
  threw some guy down the steps. Anyway, Ironically, about a dozen years
• 36:28
  later, that guy was a lawyer that I ran into up and wheeling talking
• 36:32
  about statue of living there seriously, Oh yeah, if we had breakfast together
• 36:37
  talking about stuff, and he looks over, he goes, you don't remember
• 36:39
  me, do you? I said, oh, yeah, no kidding,
• 36:44
  man, no kid, And you know he he's like, man, he
• 36:46
  goes, are you kidding me? I was like, I'm so sorry.
• 36:49
  He goes, there, are you kidding me? I tell people this story
• 36:51
  all the time. He said, it's a hoot. Nah, it was.
• 36:53
  It was fun. It was a lot of fun. But you know,
• 36:57
  you never always would come to people's rescue. I've always tried to be
• 37:02
  offensive. Lineman, what are we were protectors? Be a protector, protect
• 37:07
  a quarterback, protect a young lady. That's what you say. Protect protect
• 37:09
  the kids. Now you're protecting the kids protects right, and that's what we
• 37:13
  do. Three Guys before the game. We do, Yeah, Three Guys
• 37:15
  before the Game brought to us by lou Wendol Marine Sales that happened to be
• 37:17
  the largest pontoon boat dealer in our state of West Virginia, and they've been
• 37:21
  doing it for over forty years, which means, like Joe's, they have
• 37:24
  stood the test of time. They sell avalon boats. Those are made as
• 37:30
  you can see right there for those of you that are watching right here in
• 37:31
  the United States and the state of Michigan. And they are the premier pontoon
• 37:35
  and that is a semi live look at lou Wendel Marine and you can go
• 37:39
  to their website Louwndolmarne Sales dot com and they've got a live camera there.
• 37:43
  You can see what the water's doing, you can see what the boats are
• 37:45
  doing, and the selection is absolutely fantastic, So check it out lou Wendelmarinesales
• 37:51
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• 37:53
  Coomac's Business Systems. They are the premier office supply company here in the state
• 38:00
  of West Virginia. They do business in all fifty five of our counties.
• 38:02
  They've been doing it for over twenty five years, and they do a bunch
• 38:07
  of different stuff, whether it's business equipment, digital phone lines and services for
• 38:10
  your business. They got you covered from one line to one thousand lines,
• 38:15
  competitively priced. You want to buy it, you want to lease it,
• 38:19
  you want to rent it. What do you want to do? Whatever you
• 38:21
  want to do, comacs will visit you and they'll check it out. Visit
• 38:23
  COMASWV dot com. That's COMAXWV dot com. Well, the good thing is,
• 38:30
  Joe's that nothing's really changed in the game of college football in the last
• 38:32
  forty years. Yeah. Okay, So, like you said, and this
• 38:37
  is the amazing part. Two days before you're ready to play game, you
• 38:39
  run ten scripted plays of goal line, which would never happen now in one
• 38:45
  hundred years. This has gone more to the pro mentality that you you ladder
• 38:50
  up and then on Saturday you play the game. It's amazing, isn't it.
• 38:55
  What we thought back then was good and acceptable as far as the contact.
• 39:01
  Now you look at it and it's basically the opposite of what we thought
• 39:05
  it was supposed to be. Yeah, but you know, I'm still going
• 39:07
  to hold on to the philosophy that you know, I got to build a
• 39:12
  callous in order to know how to hit properly. I got to do it,
• 39:17
  you know. But again, the tackling techniques have changed so dramatically and
• 39:22
  how the movement is. But you know, if we start making a move
• 39:27
  back to power type football and you're going to ask this guy to attack off
• 39:30
  the line of scrimmage, you got to be able to teach that. You
• 39:35
  got to be able to you know, it's tough for me again because I
• 39:39
  was raised but you know, coaching high school football, I coached the same
• 39:44
  way but modified as we grew with the tackling changes and things like that.
• 39:47
  You're taking the head out of the contact as much as possible. Coach Neilan
• 39:52
  used to say all the time, you want to take the head out of
• 39:54
  the game, take the face mask off the helmet, right, But we
• 39:58
  can't do that. We understand. Uh, yeah, it is. It
• 40:00
  is different. But because of the fact that you're not beating your body to
• 40:07
  death, come Saturday, I can I can hit the throttle a lot faster.
• 40:14
  My body's recovered. Yeah, you know. So, so there's a
• 40:17
  there's two sides of that argument all day long, you know, But how
• 40:22
  do you feel a different game? How do you feel right now when you
• 40:24
  wake up? Do you have constant aches from your years of playing? You
• 40:29
  know, I've had two hip replacements, you know, Bowers fixed both my
• 40:34
  knees back in the day. Uh. I have aches and pains. I
• 40:37
  hurt in my wrists. I mean we we punched all the time, and
• 40:39
  yeah, you know there's aches and pains. But I'll tell you what.
• 40:43
  For the most part, for my age, I mean, I can go
• 40:45
  out and play eighteen holes of golf. I can go out and walk a
• 40:47
  couple of miles. I can. I can. I can hold my own
• 40:51
  at the at the you know, the bar top I can. I can
• 40:53
  do all that stuff. So I feel pretty dagone good for you know,
• 40:58
  putting myself what I put it through, and and here being sixty one years
• 41:00
  old, I feel pretty daggon good. You know. I like Florida.
• 41:04
  I get out there in the sunshine, get a little vitamin D going,
• 41:07
  you know. And just I'm retired, so I kind of live in a
• 41:12
  cave most of my day. I don't watch any news, so my life
• 41:15
  is semi stress for me. For you, you know, drive a lot
• 41:17
  and go out there and visit and do my thing and blah blah blah.
• 41:22
  And here I am coming up here. And you know, now I come
• 41:24
  up. I used to come up back in the day because you know,
• 41:28
  I got family and little kids, come up, you know, for a
• 41:30
  couple three days. Now I come up, spend you know, three four
• 41:34
  weeks and hang out, you know. And it's just I love the statement.
• 41:38
  I love these people. I love everything about it. I like drive.
• 41:42
  We took a drive the other day down towards Davis, you know,
• 41:45
  Bowden and over in that area, and man, talk about God's country.
• 41:50
  Hey all day long, beautiful stuff, beautiful people, and I love it.
• 41:54
  So yeah, I feel good, man, I feel good. And
• 41:57
  I'm happy. I got two grandkids and all the family will be in,
• 42:01
  uh coming in for the golf outing and they support that and it's and we're
• 42:05
  all part of this big giant family. Gonna be a good time. Gonna
• 42:08
  be a good time. What's the I'm gonna ask you a positive and a
• 42:13
  negative. Okay, what's the biggest regret that you have about your career,
• 42:19
  if anything at all? Like, what do you what do you look back
• 42:22
  at and go son of a gun. I shouldn't. I I should have
• 42:24
  never signed with the agent I signed with coming out of college. That guy
• 42:29
  was a freaking if I ever see a matter of fact, it's still life,
• 42:31
  dude, I don't know. I hope not. I hope I never
• 42:35
  see him. I almost killed a guy in South Carolina at a gas station
• 42:37
  because I thought it was him. I got out, I was like,
• 42:40
  I looked out the window, and I'm like, is that Art Wilkinson.
• 42:44
  I think that's Art? And I looked and I told my wife, I
• 42:45
  said, get ready to call nine one once she goes why, I say,
• 42:49
  I'm gonna go kill somebody. And I walked around the corner. It's
• 42:51
  God's on the street. I walked round the corner of my car and this
• 42:53
  guy's standing there pumping gas and I get this and it's him and it's him,
• 43:00
  and I go up and I loaded like this and I went like this
• 43:04
  and I was gonna hit him right in the temple and he turned and he
• 43:07
  looked at me and it wasn't him, and I went like this. I
• 43:10
  sort of got I went, hey, welcome to South Carolina. And I
• 43:15
  ran around in front of my van. Man I pulled the nozzle out and
• 43:16
  I said, we gotta go, and we took off. But yeah,
• 43:21
  that's that's you know. My dad told me, you don't need an agent,
• 43:23
  you know, let me, let me get you with a financial guy.
• 43:27
  But you know, I was a cocky kid, thought I knew everything,
• 43:29
  was convinced I needed one, and hired a knucklehead and uh, yeah,
• 43:32
  stolen, that's the regret. Stole money, right, Oh, stole
• 43:36
  all kinds of money, all kinds of money got us and scams he wrecked,
• 43:40
  He wrecked the numerous, numerous ralph Sampson was involved in that and other
• 43:45
  Yeah, I don't shouldn't name names, but there was there was a lot
• 43:46
  of people involved in this back in the day. And and you know,
• 43:51
  back in the day, a lot of people got trapped. That's a scary
• 43:52
  part of now man. Everybody out there, he got you know, people
• 43:55
  coming out of the woodwork, you know, and there's so much money involved
• 43:58
  in now nil going home all the way down into the high school setting.
• 44:01
  You know, you got you got so much stuff that's out of control.
• 44:06
  And uh, you know, but back in my day, you know,
• 44:07
  they were there too, They were vultures. A lot of them, and
• 44:12
  you know, that's that's the one regret because it caused me financial issues and
• 44:15
  took a lot of years to bounce back from that. And uh, you
• 44:19
  know, thank god I didn't have to, you know, and because I'd
• 44:22
  be in a lot of trouble for that. So all good is that's it
• 44:25
  is the biggest positive coming out of this what you do now, the legacy
• 44:30
  of being able to help kids. Oh, you know, thirty years of
• 44:35
  coaching and teaching twenty twenty of them in high school. I wouldn't I wouldn't
• 44:38
  trade those experiences. That was such a fun, such a fun time working
• 44:43
  with them young football players and developing them that you know that you know,
• 44:46
  Yeah, everything that's spurred out of all of it. The timeline, you
• 44:51
  know, every day is a page in your book and we all have an
• 44:53
  opportunity to write that every day. And uh, I've been very blessed to
• 44:59
  have had Again, a lot of people helped me along the way. A
• 45:02
  lot of really cool things have happened in in my life that that changed course
• 45:07
  direction. Uh, but never quit, never quit, pick up the pieces
• 45:13
  and and keep pushing forward and find something else. I mean, there's a
• 45:16
  lot of mountains in the mountain range. Ain't like there's you know, Mount
• 45:20
  Fuji, and that's it. We got mountains everywhere, Go climb another one,
• 45:23
  and and that's been it's always been my perspective. And and never quit
• 45:29
  and and keep pushing, and there's always there's always somebody out there to help.
• 45:34
  You said something that you didn't start playing organized football until tenth grade.
• 45:37
  Were you playing any sports prior to that? You know, you got we
• 45:42
  didn't have video games. You know, we're growing up in the sixties and
• 45:45
  early seventies, so we played outside, a lot of pickups in a basketball
• 45:49
  game, orized anything. I was in a band, Toney, excuse me.
• 45:52
  I was in a band, and what instrument went? Hold on you?
• 45:57
  You want to? This is a this is an event model life where
• 46:00
  even that great line in the movie A Knight's Tale, right, change your
• 46:06
  stars? Can a man change his stars? Sure, you bet? And
• 46:09
  things happen. And you know, my mother would never let me play organized
• 46:14
  football. And when they finally let me, they took me down to the
• 46:17
  Little league and for my age, I had to weigh X number of pounds.
• 46:23
  Well I was you know, they were like, we need a birth
• 46:29
  certifty because this kid's sixteen years old, you know, and I'm like eight.
• 46:34
  So anyway, so I in fifth grade I picked up an instrument.
• 46:38
  I picked up the saxophone, and by ninth grade I was an All State
• 46:45
  saxophone player in Maryland. I went to All State cut a record nineteen seventy
• 46:50
  eight, that's the goodness, and I loved it. And I actually auditioned.
• 46:55
  There's a music conservatory in Baltimore called the Peabody Institute for Musicians. I
• 47:04
  and I auditioned and I missed the audition cut by two hundreds of a point.
• 47:09
  I missed a couple of sixteenth notes, and I know it'll always get
• 47:14
  you, and I got cut. So I went home, and of course
• 47:16
  I was crushed. And you know, then going into the tenth grade year,
• 47:22
  I'm in the you know, it's tenth grade. First couple of days,
• 47:27
  you know, before you hand out pee uniforms and stuff. I'm in
• 47:30
  the gym bouncing around basketball with some guys, you know, and the basketball
• 47:35
  coach comes over and fred U Naro, West Virginia guy actually, and he
• 47:38
  comes there to me, Hey, big guy, you playing any basketball?
• 47:40
  I said, yeah, you know, in the street. He goes,
• 47:43
  here's a basketball. Run down there and make a layup and then dribble back.
• 47:47
  I get the ball and I go and it hit my foot and the
• 47:52
  ball rolled over the other side of the gym. So I run over and
• 47:55
  I get the ball, and then I finally get up underneath the basket and
• 47:58
  I'm trying to make a layup like this, you know. And I finally
• 48:01
  dribbled back, you know, like maybe four minutes later, and Fred coaching
• 48:06
  Arrow, goes, hey, throw me the ball. So I bounced it
• 48:08
  to him, and he goes, listen, son, I want you to
• 48:12
  go to room two o six. That's Art Reeves. He's the football coach.
• 48:15
  I want you to talk to the football coach. So later that day
• 48:19
  I went down talked to Art. I said, Hey, can I get
• 48:22
  on the football team? Oh? Yeah, we got tryouts coming up tomorrow.
• 48:25
  I went home, asked my mom and dad can I play high school
• 48:28
  football? Yes? Yay. So I got in there and I fell in
• 48:32
  love with it so fast. And of course back then there was no warm
• 48:36
  up. You have full equipment on day one and went out there and beat
• 48:38
  the daylights inm Oklahoma's this first day. I ain't never worn a helmet my
• 48:43
  life and I'm out there beating it and I was like, oh, this
• 48:45
  is cool. So I started going to the football practice and I was missing
• 48:47
  band practice. Oh yeah, Well, the band director met me in the
• 48:51
  hallway. Usually it's the football coach, right given the ultimatum. Right now,
• 48:54
  I met the mister Hardy. Mister Hardy walks up and says, hey,
• 48:59
  so you haven't been to band practice. I was like, no,
• 49:02
  man, I'm playing football. Well, you can't do both. Too much
• 49:07
  time ultimatum, And he gave me the ultimatum. It's either it's either banned
• 49:12
  or football. I said, here you go, buddy, here's the sax,
• 49:15
  and I never never played it again after that. That was it.
• 49:19
  That was I was done with the instrument and found another instrument. Only this
• 49:23
  one was an instrument that I was able to go out there and beat up
• 49:27
  on people. Yeah, well and get beat up too, but that physicalness
• 49:30
  is what appealed to me. That that fight. You know, I couldn't
• 49:35
  do it in the hallway. You get arrested, So you go out there
• 49:37
  on the field. People buy tickets to watch you do it. So tenth
• 49:39
  grade, you are absolutely raw as raw can be, and they have to
• 49:44
  teach you basically how to play the game of football. Everything starts from scratch.
• 49:50
  So two things. Have you ever played the saxophone since? No?
• 49:52
  Do you have any inkling whatsoever now that you're retired, maybe just like you
• 49:57
  know, you know, but you were like, really good, dude,
• 49:59
  it's there. Yeah, but you could have been Clarence Clements could. Okay,
• 50:04
  so you're not gonna put you're not gonna restart. I'd rather go watch
• 50:07
  somebody that does it really well. Okay, fine, as opposed to be
• 50:09
  standing in the back there. Throw me out of my neighborhood to hear that.
• 50:13
  Maam, you know, but no, I'm good. The second part
• 50:16
  of that is this, so as a former high school coach, you also
• 50:23
  were involved and watched how the evolution of kids now a day's play sports or
• 50:30
  don't play sports? Right? They specialize in sports? Oh yeah, you
• 50:34
  were unique because most kids your age wuld play multiple sports and they would go
• 50:37
  but you were unique in that sense. Like, what is your sermon to
• 50:44
  parents as far as what your guidance would be if their kids are young and
• 50:47
  starting to play organized sports. Should they do everything or should they do one
• 50:52
  thing? Or what's your take on all that, because I'm sure you've seen
• 50:54
  all that. You've seen seven on seven passing become the thing, you've seen
• 50:58
  a whole thing. Yeah, what's your take? Uh, I'm I'm around
• 51:02
  it. My son's a head football coach at Clearwater High School down there in
• 51:07
  Tampa. Your son is four four Yeah, that was the all time great
• 51:10
  name. He was born at Children's Hospital, right, born children You get
• 51:15
  that name? Brad his name, his son's four Oh yeah, Hey,
• 51:19
  thank goodness, he's you know, six four, three twenty pounds. Because
• 51:22
  you know it works, but you know, uh, you know, wait
• 51:25
  was it Wait you're saying Bruce wouldn't have worked for him? Yeah, doesn't
• 51:30
  it? Or if he was five eight one forty, I don't think it
• 51:34
  works. There's maybe more the point that would have been a hell of a
• 51:37
  province. Joe. Hey, if your kid was five eight one forty and
• 51:40
  his name was thor that would that would have been like Johnny Cash boy named
• 51:44
  So that I covered that. I covered that though his given name is Thornton
• 51:50
  Thornton. I was able to sell that to the wife because I came home
• 51:52
  and said, hey, I want to name my son thor She goes,
• 51:54
  yeah, right, Hey, he happened. Oh but we later found out
• 51:58
  she had a family remember back in there somewhere named Thornton. I said,
• 52:01
  why don't we name him after him? Call him Thornton that way if he
• 52:05
  does turn up, you know out there, you know, selling shoes and
• 52:08
  working at and going to the club, and he could be Thornton. But
• 52:13
  no, anyway, he ain't a Thornton. So he's coach down there at
• 52:17
  at Clearwater. He played, he played collegiately, he played at us F.
• 52:22
  I had a heck of a career. Uh, you know, had
• 52:23
  a little little went to the invite it to Tampa Bucks and got a little
• 52:28
  taste of that for a minute. And uh and then he got into you
• 52:31
  know, coaching and teaching and all that good stuff. So yeah, what
• 52:36
  was the question? So, so what did thord do growing up? Did
• 52:38
  he? Was he a football guy? Only? Yeah, he got he
• 52:40
  played, he played football. No, but the multiple sports stuff compared to
• 52:44
  specialization. That was the question that you would ask me. My philosophy is
• 52:49
  this, And and I hear college recruiters. That's why I mentioned thor because
• 52:52
  I see the recruiters in there, and and you know what, uh,
• 52:58
  you know, there again, we're back to the there's a couple of different
• 53:00
  schools of thought. How do I feel about it? I truly believe that
• 53:06
  you can burn out doing one thing all the time when you're in high school.
• 53:10
  Most high school athletes are never going to see a college experience, and
• 53:16
  most college guys aren't going to ever experience a pro experience. So what I'm
• 53:22
  trying to say is, when you're in high school, man, live it.
• 53:27
  If you could play three sports, play three sports, because I'll tell
• 53:30
  you what, when you're developing skills and you're interacting with other players and other
• 53:36
  coaching philosophies, all this stuff then pans out when when that college recruiter comes
• 53:42
  in and I'm watching this kid run track, I'm watching this kid wrestle.
• 53:46
  You know, you know the Zach Frazier's of the world. You know,
• 53:51
  multiple sport athletes affect you physically, mentally, emotionally, you know. So
• 53:58
  uh and and I think it's es actually when they're really young. Uh,
• 54:01
  you know, you can you can burn a kid out. And you got
• 54:04
  to be cautious because you know we we do. We're all guilty of living
• 54:07
  vicariously through our kids. I want to see my kid. Believe me,
• 54:10
  I sit up there and watch my kid coach. I gloat, I puff
• 54:15
  up like a peacock. Man, it's sure, but that's what that you
• 54:17
  know, that's what we do as parents. Uh. But you know,
• 54:22
  to see those dollar signs, especially nowadays, Oh my god, everybody wants
• 54:25
  a piece of that pie. And there's a lot of money to be had.
• 54:30
  But you know what, that's how many get a shot at it.
• 54:36
  I know that's the part, you know, be cautious what we're doing to
• 54:38
  our kids. And that being said, I'd rather see that kid out there
• 54:44
  working and training and doing all that than sitting at home and spending eight hours
• 54:47
  on a on a cell phone. So you know, there's all kinds of
• 54:51
  you know, scenarios that we can paint here. I've always been a multiple
• 54:55
  sport. When I was coaching and I was I always encouraged kids say,
• 55:00
  man, if you want to go play baseball, go play baseball, Go
• 55:02
  go run it, man, because again, when you're done high school,
• 55:06
  that's probably what you're going to be talking about fifteen years ago my high school
• 55:09
  experience. So that's really good, that's really well said. Thank you.
• 55:13
  I think sometimes people lose sight of how difficult it is to get a college
• 55:16
  scholarship and then obviously the pro thing. But that's as you well know.
• 55:21
  I mean, you can go over them out near football right now, and
• 55:23
  I guarantee you over eighty percent of those kids think they're going to play in
• 55:28
  the NFL. Oh yeah, And the reality of it is one and a
• 55:31
  half percent, Yeah, probably will play in the NFL. Oh yeah,
• 55:35
  two percent. And and those guys at two percent you're talking about eighty percent.
• 55:39
  Are these guys that play two three years and you know, injury or
• 55:45
  you know whatever cover it kicks you to the wayside, you know, now
• 55:50
  what. But but still it's it's how many I mean really realistically, you
• 55:55
  know, living in Tampa, you're probably more likely to get hit by lightning,
• 56:00
  you know what I mean seriously, you know, And that's the way
• 56:02
  it is. And but hey, you know, never lose sight of having
• 56:09
  fun. Man, If it ain't fun. If it's when I played football,
• 56:15
  it was never work. When I coached, I never felt like I
• 56:19
  was working, you know, I was, I was training, I was
• 56:22
  developing, I was I was having fun, man, fun, And and
• 56:27
  I think we missed that too, you know. Hey, no, Maardi,
• 56:30
  Hey, you cut it, man. We're talking about a game,
• 56:32
  you know, and games are supposed to be having fun. Now in our
• 56:36
  game, fun is winning, Losing sucks. Fun is winning. Sure,
• 56:42
  So you know, if you're going to be a winner, you got to
• 56:44
  put in that work that we're talking about. But I never called it work.
• 56:51
  So a couple other things there before we cut you loose. Yeah,
• 56:54
  Darryl Tally, were you still on defense? When did you ever go against
• 56:59
  him as an offense the lineman? Oh yeah, you did at West Virginia
• 57:04
  practice practice. And again when he was with the Bills and I was with
• 57:07
  Kan I got the block against him there. And so what was his deal?
• 57:10
  Why was he so good? Oh? Speed, just speed, mentality,
• 57:15
  his his uh, his demeanor, his ability to lead. Uh,
• 57:21
  you know he would he would set the fire and dumb gas on it.
• 57:23
  Everybody would follow. Uh. He had that kind of effect on a locker
• 57:28
  room and a huddle. Uh. Just a great teammate though he almost made
• 57:31
  me quit. Uh pulled a chair out of my locker as a true freshman.
• 57:37
  I'm out there, my chair out of locker and Neelan used to get
• 57:39
  a little index card. He'd call out names after the second two a day.
• 57:45
  And if you did a violation of any kind, you know, you
• 57:46
  missed, you didn't weigh in, you missed breakfast, whatever, you know.
• 57:51
  And he called my name. He left my chair out of my locker.
• 57:52
  Man, fat guys don't want to run extra. So I made sure
• 57:55
  everything was right all the time. And I looked at that chair three times.
• 57:59
  I lay found out tally walked by and pulled it out and set it
• 58:01
  out. Well, I had to run. Well, it wasn't run.
• 58:05
  It was one hundred yard bear crawl, and you had to roll back.
• 58:07
  And of course I got Bill Clavitch. You know Bill, Bill, Bill
• 58:12
  is one of the most Coach Clavitt, sorry, Coach Clavitch. He is
• 58:15
  one of the most eloquent speakers you'll ever meet in your life. And I
• 58:19
  got this guy just tearing me to shreds, and I got I gotta get
• 58:22
  up there, you know. And if you'll ever log roll one hundred and
• 58:25
  twenty degree turf. About the third roll in, I got puked flying out
• 58:30
  of my face mask and I finally get to the Oh, that's it.
• 58:35
  I'm done, man, I'm gonna quit. He did that to me,
• 58:37
  which there's another change of the stars, right, I go back into the
• 58:42
  locker room. They scooped me up. I feel like I'm gonna die.
• 58:45
  I had never pushed my body to that limit ever. Ever. I was
• 58:49
  on the brink of death, okay, And the only thing that saved me
• 58:52
  I could hear him muffled through the puke, and my years were all plugged
• 58:57
  up, and you know, I can hear let's go seven seven couple guys
• 59:00
  yelling and screaming. So I finally get across the line. They scooped me
• 59:02
  up, and I'm in my locker and I'm sitting in my locker. Man,
• 59:05
  I got my head dad dripping my face mask, and all of a
• 59:09
  sudden, I get a grab from behind it. Ker Lavish is in my
• 59:14
  ear hole and he says, hey, hey, big guy. He goes,
• 59:17
  you hang in there. You're gonna be special. You're gonna be special,
• 59:22
  and he walked away and I, hey. It worked. For about
• 59:24
  a minute and a half, I was all pumped out. I was like,
• 59:28
  man, all right, this is cool. And I was like,
• 59:30
  that's it. I'm done. I can't do this. It's too hard.
• 59:32
  It's too hard. So I go home to the dorm over there in towers.
• 59:37
  Yeah, I didn't go to dinner. I was like, I'm out
• 59:38
  of here. Man. I called home dad. You know rotary phones,
• 59:43
  right, I called dad, Dad? Dad, you gotta come get me.
• 59:45
  What what's the matter? So I can't do this too hard? I'm
• 59:47
  done, man, I'm out of here. You got to come get me,
• 59:50
  he said. I don't think so, I don't think so. Why
• 59:53
  come on? Man? No, no, I didn't raise no quitter.
• 59:57
  You quit, You ain't coming here. A turns your room into a den.
• 1:00:01
  You ain't coming here. Boy, Let me talk to mom. No,
• 1:00:05
  bob, who's that on the phone at your son? Well, let
• 1:00:08
  me talk to him. No, I don't think so. Listen, son,
• 1:00:12
  if you quit, you go join the army or you go get a
• 1:00:15
  job, but don't come here. Click. Oh went the hell? Just
• 1:00:22
  have it? I said, seriously. And and I got to thinking about
• 1:00:25
  it. I'm like, well, I really don't want to. I don't
• 1:00:30
  want to do that. Well I might as well. I must stay.
• 1:00:32
  I'll stay, I'll tough it out, and and and that, you know,
• 1:00:37
  but yeah, oh god, Pally, I love him taught me.
• 1:00:40
  I taught there's another one. Talk about an influence and teaching somebody how to
• 1:00:45
  how to how to play the game. Yeah, you know, think about
• 1:00:50
  this. I'm gonna leave you with two names. Think about two guys you
• 1:00:52
  had to block. Great matchups between you and Tim Green from Syracuse and Bruce
• 1:00:58
  Smith from Virginia Tech. That that eighty four season. I played against six
• 1:01:05
  All Americans that year and and they were all, you know, two different
• 1:01:09
  styles, two different two different animals. You know, Timmy Green a little
• 1:01:13
  smaller, but Tim was one of the most relentless football players I've ever blocked
• 1:01:17
  horns with. I mean, you know, you get into him and you
• 1:01:21
  think you got a great block, and all of a sudden, you're at
• 1:01:22
  number seventy two Tim Green on a stop. They'd be like, what that
• 1:01:24
  happened? He teleport over there? You know, he just he just didn't
• 1:01:28
  quit. You know, he just didn't quit. And of course, you
• 1:01:30
  know the great Bruce Smith, you know he he uh That year eighty four,
• 1:01:36
  Man, I committed a stadium, you know, all week long,
• 1:01:38
  Remember them little pink slips they left while you were out. They wrote a
• 1:01:42
  little bit while you were out, slip. Man. I swear to God,
• 1:01:45
  man I'd commit it. And Jan went one of the secretaries to be
• 1:01:50
  sitting there. Brian, you have a message. I'd go over all excited
• 1:01:52
  thinking, you know, and I'd get this message, he said, Bruce
• 1:01:54
  called gont be here Saturday to kick your ass. I'm like, are you
• 1:01:59
  kidding me? Are you kidding me? And then Tuesday I get to my
• 1:02:01
  locker there's number seventy eight all scattered over. They got a number seventy eight
• 1:02:07
  jersey hanging in my locker. I'm like, these guys are relentless. So
• 1:02:09
  by Friday, I'm so freaking wild tight, you know. So this is
• 1:02:16
  true. So we're walking out to do our walkthrough on Friday out there a
• 1:02:21
  mountaineer field, Virginia. Texts walking off the field, and as I'm walking
• 1:02:27
  out with my guys, I happened to glance over and I see Bruce and
• 1:02:31
  he's right on the other side, and I took off running. I'm running.
• 1:02:37
  I'm gonna I'm going after him right now. We're doing battle right now.
• 1:02:43
  Friday after night, here kneeling. Brian come back and I stopped in
• 1:02:49
  my tracks because I heard coach kneeling, and I stopped and I just mad.
• 1:02:52
  I said, yours is mine. Tomorrow, man, We're going next
• 1:02:57
  day, game time got out of mine. You got my you got me
• 1:03:00
  juiced up here to Tony, I swear it's game time, and you know,
• 1:03:07
  I'm I'm away from the team on the sideline. I'm pacing. I
• 1:03:12
  can feel myself pacing. I don't remember any of this. This is Dave
• 1:03:15
  McMichael telling me this, this whole story. Not only I have no recollection
• 1:03:20
  of it, because you know, I was in Dave McMichael for those Dave
• 1:03:24
  was the tight ends tackles coach. Yeah great, great, great coach.
• 1:03:28
  Good good dude. But uh, I was pacing. I'm pacing, and
• 1:03:34
  of course I'm getting amped up. You know, the freaking stadium's going nuts.
• 1:03:37
  I mean, it's just the energy was incredible. And as I'm pacing,
• 1:03:42
  I happened to again look across the field and he's right across from me
• 1:03:45
  doing the same thing. So now we're pacing back and forth, just staring
• 1:03:50
  at each other man, and it it's just it was the preamble to a
• 1:03:57
  great win against a great team. And and you know, and of course
• 1:04:00
  I can't take but part of the credit because we had Rob Bennett, Ron
• 1:04:04
  wolf Leet Scott Barrows and we hit him every play with three guys, bam
• 1:04:12
  and if it was backside, if it was backside, I cut him.
• 1:04:15
  And he had a real high voice. I was just gonna say, you
• 1:04:17
  had that real high voice. Amen, Amen, kill my knees, man,
• 1:04:20
  kill my knees. I'll be like, yeah, okay, whatever,
• 1:04:24
  we remember that part. I remember him chopping them because how tall is he?
• 1:04:27
  Six? What? Six? Four? Chop them? Had had the
• 1:04:32
  fastest first two steps coming out that I've ever I've personally ever experienced a great
• 1:04:40
  player Hall of Fame, absolutely Doland Trophy, the NFL Hall of Fame,
• 1:04:43
  Great player, great player, great man. But oh yeah, we we
• 1:04:46
  uh we had a little something for him. You did about you played in
• 1:04:55
  the Pros? Wolf played in the Pros. I mean you had guys.
• 1:04:58
  Scotty Barrows played, Scottie Barros was right, he was with Detroit. Think
• 1:05:00
  about that Rob Bennett. Rob had he not tore his knee up. If
• 1:05:06
  you go back to that, you remember Rob was number one tight end in
• 1:05:10
  America. I think Mark Bavaro was like number two. And when when when
• 1:05:15
  Rob Rob busted his knee up, ended up going down to the Saints under
• 1:05:19
  Jim More and he got fixed down there, but he lost his steps.
• 1:05:23
  I mean he was a big dude running four to six. You remember he
• 1:05:26
  caught a half back option passed from John Gay to beat Virginia Tech. That's
• 1:05:30
  right, that's exactly right. Holy crap, good memory, right side,
• 1:05:35
  dumped it to him, dump it to him. No one ever covers the
• 1:05:38
  tight end. Yeah he let me. Let me tell you what. Old
• 1:05:41
  Roe never covers a tight end. Rob Bennett made Gronkowski looked like a freak
• 1:05:46
  of rocket scientists. Rob. Rob was from Mecano. Man. Rob was
• 1:05:51
  a character. I love him, I love him, love him. We
• 1:05:54
  had some great dudes, man, we really did that. Our locker rooms
• 1:05:58
  were so special, good people. And what's really cool is the majority of
• 1:06:00
  the guys that come back for this golf tournament for Childer's Hospital or those guys,
• 1:06:04
  those are those guys, Kneeland's guys. Kneeland's guys come back because again,
• 1:06:12
  again the way the game was back then. Now, locker rooms change.
• 1:06:15
  Like you know, we got guys transferring sixteen times. Oh, it's
• 1:06:18
  just coaches in and out too. I mean that's the that's yeah. I
• 1:06:23
  mean not only coach Neiland, but that those assistance not so think about this.
• 1:06:27
  Mike Jacobs, McMichael, doc or laugh, Donnie Young like all those
• 1:06:31
  guys among others, and all those guys, who's going to give you twenty
• 1:06:36
  anymore? No one's gonna give you twenty. No again, it's it's evolved,
• 1:06:41
  it's changed. I give these guys a lot of credit for in fact
• 1:06:44
  building a locker room and and and bringing the culture and the and the you
• 1:06:47
  know, culture takes time to develop. We're asking these guys to develop culture
• 1:06:53
  in six months and that's pretty crazy. So again, these guys that are
• 1:06:57
  coming in now as college athletes, they better be ready because you know what,
• 1:07:00
  guess what if you ain't producing, I'm gonna tell you to get into
• 1:07:03
  portal. Think about this. How's that We talked about this last night on
• 1:07:06
  our show. Colorado second straight year has fifty plus newcomers, fifty five fifty
• 1:07:11
  five this year out of an eighty five eighty five roster. How are you
• 1:07:14
  gonna build that? Dude? How can you build down? Because you know,
• 1:07:15
  all these dudes are getting paid. They all have their own agenda.
• 1:07:18
  I got to get my touches, I gotta get my tackles. They're going
• 1:07:21
  to freelance, they're not gonna do it. They're supposed to. They're going
• 1:07:24
  to try to go and make plays for themselves instead of you can't do it.
• 1:07:28
  That's crazy, it's interesting, it's interesting and that, and that's why
• 1:07:32
  you see a lot more a lot of the old guard is getting out because
• 1:07:39
  they can't really evolve or they don't want to evolve. Yeah, you know,
• 1:07:43
  they they're not they don't like the way it's gone, or what have
• 1:07:45
  you. And then you know, you got and now you've got you know,
• 1:07:48
  directors of operation, you got all kinds of analysts, you got all
• 1:07:53
  kind You've got so many more positions that are involved. Again, you said
• 1:07:57
  it earlier, it's the pro model, exactly, it's the pro model.
• 1:08:00
  And but but again, okay, now I'm paying you. You bear damn
• 1:08:03
  site produce. You don't. You don't walk in here. You don't have
• 1:08:06
  three years, four years of develop you bear walk in and you bear be
• 1:08:11
  daggoned good if I'm using you as a stop gap, if I'm in,
• 1:08:13
  yeah, exactly, what about what about? You know the other side of
• 1:08:16
  that is when I do bring you in and develop you for for three years
• 1:08:20
  and all of a sudden you leave. You know, I'm losing all that
• 1:08:24
  work and all that time. Yeah, and and you know the developmental process.
• 1:08:29
  And now that guy who I worked hard on, now he goes somewhere
• 1:08:31
  because of the money opportunity. But to your point, that's where I give
• 1:08:35
  Neil and this staff a lot of credit. They've just said, okay,
• 1:08:38
  fine, there's no sense complaining about what it was, or what it should
• 1:08:40
  be, or what I'd like it to be. It just is this,
• 1:08:43
  So we're gonna figure it out. And then here's that managed real. Well,
• 1:08:45
  he's focusing on retention. That's what he works on now, more so
• 1:08:48
  than I gotta go get this guy gotta he works on I'm going to retain
• 1:08:53
  and use that portal just as a sprinkle of salt rather than trying to make
• 1:08:56
  it my main meal. And when he's had to add they've got a very
• 1:09:00
  good system in place and identify guys and they've had a high hit rate on
• 1:09:02
  that. So they're just handling it is what it is. You better to
• 1:09:04
  learn to deal with it is what it is. You got to recruit your
• 1:09:08
  locker room every day. God exactly right, Like you said, you gotta
• 1:09:12
  make them want to stay. Why do you want to stay? There's got
• 1:09:15
  to be other reasons other than money. It just it can't be the only
• 1:09:18
  reason. It's love, man, It's like the fact of thing. It's
• 1:09:20
  gotta be all right. So this is the odd part of the podcast where
• 1:09:25
  we're going to dismiss you and we're going to keep on doing the stupid stuff
• 1:09:28
  that we do to tell you if you you watch it. So where I'm
• 1:09:30
  about ready to go into textual healing, we'll put the graphic up and it'll
• 1:09:33
  be like magic, like Joe's will disappear. But before we do that,
• 1:09:39
  keep this in mind. So the golf tournament next week is sold out.
• 1:09:43
  However, there are two opportunities for you to get involved. The night before
• 1:09:47
  the golf tournament, the event is open at Tropics, which is here in
• 1:09:51
  Morgantown. And I want to hit you with that real quick. That is
• 1:09:59
  Thursday, the of July six o'clock. It's one hundred dollars a person and
• 1:10:02
  the money again goes to WV Medicine Children's Host Foundation. And then the golf
• 1:10:09
  tournament the next day is sold out. But the next day, Saturday,
• 1:10:12
  Saturday, July thirteen, the inaugural Let's Go Bowling with the Legends at Suburban
• 1:10:17
  Lanes cost you fifty bucks for an individual, two fifty for a team of
• 1:10:21
  five, six and to eight o'clock. You'll have a former mountaineer as your
• 1:10:25
  bowling partner, and then Darryl Talley will be there after that up at Kegler's
• 1:10:30
  Clubhouse. So all of that. But if you don't bowl, you can
• 1:10:32
  just show up to Kegler's Clubhouse after the bowling and meet everybody. Absolutely,
• 1:10:36
  yeah, for free. That's a free one. Come yeah, yeah,
• 1:10:39
  after the bowling, you can just kind of show up there, so have
• 1:10:41
  a big old time. And as Joe said, he'll do anything pretty much
• 1:10:45
  for wings and a pitcher of beer. So just go get wings and pitch
• 1:10:47
  your beer and Joe's will be your friend. It's all about the kids,
• 1:10:51
  That's exactly right, All about the kids. That's why we're doing it,
• 1:10:54
  all right, all right, brother, thanks always, great, very much.
• 1:10:57
  Hey, Hey he was Hey, listen, he was myt Thursday.
• 1:11:00
  If you're come on Thursday, you gotta come hang out. You got it.
• 1:11:04
  I guarantee you got a kneeling story to get up there and tell you
• 1:11:09
  know, I got a big But the only time he ever cursed at me
• 1:11:15
  eight eighty eight season made that rap tape Mountaineer Rap. I remember that.
• 1:11:19
  Yeah, he didn't know that I used major and uh and Elvoy didn't tell
• 1:11:24
  him that, Hey, we're making a rap tape. And then Notre Dame
• 1:11:26
  got the tape, played a practice leading they were playing at they were playing
• 1:11:30
  it down in Arizona, and so he came up propaganda man. So he
• 1:11:34
  came up to me and he said, and Arizona. When I got there,
• 1:11:38
  do you know what they're playing? Before they practiced? And I said,
• 1:11:41
  no, coach, when they play, you're flanking, blanking, blanking,
• 1:11:45
  blanking tape. And I went, hey, we made seventeen grand for
• 1:11:47
  the Ron McDonald's house back just for the kids, just for the kids.
• 1:11:53
  Man, he wasn't listening just for the kids that day. He just you
• 1:11:58
  know, how great is it that he's still here and still around and still
• 1:12:02
  taking part and still sharp is a knife. He is a special man.
• 1:12:08
  You know, man's eighty eight years old and still rocking like a mule,
• 1:12:12
  sharp, sharp as attack. I mean, you know, the body's got
• 1:12:15
  a little wear and tear on, but uh, you know, he he
• 1:12:18
  just he keeps giving back. He's involved with again things things that that are
• 1:12:25
  about kids. Man, he's got a big heart, always has. Yeah,
• 1:12:28
  and uh, just we're gonna we're gonna honor him with with some really
• 1:12:30
  special stuff on Thursday night. So I'm serious. If you guys, if
• 1:12:34
  you guys can come out and be part of that, come on out.
• 1:12:36
  We're gonna have a It'll be a hoot. All right. There is the
• 1:12:40
  ever effervescent Ryan Joswiak on three guys before the game. Now you had seen
• 1:12:45
  him before, you had never met met him, hadn't been hadn't been face
• 1:12:49
  to face with him like that? No, that was that was fun.
• 1:12:53
  Yeah, he is. He's absolutely one of the all time great memorable guy
• 1:12:58
  and just amazing. He's stuff there where. He did not play organized sports
• 1:13:03
  up until tenth game. I never knew here a couple things I never know.
• 1:13:06
  Never knew about defensive lineman yep, two knee injuries, and never knew
• 1:13:12
  about the saxophone. You've known him forty years, Yeah, I never knew
• 1:13:15
  about the second All State sacophone. Two tensives, He's say, two tens
• 1:13:17
  of a point from going into a conservatory. There. It is again,
• 1:13:21
  how many times we talk about on the show with people those one moments that
• 1:13:26
  seem little in your life and the grand scope of your life change the course
• 1:13:30
  of your life. Absolutely, all right, that'll do it for this episode
• 1:13:33
  of Three Guys Before the Game, thanks so much for being with us.
• 1:13:36
  Our producer is Austin Wright. Three Guys Before the Game brought to us by
• 1:13:41
  Comac's Business Systems. They happen to be keeping West Virginia's business data safe,
• 1:13:44
  secure and efficient for twenty five years by Gomarts. Go for good times,
• 1:13:50
  Go promote Gomart, Go get a Gomart rewards card, he said. Go
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  get a Gomart rewards card where you can save on food and fuel all the
• 1:14:02
  time. Visit them at gomart dot com. Three Guys also brought to us
• 1:14:06
  by lou Wendell Marine Sales in St. Albans. Still trying to figure out
• 1:14:10
  if Joe's, in fact, did take a pontoon of from Florida. Lou
• 1:14:15
  Wendell located in Saint Albans. You can visit them there or on their website
• 1:14:19
  at lou Wendelmarnesales dot com. If it's got anything to do with the water
• 1:14:24
  and boating, they're your Folks Award winning lou Wendell Marine sALS that'll do it
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  for us, Episode five fifty nine, Three Guys Before the Game, over
• 1:14:34
  and out. Take care everybody,