This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Fox Sports fourteen fifty powered by Nova Insurance Services Ensure your most Prized possessionets.
Hey, good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to I on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera. I'm in today with Dave Silver and we've got Kobe at the guest here waiting for phone calls and stuff like that. Dave, how are you doing well?
Doing okay?
How are you okay? Okay? Would you rather be inside than outside where it's going to start get hot?
Yeah?
What was it like ninety five when I walked in? So it feels good to be in a little air conditioning?
Yeah, a little windy too.
Yeah?
You collergic to damn yellow? I think I might be.
You know, I usually start to feel at this time of year, usually when the temperature gets really super hot. That's kind of when I start to get sick. Oh, dude, when it kind of goes from coolist to hot. So we'll see if I can get through these next couple of months.
Well, you have a suit of fit, give it to me so I can fall asleep during the show. Okay, it might be for a better show. Hey, a lot of things going on. Obviously. Let's say today we're gonna talk about soccer FC Tucson on John Perlman. We'll ask him what the hell is he up to and what's he doing now with the titles that he has. I'm not sure I thought he was the president of the of the team. He might be doing other things now. Yeah.
Uh.
And then at the four seventeen hour, we didn't put it on social because we didn't have it at the time. We're gonna have hal you and Morales talking about a variety of things high school sports as we running down the season with just about a few weeks left.
Yeah, all a playoff should be starting here pretty soon, I guess mhm.
And I'm sure Kobe will have some breaking news. We might impede on that breaking news if we run out of things to talk about. But someone asked me yesterday or the day before, because all these guys are coming back, right, Jade and Bradley awaka Crevous and there was one more still so so they're signing, they're sending these things out right, they're signed, they're signed.
Has re signed everything everything that we're seeing.
What social, what do you think I'm guessing there must be some nil involved there.
I don't know, but I've never never heard that before.
Usually it was just they're coming back, or you know, they're they're not going pro or they're whatever.
It's been framed.
Right. So, like I said yesterday on Facebook, Saise, I'll be back tomorrow if God allows me to. Did you resigned to come back tomorrow? I didn't sign anything hothfully, you know what he asked me to. I'm afraid to sign stuff now, so I asked, I asked the powers that be at UA, what does that all mean? So
here's the response. Just now, I mean, within the last six seven minutes, they are signing agreements related to revenue sharing in parentheses with the contingency that the House resettlement is approved, and implement WOW or financial aid agreements for the upcoming year related to their scholarships. So it's one or the other.
Because the scholarships, if I'm not mistaken, they're year to year, right, you know, so everybody thinks, oh, they're going to get a full ride, but it's basically I'm pretty sure it's just year to year. The way it's worked out, especially in athletics, that's how it wasn't the good old days, right?
Who knows these are not good?
I don't know if it's insane, but it used to be that way, right.
But yeah, when it comes to that house settlement too, I'm sure you know, they probably have a figure that they're looking at that they know they're going to get and they sign it.
Sure, sure, and they're complaining that in addition to the NIL without him mentioning the n L.
Right.
So, and that's the key, because I'm sure the guys that are coming back aren't coming back for free, right or for a little pitton A lot of and.
The guys that they're going to try to get or you know, to transfer, even even the Harvard kid from South Point, he probably he's getting something to come in here, and maybe he wasn't even getting anything at Harvard.
Who knows, right, I don't, Yeah, probably not, don't.
They don't have athletics scholarships right in the IVY League.
They're not going to have anything there now at Harvard given the still be okay, no, but but the political yeah, I think they'll be okay, Okay, that's what that's their present fifty.
Six billion dollar endownment.
Oh that's true.
Arizona's is like barely one.
Okay, man, we live in a weird time. Yes, but that's for another day on another show. Uh So, anybody want to call, please do five two o four one, six, seventy four forty. We'll take your call. Talk a lot about a lot of different things. It looks like we'll let for we'll let Kobe break the news. But the women's team did get a player today or recently, yep, from somewhere, So that's good. You could tell that she's already, as they say, on the ground running a couple of
days after her press convererence. What did you think of that? Did you watch it?
I did watch it. You know, she was she was impressive.
She was she's polished, she's got a strong message, she's got a good personality. She kind of, you know, didn't shy away from saying that she got a lot of work to do. It's basically starting from scratch, and you know, she kind of like turned everyone to listen. I got a good move and I gotta I gotta get out and go. I know she showed up at one of the baseball games over the weekend, so she maybe didn't
go immediately. But I'm sure you know she's already already making phone calls and zooms and however these things are worked out.
You know, she probably has a lot of people calling her.
So let me ask you in the business that you were in forever? Uh, in the media business? Have you in? This might be just a question that you would not have to know at the top of your head. So have you ever seen one of these press conferences where it just failed, you know, because you always get a new person. Oh, they were pretty impressive. Oh they won the news conference exactly, That's exactly. I don't think I can ever remember one. I'll tell you one that just
came to my one. Well, were you at summons? Did you see someonings?
I was not there.
He was okay, he he was okay. I couldn't tell he didn't want to be here, but he was going to cast a check or whatever. That was kind of the prettylude to what happened to him. But I'm gonna say herm harn herm, herm a issue, HERM Edwards, HERM Edwards. Yeah, because he took some questions that were kind of strange, just very strange, and you know, the devil's digestics, is you believe in the devil? You know? It was kind of very odd. Yeah, but it was just odd to me.
Maybe he won the press commerce, but it was kind of what what are you from? I don't know.
And the way that thing ended too, I don't know. I don't know. Usually, you know, usually the coaches earlier, polished and sure.
Know how to answer these questions, kind of know what to expect, and sure, you know, there usually isn't any you know, real, you know, out of the world type question that they're going to get thrown at them anyway.
Sure, it's mostly softball questions blah blah blah. So uh, I think my point is, uh, when you when people are DEAs leaving, oh man, the world is gonna end, who are you going to get? Yeah, those were always kind of like not really true, because you're gonna find somebody. Yeah, you're gonna find when somebody that's very capable of filling in or fitting in. Yeah, every place.
Well, I mean we were talking I think I was here exactly a week ago. We had Joan Bavasini. We were talking to her about that, and I don't I don't think Becky had been hired yet No, maybe the next day it was.
It was Wednesday, the two days later.
Yeah, so you know, we were talking about that and how every athleticor editor, every athletic director has a list of candidates for just about every job that's out there. So she probably had this list and yeah, you know, called her friends and called around and said, should I, you know, pursue this. And from what I was reading, there was like some other people involved. Maybe Sam Thomas might have been involved, some other people involved around the women's program.
In the part of the process.
Yeah, okay, Yeah, there was kind of a collective group of people who were, you know, instrumental in making the final call or at least the recommendations. And that she either went to go see her in person or did things over zoom. You know, who knows how things go these days?
Right right? Where did you see that? Where do you think you see that? Saw that?
I just made it up? No, I'm just it's not somewhere.
Okay, because I didn't read that.
It.
I just read a little. I read. I saw the press conversion as you did. I read Michael Epps's story on it. I thought that was done well. I would have written a lot like he did you know how impressive she was and where she's been and yeah, kind of where she has to kind of start and do this thing all over again. But no, I didn't see that, which you know they're going to have a committee, right you can ask people what do you think? What do you think?
Yeah, well, I mean I think I guess the biggest question just is, you know, she's not really other than her college as a player at Louisville, you know, really has not been at this level of basketball or certainly as a head coach or anything like that.
So it's going to be an adjustment for her to see how she can do the way.
Do you do you believe that? I mean, and I say that because you were in a situation like this, you know it's there are stages, and I'd like to say, and this is just an analogy, not anything specific to women's coaching or my job at your job. So you do you ever go to the dog track? I did once a couple of times. A dogs be dogs, he dogs, and if you see dogs do really well, they get moved up to the dogs and the vice person. So when you were at Santa Luis, what'd you come before her?
Silence abs.
Were you ready for this jump?
Probably not really.
Oh you're a bad example. That screw that.
I thought, well, I thought I was good enough of doing the on air stuff and in terms of covering things I never had covered, you know, Pac ten or whatever it was.
I but you were capable. You were you were.
You were able to go in and do interviews. Yeah, yeah, you knew the job. I was a little bit intimidated.
Okay, but you may have been that. But were you good enough to do the job?
Oh?
Yeah? And that's kind of my point. Whether you're at the middle level, lower level and you're going to move up, it's it's, at the end of the day, the same game, coaching the same way. Yeah, and well, well he's not going to he or she's going to struggle as they move up, You're you're still the same coach. Yeah.
The only thing I was thinking of, too, is just maybe her connections and trying to get new players, because as you know, she's starting from zero, you know, so, and that's where maybe, you know, are these women who were out there thinking about going to Arizona. I have no idea who this coach is. I don't know who she is, sure where she came from. I don't know where. You know, Buffalo is well, and that might be a little bit of a hardship his first year.
So people like that say, well, do they have West coast connections? Do they have these coast connections? But if also you're a personable coach and you know how to recruit, you should be able to do that anywhere in the country. It's not the world. It's like Tommy for all his his life, he was an assistant coach, right, and people are thinking, well, how did you get to handle the Everything turned out to be okay.
Yeah, let's I think the fact now that Arizona's in a different conference where the geography is, you know pretty much what it's almost like the middle part of the country, the Southwest and the Rockies. You know, she's gonna and she's coming from New York or Louisville, so she's kind of got a little Midwestern ties. I'm you know, they all know each other, sure, and you know she's gonna have friends who are gonna recommend players to her and things like that.
Well, I'll give you this and this is what I know because I know basketball fairly decently decently. Uh So loot when he went recruiting when he first got here. What are you thinking? What do you what are people thinking? Well, he had West Coast ties because he coached the Lung Beach College and then he went to Iowa obviously in other places, so he had these connections. But what what did he have that he had that he could recruit? He had him, right, he had him, and then success.
Well that's probably a bad example, but even like Dick told me he was at Hawaii, he had him just and then parents will saying I want my son to play for that guy.
Guy.
Yeah.
I mean again, they're gonna have to get to know her, and they're gonna she's gonna have to get out there around the country.
You know, I don't even.
Know these days where they're if there's like camps or AAU events and things like that, she's gonna have to show up now. And you know Las Vegas is a big place for the for the guys in the summertime.
Well, here's your thing. Now they have the portal. I mean, they can hunt and pick and and find and both are both men and women. What do we need? Okay with this guy does this and blah blah, blah. I'm sure that's how they found Delorso a waka and all these guys, because oh, that guy had a great tournament. This is who he would going to the Big twelve. He'd be perfect, rough and tumble with a waka. You know what I'm saying, You need a shooter, where can we find?
Oh, just kid, I'm sure she's doing the same thing. There's a list of how many five foot six, you know, shooting guards around out there, and there's probably one hundred of them. Yeah and yeah, she's gonna have to try to figure it out. And you know, whatever the financial situation might be in Arizona, how that's going to play. And then her personality and you know it's going to
be good. She's got a good personality. I'm sure she's gould be impressive to the parents exactly, to whoever needs to make those decisions.
Yeah, exactly. So it's all about that personality, willing to win, winning over the parents, winning over the kids. It's it's basketball. Well, he doesn't haven't coached at this level before. I think that's second. That's low on the list, because if you can coach, if you could do TV Sima Luis Obispo.
That's true.
You could do TV in Tucson, Arizona does it, and you can probably do that in New York. It's just different.
Just never got that chance, nor did you want to. Well maybe you did a little, who knows, but you're right. You're right, though, I don't know. I just there's always been that, you know, experience factor too. I mean she's thirty five, she's young. You know, how is she going to do if someone like Gino or Ama is going after the same player kind of thing.
Lose?
I mean, Tera is gone, so they don't have to compete with her. But the u c L a USC teams are pretty darn good right now. So she's got that to competing.
And you're also not competing against you know, you're you're competing against the legacy. Yeah, you know you're competing against Oh really, it's like Arizona. Why do you think Arizona's has been so successful? Everyone? The perception is at the basketball school? Yeah, uh, how do you think Sean and he came in and he you know, Xavier, well he never coach at this level. But it's a basketball school. It's a pretty decent place to live, and it's a
basketball school and they get people to the NBA. Yeah h do they now not as much, but they still have that reputation. Hell, people believe it's a blue blood.
Well, and the women's the games are on TV, you know, things like that, even if it's the ESPN plus, you can watch your daughter or you know, your friends play everywhere all the time, so there's that exposure is going to be there too. So you know, you get a player from Florida and the parents are like, oh, I'll never get to see my daughter play. Well, yeah, she's to be on TV every game. You can pretty much see your Okay, let's go to break here. Get ahold of Jonathan Prowlman with FC two soon and.
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Streaming live on the iHeartRadio app. This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Fox Sports fourteen fifty.
Hey, welcome back to I on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera. In today with me is Dave Silver Now on the phone. We help Jonathan Perlman of FC Tucson on Jonathan, how you doing?
How you doing?
We're doing? Okay. Basketball season's over. Football season is almost over. I got started well football with the spring spring stuff.
Okay, and then it's always going. We got players coming in. We're waiting to see who's leaving still. I mean, it's exciting times.
Jonathan, worry about FC two sound, don't relax about the NIL deal. That's we can't control that. We can't worry about that unless you have money in your pocket that you can give to the NIL.
Listen. I think everybody's been asked for it, so I don't think why I should. Hey, aren't you small business? No? Thank you?
Oh that's right. Are you glad you're not part of that stuff?
Well, it's really to be honesty. We're really actually we are. People do ask coming here if there's if there's money to be had for coming here. It's not. It's everywhere now, and players are asking what they can do to earn money, you know, from side deals for social media and things like that. It's it's just part of the fabric. I mean, I don't really find again, I think it's what happens when some of the it's a great overcorrection, I guess,
is what you say. And I think it'll get done in a way where it's.
A lot more thoughtful.
I've heard some thoughtful ideas caps, you know, contracts that go multiple years. I've heard some really cool things. And again it will There are soccer players that do get you know, twenty thirty thousand, but not like the numbers are getting for revenue generating sports.
Yeah, so your season starts soon, right, how things?
How things progressing for that.
Fantastic? You know, our roster has been built, were slowly announcing the players. We have our season take holder at sponsors party this Friday at Corbetts. But again we open on May third with our sort of community celebration where we play a selection on Tucson, which is some of the top men's league players in Tucson, a lot of former some former FC two sound players, some younger players from the UH from the from the one A WAT
to a league in the Tucson Metro League. And it's a great celebration with fireworks and we're really excited about that. Matt's but yeah, we kick off as in defense of our Western Conference Championship, and you know, expectations are always high. You know, in the last year, we in the last two years as we were returned to USL two, we were we lost one game and twenty three who went all the way to the National semi finals, and twenty four.
So obviously, you know, coach Benada is put together another team that we think can make a deep run. But it starts with playing well on your opener and establishing those relationship quickly, which is a big part of you know USL League two ball. You have to put your players together with your local superstars and the guys coming in and we have players some all kinds of different countries on the team, so making that chemistry is what
really step has got a gift for. And we're really just incredibly excited for the team we have coming in.
How long have you been involved with SG two, so I asked for a reason.
Yeah, since twenty eleven. Is really sort of the inception when we played the first you know match at High Corbett when we had supporting Kansas City played the Red Bulls and we played the Red Bulls reserves actually, and that was twenty eleven.
So what I wanted to ask is how far have you come along with this?
I mean, when I guess that's very open, how far have I come along as a coach, as a human being.
With the with the FC two. So because you've you've transformed to into a lot of different things. But I'm sure you're very pleased with what's going on now.
So now we're we're incredibly pleased. I mean, I think what this was always about was to help us, you know, put Tucson on the map for soccer in a number of different ways. We've been part of, you know, the development of fields. We've been part of the development of lots of players. We've had on our USL two team, a national team captain. We've had a Tucson player played twelve years in the MLS. We've had our own players,
you know. You know this last week and Danny Musaski twenty seventeen players scored for the Sounders and got engaged in the same week. There's just so many personal moments. But as a company, you know, we've really we've really put ourselves, you know, back in a really great place here and you know, as we head towards the twenty twenty six World Cup, it's really positioning ourselves in that
final move. We really want to return to professional soccer, but until we're able to do that thoughtfully, we are just really players. We have such a great partnership with SCTs on Youth and we're producing top collegiate players there. We work with PEMA College, we work with the u of A. We have so many different sports, you know, interns that are able to develop using us as sort of an incubator for their skill sets. And we have
people working in sports all across the NBA, MLB, the Olympics, FEFA. Now. So I mean we're just we're just happy with what we've done. I mean, we're really satisfied, but unsatisfied all the time. I mean, we obviously want to win a national championship. We want to return to the pros, and we want to make sure that people remember Tucson as a place that you know, produces great soccer and great people and put you know, just have people come here
and visit. And that's just what we've always done and we're going to continue doing that.
One question I always had is just kind of watching soccer, you know, as a dad and as a fan and things like that, and in Arizona. Is why why is MLS not in Phoenix? Why are they not in Maricopa County someplace?
I think that's an incredibly good question. I think the as we've gotten through sort of the conversations that I've been privy to, the biggest part is having it is you have to have a stadium that is climate controlled, with an ownership group that is willing to invest in a climate controlled stadium. So I think one would think that the most logical position would be an NFL owner.
That's what's happened in other markets. You know, you're talking Arthur Blank, You're talking obviously the Craft family in New England. So I mean, I don't know if that's an interest for we have a stadium that hosts, you know, world class games. We didn't bid for the World Cup, which I thought was shocking to me, and we don't have games being played in the World Cup. But I mean, again,
that's really a climate controlled team. Obviously, Phoenix is maybe eleventh in terms of a TV mark, in terms of populace, it's it's it's obviously on their target list, but you just haven't found the ownership group or maybe the situation in some places have shot ahead of them with very aggressive ownership groups, like we saw in San Diego with the new team there, and obviously Las Vegas has been
popping out there. But Phoenix Las Vegas have been obviously a part where people think that two of the next teams could come from there. And really Don Garbage it never shows his hand too early. But again I think that there's it's to me, it's probably not if it's it's not if it's when, And I couldn't speak to that exact moment.
What set us up for this upcoming seat and what do you guys like, what do you guys have?
We've got strong returners from Tucson obviously, we have to all Americans from Tucson, and DeAndre Pickett and Ismael Garcia from Pima who took PEMA all the way to the national tournament. We have Diego Valis who plays right back for Grant Canyon. In terms of local players, and there are Brandon Santez who's also played at Pima, was an All American headed to TSCU Pubo who's a national powerhouse
at Division two. And then a slew of players you know from various top programs across the country with a variety of nationalgis. We've got Brazilian, Colombian, German, you name it, we have a player from that country and they're all time tested from coaches that we trust, that we believe in, that have told us that these players are are key members of their teams and are really able to produce them.
We've picked off a couple of star players from a rival teams as well, which is always great to do so hopefully that the chemistry will come through the way we want to. And obviously amongst them, we have our youth players in the training group there so they'll be ready to be part of the team when they're ready
to to become college players and move up. And we're obviously, you know, some young players in our academy that are finishing out their academy careers that we think will be great, like of course, you know, you know Gonzales who broke every high school scoring record. So I mean, for us, it's really critical that we developed players here locally, but we put them with players from across the country and
they're going to challenge them and help them grow. And I think there was most evident with DeAndre Pickett, who now plays in the ACC for cal and there's no bigger soccer conference in that in the country.
When you talk youth academies, what age group are we talking about when they can get started.
Yeah, So obviously FCTWO Sun has its own youth programming through uh what we also offer. It's from from three years old all the way to nineteen, but we offer a you twenty team, which is aret the best of our youth academy players any age from you would call fifteen to twenty. So it doesn't matter how young you're. Obviously you've seen in the world players competing at sixteen years old, like Wayne Rooney and Email Messi was already making his debut at seventeen at Barcelona and me and
Jamal right now is dominating at seventeen years old. So we don't put in an age cap that the player can handle the environment. We encourage them to do that and so that they play against professional youth teams from across Phoenix, Rising, New Mexico United, al Paso all have USL teams and they participate in that league in the Varsity Academy, which is in constant. Grant who's produced numerous players that are now on the national team are playing the MLS or abroad.
So again for us, you know, it's complete programming. We try to make sure that we do a good job to give these players, you know, an amazing summer in addition to what they're already getting. And obviously we have a great coach in Sebastian Pineda who coaches as well with the U OFA Women and he just does a
tremendous job. And we're really just looking forward to them and our women's team, uh playing the summer and just producing uh great great moments for families and and and great moments on the field like we had last summer.
This is a question that's not related to FC Tucson, but what's your what are your thoughts on the German team going to try to break ground on South in South Tucston.
Yeah, I think again, you know, obviously, you know it's been with that piece of property being sort of I mean, there's lots of challenges that South Tucson has dealt with in terms of obviously the closing of the dog track and what to do with those properties and developers. I'm hopeful for them obviously, I think they'll be you know, a lot of work to do in the in the
in the to develop that piece of property. But again, the more the more places where kids can play and train here is something I'm always going to be behind. I'll I'll always I watch it with great interest. You know, lots of teams like ourselves have partnerships with with the clubs abroad, so we're always open to that. We've had conversations with, you know, clubs in Spain, clubs in Mexico.
We continue to keep those dialogues open to find the best partners for our players, for the best partners for Tucson, who really are invested in the community long term. But yeah, I'm hopeful that that can be something that gets developed, you know, along with the obviously the Mosaic Quarter. But you know, for us, we have a great partnership with
the Stadium District PEMO. We love Keno North, we love where we train and play right now, and when we're ready to grow, we're sort of looking for opportunities where maybe it best suits us to play when we return to professional but we're super happy with our digs right now, and or encourage anyone to try to develop composition and here it only is going to help kids have more opportunities, which is the reason I got onto this in the first place.
So you talked about this, for mentioning this at least twice, about playing professionally at some point realistic, realistically, can that happen anytime soon?
Yeah? I think so. I mean I think for me, you know, I set a goal of, you know, by the end of twenty six having a franchise again. You know, I don't think we'll start playing twenty six, but coming to an agreement and finding a partnership group. I mean, that's the number one goal starting you know, once we hit you know, probably July this summer. I mean, that's
really where I turned my personal focus to. I've been really a strong group of individuals I've mentored to help run the company and allow me to think bigger and bigger ideas. You know how that works if you're stuck in the day to day and you're not able to really you know, have the conversations you want to have with and sort of developed a vision. But I have such an incredible support staff and so many young and talented people that are now with me full time that
I'm really able to do that. So, you know, my goal obviously to have a lot of conversations in the next twelve to fifteen months heading into the World Cup next summer, and then obviously have some some news to produce during that period of time, where I think is going to be a real, real turning point for this country in terms of the growth of the game.
I was gonna say to you mentioned Mosaic Quarter. Is there any soccer plans for the Mosaic Quarter.
Yeah, I think, you know, there's in phase three of the master plan. There's a soccer stadium in a beautiful drawing, and like I always say, I I've seen a lot of beautiful drawings in my time, and that you know, I'm really happy that they're breaking ground. I think it's a wonderful thing for that area and for me. But uh, you know, it will it match the timeline of what we need to do or is that location the perfect location for our team. I think that's yet to be
determined on how that development goes. So again, we had some initial conversations there. Their focus right now is obviously in the first phase and it's obviously a very interesting time in our country in terms of volatility for doing large projects. So I'm really just excited for them. I hope it's going as well as it can go, and
I'm excited for Pema County. But like I said, for us, you know that timeline and what that stadium would actually look like and what the terms of that are obviously are are to be seen more when they than they commit to that piece of the project, if that makes sense.
Yeah. Yeah, So we got a couple of minutes here John refresh us on what to do at the beginning of the season, where to go for tickets, stuff like that.
Incredible, we were still got a season tickets on sale. We've also had a flex packs. We know that people tend to go away in the summer, but the flex pack are a great opportunity if hit our for you to hit our biggest games of the season, the ones that are you know, well known, the Sink of the Mile You're th July are are obviously any games you want to pick, but also of course our fan appreciation Night and then they're on sale at FC two Sun
dot com. And our new ticketing system is amazing. We love it that you if you want to buy a ticket, you don't have to create a membership and try to remember your password. Do you want to do it that way? Do you want to have a memory? I know you guys have been through all this with your ticketmasters and you're so we partnered with a company that it's two clicks and you have your tickets. So we're really excited
about our system that we have with that. And you know, you just got to go to FC two Sun dot com and check out the schedule and see what you like. And obviously we're doing a lot of great things in the community. So you see a lot of camps and clinics for both girls and boys with our women's and men's team, and some of them free. So make sure you're checking out O s C two soon dot com any chance you can.
And thank you guys always.
You especially Steve, You've been such a great supporter. You've been obviously your son was a great goalkeeper to stay champion, and I don't forget these things. And if at any time you want to come by and be the first kick or have any kind of VIP stats, you know, you and any of your guest hosts or new hosts, I'd love that you have Blake on there. He's been a great supporter of us, he's a great personality and what he's doing for Tucson and our partnership with SASPA
is incredible. So we're all doing big things here. But it starts with you promoting. And I love your show. I listened all the time. That's where I get my U of ASEX and really appreciate it.
Well, thank you, appreciate your your checks in the mail. Appreciate it. Thank you, Johnny.
Yeah. And it make sure you buy any excuse many books they're available on Amazon or for free. Or he may not send you a copy, signed copy, even though he claims, who will.
Thank you, Jonathan, don't screw with my.
Jeth Great, all right, thank you, Jonathan.
Jonathan Pelvin, President of FC two Sundays, Donna fantastic over the years, it's been almost fifteen sixteen years. Yeah, let's take a break here and come back. 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. Twenty five chapters for his twenty five years as Arizona's beloved coach. Lessons from Lut is an insight to how he built the prom into a national powerhouse. What one email media Steve dot RIVERA ninety five at gmail dot com.
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Streaming live on the Ihearts Radio WAB. This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Fox Sports fourteen fifty.
Hey, welcome back to I on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera, You're Dave Silver, You're Kobe. Good to talk to Jonathan Ya.
It was good.
Seasons coming up pretty soon, May third at home. They've got i think seven matches at home, so May June July. Good time to get out and watch some soccer.
Good. Yeah, stay cool, stay cool.
Find some places, stay cool.
It's a little it's a little home court advantage, isn't it.
Yeah.
I mean he's got these teams coming in from like, you know, Ventura, California. You know, teams like that that are not used to the desert heat.
But they go to places that are kind of human, aren't they just kind.
Of yeah, their schedules kind of all over. Yeah.
So yeah, no, good good for him.
I know they do good that.
They do a lot, a lot of firework shows, they do a lot of things, a lot of attractions to get peop sure in my and watch.
The old bring them to the ballpark things, right, the old Mike Vader philosophy. You're right right, How we're gonna get him here? Yeah, a lot of stuff, no, which is good, you know, and something to do obviously very inexpensive as well.
Yeah, and good players.
You know, he's talking about players and you know, either had had good high school success here, maybe played at Pima, maybe playing cup club soccer, or the women's players from the U of A coming over and playing there and extending their careers.
And I wish my son would have been able to play, but he left to play call it somewhere else. So yeah, didn't come back. No cool, Okay, take some calls if you want five, two zero, four, one, six, seventy four or forty talk about whatever you'd like to talk about. We've talked about women's sports obviously, now soccer in the way of the world. We'll have some breaking news from Kobe as well with some signings I think in the
women's basketball and the guys coming back. We mentioned that already signing are.
Signing year to year deals, right whatever.
I'm assuming for a lot of money.
I would guess they're gonna they're gonna get a big chunk of that house settlement money from what we understand, and then whatever the nil you know adds on to that.
Well, they're talking about like two hundred thousand dollars each, two hundred thousand dollars each. Do you have any eligibility left? Do I? I take half that for half the thought of it.
Yeah, you know, I'll be I'll be the twelfth guy on the team or whatever, the fifteenth guy on.
These This world is kind of crazy, and a lot of the football players getting chunks. I guess they've been working on a lot of the relanguaging of the contracts because they're gonna have to cut some scholarships make it more tight for football and rosters and things like that, because you can't give one hundred and ten people two hundred thousand, right, and then the women get what they get, right.
And that was probably one of the probably it was one of the stickers with idea that their percentage was going to be very, very small.
What do you think it's going to be at SMU. I mean, I'm sure most of there they drew nothing.
Probably be a same percentage, but more more back money from people who have money. True, you know, the day Silvers of the world will donate to the to the program. No, But I also think though she's got to prove herself first. I mean, they're not just gonna willy nilly and give you money just because I would assume.
Yeah, and you know, her her task is to you know, build up program. It didn't do very well the last couple of years. She's you know, not really walking into the greatest situation. She did that here, Yeah, you know, so we'll see if she can do the same thing. She had the charisma here, she had the you know, the she had the notoriety. People you know, kind of instantly knew who she was. So that didn't hurt.
No, no question, and she hit She hit the target right away. I found success. Uh, you're gonna have w NBA stuff, I'm assuming right.
Yeah.
Yeah, because there's some connections to Arizona on that draft last night. I won't say what, but no, it's how you're teasing me. I can't because you don't know. Okay, No, cool, you have to wait date, hold on, hold your horses day.
Oh.
I saw Ari McDonald re signed today with the LA Sparks. Speaking of UFA women's players still still playing, Yeah, well, she's only like four years removing.
Right now, it seems like she's been around for a long time.
Yeah, well she because we saw her for seven for three and then four down three you know, so, uh and some I saw Sam Thomas on some tea and some photos the last couple of days. You were saying that she may have been part of it. Was there at the news conference, Yeah, that's where I was. But you're saying that she might have been part of the helping of these.
Some of the stories I read was that she may have been involved in the search committee and maybe they asked for her opinion on things or you know, what the players are looking for in a coach kind of thing.
Yeah, no, that's how that would go. And that would be actually a good question. Uh you know what, what what makes a good coach?
Here?
Yeah?
And in today's world, because you don't have there are very few older coaches anymore that are any good. You know, Patino's seventy something sixty nine, I think seventy oh at least, So, you know what I'm saying, those guys are almost ready to get out of the game. And though the younger coaches are starting to come up, you know, the Florida coach obviously Tommy and those guys. You know what I'm saying, So it's a new philosophy because you have to have
the news philosophy. You can't have the old school philosophy. Yeah, you know, with kids stay, especially with them making money.
It's you know, when I think about how the coaches would operate back, you know, even what ten years ago, when they were all worried about going to Vegas or going to these recruiting things during the summer. You know, is that even a priority anymore? Where there's two thousand players in the transfer portal? You know, do you go look that route? Now, well, that's the whole thing.
We talked about this with a lot of the JC guys with the peabodies, the monocos and stuff like that, and now they're trying to get those where you go to JC and you don't lose any exactly legibility.
That's the way it's going to be, right.
So, so no, those guys and the high school kids are going to be kind of shut out because if you if you're a coach, Dave, and you have some issues with trying to fill rosters, where are you going to go first? Yeah, the portal, because you're going to go after a guy that's already been there, done that, and has some experience at that level. Now, I'm kind
of doing the opposite of what I told you. If you're going from San Luis a we's good too and not given it the kids a chance, right, But if you have this kid like Beriz who's a high school feenom, you ain't gonna pass on him.
You don't want to pass on him. And how long is he going to be here?
Right?
You know those guys are maybe short term situations. With the Carter Bryants of the world. You know, we don't know is he gonna come back? Is he going to stay? That's the risk you take and taking a blue ship high school player nowadays where you can go get you know, a couple of transfers who might be able to you know, look look at Tobey and del Arso are going to be here for at least two more two years total for sure.
Yeah. You know, it's funny back in the day, and I can't remember the conversations with lut and them. Do you go after a guy who you know is going to be one year or not and then or go after a more stable three four year guy. And I remember kind of him saying you go after the talent. You go after the talent, because let's share. We talked about this. I think off the air, look at the roster, the returning corps outside of love, right, but you replaced
him with with Cole Pete, Cole Pete. You have the Bery's coming in. You have the Bryant kid, k Lebron and Brons Lebron, Lebron, Lebron's son, and then another one, the Aristonta Aristot. So you have some great group next year, Tommy might have one year window that window doesn't open up greatly like this year. Honestly, Dave, did you think Arizona had a chance to win the national title this year? Okay, exactly, so it was the window open or kind of open, or even of open.
Wah, right.
But next year, if these guys come back, how why does that open? And probably as wide open as you've seen it in a while.
Yeah, I mean if those guys is if the freshmen are as good as advertised. The don't always know that, but yeah, again, they seem to have a little bit of a nucleus coming back, and who knows about Carter Bryant.
But but this is right there, this.
Is super scar he does come back, that window that you better hit that window because that window doesn't come around too often.
Yeah, that window with those kind of players and the freshman coming in, that's a pretty good little, you know group to build around, right for them?
Maybe one year?
Right?
No, No, that could be it, Yeah, because then guess what you have to start all over again.
We made three of those guys take off next year, that's it.
Could be the end of it. And if not, they're thinking, God, if we could just have these guys come back, blah blah blah. Well you can only have that for so many years because it doesn't happen.
Yeah.
Well, if the nil and these in this uh you know, house committee money is as advertised, some of these guys will maybe stick around for an extra year because the money is going to be better in college sure than going to the G League or going you know, right in the first round or in the second round where you're not guaranteed anything.
Yeah, well, it'll help every school, not just here too. So windows of opportunity. It's like Duke will have that window all the time. The Kansas is if they play their cards right now, Florida is going to be an up and coming team Houston's been fantastic. So the Riches, the the uh rich, rich and richer exactly, exactly, and Arizona's trying to become that rich again. It hasn't been rich in a while.
No, but it's still pretty good still top twenty.
Yeah, right right, no, no, no, I won't disagree with that, but there was a point where you top twenty is not the top ten, yeah, and it needs to get back to that point even now. What they started eleven twelve in the beginning of the year something like that, and they finished fifteen, number nine in the top ten, and then he didn't end there. But they like to be realistic and that's why I asked you the question, did you think that that window was doable for the
national title? You didn't think that. I didn't think that. But over the last twenty years, how many times you think that that window was available? Maybe three? A couple of Shawn's teams, maybe a Tommy team when he first got year, and they played out of their mind with the with Shawn's guys and they lost to Houston. I mean, those windows don't happen very often. Yeah, you know, hell, it was one of the ninety seven. That window was not there.
No, there was no window there, No.
No ninety eight. Guess what that window was there?
Yeah?
And how did that go? Right? So have they'll have a as they say, magic luck, no injuries. A lot of things have to go your way, have to happen, The schedule has to break in your favor.
A couple of episodes, especially in the tournament. You know, when you wind up having to play a twelve seed instead of a five seed in one of those kind of games. Things sometimes managed to work them work themselves out.
It happened to you. I think was the one year. I think it was maybe even the rust penalty year.
It was the word.
You know, all of a sudden they get to the sweet sixteen because there was a big upset in the second.
Cleveland State I think, beat the Utah or something like that. Whatever was nextcond on how Arizona's in the sweet sixtees, right, it didn't deserve to be then they got destroyed by Louisville. Yeah yeah and Patino yeah right, right, but you had to sweet sixteen appearance, right, and for a season that was kind of up and down throughout the whole year. Yeah, and they kind of finished strongly. The funny thing about that year is people said, well, Arizona's in a down year.
They got to the sweet sixteen folks with a bunch of assistant coaches pretty much, right, there were assistant coaches to Lot when he left, right, that's right, That's why they were there. So who was that guy, Mike Dunlap. Mike Dunlap part of that group, Mike Dunlap, Russ Penal, Reggie Geary, Reggie as a coach, that's right, And kind of they put that thing together and had this great run with the Chase.
And Nick Wise and Chase Jordan Hill.
Jordan Hill, Chase Button here. Yeah, and pretty good group. Yeah, tough, tough group. At least they got at least they got there. Yeah yeah, yeah, and of course got destroyed by Patino's team. Right, that's like a thirty point game. Yeah, yeah, in Miami. I remember it. Well, Okay, how much time we got about a minute or two? Okay, no, good first hour.
We're going to talk to have you and Morales on the other side after Kobe gives us his breaking news, and then we'll be able to take some more calls.
Talk about a little bit about that series that was announced to today by the U of A Basketball.
Yeah, should be really fun.
Sure, sure they had one twenty five years ago?
Remember that?
Yeah? Do you remember the big game over there?
What happened Lauren Woods blocking?
Ye?
You do?
I do remember that?
Who was the who was the reft that called it? I don't know, bos Richie bia Steros really yeah, the goaltending. There were some great back back ten referees that had reputations for kind of Libby.
Changing games, Dave Libby.
I remember, I remember going back to the book Returner years back in the early eighties.
Yeah, all those guys. Garibaldi was it, big guy? Oh yeah, well I can't remember something like that. Yeah, Okay, we gotta go. We'll come back with Kobe's breaking news.