Bengals Booth Podcast: Jungleland

Hi, get everybody. I'm Dan Hoard and thanks for downloading the Bengals Booth Podcast, The Down in Jungle and addition, as I discussed the Jungle Jam fan fest coming up in a few weeks with Bengals super fan Jim Foster. But first, it's five Questions with six round draft pick Tanner McLaughlin, one of two tight ends selected by the

Now let's get to football.

I've been getting to know the Bengals draft picks this year by asking them five questions that are a little bit different from the norm. On previous episodes, we've met Amarus Mims, Chris Jenkins, Jermaine Burton, McKinley Jackson, Eric All and Josh Newton. And now we've reached the sixth round and a tight end out of the University of Arizona who didn't drop a single pass on his forty five

It's different. I think the biggest thing that they stress up there is for the love of the game. It's a different environment. We don't have the same you know, resources coaching up there. It's really just guys going to show up and going to play and have fun. So I'd say that's the biggest difference.

I loved it.

It was a great environment and I'm super grateful that I was able to do that growing up.

Your hometown isn't far from Calgary, which is the home of the CFLs Stampeters, where Doug Flutie played back in the day. Were you a stamped fan? Did you follow the NFL?

What was your interest as a kid?

Yeah, I was definitely a Calgary Sampeters fan growing up. I grew up I spent a little of the time in Airdrie, Alberta, which is just outside of Calgary, and I actually got drafted to the stamp Peters this same draft class. I was the sixth rounder there as well, So it's pretty cool to see that happen. And I made the right choice coming down here, for sure, but it was cool to see that.

We're chatting with Tane McLaughlin. Question number three. You started your college football career at Southern Utah and in twenty twenty, at the height of the pandemic, they postponed the season. What did you do in the fall of twenty twenty.

Yeah, fall twenty twenty was weird. We kept training, We did as much training as we could, but we knew we were going to have that spring season, twenty twenty one spring season, so we were kind of just prepping for that. But it was a weird time.

I don't remember much.

It feels like it was so long ago, but yeah, I just remember being weird and not having football for my first ball ever.

So question number four.

After your time in Southern Utah, you transferred Arizona spent two years with the Wildcats, and while you were there, you broke Rob Gronkowski's records for catches by a tight end in a season and in your career. And I understand he contacted you after the draft.

Correct, he didn't contact me after the draft, but he spoke to me, you know, throughout the seasons that I was there, and was always giving me, you know, words of encouragement and giving me pointers, you know, going to the next level. So I was super grateful to have him around and hear what he's got to say, obviously being one of the best of all times.

Did he just take an interest in you as a tight end at his alma mater.

I mean, I would say so. I think just you know, tight ends kind of we seem to get along pretty well. So I think when he came back and I was first kind of relevant tight in a few years since he had been there, So I think kind of took me on his wing a little bit and gave me all the hope he could.

Did you hear a lot of Gronk stories while you're at Arizona?

I heard a few. I heard there's some crazy stories. Yeah, he's a crazy dude, but super good player, super good dude.

All right.

Fifth and final question for Tanner McLoughlin. Tell me something about you that not many people know.

Well, this kind of goes back to my roots growing up in Alberta. Being on the Montana border. We got the rocky mountains right there. So I'm a big outdoors guy. I love being outside, love camping, hiking, fishing, all that fun stuff. So whenever I get the chance to go back home, that's kind of what I spend my time doing and then come back here and play football.

So awesome. Drop the hot seat, appreciate your time.

Thank you, appreciate it.

Tanner and fourth round pick Eric gall have added youth and depth to the Bengals tight end room. And keep in mind that Mike is SICKI and Tanner Hudson only signed one year contracts, so there could be turnover in the near future. McLaughlin's strength is his receiving ability, making him a candidate to earn a spot on the roster or practice squad. Now time for my second guest in

I guess the best way to describe it, Dan, just call it a three ring Bengals Circus July twentieth at Pavilion right there in Newport.

That is the easiest, ready to describe it.

We're going to have twenty five different venders, a live band, a DJ.

Charity, cornhold tournaments.

We've got an auction items, We've got Donatos, Skyline barbecue, ice cream trucks, we've got door prizes, we've got kid zoned d and we got tons of inflatables and games for the kids. This is going to be an awesome family friendly events to kick off the season this year.

So we're really excited about it.

It's an extension of Jungle to the Hall. Correct, This is what it's evolved.

To, Yes, sir.

We started to Jungle to the Hall of Fame really back in twenty twenty one when we took hundreds of Bengal fans up to the up to Kanton, Ohio. We rented event Tense right next to the front door, and hundreds of Bengal fans showed up. Willi Anderson showed up. We celebrated our Bengal legends that should be in the Hall of Fame, and we got national attention around that. I mean, there was national media picking that up. Why is at that time only one Bengals legend in the

Four.

We're gonna have you kN Ridley the Seconds flying in. We got Anthony Muno is going to be in attendance. We've got Max Montoya, Corey Dillon had had committed as well. These are all guys that we're still fighting for. Uh and obviously Ken Anderson is going to be Danny attendance as well. So these are all guys we're fighting for, and that'll be one of the programs that day as well.

Do you have I think you're being modest when you say that the fans played a small role in Ken Riley getting in. I think it was a significant role. Obviously, he's a Hall of Famer because he had sixty five interceptions and spent fifteen years being a great cornerback for the Cincinnati Bengals. But it definitely raised awareness nationally and that, in my opinion, contributed him to getting in.

Yeah, I do believe that, Dan.

I mean, the Bengal fans were just so just wore out with the lack of recognition and just complaining on social media, right, So you know, the Bengal fans joined forces, not just locally. What's amazing to me is there's so many fans in the Cincinnati Ara at the fan you get outside of Cincinnati, there's fans Bengal fans all over the country and internationally. It's an amazing fan base that follows this organization. So everybody contributed local, across the country

Into the Hall of Fame.

We feel pretty confidently that Ken Anderson and Willy Anderson are soon to follow.

Willie Anderson has been very vocal in how much he appreciates the support of you and Jamie and Tony and the various people that are part of your group. Is it gratifying to you when you see one of the greatest players in franchise history get up in front of an audience of Bengals fans and essentially say thank you for trying to make my case.

Yeah.

One thing we learn unexpectedly Dan through this whole process is you get to know some of these guys at a different level, not just them, but their families as well. And he's like Ken Riley family we got really close to. I guess the one thing that kind of shocked us is that I don't know why, but these guys are no different than me and you Dan. They're average, every day people that just happen to have, you know, outstanding football abilities and performed at a very high level for

And these guys.

But you know, we've got we've got over fifty players coming to this event on July twentieth, and we've got guys that, you know, like mL Harris bought the first touchdown in the Freezer Ball in nineteen eighty one.

We've got Tom Dinkle.

We've got maybe not big names, but these guys are coming in from all over the country for this event. Jeff Blake's flying in for this thing, So it is just it's really cool and these guys, these guys want to be appreciated.

Man.

The fan base here now has an opportunity to to make sure that we're remembering these guys celebrating off our legend throughout Bengals history. Every decade of Bengals football game will be represented at this event in July twentieth.

That's that's what's really cool to see Bengel.

Jim Foster is our guest. How much your tickets? How do people get them? And are they still available?

Yes, sir, tickets are only twenty dollars. We're trying to make this affordable as we possibly can for families. We know things getting very expensive nowadays, but twenty dollars is all the ticket is. And in order to get those tickets, you can go to our social media platform, Bengal Gym and Friends, whatever platform you're on, or if you wanted to go to Maga Court Pavillion's website directly in they're on there this thing. As of this morning, it was about twenty two hundred tickets sold.

This thing's going to sell out.

It's going to max out and the key thing here, Dan, I want to mind everybody everything we do. We are a five zero one C three are Bengal, Jim and Friends organization, tailgates and everything else we do. We're going to be presenting some pretty big checks that day to five different specific charities. Joe Burrow Foundation, Jimmy and Robin Burrow will be there. We're presenting a very large check

We'll all be betting for it. Every everything that covers our beyond covering our cost for this.

Event, we'll be able to show receipts to show that every penny beyond covering our cost will go to these different charities we just talked about. So we're real excited about the event. Can and just to bring families together. And there's gonna be a lot of young kids twelve and under here at the event, and there's so much stuff for everybody to be to partake in. And for clarity that that venue is an indoor outdoor venue. We've got large event tents outside cooling fans, food trucks, and vendors.

And narrate that.

I'm excited as well. I think it's going to be awesome. Do you anticipate that this could be the start of an annual event similar to what the Reds have done over the years with Reds Fest?

Yeah, it's you know, we had no idea that, you know, as we dug into this and started planning this, and we got players coming out of the woodwork wanting to be part of this, and yeah, I think it is and uh, you know, we're gonna have whod the mascot Bengal cheerleaders there as well. But this, again, this is not an organization sanction event.

I just want to be clear.

This is a group of fans doing this and out of just a love for the city and love for this organization. So I think it's something awesome that, if you know, we would continue to do. It's that important to this fan base and the city and this organization.

But yeah, I mean I see this kind of getting at that level. Dan, at the end of the day, Yes.

How have you develop so many great relationships with former players throughout Bengals history.

Dan, I don't know if I could put a finger on it.

I can just tell you over the years, this will be our thirty second year for tailgating at Bengals games. You know the you know Old Riverfront Stadium, Syentergy Field, and even Paul Brown Stadium and Patee Fork Stadium over the years. You just start, I don't know what it is. You run into them. You know, Pete Johnson will be there at this event. Pete Johnson used to come down on our tailgates all the time back in the day.

It's just really cool to think about Bengal.

Jim Foster is our guest. One of the ways that you've tried to help potential Bengals Hall of Famers make their case to the committee is by having other Hall of Fame players from other teams record video messages making the case for these great form of Bengals like Willie Anderson, like Ken Anderson. How have you been able to get those.

Who that is?

You know, it's interesting, like for example, you know a lot of these players are very humble. I mean Ken Riley, Willie Anderson, Ken Anderson, these guys grew up in an era where they just lighted and worked their butts off and played so hard and they weren't look at me type people, right.

And and some of those guys that you know, we're kind of look at me guys got in that.

I'm not saying they weren't deserving, but I think over time, you just start reaching out to different people, like, for example, Michael Strahan. It took me months and months and months to get a hold of Michael Strahan. I knew, I knew what he felt about Willy Anderson. I wanted him to put that in a video for us, and just connecting through different avenues and in different ways to get

We had Mel Blunt video about Ken Riley. I mean, these are powerful.

I mean, we we have some we we've even built some relationships with a lot of these voters, the senior.

Voters, Dan, and and they tell you, We'll tell you, hey, they know all the stats. They see them.

There's no there's nothing more you can put in writing that that they haven't seen. But when you start getting current Hall of famers talk about these guys passionately, that's a whole other level. And these Hall of Fame voters they listen and see this stuff. So we have some pretty good relationship with some of these Hall of Fame voters as well.

Willie Anderson was a finalist this year for the third year in a row. Unfortunately he did not get in, but no offensive lineman was chosen this year, leading me to believe that next year really could be the year. I find it hard to believe that they would go back to back years without selecting at least one offensive lineman.

Yeah.

Dan, So if you remember, a couple of years ago, he made it to the top fifteen, didn't make it in the top ten.

This past year, he made it to the top ten.

We feel we think according to the people we talked to, he made it to the top seven or eight, so the top five went in. That's why we say pretty confidently and pretty directly that we feel that Willie Anderson is happening.

It's going to happen next year.

If you finished seven or eight, have a top ten and they takes the top five, it's logic in the next five should be getting in and that those voters haven't changed a whole lot. So I Wially Anderson and Kenny Anderson have momentum right now, and I do truly believe both these guys get in next next round.

More with Bengal Gym in a moment, But first a quick reminder. The Bengals Booth podcast is brought to you by pay Core, proud to be the Bengals official HR software provider, by Alta Fiber future proof fiber Internet designed to elevate your home, business and community to a new level, and by Kettering Health the best care for the best fans. Kettering Health is the official healthcare provider.

Of the Bengals.

So you got the Jungle Jam coming up on July twentieth in Newport, The Three Ring circus, as you referred to it earlier. How about the tailgate? What's in store for some of the road trips this year.

It's so funny.

We're so consumed right now with families and our jobs in this jungle jam event that we're putting on.

We got a group of us that are working really hard on this.

But the tailgate, we just secured some parking lots in other cities. We expect a massive turnout of Bengal fans in Charlotte, so we just rented a massive, a giant parking lots not too far from the stadium in Charlotte, so we will have a really big tailgate there.

We've got Nashville tailgates un locked up again. We rented out an entire lot for the Nashville game. We have some things we're closing out right.

Now in the Kansas City game, which is the second game of the year, and we're working on some other away games as well. But all the home games are pretty much lined up with some of the stuff that we're doing.

The away games we expect.

We expect some really really big crowds again in Nashville

It's awesome to do.

I have the greatest job of the world. There is nothing I would rather do for a living. But there's only one small regret I have, and that is I can't tailgate because I'm heading to the booth early. I'm getting into game preparation mode. I can never hang out with you guys prior to kickoff. Stay at one day, you just got to call in sick. You're just going to go and leave.

Hey, come down and hang with at paper Stadium for the game. It's it's really fun.

And it's just when you see a family friendly atmosphere to tailgate, when you've got young kids there and families, we tail get right next to the park here in Cincinnati and Smail Park and we rent out half the park. You got families graving and picnic tables, and you got food trucks and vendor setting up. Now it is a carnival streets. I don't know, a block party at the end of the day, and it's it's not just a bunch of guys around drinking beers around a grill.

It is we got live entertainment. We've got all kinds of things going on during the tailgate.

It it's so fun to bringing people together, Bengal fans from all over the country, all over the world together out of all ages.

It's unbelievable.

And we literally have people come in and tailgate with us from Canada, Spain, England, Mexico, Germany, Australia. We have a giant map at our tailgate at court Board Mat. When fans come in from out of town, they take a pen and put it in put it in the area of the city or country that they're coming in town from. And since twenty eighteen is when we started at but we have all fifty states represented, hundreds of cities and twenty nine different countries are represented on that map.

And they love this city and they love this organization. It's so fun to see.

So you posted a picture on social media recently of the latest spot in your home that has been decorated with Bengals memorabilia. You've got this gigantic wall of bobbleheads. Naturally, I zoomed in to see the Lapham Horde bobblehead, so thank you for including us in your collection. But I'm also I'm thrilled to see that you have a bobblehead. These days, people can get a gym bobblehead.

Yeah, very interesting.

Folco who does a lot of those bobbleheads, even for Sincey Bob's, you know Josh and Hollis, those guys that do Sinci Bob's. They reached out to me, it was probably early in the football season, saying, hey, would you be interested in doing a bobblehead of you here?

I am like, I'm not a face painter, I'm not so big. I have a stupid bucket.

Hat, right but they really wanted to focus the theme of like the tailgating, is that what they want to do. They've never done a fan bobblehead before, and I'm still kind of taken aback by them wanting to do that.

Yeah, there was.

They did a series, a limited series pre order of two hundred and forty four Bengal Gym bobbleheads and all of them were sold. All of them are gone, and the ship date that was I think it was in December January when they did the border, when they did the orders, and they actually just shipped them this past week. So I'm getting a lot of text messages for my

But it's it's really been fun. And I think at the end of the day, we still.

Got to do the math and do the accounting on that piece of it, because BOTHO just kind of reimbursed because they were given a ten percent of every bobblehead to us, which were then turn around and given at Ken Anderson Alliance.

So something fun to do, but it's something that we.

Always tied to some local charity and obviously kN Anders Alliance is very important to me. I have four Dan, my twenty seven year olds on the autism spectrum. He drives back and forth to work, but you know he has some challenges independent living. You know, autistic adults focus on independent living. The Village of Maurici and Kin Anderson Alliance,

How much money did your group give away last year?

Our group and the guys, I my name's on the silly tailgate and the social media stuff.

I'm not a marketing guy. My buddies that are with me, my friends made this beangal Gem and Friends tailgate. I'm not I would have never done that.

But they wanted to brand it, and they were smarter than I was because I didn't want to do it this way, but we got my good friends Tony, Tony the Tiger, James James Copla, Craig Johnson, Dell Hall, Mark Smith. These guys worked their butts off making this happen. But we as a group, through this tailgate in our social media platform, DAM last year raised one hundred and sixty two thousand dollars.

For thirty two or thirty three different local charities. Year before that it was one hundred and twenty something, year before that it was seventy five something. And now that we're five on ones see three, we have companies approaching us saying, hey, how do we get involved.

In matching some of these charity matches? You know, like every tailgate we have a charity come down. Also raffles will give away a helmet or whatever it is. We'll raise whatever three or four grand a game. So there's companies now that want to get involved and say, hey, Jim, we want to be part of this and we want to match up to a certain dollar amount every tailgate

It is really heartwarming.

Your dad took you to a game at Riverfront, and look at what this has become.

That preseason game in nineteen eighty three, when I was like, I don't know, thirteen, fourteen years old against the Jets. It was I think a Monday night game, Sunday Monday night game. I barely remember what happened on the field that night, damn, but I just remember being mesmerized. I've sat at the very top of the stadium, almost under the old scoreboard and just seeing the fans reaction to rule the crowd, people with their face painted. I was hooked.

Man.

I just blad my dad was able to take me to that game, because I'll never forget that.

All Right, we can't wait for July twentieth Jungle Jam in Newport. It's going to be incredible. As you mentioned, more than two thousand tickets have already been sold. What's the capacity? How many can you can you have for this.

We actually have a meeting Friday with the venue. We are trying to free up some more square footage. So right now it looks like we're happening. It's at twenty five hundred, so we got about twenty two hundred sold already, so there's things close to selling out. And usually people wait that I last a week or two to my tickets, So there's gonna see some people that are gonna be on the outside.

Looking at if they don't get the tickets soon.

And what's really cool, dan is one of our title sponsors is a Newport on the Levee which is only like a block away, So there's gonna be an after party after this events over which twelve to six afterwards.

A big group of people that.

Are entertainnis will be heading over to the Levee, have some dinners and some drinks and there's all kinds of fun activities going over Newport on the Levee right after our events over with.

So I can't wait to see everybody.

They entered some surprises I wish I could share with everybody right now on your pod, but just trust me, there are some some surprises that we cannot. We've been asked not to announce, So it's gonna be. It's gonna be a blast. It's gonna be a really fun day. And it doesn't matter how hot it is.

We're gonna have cooling fans and shade and we can go inside if it gets too hot. We've got we've got a great venue and it's gonna be a lot of fun.

It's gonna be tremendous. Thank you and your friends for organized it and for all you do for prospective Bengals Hall of famers and for Bengals fans. You're the best.

Thanks, Jim, appreciate you. Dan he Day Buddy.

Jim mentioned that there are some surprises that he can't share publicly. Well, he shared one privately with me and all I can say is that it's legitimate.

Wow.

If you live close enough to attend and don't have a ticket yet, you should get one before it's too late. You can find them on the Bengal Gym and friends social media platforms. That's going to do it for this episode of The Bengals Booth Podcast, brought to you by pay Core, Proud to be the Bengals official HR software provider by alta fiber future proof fiber Internet designed to elevate your home, business, and community to a new level and by Kettering Health the best care for the best fans.