This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Fox Sports fourteen fifty powered by Nova Insurance Services insure your most prized possessions.
And good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to Eye on the Ball. You're on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera and when me today is holy moldy lookers in today.
Tim Bentley, Oh my gosh, get out of here.
It's been a while.
What is what's been going?
Where have you been? I've been, I've been here.
You haven't seen You've been. I've been listening to you, but I haven't seen you. And I thought I'd better get anywhere. The ghost of Steve Rivera, lay some.
Eyes on you, make sure that things are still good, that you.
Uh well take them to take my pulse inerature.
I didn't work.
I do work at TMC, so I'm uniquely qualified to give medical to give you medical advice to uh.
You're not just a doctor on the radio.
Doctor Bentley. If I'm giving you medical advice, man, you're you're in the world of hurt.
Still, don't you stay over there? Stay with there? Well, you're in the You're in the shoe today better known as the chair.
So you're you're well, yeah, thanks for having me and I've been listening. You've been having some good guests and good shows.
And thank you listening yesterday.
I did well done. I mean it's that was fun. Yeah, that was that was those.
Lots of fun. That was that was interesting.
I always am just amazed at the careers that these athletes have afterwards.
You and you A you A grats you a big time, just like bad ass.
You know things are doing and it's and it's you don't know they're they're in.
This bubble for four or five years here and.
They're basketball players, right, you don't know that they're you don't see them as people sometimes.
No, no, you're spot on, spot on, you don't and you don't you might or may not see the potential when they're nineteen twenty twenty one because you don't get to spend time with them, right, But then they blossom into these people and they're not kids anymore. They're not kids. They're young men and or older men, you know, baffo older men and and uh Lauren Woods is a you know, forty fifty year old dude, very impres I know.
So you know Harvey Mason that you know, you could go down the roster of just successful people and I you know, whether you're playing at a high level at the U of A or you're just participating in sports or some sort of activity in your school career, you know, it really helps you be able roll rounded, you know, just human being in general.
Well, and you know this, and it's just not specifically the football team or basketball team or the major sports. A lot of the great stories are in the other sports. The runners, sure, the softball players, the track and field people.
Well, if you think about it, you know, think about your high school career and how many of the classes that you took you really remember.
You probably don't remember high school.
Yeah, maybe a favorite teacher you remember, yeah, but you remember the fun you had with your friends, either in playing sports or doing an activity or drama or whatever it is. Those are the experiences that create and shape you. Oh yeah, and you know kind of further what you do. You might be a great athlete along the way, but your hopes and dreams.
You who are going to extend beyond your.
Career athletic and then because when you end your career, what do I do next?
Right?
And you know these kids, their career. You know, they're not kids anymore, I said, young men. But you know they get to be thirty two, thirty three, thirty four and they're faced with life decisions.
You know, well, aren't you going through one? Now you don't have to say if you are, you aren't. But but and that's a critical age because it's like you got to have that end game. If you don't have the end game, you're screwed.
Right, And it's you know you Uh, there's a kid that I coached in high school that's a professional runner, you know, and and he's got his eye on the prize for twenty twenty eight for the Olympic Trials. But that's three years away. What do you do when you're thirty five there? But you know, and so it's start to think about what the plans you're laying. And so Lauren Wood's story, I mean, what a cool dude. Man, that guy just had his eye on it.
Man spoke well, and then who would have thought, Okay, here's this actor, dude.
How is he's seven to one and he's writing. I have to write my own stuff so my shows on.
I was gonna ask you, so you've been a while blah blah blah. God, it was just popped into my mind. Endgame, endgame. Well, so you've been You've been a number of places right all over your share career. So like for me, I'm sure you've had an endgame, not because of you, but because of other people. Say sorry to Tim, we're closing, or you know, we're moving a different direction whatever. I don't know, that could be false information for me. The
paper closed fifteen sixteen years ago. Fifteen sixteen years ago. H And so my career, I'm thinking, what the hell am I going to do? Now? This is all I've done the rest of my life, all my life. I was forty five, I'm thinking, crap, I can just say goodbye? What am I gonna do? So I had to kind of reinvent myself.
Well, you pivot, and you know it's one of the things that you learn how.
To do, is you know what a family engage.
I have worked in the media for a long time, and I have worked at stations that have been sold station management change.
They were making it. Hey, here's your rolodex, see you later.
But yeah, yeah, no, we'll let us walk you through the door.
You know we're going to walk you out.
So I think that's you know, I credit sports, but I also kind of create just good people in your life, you know, kind of giving you the skill set to be.
That's it right there, That's it right there. You have to know people, network with people, impressed people. You're in a business. Uh, I'm in a business. Everybody's in a business, whether they handled or not. People business.
Right, you're in the people business.
You're in the storytelling business, whether you're telling the l tour stories or the newspaper stories or telling stories on the radio. You know, you pivot. It's a skill, it's a lifelong skill. You might do it in different ways. And you know, so Lauren Woods is like, hey, I was always drawn to being creative and an actor, and you know, and and you had a chance to grow with you a and then yeah, and we didn't know that, never would have known. Yeah, you know, it's just I
listened to him. I just remembered they were wearing the head.
Bands, the headbands Passenger Creation.
Yeah, and then what a bunch of knucklehead these guys were.
Remember that?
And I was just like, oh, I know, and they just know that they're just goofballs. At twenty you know their kids.
Yeah, have all the answers.
And then to hear him, you know, speak so well and passionately about what he believes in and what he's fired up about.
Right right, has a ha's an foundation. He has a website that gives a t shirts he does in l A now to the homeless groups out there. So good for him. If you guys want to listen to our show and and then then that's that interview was great. I thought the Baffort thing was fun. You know, he called or he I've been trying to reach him and he said I can do today, said somewhere let's go.
Yeah.
Yeah, So a big race for him next week at the Belmont. He has Rodriguez not named after coach Rodriguez, just just and he doesn't name the horses. It's the owners wearing the horses. Uh like Midnight Lout and and Care all these horses that were hot sean right right right, So yeah, he's not the one that's doing it, but they respect him to do that. You know, who else next? Who else next? So so he was on is a
big race next? He was fantastic. Talked about his childhood in Ogallas and his time here at the u A and the Racing Foundation and stuff like that. So if you have to, if you missed it, you'd like to hear it, It's on my Facebook page. Just grab the link and put it in your browser and you can listen to it. It was a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun with that yesterday. Today should be an equal fun day. We're going to get a hold of Joseph Blair. We all know him as JB.
He's in Houston. He's the coach of the Rio Grand Vipers, owner organization under the Houston Rockets. So we'll talk to him about that. What he's up to is helping create a court right the basketball court at the Pellibury area.
I'm excited to talk to him.
He's looking at courts at Palaverty Park over there in Broadway coalb area. He wants to help fund some basketball courts to honor his mom.
He's always doing stuff like that, Judith.
Yeah, and I've been following him and I'm a big, big fan of JB.
He's for since he played here. Yeah, he's a good dude.
Yeah, good dude. Trying to do a lot of stuff for the community here and there and everywhere. Uh, he's you know, played coach and played at the NBA level number of teams in Europe, so well versed. You know, if there's a smart dude, the savvy dude, guess who that is, JB.
You know, and you were we were talking about Lauren.
But I also think that there's a good foundation for a lot of these you know a lot of these U A athletes that stick around and there and there their ambassadors for the team, their ambassador for Tucson, even if they live elsewhere.
You know, they are always.
Advocating for you know, wildcats, bear down, let's go. What can we do to help? And I think the smart coaches and the and the and the savvy coaches here, you know, they bring them in and then it's a legacy.
Yeah, no question. You've been Okay, then.
Things are really good. Just got back from Rocky point O.
Nice.
My wife finished her semesters, not very not very much.
My wife speaks.
So we did good.
And you've got to translated, sit on the beach and relax for a little bit.
And so yeah, pretty good, okay, pretty good.
How about you?
What's going on with you?
Okay? I had surgery last week. I took some time off because the doctor said he can't go to work. I started driving Tuesday, so I started my shows here Wednesday. I'm fine, I'm getting better. And then here just you know, kind of wearing the stuff that they make me wear. You know, let me tell you secret, don't get old. It sucks.
I'm I think I'm one step behind you. Man, it sucks, but you know, I guess it beats the alternative. Well, this is true, you know. I mean, like it's good to see it. Well, it's good to be seen, is what good?
That's the alternative.
It's like, you know, but I mean, I have tape on my shoulder today you can't see it. And and I just got a shot in my foot because I'm an old guy.
And I need some quarts.
I got the juice today in my foot, So I'm all, I'm pretty good.
Yeah, you've seen weak in a burden sie. Have I told you this? So you've seen I've seen him and the two dudes hold them up? My meds was what held me up? Those are the two dudes.
Do you want a pair of sung glasses?
Except mylive I mentioned of my two dudes, right, gotcha? Stay strict to those diets and straight strict to those meds.
Uh.
And that'll explain a lot of things on the show.
I'm ready to go wherever you want to take it.
I'm ready to go.
Well.
JB is going to come on first, and then we're going to talk to Marcus Middleton from the Maccabie Games.
Uh.
They're gonna be downtown DCC soon coming up in a couple weeks in June. In June. Uh, they've hosted it before. They're excited about it. I said, let's come on talk about it.
You know.
One of the things that I Tucson, I don't know the exact name is that the Tucson that's the sports authority, but you know they have a sports Commission and they really are well this is Son doesn't visit to Son, it's on visit to Son now. And and you know, I really like that they're reaching out to you know, all kinds of sports, bringing people in sports, uh, events to m H.
Yeah.
No.
And they're working a lot of projects I have, you know, because what's his name is what's his name? Blake Eagers on my every Wednesday or whatever. And he's part of that with the Southern Arizona tourism, and he's the it's smart baseball and the so many other things it's smart to do.
It's a big part of destination we'll travel is sporting events.
Let me say this to you because you're you've been here on Trusson deserves it. But now they have to prove that they deserve it. That makes any sense, you know, there's there's one thing of winning the championship. Keeping the championships the harder. So you get it and you've been
working hard for it. Now you have to prove that they should deserve to stay because if no one goes, what's the point, right, what's the point of all that work of trying to get a team here at any level, at any level baseball, basketball or whatever, and then oh, great grood for you, Oh I can't go, I want to go, I can't go.
Well, it's it's it's a delicate balance.
I have worked in that side of the of defense on visit Tucson and now that arena and the delicate dance that they do to get teams here and make.
It a valuable product for people to live here.
That's affordable.
You know, people have you know, not a ton of disposable income, so you want it to be a good value.
Well that's what I was going to say. In transition to that kind you can kind of put that translation to freeway football. Okay, it's been here for a one hundred years plus. Okay, now you have a good team or bad team or whatever. But what are they asking to do? Go watch you? And not all the time? Does that happen? It doesn't.
And it's you know and that and people speak with their dollars, they speak with their attendance.
Yes, especially in this town, especially in this You gave me a slight that looks like, yeah, I.
Have been an event planning and management for a long time.
What do you think it is? I mean, Tucson is a late arriving crowd. Uh, if you win, they will come. But there's gotta be some kind of like formula. You know, actually wyz to what the people?
If you figure it out, you're going to make.
A bazillion dollars. That's why I ask.
You know a lot of other cities you go to and they'll talk about, oh they're late registering or you know, their Tucson cat or there's something casual Tucson is.
It has been like that. And since I've been three years that I've been.
Yeah, I've been here thirty seven, thirty eight.
And it's been like that. And it's you know, the back of winter.
They're loyal exactly, but they'll hold a grudge if they fail, you know, or if if they if they go, if they go a cross that's understandable.
Please don't go. I love you, Please don't go. I found somebody.
Better, right, So, Yeah, the work that they do down there is you know, they're doing a lot of quiet work behind the scenes.
Yeah, and it is tough. I mean, Tucson has grown tremendously in my time at the same time as you.
Well, and it's you know, people used to say, hey, you can't do anything in the summertime here. Everybody goes to San Diego. And that's just you know, the cliche around Tucson. It's it's twenty twenty five now and people live here year round.
We have BC.
Yes, you do, because this room is delightfully chilly, delightful.
You didn't you didn't go to my old place.
No, and I it was just it was it wasn't in a goat field over there on the west.
The cemetery I used to do the Silent Cross didn't get out Obviously. I love that place because it started to me here. But yeah, we're studios over there, right. I have been a huge bohemoth of a building.
I have been in there many times.
Yeah, Hey, let's go and then come back and talk to Joseph Blair about what's going on with him and what he's trying to do down here in Tucson. Thanks everybody.
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Streamy Live on the iHeartRadio AP. This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Fox Sports fourteen fifty.
Hey, welcome back to I'm the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera and with be to day is Tim Bentley. Hello, Hello, good you see you Tim. And now on the phone, we have what are you of a hoopster? Hoopstar Joseph Blair. Now they head coach at Rio Grand Valley Vipers. Jib. How are you.
I'm doing excellent. I'm blessed. How you guys doing.
We're doing fine. We're doing fine. You're up to your old tricks, are doing some great stuff for the community. But we'll talk about that in a bit. What you've been up to lately? I know you got to the playoffs of the G League.
Yeah, so we got to the playoffs, lost in the first round unfortunately, but uh, you know, it went on from there. And I'm not sure how much everyone knows about the G League, but every team in the GLA League is kind of like the child of an NBA team. So we are affiliates of the Houston Rockets. So as soon as my season finished, and when I had about four days off, that was right back up with the Rockets.
Run as well.
Yeah, so it keeps me pretty busy. It becomes a long season. Yeah, it becomes a long season. It's kind of divided because we start the season preseason with the Rockets, the entire preseason, through training camp, through everything, and then as soon as my season starts, I go.
We get through the Rockets.
Training camp, preseason games, and then the first rgular season game. Then I branch off and we start our training camp in the G League, and then we go through a little bit and we don't even have a preseason.
We jump right into games.
We did have one kind of friendly game, and then we jump right in the season and then the season finishes, and then right back of the Rockets again to finish their season and then the playoff run. So it becomes a long year of a lot of different devisive you. I guess it's segregated there. But and then it's a great learning experience for me.
I love it.
I love what I do, so it works out wonderfully for me.
Yea question. In fact, I don't know if I've told you the story, but maybe six seven years ago, mister Brazi and Matt Brozie and I were sitting somewhere watching some games and you were out there doing your thing, and he says, you know what, Steve jb Is going to be great at this. I'm thinking, really, why you know? You know, not that I was questioning that. I says, why, he's a communicator. He knows how to communicate to the guys.
He's been there, done that. But what makes him special he knows how to communicate and at this level that's huge.
Yeah, I think honestly, I go back to a lot of what I did when I retired there in Tucson. You know, when I were up for playing basketball. Most people do recognize a lot of things. As you said, a literally to earlier. I was very active in the community, started a couple of nonprofits, served on the board of nonprofits and coaching, in my opinion, is the same as what I was doing before. You try to get a group of people to believe in the same mission, at
the same vision and put their efforts into it. And nonprofits a little bit different because you're asking people of their time or their money to support something that you believe is greater than yourself ask weall is the same way. I'm asking these guys to give their energy and time and I believe was something greater than themselves, something we can't accomplish on our own. That's the same as growing in community. It is the same thing I believe in
growing communitia or a community of a team. We're doing the exact same thing. We're believing in something that's greater than ourselves and we could have accomplish on our own.
I love that.
Excuse me, I love that, JB.
That's you know, helping you know, whether it's an agency or you know, a young athlete get through. What do you personally take away from coaching? You know, like you know your folks are probably in transit back and forth.
What do you personally get from coaching?
What?
What do you look forward to to bring you joy and bring you happiness? There in that coaching realm.
It's the same.
Honestly, I'm probably go maybe this whole conversation, I'll go back to this. It's the same thing as I did in the community. See seeing other people thrive, seeing their collaboration, seeing growth. That's what the biggest thing is for me. I just believe that I've been blessed in my personal life and now I want to bless others as much as possible, and part of that is seeing their growth and development as individuals and players. And that's more or
less the biggest thing for me. You know, I defer all glory to God and to the people around me support me and believe in what we're doing.
So you've never looked better, at least the last time I saw you.
Just to the vegan coach, Oh man, I will die vegan at a very old age.
Don't you.
How's that going? You know, obviously love doing it, but you've been in shape for in this shape for a while.
Yeah.
I mean, it's crazy people ask me what you just asked me was. It's kind of like me asking you how's that meat eating going?
It is me. It is part of who I am, and there's no you know, you view it as a different thing. I do it.
It's just my lifestyle, and you know I I if anything, I would say it's going wonderfully, probably better than yours is.
I'm from Kansas.
I don't think I'm I think I'm legally required to have a you.
Know, but I would like I would you realize? Hold up? First of all, I want to say this, Tim, I'm from Texas, so.
You're not legally anybody can do it exactly exactly.
With that, With that, JB, give me give me three things or two things that I should be eating that would for me. I'm a very picky guy. Tastes good and would be good for me.
I don't know your taste number one, so to tell you what tastes good?
I mean, but I say this, if you eat chicken, you eat chicken, Steve, Yes, Okay. If I boiled chicken and hand it to you, would you like it? I don't know, I don't know, probably not. So what do you do to make it taste good? You put everything that is a plant based thing on top of it to make it taste good. So really, just stop getting fare of the chicken and eat the things that you like the season that and make that chicken in your eyes.
Tast it's good. That's easy. So it's really easy.
What you think, you've just been conditioned to believing that the chicken is a major port of it.
It's probably not the major portion of it. That's just what the goodness sticks to.
Okay, So salads, you're gonna eat a lot of salt and pepper, that is what you Okay, I'm gonna go get a little cheat sheet for people.
It's much easier than what you think.
There's there's tons of you know, broccoli, lagoons beans, black beans, red beans, black eyed peas, or mustard greens, color greens.
There's a spinach.
There's chick peas, a great source of protein, garbanzo beans being the same thing.
Promise.
There's there's a plethora of things that you can eat. So I think that I think that's really to be honest with you, I think that's a cop out with most media to say, well, well I eat well, there's there's more vegetables than there are actually the animals that you're killing.
To eat exactly.
And my wife is is a vegetarian, and and it's you know, really in twenty twenty five, people cater you know, they really want it's an audience and it's a it's a consumer that they don't want to miss. So it's really easy to find options.
For Well, I see that you're like a Twigg. So I can't remember the last time were you. You were in Tucson not too long ago.
Right, Yeah, I was there what last week?
Week? Okay, this week?
Just there for the week.
Yeah, just to promote your your situation or what you're trying to do.
Yeah, just working on this project at the honor of my mom. So I was there just in meetings, trying to hopefully scramble up some donors to help me with to support.
What we're doing.
How do you start that conversation? I mean, obviously I love your mom. I love your relationship with your mom, and you know she's such a cool lady. But what what what started this idea and what threat did you pull wind up here at the park and start this project?
Well, interesting enough, council. Remember Cunningham, Paul Cunningham with the city two Son. He had done somewhat a similar collaboration with Corey Williams. Yeah, out on the Jesse Wuns Park. They redid one of the courts there. It's on a little bit smaller of a scale than what we're doing. But I remember going the ribbon cutting for that that day and I had no clue that Corey was doing it, that the city was doing it thing. And I talked to Paul at the time and said, yea, I would
love to do this as well. And we did one park, how can we do another park? And so I just told him keep an eye on and keep an eye out for when there's another park, and I'd love to do it and put my name on it and do the same thing. Well, time passed, and obviously my accessibility there in Tucson was limited, so it really didn't pan out the way we expected. But fast forward to a bout the year ago, Paul called me and said, hey, I do have a project that might work for you
if you'd like to like to hear about it. I said, well, yeah, because this is a much broader scale. I think that Corey's court has like and nothing against it whatsoever. It's
an amazing court for Jesse. I went to park by the way, there was a cloth covering on it and it's not regulation length or actually, we're building two NBA linked courts side by side with They'll be the only court in Tucson with both the high school line, college and NBA three point line, as well as an NBA lane which NBA length, and it's covered with a metal
covering solar lights on it with the scoreboard. It'll actually be the home court of elementary's there in the community, and three other schools in that area will be using it for different programs as well. But when he brought it to me, I was excited about it. And the one thing I said is that if I'm going to do it, I want to name it after my mom.
I don't need a legacy. I'd rather build a legacy of.
My mother, and I wanted to be the best court as of right now and any park in Tucson. So that's what we're doing, and I've been really fortunate the city of City's jumped in to put a bunch of money in that we're doing the entire park. It's going to be an amazing park when it's all done. I did walk the park last week when I was there. But this court is just homage to my mom, and
this is the way I grew up. I grew up playing on park basketball courts, and for me, I know that number one, it brought me in contact with people I would have never met. It made me the player I am, And it builds community. And these parks in the Tucson air in particular epicenters of those communities is a this isn't out somewhere, it's dead in the middle of a neighborhood, and I'm hoping it becomes a neighborhood draw and I hope it becomes a draw for the city.
Who what are you hoping for from this day forward? What do you need help with?
Fundraising? Fundraising?
The City's put up a lot a lot of money, but on my end, I still need to raise about two und and fifty thousand dollars to get this to see this project through. So anyone that just believes in what I'm doing, even if you're just doing to support my mom and her name and her legacy, I appreciate that as well. But this is a thing that's done
for the community. It's a benefits community, but it also honors the legacy of my mother and just then amazing impact that not only two son have on her, but she tried to have on the two Soon area as well, Juus Blair Courts dot com.
There's a website at Judahblair Courts dot com. You can donate. You click on the donate button, I'll send you to a city site.
You'll go through a couple of continued continue buttons and you'll go down to see Judah BLAIRER Memorial Park or basketball court down there, and you can donate right there. Anything will help. Some people think that I'm not a huge donor, don't worry. Every single dollar helps and gets us to the goal and is much much appreciated by me and all my family.
Is there a quick date that you'd hope to get some of this gun buy to finish.
This well, the ribbon cutting as of right now would be we're setting it for May of next year. Really is built around when the rest of the park will be finished as well. But I will say on my end, I would love to get this money raise or at least a huge portion of it in the next sixty days. Has kind of earn this money on my side, so the city knows that knows that I'm gonna I'm good for it, and they can start the final building processes of the court. So I am hoping that before the
ribbon cutting. The court will be available for the community before that, and then we'll just have the official kind of ground and I want to say groundbreaking, but the ribbon cutting, the official usage in May of twenty twenty six.
That what an inspirational story. I coached high school for a long time, and I love the impact that moms and aunts and those carrying adults have on these kids. And I can see that that happened with your mom. You know, you probably see that with the kids you coach and these young men that you coach, you know, the role of a carrying adult in their life.
What have you seen in that as you coach and work with these kids.
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's it goes one of two ways, quite frankly, and I think this goes as indicative of the times of which we live. It's either a single parent home, or it's a dual parent home, or some quite frankly, or without a parent. And I was fortunate enough to have my mother. I wasn't raised in a dual parent home. It was just my mom raising my brother and I on her own. But she did one hell of a job in my opinion. But my love for the game basketball comes directly from my
mother's love of the game. She wasn't unable to play sports growing up. She had a brother and he played all the sports, but there was no female sports offered at her school. So growing up, even if she could shoot the ball better than him and run faster at him,
she wasn't allowed display those abilities. And I think that's one of the reasons why I see such a proponent now or was there such a proponent for equality in sports When you look at my basketball camps and I'm ran there in Tucson for twenty years, we were always co ed because of the same belief that it's not
right that there can be equality in the sports. But going back to your question, I think that it's it's not not only does it fall just on the parents, in my opinion, to raise these kids, but it also falls on our community as a whole.
Were our community, You know that the I is very true.
It takes a village to raise a child, so especially in these days and times when we in which we live are so much different than when I grew up. Because now we didn't have social media, we'd have all these outside influences. It was literally you had to be in my face to influence me. But right now, there's so many different influences from so many different directions, so many different areas. There's so many and quite a bit of false influences as well, people portraying a life in
which they don't live. And this idea of that our kids have now that they need to live like this and they need to do like this is so it's quite sad, to be honest with you. And it happens also in sports because you see the players that I coach, they see a player in the NBA that's making so much money, they think, okay, well they live like this, so I need to live like that, or I need to pretend as if I live like that. And it
gets in the way of the work. And a lot of times, sadly, people want to they want the job, but they don't want the hustle that comes with the job. They want the glories of being a professional athlete, but don't understand the work it takes to become a professional athlete. They want to get paid to do the work instead of working to get the pay.
Yeah, no question, in fact, in fact, god, I can remember this pretty well. Nineteen ninety had to be some time in nineteen ninety. You can fix the year if you want. Get a press release just from who Jodah Blair, My son Joseh Blair has committed to the University of Arizona.
Who's Who's Mama Blair Man? She's like one heck of a pr agent.
So she well, back in the day, she was that person, and you kinda laughed, right because you probably remember those days.
I mean, my mother, without a doubt, no one will ever even attempt to fight for the biggest fan of Joseph.
Blair award outside of my mother. Everyone knows that. Everyone in Tucson knows that as well.
If you ever said a loader and asked how I was doing, you're also gonna, i mean, how she was doing, You're also going to how I was doing as well. So well, yeah, God blessed me with an amazing mother.
She Speaking of moms, my mom just texted, I'm curious about JB. What he thinks is a secret to a strong board for a nonprofit.
You're we only have a couple of minutes, so sorry, but mom asked a question.
Well, my my answer to that is finding a board that ever one is engaged in the vision of the organization. They have to be engaged in the mission and the vision. They can't just come on board because someone ask them. They have to be on board because they truly believe in what the vision and the mission of the organization is. And then because you'll have people that will just dig their feet in and be in the trenches for something they believe in more so than they would if it's
just something they can throw money at. So it's always a belief in what you're doing. And this kind of goes back to exactly what I said as far as coaching.
You have to believe in it.
You have to believe and you're truly doing something that you can never do on your own. You have to believe that you're a part of something that's greater than yourself. This serves a purpose that will live on way past your lifetime and builds a legacy for the community in which you're serving.
Well, thank you. My mom was already a fan. Now she's a bigger fan. Well, he has away with the woman. He knows what to say. Hey, JB, thanks a bunch for joining us. I also want to say, in addition to your mom, your mom was everywhere. I mean everywhere. I worked at the other station before I moved to here, and she was also. I mean, you go to a basketball game, guess where she Judith, what are you doing?
You was everywhere? And you know that she was everywhere.
What's the website again?
One more time, Judith, Judith Blair courts dot com and uh, just alluding to what you just said. See, my mom loved twusons, She loved the two Sonans, she loved everything about southern Arizona. And I remember she would tell me I just drove around today saying hi to people and go in and pray for him.
So that that was her life. That was my mother. That's and that's exactly why she deserves to be honored in my eyes. Yeah.
Nice, nice, good, great, totally great, good. Okay, JB, thanks a bunch. Good luck on the draft, and good luck next year.
Thank you, fellows, got Jamy be.
Well, thank you. If anybody wants to listen to this tomorrow, if you missed it, well you can tell anybody who missed it. Just go to the website, go to the podcast podcast. Yeah, thanks a bunch of Thanks Timmy, good good question. Thanks Mom. What's your Mom's name, Susan. Susan, Thanks Susan, Thanks Susan. If you're an Arizona Man's basketball fan, you know it's been successful for newly forty years now.
Take a look back at the Ludelson era in my new book, Lessons from the 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. Twenty five chapters for his twenty five years as Arizona's beloved coach. Lessons from newt is an insight to how he built the program into a national powerhouse. Want one, Email me at Steve dot Rivera ninety five at gmail
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Streaming live on the Ihearts Radio while this is Eye on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Fox Sports fourteen fifty.
And welcome back to the mark here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera. In with me today is Tim Bentley. Hello Tim Bentley. You want to say who you represented or just Tim Bentley?
Tim Bentley, I'm the executive director of Communications and Marketing at Tuson Medical Center.
Yes, well, I've been there for eleven or so years.
I've been in Tucson since I moved here as a kid when I was nine or ten in the mid seventies.
Went to Sabino High School Northern Arizona.
Worked in TV and radio for some time, and then worked you know, some nonprofit. I was a high school coach track and cross country at Saint Augustine is still part of that. I am not ill you have you people. So I have a you know, I had a really nice run there. I had, you know, eight or nine years of coaching and and a lot of those kids that I coached.
I was talking to you know, JB about it is. You know a lot of these kids now.
Are thirty two thirty three that I coached as you know, as kids all the way through their senior year, you know, and they're always seeking out advice even though you know, not about running or anything like, hey, coach, I'm getting ready to buy a house, do you think I should get insurance or anything? You know, so life advice and you know, health insurance and and you know that role that coaches and I talked about that caring adult.
You know.
JB's right, it takes a village.
And I would see kids on the coach that I coached on the track and cross country teams, and if they had you know, a you know, a family unit mom and a dad, you know, but many of like JB said, would have a mom, or they'd have a group of aunts or a favorite sixth grade teacher that helped them out really it's it's a village, it's a carrying adult.
It's a caring group of people that have a kid's back, you know.
And JB is the perfect example, you know, uh, you know, a just self determined and you know, self sufficient mom. And it could be any carrying adult that just you know, has your back. And I'd always say to a parent, I said, well, you know, we're not going to make sure that.
They don't fail their test.
You know, they're still going to stumble and fall, but we're going to make sure that they don't do something really dumb.
Yeah.
Yeah, you know that's our job is to make sure they were the bumpers of life.
Right.
Well, you said it earlier. I think with me, uh, high school stuff, uh, you know, not to you you know, what did you learn? What do you remember? Blah blah blah. You do remember your coaches, You do remember your.
Coaches, your friends and your teachers and and those And it's never an impact that you think.
It's always something.
Right, right, you know, I remember I do remember some stuff in chemistry in physics, Uh briefly I would. I can't tell you, eh, and to know all that crap, but I know how it works. So you had twelve teachers from your first grade to twelfth grade.
Well more than that in high school. You know you probably have six. Oh yeah, that's true.
You know.
So let me give you let's say eighteen, just eighteen, how many impacted you? Like, how many do you remember, say.
That the coaches that impacted me? Of the teachers, yeah, yeah, yeah, so probably just one and it's John John Brooks of the eighteen Yeah. I mean I can dig a good percentage. But if he's my favorite teacher, yeah yeah.
No, I'm not criticizing the thing, but wow, you know what you could be right, I could have.
Well, you know, and I had. You know, let me put it this way. I've had teachers that have impacted me at every stage of my life. I had Ruth Solomon, who was a state senator, was my sixth grade teacher, and she taught us about independence and and you know, uh, forming community.
And really being involved in it. So you remember that.
I remember, you know, so probably six or.
Seven that you're one was not a critician. I'm just you know, as I look back, I'm thinking maybe three. I maybe have a hard time rememory if.
You ask, if you say, like, who's your favorite teacher.
You could probably think of two or three quickly, you know, and everybody in the let's listening.
So oh yeah it was mister or missus so and so.
I love them because, you know, and maybe they they said something nice to you about something you wrote, you something you wrote you wrote.
Yeah, so okay, so that's teachers coaches. How many two the impacted you? But of the how many of the how many.
Coaches you have?
Probably six or seven?
Okay, so two good ones. Uh. I asked this up David Adams, and I don't remember how many good coaches did you have? Talking good coaches?
Did you have a couple, you know, I mean, yeah, yeah. But it's to JB's point, it's it's the ones that care, that are invested in your success and you know that that want you to succeed, regardless of what success looks like for you. It doesn't necessarily have to be at the highest level. It's just like, did you run your fastest mind today? Or did you make a starting team or did you make first chair?
Yeah, well here's just coming into my mind now. So I used to play ball. I have had about twelve coaches probably overall baseball, mostly even a little basketball running and all that stuff. Now, as I get older, I'm thinking maybe I've had one or two that were pretty good, pretty good, right, most of them are kind of Even in the little league you have volunteer coaches who kind
of just their son plays and you play. But in high school, I'm not sure there are any good And I'm stilling going to say this when you play baseball. When you play baseball, and I did that a lot, and you're spending a lot of time running, you know, running to get into shape or whatever. You do that Okay, the first week or so, blah blah, did get in shape? If you can continue to run all year or season,
just what you're not doing, you're not playing baseball. How do you get better at playing baseball by playing baseball? For you, as a running coach, what do you get? How do you get better by running?
We run, and then we run some more exactly, That's all. It's different types of running. That's intervals and tempos, but it's still running.
That's my point. I mean, you know, go run five laps or whatever. Elect in baseball, those laps don't mean crap. Go hit more balls, Go hit more balls, because you're not hitting any balls right now. You need to hit balls in the game and in practice. Go you know what I'm saying, You get better by being or doing what you can't do. So I agree with you.
And but I also think that there's some outside skills and it's you know, we often from time to time when play ultimate frisbee, which is running, but it's it's a tough condition it's a it's a conditioning thing, but it's also a teamwork thing. And and so people are throwing frisbees and you have to you know, it's all inclusive thing, boys and girls. And it was a way to encourage, you know, camaraderie and friendship, but also to keep keep you in shape, but also break up the
monotony of running sometimes. You know, as much fun as running is.
True, sure no, and that's the monotony of it. You have to continue and get better, I'm sure you know, you learn have to learn how the frisbee well.
And you know, when I coached, you know, a lot of my kids were three and four sport kids were such a small high school. But you know, I think that there's a lot of skill sets that come out of high school. And you know JB wants to honor his mom because she pushed him.
I was reading the story in the Star.
She went in to play instruments, and you know, I wound up playing basketball and she pivoted like like a good parent or a.
Good coach would say, Hey, where where are your passion?
It's called survival, man, you gotta do what you you know, do you think is the right thing to do. Oh by the way, Uh, we're not gonna have any breaking news on the top of the hour. I'm too old to do that, too tired. But I do have some breaking news. Arizona one three to two, get out of here. Yeah, they'd be a couple. They have to go.
Do they have to win two games out.
Of this or I think you have to win them ball? So now they'll play the winner of Oregon and whoever they play Santa Clara's overday. So now at least they want right three to two so they advance. You just got to win this region, so that's what.
So how many you have to win three games together?
Two? Three, four? Probably four? Just don't lose two games. So now they'll wait for the winner of the organ game. See what happens there if they win, they got one more to win, so three, I guess got you as long as you don't lose two. But they lost. They beat Capuality too, eight three to two. So that's a good thing. And here we go and this this team and the track and field team are the only teams left.
I think the are the the track and field team? Are they at regionals? Are they at national regionals?
Talked about that yesterday. There's a it's a handful that's.
There's a couple of kids that that made that qualified for regionals that can make to nationals.
There's a long jumper and some some hurdlers.
Yeah. Right, So let me ask you, Uh, you've been in this business a long time, your thoughts on Fred Harvey retiring? You know, I'm sure you know you I didn't know, and uh, you know, I know. I'm sure you are friends with him.
Yes, I've met and Fred Harvey's recruited a couple of my athletes and when I was coaching, and and the longevity these days doesn't.
Happen, right, No, he came in at the same time I did thirty eight years ago.
And you know, I to set a legacy and to bring people in like Bernard Lea Gott and other world class athletes to mentor and coach.
You know, that's the legacy that you set. You know, there was a time.
You know, NAU right now is the best distance team in the country.
Why is that?
It's just it's a.
Combination of coaching, altitude, commitment to excellence. You know, when I was there in the.
Eighties, we were okay, but you you in terms of running.
Right, running wise, But u A in the eighties was the number one school.
Everybody came here, yea.
You know with Fred Harvey and Dave Murray, they came here because they could they could achieve excellence.
So is there this is a dumb question because coaches are coaches, but not really And I've said this forever and I put this in the book Coaching matters. Coaching matters if you have a good one, you know, if you have a good and then so, so, what is this guy in northern Arizona who could probably coach anywhere right right? What secret sauce does he have that the others don't have? If I have a bunch of good runners.
He has success. He's put some people in the Olympic Trial.
Oh yeah, But but what what is that success?
He you know, he recognizes his talent and he's nurtured it.
Okay, you know, And so he's brought kids in okay and says, let's we're going to be great, We're going to chase excellent. So he's brought in rather than just one or two good runners, he's brought in, you know, fifteen or sixteen.
Okay. So let me ask you. So this guy, I don't what's his name, you know, Oh, it's mister x X. He went and got a job at Creighton wherever, Tulsa. He'd do the same thing, right, he would?
You know, I often say this, you know, big time uh football and basketball, you go to programs, right if you want to be a good runner, a good you know, tier two athlete, you know, not the big not football, basketball, you go to a coach.
You know.
So you can go to a program and for football and be great. You can go to Oregon. It's always Oregon. You it's always that.
But if you want to be a great runner, you go to coaches.
Yeah, well I think that's the case for a lot of other sports. It totally is.
And it's so it's you know, you go to a coach, because they're going to make you great. So you can go to a Division two school and be a world class runner. You don't have to be at a at a top So.
So what if you're established like Arizona was, how do you lose that? You lose a Day Murry, You.
Lose to Dave Murray.
You and if this guy left and you wouldn't be the same school. You know, the you could be you could be honest.
It'd be okay, and he would be okay because they have the altitude right and that.
He has that benefit to him in addition.
To the older mammoth you know, these to be the great coach, he has that right. And he also had you know, he had elite teams running there. The Hookah elite national team is practicing in flag Staff and so if you're a college runner, you're running against Olympians. You know, the Australian Olympic team is there. So you're getting your butt kicked. You know, you win state in Arizona, you go up to nau You're gonna get your butt kicked by a bunch of Olympians.
But it's going to make it.
You know, good, right, just take a break and come back on the other side,