This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Fox Sports fourteen fifty powered by Nova Insurance Services Insure your most prized possessions.
Heday, Good, up to noon, everybody.
Welcome to I on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera in with me today is have your morales? Mister mister one said, I know, it's the first time ever said your last name on the show. It feels a little bit weird. Rivera always just number one intern Rina Morales.
He said, I know.
We're part of the legal team call us at eight eight eight eight eight eight.
Seven seven hour. This could be. This could be our last show too. What the hell? We never know? You never know, you know.
Hey, good after noon everybody. This is like ad I didn't expect you to be here to tell you truth. I thought I was ready on the board. You christ my dreams man. Sorry, no, no, I'm glad the last time. I'm glad you're here tomorrow, you Chris, We'll be back tomorrow. So uh so, welcome, welcome back. This is yours second second, last, second the last year of years in for the first time as a guest or second time, second time last summer I was here, Okay, and now we have a big show today.
You got some pretty good guests.
Jay Compost, Jay Compost new Mike Mountain football coach. He was at Sabino for a long time. Fourteen years, yeah, three seventeen.
It's like all these guys are best friends, buddies, blah blah blah, beat the crap out of each other and then replace each other.
Yeah, well he was.
He's been a Mica Mountain as an administrator since they opened four or five years ago, and he was there with Pat Nugent, and.
You know, he's he's a coach.
He's always wanted to go back and coach, and now he has his opportunity for a defending state champion. So Mike and Mowin Will we'll have to replace like twenty seven twenty eight seniors, but they have an established coach and they do have some good players coming back, so we'll talk to him about Yeah.
Okay, cool.
And then you said there's something going on there seven on seven. Yeah, the seven on seven's are going on.
The Victory.
Foundation is having their event on Thursday, and I'm sorry Wednesday and Thursday, but tomorrow and Thursday it's a huge, huge thing. They have over thirty schools there. It's over at the keno Quino Southfields. I don't know you want to ever been there to.
Those I don't think I've ever attended an event there, but I've seen it.
It's crazy.
It's got you know, tons of football players parents that the parking lot's packed, so when you're leaving, it takes a well leave. But it's it's one of those growing sports. You know, flag football is in the Olympics. It's not flag football, but it's seven on seven kind of non non tackle, so it's really growing in popularity.
Yeah, you think anybody.
From here locally could be a consideration for the Olympic flag football team. I know the church people, the daughter, yeah, Borgae.
Yeah Forgay's daughter is she's in the running. I think she still has to go through a couple of of uh, you know, uh tryouts and competitions to get there, but she's right there.
Yeah.
Yeah, I saw them play. I guess it was maybe last year's championship on the on the probably whatever it was, it was Webb of espn't you what' you uh? A couple of weeks ago these girls they were like sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.
Whatever they were so damn pretty good.
Yeah, I mean that it's a it's a it's a fun sport. It's it's in high school now that it's gonna be in this year coming up. Yeah, there's some talk about maybe even having boys flag football in the spring.
Well have the NFL, right, NFL is doing that right?
Yeah, I know, I know, well a high schoo level I'm talking about and uh, I know some of the track and field and volley boys while about coaches aren't thrilled about that at the same time. Yeah, but there's there's some possibilities of that happening now, okay, cool, Yeah, okay, So then that that's the three seventeen hour, right at the compost four o'clock hour.
What do you got.
Marcus Contolano a former cell Point and Pima player. He's the one of the organizers of the Old Pueblo Tribe. It's a new semi pro team. He wants to make it kind of like the Savannah Bananas, but also interject some competitiveness baseball in there too.
So we will talk to him about their vision. It's interesting.
Yeah, well semi pro team, here are they gonna pay other teams about outtown.
Yeah, I think they have a some California team, some Phoenix area teams.
When does it started the first time? Here the seventh, which is what is it Saturday the seventh?
So it's been in the works for a while obviously, Yeah, for a couple of months.
Uh.
It's at Reed Park, So it's not like at High Court or or Keno or anything like that out of park Field.
But what are the two sons of wit in this? Is it kind of like below that above that?
Uh, it's it's kind of at the similar level because it's semi pro.
I think the Suarros have.
Players who just finished college and like to do the Division two, Division three n A n A i A levels. Those guys are continuing their careers right after that. This this league with Marcus Marcus is developing, I think as players that have not not played recently or have played recently like a mixture, Okay, yeah, yeah, we'll know more when you talk to him.
Yeah, and that at four seventeen. I mean, we got a wedding going on today, but it's going to be boom boom boom.
Wes Clements. I don't know if you guys watched the telecast this weekend. Well was he the guy? Yeah, because he's been there before, he's done a number of them. Yeah, with Roxy Bernstein, they're there. They make a good combination. It seems like whenever they do an Arizona game, Arizona doesn't lose.
Yeah.
So they did the PACTLL tournament last year, Arizona had that great run and they won all three games this weekend with Bernstein and Clements. He's a uf A guy, All American Hall of Famer. Yeah, played for Jerry Kendall, you know, So he's he's he's got a great opinion about a lot of things.
So he's a good guy to talk to. Okay, and then again everything in Arizona, right. Steve Strong.
Steve Strong nineteen eighty six championship team with Chip Hale a very good catcher. I think he was a leadoff hitter as a catcher. He can confirm that. But that's that's that normal to have a catcher be a lead off hitter. He was that good of a hitter and made things happen, and he was a good athlete.
And he's very much a.
Chip Hail supporter because he was a teammate events. Yeah, so doesn't he have like kids who are pretty good too, didn't he have liked Yeah, he had a son who played football at cell point.
Then that's it, that's it.
Yeah, and he also had a daughter too, who was a pretty good athlete. Ye, I don't imagine, so I remember that with his son, I guess yes, yeah, yeah, okay, okay, cool tomorrow just for you know, Blake, just chimped in. It'll be Blake tomorrow with we have Andy Andy Lopez tomorrow three seventeen, So that'll be fun. We'll get the sertmon of Andy Lopez, which I always enjoy, always come away smarter. The IQ level will raise a lot. Yeah, which Mark, okay.
Coach, whatever you say writing this stuff down, because I don't know what the heck. It's like a replay it so cool, cool, cool, So a little time for people to call him, but so you have a chance to call him now five two zero four one, six seventy four forty we'll have times after after compost or right now in the next five six minutes, right, we've got about six minutestes. Yeah, okay, cool, a lot of stuff going on. We're not gonna have any breaking news, but there is a breaking news.
New York Knicks. The New York Knicks have fired their head coach, Tom Tammy.
Though it makes no sense, but maybe for New York makes perfect sense. It's one of those things you just you kind of figure either they have their guy ready to go, yeah, or the players just didn't want him any round anymore.
And you're building around the players at that.
Point, right, which of course happens all the time, because who calls the shots, the GM and the players, because if the players don't get along or you know, he's not he's not for us, they make they make it known.
Makes no sense, it's I think it's player driven, right, didn't Some of the players were critical after the loss? Oh I don't, I don't remember, But did you see that I heard about in ESPN?
So that could be it. He's he's uh, you know.
They they he's a good coach to get them to where they are, but he's rough around the edges. They probably feel like they can get somebody who can who can relate better with the players.
They haven't been this good since two thousands, Since two thousand and they've made the playoffs for out of his five seasons. Right, it's it's another it'sn't similar to Malone with Denver. You just two years ago you want an NBA championship and now he's out.
Just tells you.
In fact, I was going to touch you and I didn't know you were coming in today. The way of the world, you're as good as your last haircut one and the way of the world is you. You're going into the real world now, right, And it's a it's a doggy dog. You better perform or guess what somebody else behind you is gonna perform for you. Yeah, it's just the way it is. It's a Mark Malone one of the candidates now for the next job.
That's it may be. I would hope.
If you're a Knicks fan, I would hope. So, yeah, it makes perfect sense, makes perfect sense. It doesn't make sense in Phoenix. They've been more than a month or more than a month, right since they've let them go almost two months now, they haven't hired anybody. I guess there's talking to Cleveland. They're down to two assistant coaches from the Cavaliers.
Which makes no sense. Have you ever heard those guys?
No, which is kind of maybe refreshing because it's all a incestuous type of thing where they you know, they get fired here, get a job here, move move around. It's a same bag of people with the same resume. Well, you got fired here, but you're here now and you gotta gotta perform or else. I also think it's one of those things of everyone's looking to the thunder right now, where did their coach come from?
Where did he come from? Exactly? Well, no one knows where. Yeah, and they're young. Everyone knows.
If it comes down to one of these two cavalier assistant head coaches, that's the most people are going to know about them. So you have this maybe lower level tier coach, but then you build the team around it. Yeah, and look where they got the thunder. Well, this is how probably it is too nowadays because you're talking about
the players calling the shots. It's not so much about x's and know, it's about how can you pass the the k D Booker x x X player test because they can either manipulate you or whatever.
You know, like Lebron is Lebron? Who's the coach now Lakers? A long time? Isn't the guy from Duke Yeah? Okay, his buddy.
Right, you got his buddy who you know in the podcast stuff, and I guess he did okay, but you know we still it is okay in my mind because I'm not a Lake fan, but you need to have that kind of the good to go with from the from the stars. Okay, yeah, we'll take him.
He's good to the thunder coach.
I think it's really shake Gill just Alexander because he everything goes through him and the coach is facilitating it.
You know.
It's one of those things where they got a guy there who's going to facilitate and kind of put everybody in place where they're supposed to and they're gonna they're gonna work together, but everything goes through You'll just Alexander. The way he plays. I mean, he's amazing. He's the reason why they're there. So it's funny how the NBA coaches are thought of as these great coaches, and some of them have been, but they've all had some Hall of Fame fremenous players all around them.
Is that something that the Sons should probably do. Get maybe a younger coach or maybe not not so known coach, and then around Devin Booker that's what they're trying to do right in Cleveland. It's not that they're exactly the same, but they have similar type of games.
Right, Well, they're they're at that they're at that level. Right they can't get a name coach because of where they're at. Mark Malone I don't think would go to Phoenix. Uh, even now Thibodeau probably wouldn't go to Phoenix. So they need to get somebody who maybe is a young up and comer and will be a guy that the players will will rally around and and you know, not not
cost so much. It seems like there's so much uh locker room issues nowadays and pro sports that we can really bring a team down that can't happen in anything if.
It comes from the star right and and Katie is so temperamental. I'm not speaking out of my butt if I'm just what he is, uh and you know, the alpha alpha male kind.
Of maybe, But well, the draft's coming up, right and at the end of this month, I believe, so yeah, so look for some changes there. There might be some trades where we might see some different players in Phoenix.
It's supposed to be a wild off season for as far as trades and stuff like signings. Okay, that said, how much you pay attention to the NBA? Me personally, I pay attention you know, win to ten seven and a half. Okay, that's seven and a half more than me.
Exactly. I don't really pay that much of it.
I maybe a two because of Golden State in some of the stuff that you know aks you a guys, which they are very few. Now there's two in the finals. Two in the finals. Yeah, for eleven straight year. Oh by the way, did they get to the one and four in those the last eleven years? You always have to bring that up, Steve, huh, you saw you bring that up in social media too. But you're right, I mean, come on, you'd be proud. Well, your school needs to get to the final four. Hell with this NBA stuff,
what does that get you? No damn thing doesn't. I mean, these people have got their master's degrees now that we're born after the lile you and I well were we were together there in ninety seven, right when they won the title. When they won the title, that's twenty eight years ago. Twenty eight years ago. They've got their degrees and have kids. Yeah, two thousand and one. I don't think there was Bruce, right, it was Bruce either, you know,
Bruce was there, Bruce Russo that's what twenty four years ago. Yeah, the people you're twenty two, yep, twenty two. You hadn't been born yet.
There's an example right now.
But but to your point, and to my point, Arizona blue blood, you got to speak up this radio.
No no, no, I was.
Going to because we we've agreed with this for a long time.
Yeah.
I think since even last summer we said it out loud and we've said it, I guess proudly. If you want to put it that way, Arizona's not a blue blood. Yeah, call in if you disagree.
Phil Johnson said something very profound after they won the championship ninety seven. He said, this may who knows when this will happen again. It may never happen, Oh very much.
Well, you remember what Josh Passner said, Dad, Dad, this is easy. We'll be back more of this. He's admitted that too. You know, because you think you're a freshman, right, what do you know, what do you know? You probably haven't had your first beer or anything else.
Hey, this is great. We could do this a lot. Well, that's josh, yeah, just throw up the business. Yeah, I give a grief about it all the time, you know.
Okay, we got to go and get a hold of mister compost coach composts.
Yes, okay.
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This is I on the Wall on Fox Sports fourteen fifty Want to take part in the show Call up now went five to two oh four one seventy four nights.
Hey, welcome back to why the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen Cookie, I'm Steve Roberta. In with me today is Jabo Morelesquim at the controls now We have an administrator coach. All slash slash ass all these titles from Jay compos at Mike come Ountain.
Coach, How are you, gentlemen, How are you guys doing today? We're doing fine.
Coach. Let me give you a heart hitting question right away. I talked to coaches all over from all over and they're running from coaching. You're diving right back into it. What are you thinking?
You know? Uh, people have asked me that a bunch, especially coming off the fact that you know, coach Nujan left last year. Fortunately no state champ. Nowhere to go but down if you look at it from that perspective. But I'll look at it from that perspective. You know, I'm just appreciative the fact I get this opportunity to
come back into coaching. I enjoyed, you know, taking those first year or two off there from when I left Sabino as a head football coach and just focusing on being an assistant principal and being able to be more involved in the life of my kids who were pretty young at that time. And now it's just a good, good opportunity for me to get back into it here
at Micah where we have a good thing going. Obviously, you know, I've been part of the process of just helping get all of our sporting activities up and running here as the sistant principal in charge of athletics. So it's just it worked out to be a job that was going to work to fit my schedule and being allowed me to still be an assistant principal, and I just couldn't turn it down. And we have a great group of kids who have really embraced me. You know,
as their head coach is one thing. Being the guy at school that has to make sure kids are doing the right things and all those that type of thing. But you know, coming in as a coach, these guys were I don't know if they knew what to expect
that first, but it's been great. I've been with them since January and we've had a lot of great experiences together and we're getting tyter as a team all the time, and that's one of our goals to keep that culture going and having a good program and having a good process for success.
How much did it help to make that this isn't being there in Mica the last four years rather than coming from like another school or being out of out of education and trying to get back in. How much it helped to be there, be be with the players, be with some of the coaches that made you to, you know, make this transition easier for you to decide to come back to coaching.
Well, that's a great, you know, great question. It makes it a lot easier the fact that I know the lay of the land, and you know, I helped hire some of these guys that are here on campus now. And one of the things I did when you know, Pat decided that he wanted to go ahead and make the announcement that he was going to go ahead and step down about a week after the state championship game.
The first thing I did when I had the green light from Nimar, after pad Ha told the players and coaches, is I called every single coach and, uh, just you know, let them know that I had a spot for them on the staff if they wanted to stay, and that I thought they did a fantastic job previously. I had a chance to watch them for you know, four years as we've built this program. So that was good, and a lot of them did stay, and I appreciate that because they didn't have to. I just appreciate the fact
that they put that trust in me. And I brought a few new guys on staffs, and the Molsabino guys came over and are helping us out along with a great group that Pat had assembled. So I think we have a pretty good dynamic team. Obviously, we have Brett Darling, who's an amazing defensive coordinator, the Broils Award winner this year for top assistant coach in the state of Arizona. Richard Sanchez, a long time legendary coach, is our offensive line coach, and you know, he's here just about every
day with us, even in the off season. So we're very fortunate. We have a lot of great coaches besides those two guys in addition, and it takes you know, football is one of those sports you can't just have one or two coaches. You gotta have to have quite a few out there doing a good job and have a lot of depth because you're running three programs at least, so our school we have a freshman team, a JV team,
and a varsity team. We'll have over one hundred and thirty one hundred and forty athletes next year in the program. So it takes a lot. But we have a lot of good people on campus and a lot of support from our community and our administration coach.
I'm not exactly sure how many years you were out of coaching to become the administration a part of it, but you had to have it'ched a time or two to get back in at some point given. And I've said this on the show all the time. With the people I meet who get out and get it that competitors compete or they got to find something to compete with.
Were you like that?
Yeah, like I was saying before, that first year was nice being out. To be honest with you, I've been going fourteen years straight as the head coach, and I got a chance that first year out to go watch Brooks Reed play twice over in Atlanta. I had a chance to go watch Matt Bushman play when he was with BYU, and then Marcus Edwards in the Army and Navy game. So that was fun to be able to
do that stuff during the football season. I normally I couldn't, but you know, as time went on and our own kids got older, it was, you know where I got to the point where I wanted to get back in it. And I always looked at this way, you know, I consider myself a football coach, even though it was not
for eight years. I still felt like I was a football coach at heart, and at the end of the DA football coaches want to coach football, So I definitely want to get back getting through it, and I was very excited about this opportunity and I'm having a lot of fun with it. And that's the biggest thing is I think you should have fun no matter what you do, and if you can do that while you're working, even better.
I understand you're married. She must really love you saying honey, what are you doing? What are you doing?
You know, it's funny if if you'd ask her that when I got out getting back in when the kids were you know, seven years old and three years old,
she would have had a hard time with it. But you know, our oldest is now going into high school next year, so things have changed in terms of she'll not be coming with me and she'll be a swimmer on our swim team, So that part of lines up better for just, you know, moving kids around and letting them be part of activities, but also part of what's going on over here on my co mountain.
You know, fourteen years it's Sabino. I think you went to Forest state championship games, right, came up short than those, But is that another reason why you want to come back because you've tasted it and now you feel like you're at a program that can compete for one and you can get to that mountaintop.
So to speak, Well, you know, when you get into this, I think any coach out there would say that the goal is to win the state championship. And that's definitely a goal of ours. I mean, we have, you know, talked about the fact that those team and football and Tucson is repeated I think since nineteen seventy seventy one, and we lost a lot of great players thirty one seniors.
I believe we graduated our entire offensive line. But you know what, people may not realize that we have some other good players that are coming up in the program. So we feel as though we definitely are going to be in the hunt. I tell the kids this all
the time. Is anybody could say that they want to do it, they want to win it, but are they putting the work in or have they put the work in since the freshman year, really in the weight room and all the things that it takes to as a junior and senior to have an opportunity to be where we're at. I think we have done those things, so yeah, that's the goal, but that's not the main driving force
of me wanting to come back. You know, what I missed most about coaching was the camaraderie with the kids and seeing them go from you know, youngsters to basically grown men by the time they leave the seniors. And then what I really value is some of the relationships I have with my former players that are now you know, husbands and fathers and police officers and former NFL football
players and teachers and coaches themselves. And that's kind of the you know, residual benefit of being in education and being able to maintain some most relationships even in adulthood for some of your foreigner players.
I've had Pat In as a co host of Time just one time after and had him on the show obviously for last season. Is he going to be around or is he gonna let you leave you alone?
You know, Pat, we'd love to have him stay around here at Michael Mountain. But Pat made a tremendous sacrifice the last several years as our coach. I don't know if you know this, but he lives over in Oral Valley.
Yes, he's gonna go.
That drive for him every day was pretty extensive. I mean you're talking about an hour and a half two hours in the vehicle just to get to and from work. So we'd love to have Pat around. We've offered Pat, you know, jobs to stay around and do some things with us. But you know, I think you want to just enjoy that retirement phase and spend more time with the family and just be able to do the things that he wanted wants to do and stay closer to home.
I think he still wants to work, but not the same capacity as you have work of the had football coach.
That makes sense, Okay, makes sense. What's going on?
I guess yeah, that seven on seven is coming up. What tomorrow is a Victory Sports Foundation you guys in that.
Yeah, we play tomorrow as our first actual competition. So we'll play three games tomorrow, one against Mountain View, one against twuson High once again, one against Costa Grande. So we'll be out there at keynote tomorrow and Thursday or big Man will also be out there competing as well.
Yeah, Seven on seven has gone on for a long time. I think last a couple of decades. Right, It's been there for a while, but it seems like the popularity of it has grown because of the flag football and so forth. I mean, what are your thoughts about it? Are are you a proponent of the seven on seven or what are you? What are your thoughts?
If I can ask, and what do you get out of it? I hope to get out of it?
Well, it's two different things that an answer your question. Seven on seven now is a sport of its own, right, it's going to become an Olympic sport. Now there's girls like football that's being played at the high school level in the state of Arizona. So yeah, it's growing a lot in popularity. I can tell you when I got out of coaching, a lot of the kids in the off season didn't do seven on seven. They were playing
other sports or they were just way training. Now a lot of kids going seven on seven teams and compete outside of the normal high school season and kind of stay with that throughout the whole off season. So it's grown. It's become big on a life with it zone. I think if kids enjoy it and they're getting something out of it, then I think it can be a good thing. Yeah, it he relates to high school football and real tackle football.
I think there's there's some value and going to seven on seven that's why we're doing it for a couple of weeks here. But it's not real football in terms of high school tackle, right. So there's some good habits, like you get a lot of reps of your quarterbacks and receivers. Your dB gets some high dbs get high level reps. I don't think it's always good for quarterbacks over the long haul because in real football you don't get four seconds to sit back there with nobody in
your face and throw the ball down the field. I think for linebackers they get a bad habit of wanting to drop first instead of hitting the run fits first. So there's some things you got to work out. That's why we don't go too long with sevens. You know, we'll spend spring football plus these first couple of weeks of summer competing having some fun. It is fun and it's good camaraderie, and we'll go to San Diego State next year with the team, take our alignment with us
and just develop our culture. Right. So that's what this was part of it is the kids having fun, developing some culture and try to keep everybody healthy and get what you can out of it and then move on to real football. So come in the middle of June, we're going to be We're still in the weight room now, but we'll be in the weight room full time and we'll be working on you know, just conditioning and some actual running, our actual football formations that we're run during the season.
Are you still going to keep your administrator role at Malcolm Mountain while you're doing coaching.
I will, Yes, I'll still be the assistant principal. You know, we had a great team over here, and I did this one year at Sabino as well, where I was the head football coach and also the assistant principal. And so it's, you know something you really got to juggle that schedule because there's a lot going on as an administrator and so you know a lot at Sabino where we had a really good team. We have one here with Nimer and Brittany Mattsashino who's our other sust of principals.
She's in charge of curriculum and instruction. You know, they just we work really well together and we balance each other out and we're able to when they need to pick up the slack for me. They can do that and I need to stay for them one when I need to.
Okay, no sounds good coach anything else?
Huh Yeah, I mean what the team loses a lot of players, there were a lot of seniors. I think we're more than twenty five or twenty six, right, you know, the new coach, head coach, but you got a lot of coach, you know, assistant coaches coming in. What are your what are your thoughts about how the talent coming, you know, returning or some new talent that will be able to get you some wins this year coming up?
Yeah, So the biggest thing is we graduated our entire offensive line, and that's you know, an area where it's the most important part of the game in my opinion, is what you can do upfront on both sides of the ball. So, you know, we've got a lot of work to do there. But we have some great kids. I mean, just because some of these guys didn't start last year wasn't because they weren't good. It's because we
had three year stars in front of them. So we got to solidify that and get those guys the experience that they need and the reps and whatnot. But I listen, Number one, nobody's gonna so sorry for us losing, but I think we lost thirty one seniors actually. And number two, we have a lot of good kids in the program that have been working since their freshman year and they understand what it takes him. We got a couple of new kids that have come in that will help us out.
Matter of fact, we have a baseball player on our campus that played football with a freshman at CDO and he's going to come and play with a your elite level athlete. He's a really good baseball player, throws low nineties. So we had a couple of other kids that played basketball and now they're playing some football. We had a couple of transfers in, so you always get some is that kind of sprinkle in And our program was already strong before that, so I just helped. That's a little
bit of depth. So I've got we've all got high expectations for our program. We're not gonna run from that. We're gonna embrace that, and we're just looking forward to get rolling and you know, have a successful season.
You know, one of the things I was gonna ask you because of the replacements. Uh, it's tough to get there, right, to get to the top, but it's even harder to stay there. But I think the experience that you've gotten or you know you're going to see is that they know how to win, you know how to win in their winners.
So that will probably help. It will help you know you're right. These kids are winners.
You know.
You look at Roley, Carson, Broden Schmidt, h two guys that were juniors last year seniors this year. Is those guys are proven winners, and there's a lot of other guys around them that are as well. And those are guys you never heard of before that are going to have years that you'll know about them, you know, a couple weeks into the season to go hear their names quite a bit. So all that being said, you know it's time for the new group to to step up.
Coach Nugenet laid an amazing foundation for this program. Coach Darling who's been here since the very beginning as well. And so this is not just like one person that you know is the result of all the success is a combination of all the parts coming together and working together, you'd be able to get this going. So we're gonna miss Coach Newson. He's a fantastic coach and he's still a thunderbolt no matter what, He'll always be a thunderbolt.
And we're gonna keep on trying to keep the tradition going that that he started.
Coach, Thanks a bunch of it coming on.
Good luck coming up, and then obviously in the fill we'll probably talk to you then too.
I see you at Keno South.
Yeah, absolutely appreciate you guys for all the work you do with Southern Arizona Sports and getting out there and giving his kids a.
Recognition that they deserves. Thanks you bet, you bet take He's good. He was good, obviously a good administrator, good coach. Successful, it's being all right. I mean, look at the Brooks reed Bushman. He was talking about a couple other guys that went on a d one.
So he's the eye.
He's a very good coach. Cool. Okay, let's take a break here and come back.
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Breaking down all the access and ohs. 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 and with me today is of your morales from all sports Shoes on dot com dot on I'm running the board. A good to talk to Jay, hadn't talked to him in a while. Got some big shoes to Phil. You talked about Nugent last time. You know, he just was we gotta call okay, just you know how you know he wins the title, thinks about it, decides get out.
Who doesn't want to go out on top?
Right?
And he's he's kind of wanted to step away from coaching for a little bit, and it is a long drive from Oral Valley to to Mike Mountain. I think that kind of wore on him a little bit, and he is going out on top, So I would I would anticipate him though, coming back to coaching like two.
To three years.
You would yeah, yeah, just kind of reset. I wouldn't be surprised at all if he does that.
Yeah, we said I was going to talk about something that we had talked about off the air. Softball.
Softball, Yeah, softball. Someone posted in front of my next to posting on softball just about the situation. And you guys can tell me the situation because I don't know as well as you guys do. People leaving blah blah blah portal you know who love today? Yes, Kaya Altmeyer has left airs on a base or softball. She'll be in the transfer portal, more than likely leaving with everyone else.
One of.
Ten now against ten ten total seven pictures well three the left ten in the.
Portal, four that are out of eligibility. Overall, seven pitchers are gone.
Yeah, right now.
So she brought up a point. I don't think their contractors or chips have been renewed right at least not publicly told us right now yet. So one of the things that the guy had written was that there's a story there, right, there's what's going on?
Is it nil? Is it players? Yea yea.
And and I don't think that people know people know the media, especially in this town. You know that you've been You've been this guy. I've been this guy for a long time. Wan is learning about what's going on, but it's like, you're not going to be pressed on this stuff.
You're not.
You might want to ask the first question or the second question to the coach what's going on? You might get an answer blah blah blah. But there's no opportunities to talk to him because they're not talking right, there's nothing being set up. I shouldn't say they're not talking not purposely or no press conference, no press conference right to see what's going on, so you can say what's going on? Okay, Well, n I l maybe player boom,
not happy, players not happy, playing time, YadA YadA. If Hobby leaves and three or four people leave there thinking well do I want to stay? How good are we going to be? I should go find my own place too. I mean, there's a lot of factors. I'm not sure there's an answer for all of them, but yeah, but there's a lot of answers, are a lot of a lot of questions, a lot of answers.
I don't think here's on those lots of players, like the coda Kennedy and Kyle Altmeyer in any sport fans forer wise at that level, coda, Kennedy's to two time All American just a model student, model of person, comes from a great family. Those are those are the type of players you want in your program for four or five years and you can build legacies from them. And she's leaving after two years, right, So that's a huge, huge, uh,
you know, disappointment for Arizona. You know, I like Caitlyn Lowe. I I've watched her when she played, and I really like the way she's kind of you know, tenacity and intensity. Mike Andrea kind of gave her the keys of the car and he saw a lot in her. But times are different now. Arizona is not what Arizona was when Candre was in his even even you know, in his prime, even candrea as later years were kind of difficult because of other programs catching up.
Right.
So I think Desiree read from Francois she's with these coaches that are already in When she became a d it was by a conversation of like, you know, I support you, I want to see how you you how things fare. We'll we'll we'll evaluate and we'll go from there at that at a at the right time after the season. I think that's where we're at with with with Kaylin Lowe and and Chip Hale, what happened with
the Dia Barnes. I think Ada might have saw the writing on the wall and and probably to her, you know, to her benefit or to to her, you know, her, A good thing for her to do is to find other positions.
Was her payment to go to samew Public. I haven't seen it.
It's a private institution, so come out, but it's probably more than what she was getting Arizona, and she was getting a lot at her as long she was getting one point five right.
On point something point something yeah, yeah, yeah, So I mean that's a factor plus plus.
You know, you depends who you read and who you trust, right who's saying what?
Uh It was a marriage uh that was very good for a while, a marriage of convenience for some of that time, and then sometimes that you just got to say, okay, let's let's we got to move.
On from both sides. And I think it worked out very well. You know, I think uh Ida will get what she wants r at SMU. We'll see if that parlays in the wins and and you know, deep runs than the tournament and in Arizona gets uh, you know, Bert that it's doing a great job with you know, kind of the way she brought this to her staff together and some of the players that she got in the transfer portals. So she's she's showing that that you know, that work ethic that's gonna make her a success here.
So we were together at All Sports two soun dot com. You do how much better job than I do? Do more stuff?
You do this?
So so I was gonna say, you know the fan base of the of the women's basketball team. Do you know the fan base of the softball program?
To a degree, I do because I know I've been to some of the games and I look at what's going on with the Facebook.
So I see this all the time.
If you're gonna bitch, you need to be part of the solution unless it's super second that the nil is not sufficient, not sufficient.
And I know this is going to be the case. Well, how do you help?
Well, I buy season tickets? Okay, good, but guess what that ain't enough? And I use it ain't because when I'm busied I say, ain't it ain't enough anymore? Right?
So I saw somebody posting them, maybe we need to pay each each of us who were bitching about stuff, pay fifty bucks, like put it in the jar if you're if you have some some disdain for it, be part of the help and put some money into the coin jar and help them get better players if that's an issue, or continue to go to games, cheer them on and see them go twenty two and twenty two whatever. You know what I'm saying. Am I speaking out of my butt?
Damn it? This is the radio show Don't Know, Don't.
Like You Are?
Tuesday's kind of weird. No, like you said, it's it's a new era.
Lot.
We've talked about coaches having to change, and some of them want. The ones that don't want to change have left, right and see their right? Yeah, go ahead, lead not right, not wrong? Whatever it is right now, it's it's affecting
the fans because buying season tickets is not enough. No, it's not enough if you're an Arizona fan and you want to compete with the Ohio States, the Alabama's, the Organs of the UCLA's and in this case probably parably looking at the program like Oklahoma, who has caught up with Mike and dri I thing for the most well, the Arizona was Oklahoma, Arizona was Arizona. Oklahoma caught them or or is now the new Arizona. Yeah, you know when they were talking about this five times winning the title,
Arizona did that Tuesday. I mean it was common and he got mailed there Oklahoma see the all the time because he was always there. It's just the way it is now. Now it just doesn't happen because you're a fan and you can say this and that. You gotta be part of it. You gotta be part of it. You got to be inside it. Yeah, and you have to establish yourself. I mean canre established himself as Kaylin Low established herself. Yet she's an All American, one of
the best players ever to play at Arizona. But as a coach, she hasn't got to that point where people are going to be fully invested in her as a coach. She might even you know, agree to that that she's not at that stage yet. And now with this happening with ten transfers and a couple of them all timers leaving that's that's really a setback to her. So you've been to press coverages. How many you think in your total thirty to fifty. So this for a second, we
have a press coverage. Do you think we're going to get the story?
No, it'll be like a Phoenix reporter asking Sean Miller or something, you know that kind of response.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're not going to open up. You know what you would back when you and I did this, and not that we got the story. We got more of the story because we had our own private time with people, right you know. Yeah, I walk with Loot from the end of the game to the car. I know you were terrified of that because you weren't there.
Home I was.
I wasn't used to Loot like you were. I actually got along more with the assistant coaches, right right. Lou was still inviting and he was still sure approachable. But I had extra time that you didn't because you were writing, right, you know, And that's the whole thing. That's when you get your stuff. But when you some people comforted, well you know, have this or see this, This is why what's really happening. You know, I can tell you certain things, but you know what I'm saying.
You're not gonna get it with a coach sitting at a podium in front of twenty people.
No, it doesn't happen. You're right.
Any does any reporter have you know, an quote intimate million you know relationship not not you know, with as a working relationship with a coach that we've had before.
Probably and I won't say whom, probably, but I'm sure most of the information.
Is held back.
Yeah, well a lot of that with Rosborough, you know, sure, a lot. He probably gave us more off the off the records stuff than on the records.
And we're tempered, and we tempered the information that we did or didn't get right because we at least got the sense of what was going on right.
And I don't know if that happens today. You're right, that's something on earth I didn't think about. But that does not happen now.
Yeah, I don't think coaches can really have even if they wanted to. It's just such a social media world where everything gets misconstrued or everything gets posted. So yeah, you really do have to be careful about what you say to certain people and how you present yourself.
There.
I saw something today on the Florida Baseball coach. Yeah Sullivan, Yeah, and he has his whole episode and he's he has his own opinions on what happened, and no one's gonna know. Well, and he apologized. You see here he apologized today. I guess to wait for us coach had to apologize to for whatever he said. But there's always you know, this is one thing because an ad not too much good said to me, Steve. And you know, I'm sixty years old. I've been through a lot of stuff and I know this.
There's always more to the story. There's always more to the story. Always, and for supt Well, which I don't follow religiously or like you guys do, there's always more to the story. There's a reason why ten people have left. This is the sad part to me. They had a fan In my mind, I don't know if it's fantastic. They had a very good season whatever the what they finished they did, they only had they only had what what eleven or twelve locks? So how do you have
a fantastic season? I'll use that word loosely, but still.
And then you have this.
Money from other programs, the chance to win a championship out of the programs some of the things we said earlier player coach relationship, especially on the We've heard a lot about the pitching, how some of the pitchers didn't get their endings like they had in the past.
So I think there's a lot of that in between.
I think somebody like the Coda Kennedy is probably getting feelers from like well established ANBC programs who are who have a better chance, not a much better chance, but a better chance in Arizona winning the championship next year or the year after.
So I think a lot of that's coming in play. Yeah, more power Tour.
I mean you deservingly so forty eight and thirteen on the season, you beat Alabama, you run Royle Alabama in five. Early in the season, I mean, you beat Stanford twice. Do you think historically you may have had trouble within the part twelve? If I forty eight and thirteen, you don't what, I'm gonna apologize to nobody.
Nobody.
You beat number one time who's in the College World Series. You don't beat them. You take them to eight and you lose eight to four, and that gets out of hand late in the eighth. But you you go tote to tote with them. You're right there.
Yeah, I just mentioned the player coach relationship with the pitching coach Christian Conrad.
Looking with Devin NEETs.
You can turn the you can one idiot and say, look what happened to Devon Nets with him as pitching coach and how much she evolved and her hitting too.
Well, you bought something that was interesting because the pitching and they didn't get their innings are how many did they have?
Five?
Ten?
How many pictures did they have last year? This season they usually have about eight to ten.
Okay, so then you're expecting innings when you need to win some games.
You're you have a couple of really good pitchers like and that's let.
Me say this.
If I'm the coach, and if I'm the coach and my contract is gonna come up this year, you.
Know what I need to do. I need to win. I need to win. Guess who's the coach?
Me?
Who's calling the shots?
Me?
I need to win?
So the third, fourth, fifth string pitcher, Sorry, but we gotta win. You know, well, maybe we'll be up by seven eight runs, you can go in. But guess what I gotta win?
I liked my job.
Yeah, like kJ Lewis and basketball, he didn't start and he transferred. But Tommy Lloyd had to do what's best for the team.
Well, look at lot.
Lot wouldn't have The guys didn't want to play it whatever, guess what they did. They left right, you know what. They regretted it because they would have state been better here eventually if they waited their turn.
Right.
And I think Kayln Lowe has that personality of it's my way or you know, the highway. I think she has.
Today's athlete probably doesn't want that. Let's go, we gotta go.