This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Fox Sports fourteenth fifty powered by Nova Insurance Services insure your most prized possess yets.
Hey, good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to Eye on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera. Welcome to Freddy Show. We got Tim Bentley here, Hello, Hello, and we got hey, look who's here, Henry. I'm welcome back the who's the new kid over there? New kid in New York? That was New York cold? You say, I love it here, but I got to get the hell back to school exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's what you got.
It was fifty the first day I came and it felt like it was ninety.
And you shut up and flip flops.
And that's his entire man. That's how. That's how I know. I've never seen the word.
Pan wearing a jacket and a long sleeve shirt and I'm for still freezing.
Andry knows how to be a college student. He's good. I heard you at the game the other day. Yep, Yeah, what do you think? Pretty good? Got it for a while. Foot on the pedals sometimes. Yeah, these guys have to do it all the time. Yeah, because you never tournament. There's a lot of good teams. Yeah, this weekend, we'll see how good there are, exactly. I'm surprised. I'm surprised. I think I sure said that they're a text text like a four point favorite, which is a little shocking
to me. I don't know if that's true or not. You might want to yeah it's four points okay maybe wow. So you know, if I were betting man, wink wink, I think I would take the points.
You absolutely should.
I mean it's still we talk about this every time. It's a nice round, but they still make you a little nervous, no question. In the mellow game, you just your stomach starts to sink and you're like, oh no, and you know they might pull it out, but you know, get on a run in the tournament, you might miss.
It, right. Yeah, And they have yet to make you feel confident or comfortable.
They really don't. You know, it's exciting. I mean, it's it's a seven game, is it seven or eight?
Is it?
I think it's a seven game win Street.
Yeah. Yeah, So we'll see what happens. We'll talk a lot about that game. We're gonna have Matt muleback on the other side at the four seventeen hour that get his thoughts on what's going on because he's done a few games now already with Hugh A and maybe just get his college scope of college basketball. Then in the first hour. I'm looking forward to this because Steve Lynn Steven Yeah, game from the past, right. I saw him at McHale Center, and we'll ask you how you know him.
I saw him at the mchas Center maybe ten days ago. You know, in the concessions, I say, there's Steve talked a little about stuff. I says, we miss missed those commercials, you know with Bill.
Frieder, and now I'd love to talk about that.
And you know, people our age know exactly what we're talking about. Uh, those good old day TV commercials where Luke was the was the good guy and Frieda was the bad guy.
I know, they're so creative, you know, the talent.
Uh.
I'm curious, you know, to hear his when when he knew that he had the right chemistry between those two and how he made it happen.
Yeah, we're going to talk to him how that did happen? Because it takes a creative mind to kind of pull that thing together. You're in the business where you have to kind of have creative minds, writers, producers and things like that.
That'll be some great insight.
And the last couple of times I've been here, we've been talking about, you know, kind of the history of the Wildcats and this is this is a fun part of that which did did this year. First time this week though, right, first time this week. But last week we talked about, you know, the coaching thing. We talked with Bob Elliott and you and you had him back on. We listened to you and you talked to him about doctor j.
And then another guy tweeted, well, Dudlston tweeted, we had something about oh, well, Bert Williams, you know Bert from Williams and Associates. I do, Yeah, Yeah, he had some good stuff about you know, the Three Blind mice Y. Yeah.
I did listen to him, and I love that and and I remember that I just I cracked up. So I think, you know, you and I the last time I was here, we were talking about the history and just the culture of the place and the loyalty of the fans, and it's it's not only just the player sometimes but it's the it's the support bard of people like Steven Berg.
Right.
One of the things that we talked about this week and off the air and on the air is bringing the uh bringing the who was that time you were the game?
Oh man? That last season?
Yeah, that's last season. Okay. And I'll ask Kennry this too, because uh part of it. And I got a text that it was pretty pretty biting from a fan from inside the macale saying that the game experience is horrible. It's not lively, it's it's old, it's worn. And I'm thinking, yeah, yeah, yeah, uh, and that needs to change. You know, we're halfway through the year. Uh, it may be too late this year, but you've got to start, you know, freshening it up a bit, because it's the same old bit from years.
Right it was, and it's you know, you know, how long did the ou man you know do that? And it was great because it was from the eighties. Yeah, I was doing that up until until you couldn't and.
He couldn't and he hadn't done it in a long time. Uh. And now we have you know, Phyllis or what's what her name is. She's dancing, but you know.
Yeah, so I'm with you. I think that there's an opportunity to freshen up. You know, I'm not the person to do that because when you say, oh, my back resembles.
That, well, you resemble a lot other people in the stadium, that's true. And that's the you guys yell, I mean hey, and and everybody wants to move the students on the side and blah blah bl be better cheers. Okay, sure that's not gonna happen because you need you need to sell those seats and the kids aren't guaranteed to go show up in those seats. Henry, do you how do you feel about the I know you came back for this one game, and the students were there and not there.
They'll be there for Iowa State, but don't you think it needs to be more exciting than what it is? A little?
I mean, obviously you guys would know better because you've been going to the games for a while. But I feel like in my four years, I feel like it's kind of stayed the same. I think this year might be a little better just because of the conference change to new teams and.
And you were there for like U C L A. And you know, when it gets to the big games, it's it's okay, it's okay. It's not it's the right word, because it's not great, but it's okay. And you know, you guys are spitting them not that this is right. And I get on you guys for you know, F this and F that to the players and the UCLA guys. And that happens everywhere. I mean, no, kids are kids, and they're gonna do what they do, but it needs
to be like more and football. What about football? Have you got in football?
Last season? I went to football game previous.
Previous, the previous season, and Henry, you go, yeah, those are boring.
I yeah, I agreed, Yeah, I think so. I do not think if any time it was ever maybe last year like the U c l A.
Game, whenever on the wind streak in football, in football two years ago, but not this past year. Yeah. Yeah. And it's the same.
Henry, when you when you go to the football game, what time do you and your your buddies go.
You probably get there like thirty minutes before the game.
Thirty minutes before the game.
So you're not you're not tailgating or anything like that or making sure, you're down there for the big you know, getting excited to get everybody, I'll riled up or anything like that.
The till gets are okay. I think it's the stadium atmosphere, right, the speakers suck, right, you know we've all determined that that's true. And then the same songs and the same routines. And I'm not being mean to be mean, and that's what people are telling me.
Well, you know, players are now seeing a different atmosphere, different different UH facilities, and so maybe they'll pick something up. I know when I've traveled around and you you go to U before we were in the Big twelve. You know, I go to games, I go to football games. You're like, holy smokes, you know the atmosphere. It's exciting, truly because it's different, but it was I think there's an opportunity to freshen it up, get some people excited.
I'm with you.
It's not bad, but it's you know, yeah, but it's not good changes.
It's like when you go to UH. It's funny, you go to a pizza place. I just like it. It wasn't bad. What the hell does that tell me? It doesn't tell me anything. It wasn't any good. It wasn't good. You know what I'm saying. When you I was, how was the mac n cheese? And it wasn't bad? What the hell was that mean?
Right?
I have to say I wouldn't seek it out. I mean, but it was okay, I wouldn't. I don't know if i'll come back.
You know. Yeah, And that's the problem with u a football and sometimes that I don't know if I don't know if I went okay, I did it and done it. I wanted it.
No, I'll get it. I'll get this, I'll get some ticket. What's take a call?
Yeah?
Yeah, well maybe someone talk about this.
Maybe somebody has an idea. Yeah, I had a freshen up to it's a new man.
You know you're on the air nine the ball. Who's this?
This is Brian.
How's it going, Bryan?
Did you take us Yester for the holidays or something?
Well?
I was, I was out of town for a while and did that stuff, and uh, yeah I haven't been around.
Tell me what's your solution? You have a solution for us?
Uh? Maybe we need to get better teams in here. You know, I'm I'm sorry, but back in back in the eighties and nineties, you know, Yeah, we had decent preseason schedules. Yeah, you know, I mean it's it's hard. It's hard to get except about Central Michigan, yeah, or or some southeast North Dakota state, whatever hell it is.
You know, are you talking both sports, football and basketball?
Yes, yes, well, you know, football is a lot different because it's really this is not a football school. You know. Even when we were doing well last year in twenty three not twenty four, we still didn't get to sell out crowds and we were winning games. Yeah, but basketball, basketball is a whole different animal, I think, because you know, they if we had decent teams. I mean, the Duke game was great to watch. I mean that we lost, but the fans were really into the game, even though
it was a late game. I mean, the fans were really into it, you know, but that was Duke, you know, and it wasn't too bad. I didn't think the fans were that bad at the Baylor game, of course, but having the nine o'clock game didn't didn't really help, you know, during the middle of the week. But you know, us, I don't know if all the students were back by then, I'm not too sure. The student section was more full than it was the game before on Saturday.
Yeah, you're.
We need to get better teams in here in the preseason, you know, to get people hyped up. I mean, okay, so we lost four or five games in the pre in the pre conference schedule, but all those games were either you know, they were out of town, you know, I know, the one was in Phoenix and had a pretty good turnout, you know, not that not great, but
it wasn't that bad. But they still they need needed to pick up the schedule and have you know, and I know it's harder because a lot of teams don't want to do a home and home and need you got to worry about what TV, how much money they want to pay.
You on TV. Yeah, no, I agree with you. I agree with you.
Do you think do you think that we missed out on the preseason hype? Do you miss any of that stuff that they used to do?
Oh?
Very much?
So.
I mean do you think if we brought that back? I mean, let's if we get the fans excited early on.
Well, I think the fans that get excited if we had a decent preseason schedule. Yeah, you know. And but but you know, I don't I watch, you know, I watch a lot of basketball on TV, and you watch, you know, Gonzaga plays a lot of home games against decent teams, you know, in a home and home you know. Yeah, and you know what why can't we You know.
Well, Bry before the season started, and I said this, if you had season tickets, great because they'll pass. You had season tickets. The schedule sucked in Shawn's time and in Tommy's early times. But now you had these guys coming in right shirt here, But here's the equalizer to that. You had tickets, But now they're getting the games at eight thirty nine o'clock. So that kind of trumps that. Trump's the schedule, right, it.
Does, you know. And unfortunately, well, one other thing I was surprised to see at the game the other night, at nine o'clock game, that a lot of the older fans did not leave with five minutes to go in the game. They were still there.
Toward the end, right, No, because that's what the rally, that's what the rallies. Hey, Mildred, let's not go yet, because it could be you could get close here, right, you know.
And I was really surprised to see that because usually with five minutes to go in the game, that that place is half empty.
Yeah, gotta get to the parking.
All on the bottom section.
Yeah no, so it's not there's almost fault that they screwed him with the times. And that's what they've done, right, that purposely Just what it is.
That's what it is. That's the Big twelve. I mean, that's I mean, they've always played on those lakes.
Just what You're gonna have to get used to it. Uh, we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. When I was stayed on Monday next Monday.
Right, you know, that's that's the eight thirty one, right, Yeah. Isn't there one more nine o'clock game after that?
Yes, there's a there's a there's at least another one.
Yeah, yeah, you know, And and it's hard, you know, like you got a caller yesterday who called about, you know, going to the game, but he can't take his kids. Yeah it's too late, right, and you know, and luckily, you know, all my kids are all growing up and I'm retired, don't to worry about getting up early in the morning. But you know, I mean, I can understand where you know, younger families they can't go, so it's really kind of hard to identify with this.
Team, right. No, there's a lot of roadblocks or obstacles to figure out what to do.
But like you said, we better get used to it's going to happen, and it's going to happen more in football, and it's going to happen in basketball, right right.
Okay, Brian, thanks for going to go to you. Yeah, thanks a bunch, so welcome back. We'll come back. Yeah, it's three to this. Let's take the break. Now, we're going to talk to Steve Lynn here on the other side, kind of going back some funny stories or you know whatever's kind of stories with Luton and Bill and how that all came about.
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I on the Ball on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Want to take part in the show? Call up? Steve now went five two oh four, one seventy four.
Hey, welcome back to I in the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rovera. You're Tim Bentley.
Hello.
Hello, Now on the fun we have Steve lynnon big time. You a athletics supporter as well as marketer advertising guy.
Steve.
How are you?
I'm great, Steve, thanks a lot.
Yeah, it was good to see you not long ago and I said, hey, you need to come on the show. Let's reminisce a little from the good old days.
Sure, happy to do that. There were plenty of good old days.
Yes, yes, yes. What are the things that you were behind and were fronts at center with? Were the old Ludelsen Frieder commercials. I have Tim Bentley here too, who knows much about that too. He's a marketing guy.
Steve. How are you? Steve?
And I am Steve and I know each other from years ago. I worked for the WB I worked with ron Berg, you remember that name, and then Anne Courtney for a long long time. I think she worked for you, and and Courtney was our advertising agency with Michael Beverly. So, yeah, Steve, I heard you're coming on today. I was excited to say hi, do you so?
Yes, Thanks, Sam, I appreciate it.
So let's go back and we'll talk real quick with some of the things that we talked about briefly on McHale Center. How did they come about?
Well, the agency that I had, Nortonsenlan Advertising, had a
contract with the university. And when this is back in the nineties, and what happens is it happened then was the university, as part of the coaches contract for football, basketball, and baseball, actually built into the contract a certain amount of compensation for the coaches and prepaid them and then asked us as an agency to go out and market the coaches in having them do advertising and public appearances and so on to make up for the university money that they they've advanced.
If you will, to the coaches.
So I had I had lout Olsen, I had Dick Tomy, and I had Jerry Kendall essentially as clients, and because of the money that the university had already put into Lut's contract, which was substantial six figures, a lot of six figures, we needed to do something that was, you know, not just a local waffle shop or a local car dealer or whatever. It needed to be either statewide or national.
So in talking to Lute, he and Bill Frieder had played against each other in the Big Ten when when Bill was at Michigan and Louke was at Iowa and Uh, I said, Luke, are you friendly with Bill? Would you do something with Bill? And he said, sure, we get along. Our families get along or our wives get along.
And I said great.
So I called Bill, and Bill acteds ex as his own.
Agent, as you might imagine if he does, he doesn't have anybody worked for him.
His offices in the back of his car, in his trunk, and I presented him with a notion to do something with Luke. He said sure, absolutely. So I made a call to then Valley Bank. Because Valley Bank had been using Gene Stallings, the old Cardinals coach in their advertising, so I knew that they were used to having sports personalities do advertising for them. And I called up the marketing director for Valley and said, listen, I've got the
two major basketball coaches in the state. One looks like he just stepped out of GQ and the other one looks like he just stepped out of g Whiz, and you can have them both, but I need the answer in twenty four hours. And he called back within two hours and said we'll take him. So that's how it started.
And then every summer for the next seven years, through two bank changes, Bank Valley Bank went from one from Bank One Bank to Bank one to Chase, And over seven years, even through those changes, they kept the two guys as their commercials. Every summer we'd spend a week up in Phoenix and in remote locations making those commercials. So the guys would put it on their calendar and I would coach Wrangle for a week.
It was the great week every summer.
Hey, Steve, when did you I love that connection? When did you realize that you had the magic chemistry between those two on on screen? When did you when did you realize that? Was it the first commercial or was it did it take a few a few times?
No, no, no, actually it was it was the first script. When when the way it worked is the bank had an advertising agency that did their advertising. I didn't have anything to do with the bank's advertising, and so their agency would send me scripts for approval to be to be shot over the summer.
And as soon as I read the first script, I said.
This is going to be something, and so it came what it's been, which is really a classic matchup between smooth Loot and Bill.
Yeah, that makes sense, total sense. And they did all the script writing.
They did script writing, I did script editing. There's there were certain things that we didn't didn't necessarily agree to do. Most everything was pretty well completed by the agencies. In fact, there were actually two agencies over time, because the bank then changed agencies.
But we had already had.
So many products in the cannon that had already shown on television that the second agency already had a blueprint of what needed to happen.
So the different circumstances that they put together, you know, it just basically a.
Tight guy who who watches every hair on his head and another guy who couldn't care less about anything.
Yeah.
So so it sounds like the scripts you got the scripts from the agency, how much le way did you have and of the two coaches who would have had a career as an actor.
Well, and did they have to approve it?
Well, they actually didn't have to approve it. They gave me that responsibility. And over the seven years there was there was absolutely nothing that they ever came in contact with that we hadn't talked about and they didn't go for Now, there.
Was an opportunity I'll tell you in a.
Minute about about another product that they wanted to perform that didn't go so well, But in this instance, the coaches really never took the opportunity to review the script's word by word and they trusted that I would not put them in situations that they weren't comfortable in. Yeah, so they they were troopers for the for the seven years that we did it. The one that I referred to guys, it was about four or five years into the seven year contract, the bank wanted to do some
some additional marketing using the two coaches. So they got the idea of doing a calendar and the bank would put a calendar together, and so they set up a
photo shoot still photos. Over a two day period built sets for twelve different iconic photos using the two coaches in various themes based on you know, New Year's was one thing, and Easter was another, at Thanksgiving and Halloween and Christmas, all of these different events during the course of the year, and we saw the setups for all of those twelve photographs and the guys were apparently okay with it.
But by the second setup of the.
Halloween poster, the Halloween shoot, Luke came to me off set and said, I can't do this. And if you can imagine, Luke dressing in any sort of a costume was something that he was not particularly comfortable with, right, and so uh this was this this particular one happened to have Bill dressed as a a skeleton for Halloween, and Luke was a pirate, uh, complete with a parrot on his shoulder and a big swashbuckle hat and so on, and he basically said, I'm done, I can't do it, so.
Yes all the way, So Steve, well, let me, yes, go ahead the story.
I had to go to the bank at that point and say, guys, I'm sorry. I know they agreed to do it, and I know you set up all this this, uh uh, the setups and everything else, and got everybody down here. But we're going to have to refund the money and and uh and not do the bit and and so they were. They were very gracious about it.
Uh.
But Bill went on to do the entire calendar itself because he didn't care how he dressed it.
That's funny. That's why I didn't know that. I had never seen that either.
I hadn't heard that who was the had the more natural acting ability in your estimation?
Oh, Bill at Bill absolutely. And the other thing about Bill, and I don't think many people knew this Bill was actually a savant with numbers.
Oh, he's huge.
When Bill was an assistant coach at Michigan before he took over the program, and let's say he was going to to recruit a kid in let's say Texas, he would fly from ann Arbor to Vegas, get off the plane, go to a casino, count a six deck shoe for a couple of hours, make fifteen twenty grand, and go to Texas and then hit Vegas on the way back to the point where at some point he was persona non grad at most of the most of the hotels.
Yeah, no, no, you're you're very You know him, because that's exactly what he was. Let me tell you a quick Bill story Arizona in Oregon, would travel an issue, travel together obviously traveling partners, or stay at the same hold tell in Oregon. And one time Bill's the room was broken into and they stole his wallet, blah blah blah, And this could have been somewhere else too, though I think it happened. He wanted his wallet back, and the
guy geist returned. He says, well, you might want to keep it because you spend less than my wife does.
Well.
Interesting, interestingly, think about Bill. I mean Bill's daughter was into show jumping, so he was supporting not only a wonderful wife, but a daughter who had horses and a show jumping activity, and so he had plenty of things to spend money on.
Sure.
The one Steve that I mentioned to you, I think I mentioned to you when we spoke, to show you the difference between the two of them. There was one commercial that we did where they both agreed to do the same activity, but do it in their own way. So we shot We shot at the Biltmore in Phoenix, and we shot Luke having lunch at.
The Biltmore in the in the dining room, and then.
We shot Bill having lunch at a hot dog stand out in the desert someone and and then we had Luke teeing off at the golf course at the Biltmore. And then we had Bill at a pitching putt or at a you know, a putt putt golf course going through the windmill and all this other stuff.
So the other one is Luke as a haircut.
Well, Luke was in the salon at the at the Biltmore getting his haircut and.
Bill used a flowby.
Remember the flow be that you attached to your vacuum cleaner and it cuts your hair. And so Bill liked that a lot, so he kept the flow by.
From the shoot. I think he probably used it.
Yeah, perks, baby, man, you're your big time actor, you get perks.
So just real quick, you mentioned two of them. I think we realize there were seven seven years of this. How many did you actually do? And which would have been your favorite? Because I have I have mine.
Oh gosh, you know, it's like children. I mean, there's something I liked more than others we did. We shot probably about three to five every summer, so there were probably thirty of these or more.
Wow.
Yeah, and on YouTube, Yeah, they would use them.
You know, periodically during the year, and and and run them out over the course of the year. The ones that I remember the most, and and there were some that were more or less funny, but the Christmas one where Luke goes to the store.
To buy things that's mine, that's mine, and.
And the server waits on him, the clerk, the clounter, the clerk, and then and then Frieder comes up with his bank card and she says, oh, mister Fritter y and and the look on his face was just perfect, right though.
That was my favorite as well, because it happened to him. It happened to him at Boise And I'll explain the story later, but go.
Ahead, no, no, I I'm just you know, what, what fun and what leeway you had with them. You know, we'll continue talking about these great stories. But what's your sense on these coaches now?
I mean, could you do that the.
Same way with with Tommy and and uh Bobby, Bobby up there? I mean, could you have the same amount of fine could you do the same campaign?
I think, you know, I think, given given the right script and given the ability of the coaches to adapt to the circumstance, I think it could be interesting now. I mean, given that Bobby has a huge personality, I would say Tommy is more reserved. But it's not quite the same thing because there are two more modern coaches in events. They don't dress up the way lut used to. You never saw lut in a in a anything but
a coat and tie at the games. Bill, you know, you might have had a tie on, but it was always untucked around his neck and hanging from the waist or whatever.
I don't know.
I can see Bobby slapping the floor then hurting his back.
You know, the discussion would have to be very tight because they have to be approved by both sides. You know you're not making me look good. I'm sure you developed a nice friendship with them too, because you were doing this for them and you spent a lot of time with him.
I did, I did, and and when when Bill, I don't know whether he still does color commentator comments terry for anybody, but when he used to come to to McHale for games, when he was doing color on the on the radio and television shows, I would always go down and say hello to him and chat briefly. Uh, because we did maintain that and you know, loud of course.
I mean he went through a number of different circumstances late in life when he he was not well and and and so on, and he always remembered being always was very kind and and that sort of thing. But but yeah, it was it was a pleasure, and it was I don't know, And you know, I was in the advertise business on the agency side for sixteen years and I did a lot of things that I'm quite happy about. I think this, this group of commercials is probably the best I ever did.
So when we Mike Fedder and I did the Lutosen camp in the first years and Loot was still around twenty seventeen eighteen, we played those, we played those commercials because some of the people had not seen them yet. You know, they're like you said that, Tim, They're on YouTube. So you know, we had the airport, you know, they got to get to a game quickly, and you know, Freder was the pilot and some and some of those
ones and some fast fantastic ones. But you you did about twenty one of them or thirty thirty of them, holy almost.
Almost thirty of them.
Some of them actually, I don't think one of.
Them ever aired. In two son it might have aired in Phoenix.
There was one day where we shot up at a ghost town outside of Phoenix, north of Phoenix, and the premise was that Bill was already ran out of gas and had to try to get a credit card you somewhere, But it was it was a ghost town's circumstance, and it was I don't think it ever ran statewide. But the reason I remember that particular shot was I took
the coaches up there. They would drive with me to the shoot wherever it was, so Luke and I would stay at a hotel and then we'd go pick up Bill at his house and drive where we were going to go. Well, that day I picked him both up and we were on our way up to up to the shoote which was up of I seventeen on the way to Flag Stab, were on the way to Prescott and UH and we get off and all the way up there, the two guys are telling Bob Knight stories, one of.
Them because they both and so one of them to say, well, I really.
Ticked him off by doing X did something, and then oh, the other one would top that and say well I did this, and back and forth, and unfortunately I did not have a recorder going and I was trying to drive the car and had I had something to record that I would have a first class book.
Yeah.
Well, Steve, it's hilarious.
I know you have. You have a lot of leadership that you do here in our community.
I'm just curious your view on the state of sports in this in PMA County and city of Tucson. What's your take from thirty years ago, forty years ago to today.
Well, the thing that troubles me quite honestly, I'm not a big fan of NIL. I just I was all in favor of amateur sports. Now, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't have treated college athletes differently than we did, and they deserve certainly more support than they were.
Given early on.
But what we've got now is essentially minor leagues, and with the with the transfer portal, and not only for players, but for coaches, UH and and uh and the NIL. I mean, I heard the other day that we had recruited somewhere at the university, had recruited.
A volleyball player from San Diego.
Who in high school was already making six figures. So I just think it's it's it's a different world in many ways, but it really is really tough on the coaches. Head coaches now they don't even know who they're gonna have next year. Never mind that people might go pro or get hurt or whatever. But I mean, anybody on a roster can be somewhere else, and they apparently go in that regard. So you you've got a whole new deck of cards every year that you have to try to make a playing hand out of.
And I just think the fans suffer for that.
Yeah, no question. They don't get to know them. You know, they're like the athletes. Rent a player, rent a player. Rent Yeah, Steve not good for school spirit, No, no, no, no, Steve. Thanks a bunch was a lot of fun.
I was talking to his tee.
If you're welcome, guys, good DOCU with you.
Yeah, yeah, good, good stuff. We'll take the break, Henry, and come back and maybe talk a little bit more. Maybe take a caller to if you're an Arizona men's basketball fan. You know it's been successful for nearly forty years. Now take a look back at the Ludelsen era in my new book, Lessons from Loot. It was a labor of love through the eyes of twenty five former players, coaches, and friends to give insight to the coach and the man who led them, competed against them, and inspired them.
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This is I on the Ball with Steve Ravera on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Subscribe now to the podcast on the iHeartRadio just search Eye.
On the Ball. Hey, welcome back to myne in the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve vert In with Tim Bentley.
Thank you.
Hello. Henry's back from New York in school helping us on the board. Thank you, Henry. A good conversation with Steve. Anybody want to call remember their best commercials. There's been so many. Thirty I can't remember seeing thirty, but there were some funny ones.
You know.
I was listening to Tim talk and you know, Bob Youker just died. And Bob Buker really had this persona of you know, he was he was a you know, a decent athlete, played pro baseball, but he really parlayed his kind of everyman yeah uh persona into this career.
And Bill Frieder reminds.
Me of that.
Yeah, yeah, very much.
So has that.
You know, he was very talented and smart and a great coach, and I forgot about his gambling endeavors. Yeah, but you know he kind of had that same you know, so you know.
No question, it's funny, You're you're exactly right. I had Bill On maybe eighteen months ago or whatever it was, say, doing the same thing living in San Diego, Delmore. He's the money management and guy plays the stocks and kind of loves numbers. Steve would pay them perfectly.
Yeah, and Steve, Steve had one of the most prominent, biggest advertising agencies in Tucson when he was the president, Steve Lynn and Jeff Nortonson Nortonson Lynn he mentioned it and had all the big accounts, you know, really did a lot of creative work.
Did the others branch off because you know a bunch of those people.
Yeah, many of them we mentioned n Courtney and then others they you know, they're you know, you talk about a coaching family tree, there's an advertising family tree, and Steve Lynn is at the head of one of the branches.
He's a grandfather or a.
Grandfather of any many people that did some time there, learned a lot and then started their own very successful advertising Yeah.
Yeah, okay again if anybody wants to call five two, four, one, six forty, what was your favorite commercial? I wanted to also go. Where was I going to go with this? Oh, we're talking about in Tucson. Being in Tucson, I think off the year, how how we much we enjoy and then we're coming up with a few things what makes Tucson Tucson get the rodeo here in next month? We have the golf tournament coming in late February March.
The GEM Show starts next.
Week, right, Gem Show, Gym Show and on sports, but yes, and then those sports.
And then we have the soccer tournament that fort Los Soccer.
Starts this weekend. Then there's a big volleyball tournament this weekend too. I heard that on the radio. U so people from all over the country and Southwestern coming.
So you know, we were talking about, you know, when when baseball and you know, minor league baseball finally was gone and we have keno. You know, some very smart people, you know pivoted, how can we maximize these of these fields and these facilities and and you know, let's bring people.
You know, there's the World Baseball Classic, and I that.
That's the other one.
I was just gonna mention, you know that that come to Tucson and and those those visit to some people. Hustle trying to get people to to come to Tucson and sports is a great way to do that.
And they're still still trying to build some more stuff out there at Kino and beyond the Mosaic Place.
Or what Mosaic is coming. I think there's about nine thousand pickleball courts coming.
See Tommy he talks about all the time. Just go to his place. Yeah, yeah, and they're they're they're all over the place, and you know, I want to do that, except for my achilles heel doesn't want me to.
My knees just would gripe at me. My knees are yelling at me right now. Think about playing pick a ball?
What was your favorite commercial?
I like the.
One was was Bill Friederd dressed as an elf and have maybe remember that. And my favorite memory is is he was always the name was wrong. Yeah, and you know he's always not denied a credit card, but he just like he Yeah for some like who is this guy? Ludelson was so smooth, you know him and I knew Ludelson in a couple of different ways, and when he walked in the room, you knew he was.
His charisma preceded. I mean he was, he was all of that.
I say this all the time because when people ask me when they're doing stories. He had a regal and towering presence, just a just a dude, like you know, my friends was coming and we'd go out and then he'd show up and whatever.
Yeah, when you forget how tall he was, because he was always standing around the six eight, six nine guys and then he was six four and.
He shook his hands.
Yeah yeah, huge, huge hands, and he had big rings on after he started, you know, and it just he I was at some event he stepped out of a limo and I said, I coach, and he's and you know, you're just in awe of him.
His hand would envelope your Uh. Yeah.
No.
Another favorite one was the oh I just lost it was the airport one. I said, the Flowby one, the credit card you know, hello, mister Wilson, coach. God there was I just lost it. It'll come to me.
So I didn't know that they shot those. It makes sense that they would shoot them in their off season, you know, three or four at a time in one location and just pivot. I mean, that's how we make TV commercials at TMC IS is we we turn, you know, we we're pretty much in one location and we turn you know, twenty, you know, ninety degrees one way, then we turned ninety degrees the next and so it's a different shot each place, and you don't move your camera too far right.
And so I can see that they would do that.
Here was the other one, because I get he's the book this lot time where he's at the barber's and the guy says, so, Freda, we're going to make you the best looking coach in the state.
That's right, I mean, what a good sport.
I know they got paid, and he talked about how much money they got paid, but you know, you really have to be a good sport on Bill's art to play, you know, the slobby guy at.
The loots and he was laughing all the way to the bank.
Sure he did not care, I'm sure, but you have to be really comfortable on yourself. And even said that, Lou said, I'm not dressing up like a right, I don't do that.
I wouldn't Yeah, yeah, no, makes sense.
Uh.
And again to me, those were the good old pies for stuff and access, And you're right, I would. I would when he's when we talked to like I said two weeks ago, I think who would be the perfect for Tommy and Bobby or whomever that to do kind of revisit some commercials.
I think it's you know, we didn't have a chance to ask him, you know, but like he did talk about the state of sports, but I would also ask him, you know, like the state of of advertising and in game experience. You know, he's he's a savvy marketer. You know, what would he do? You know, I think that it's going to take some creative minds like that. You know, there was a Snoop dog ball. I mean those people pivoted.
And then it's an experience around the game. You know, you're having a party and that just happens football game, right, That's that's it, right, And that's and that's what people do. And that's you know you talked about Bill Fader. I mean that's he had a he had a party every night. There was a baseball game in the middle.
You know, he said, it's like when you go to hockey. Yeah, yeah, you know, it happens there's a fight, but you know it happened to.
Be a hockey game broke out yea, yeah, yeah, true.
True again, anybody want to call. I think we have a few more minutes, but four five to four, one, six, seventy four forty. Tomorrow's game noon, so early riser. By the way, I'm not going to be in a studio Monday. It's Martin Luther King Day. So I said, hell with it, I'm not coming in even though it's the day of the championship game.
Well, you need to get a pregame for the championship game.
Yeah, I'm doing going to do it now, Jay and I am not going to make our picks public here today. I don't think we didn't talk, but he did take the lead over me, which was like a shocking, painful.
It's like the first time in like seventeen years that he's taken the lead over.
Well, the first is seventeen weeks probably, but he's got the lead on me by half a game.
I was worried that I was going to gut him because I was. I was running Minnesota. But your Tampa Bay Bucks, they didn't help you out.
Yeah, I need a Tempa Bayta well, and I would have easily won this.
But day, so are you going to tell us who you're picking for the national Game?
Are you that's easy? Yeah, I'm taking a hostate. Hosting might have eaten a half. I think it is. Notre Dame could play very well.
I don't know.
I don't Notre Dame surprised me last time, so you never know. I mean, yeah, it'll be fun to watch. And you know, I really love you know, especially these kids. You know, I coached high school and then you watch kids. You know, ninety five ninety nine percent of those kids on the field probably aren't going to play pro football. Yeah, so this is it, you know, this is their moment, and I get chills thinking about that for those kids.
Yeah, no, no, you start getting paid. Good, good for them.
But hey, I you know, I hope, I hope you're getting paid.
I know you're getting paid, and I just I hope they have some some valuable people or some good people behind them giving valuable advice.
What would you what would you think? I know you probably don't know enough about the topic, but what would you think people or players like this should be paid paid to get paid? You know? One point five one hundred thousand thousand.
Well, you know, so the question is do you get paid on uh?
Is it A?
Is it A is a uniform salary for the entire team? So is it starting five mikes a million?
That's the whole problem.
You know, what if I that's if I get.
Benched and now I'm in the I'm an a player rotation, that's a problem.
And you know, Tim, Tim, if you have some dude who's a right guard not getting paid as much as left guard and the tackle and then the quarterbacks making this because I have to make holes for him to run in or to pass over. I don't know. The human human element is part of this.
Well, you know, people talk about how it's the minor league, and it's it's you know people, you're gonna have to get used to it.
But there's still eighteen nineteen twenty year old kids.
You're not Actually my question too how much?
How much two hundred and fifty thousand dollars each?
Yeah?
Wow?
And then as you imagined, and then it's incentive based if if you know, if we make well you know.
What you're bringing that done. I'm sorry interrupt, but I want to say this. Yeah, I think that's what the it's going to be in the ball work for the twenty million dollars. Sure, it's going to be about two hundred thousand.
And I read today that there's a ruling that Title nine is going to have some impact on this.
You know.
So it's the money that's being spent is called student aid. And I haven't done a lot of research on it, but I did a little reading and it looks like there's an initial ruling that Title nine, which is a isn't an equality thing that's been around since, you know, probably fifty years close to it, might apply to this way money. Is that you equal distribution.
Which would be great for the women's sports.
And I'm an advocate for that. I think that wow. And I'm an advocate for women's sports and then a minor sports too. You know, the cross country kids, you know, they're they're helping your GPA too, sure, and they're working just they're representing university just as hard.
You know, the football team is outside they have eighty five ninety.
Guys, sure, and they but they do bring in the revenue.
They sure do. But do they bring in the prestige all the time?
You know, well, no, because if they're not any good, they don't, let's go. We gotta go. Hendry giving the nod. Henry's giving the nod. He's the boss today. Let's toe and come back. You gotta breaking news for us? Yeah.
Cool,