It's time for the Happy Half Hour with your friends Kristen Balboni, Will Brian and Darren Gann. Welcome to Happy Half Hour. It is Will in Darren here for the second week of the off season. Darren, you had quite a weekend doing what nothing? Yeah? How about that? It was I I am pro blizzard. I really am. A too many years into Boy Scouts has made me a
true nerd about preparation. So I made three or four trips to the Harris Teeter like last Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and by the time Saturday rolled around before the first flake fell, I was like, I'm ready. I am totally prepared for this blizzard. Bring it. You know, probably spent two hundred bucks on grocery. His wife's looking at me, like, what are you doing? What are we gonna do with all this food? We're gonna eat it, That's what we're
gonna do. We're gonna cook it, we're gonna eat it, We're gonna take naps, and we're just not gonna do anything else. And it was glorious. What was what was your Sunday morning meal with the snow coming down? With the snow coming down, well, it was kind of a brunch situation by that time. But I did make French toast with some leftover egg nog and uh it's some deconstructed stuck ease pecon logs that were provided to me by a friend of the show, Will Brian. Um. So yeah,
it was good. It was good times. We big big carb weekend, Big Carb weekend, A lot of French toast, a lot of jump I, a lot of starch, a lot of mashed potatoes, roast chicken. It was just, yeah, it's a good time. I am pro blizzard. We should have more of them. When we may have another one, we'll see. It might be a little too warm because it's coming from the other other coast to the east coast. You know, that's all right, A little a small blizzard
is the right amount out. If we ever got twelve inches of snow in this town again, it would just be chaos for a week and a half and nobody really needs that. But like a three day blizzard, that's the appropriate amount of blizzard in Charlotte, North Carolina. And there were football games on for us to watch. What do you think about some of those that forty Niners Cowboys finish. Um, that was quite a finish. I'm here for the chaos and thank god for the Cowboys for
providing on a routine basis they are. It's good to be dependable, and it's good for people to know what to expect from you. And we know that the Cowboys can fail in ridiculous and unusual ways in the postseason. That's what they do. Um. You know you like the theory of the play called the Execution was just a hot mess, as we've come to expect with Alice. But um, for the most part, a lot of those games were a little underwhelming and it did you believe me thinking,
you know, we needed an extra team of this? Did we really need the Steelers and the Eagles in the playoffs based on what we saw out of them over the weekend? Um, But it's it is novel seeing some of the stuff, like, you know, just Josh Allen going
crazy and doing turned back the Clock. I made a lot of friends in Buffalo during that game by saying all this Josh Allen stuff would be cool and new and unique, except I saw it all in Charlotte ten years ago when Cam Newton did it the first time, and so people in Buffalo were really fond of hearing that they made a lot of new friends. They have,
they have an interesting vocabulary. They still like the Panthers though they you know, we gave them some things that we gave them all their cool stuff like Brandon Bean and Sean McDermott so and so many players. But yeah, they're they're a lot of fun. Um. Seeing the Bills, I mean, the idea of Bill's Chiefs, it's like, holy smokes, that's not a championship game, that's not a super Bowl.
That's game. I think everybody's fired up to see, just to see which one of those quarterbacks might actually blink. And the answer might be neither one of them. So let's just see. I'm I'm here for it. Um. A lot of old people in the winter want to see chaos and defense and blah blah blah. If the divisional. If the a f C divisional game ends in a fifty two forty nine results, I'm totally fine with that.
So the both of us are very online, as the kids say, unfortunately, but having been very online over the weekend, do you think that there's just a bit too much overreaction? For sure? I guess you know, some of these teams that get in maybe aren't traditional playoff teams. But to say that all of these playoff teams now should get rid of their quarterback, fire their coach, fired this guy.
You know, it doesn't that seem like a bit much? Yeah, I mean, we have gone a little crazy with it, and I mean, but that's the way it's become online and and I think that was one of the benefits. We were still online, but not as much over the weekend, and being able to step away from it sometimes offers a little perspective. But it's not. Every game in the NFL has to be a referendum on forever. And I'm
like you, you can't. You know, why on Earth would they be talking about And listen, I know there's a lot of layers to what's going on in Dallas. They're afraid they might lose coordinators and dan Quinn kellmore whatever, and it's Dallas and it's Jerry Jones and nobody really knows what to expect. But when a team has this season Dallas had this year, while on Earth, would you
be talking about firing a head coach? It's just amazing and ridiculous to me, um, And you would think that if Mike McCarthy got fired, he'd have another job immediately, kind of like Forest in Miami. He's probably gonna get hired this cycle. It's just a matter of where. Um. But with so many jobs open, I think people have lost sight of the fact, Yeah, these are playoff teams. I mean, there are eight jobs open right now around the NFL. So getting in the job market is not
a place you want to be anyway, I mean. And that's a justification for a lot of teams to stand pad, honestly, and not just the ones um that fell out of the playoffs. So it's hard, and it's hard when people talk about building things or being consistent or doing something for the long haul, because everybody wants their answers right now. And the idea that you would fire coach in Dallas over what happened is ridiculous and embarrassing as it was,
it's pretty shortsighted to me. And I do think also, and I don't know that I'm not making a judgment on good or bad, and it's probably bad, but that this is kind of the way things are now in this league. That is it really is. It's about entertainment and it's about the news cycle and the next news cycle, and you know, all of the ways that you're engaging with people, and people are obsessed six or five days a year and being boring and kind of never changed.
And I don't know that it's boring, but you kind of get what I'm getting at that there's just this sense that this league is getting to a point where it is more of it is equivalent to our entertainment life cycle, which is very short and it and you just keep moving and you keep changing because that's what it requires. Right, what's the next story? What you know, the idea of somebody being consistently good. I mean the Patriots.
The Patriots aren't a particularly compelling team in terms of the content that comes out of there because their personality as a franchise, it's kind of dull. My god, who's been better at football than them over the last twenty five years? Nobody? Um, and do we want that? Would you rather be exciting? I just finished, you know, last night. I'm a cord cutter, so I don't have a lot
of access to local professional basketball. Watch the ESPN broadcast to the Hornets last night, and my god, they're not gonna win an NBA championship and really pretty shabby on defense, but they're fun to watch. You're entertaining. Now again, they're not winning a title all, not playing the defense the way they do, but it's still fun. And and so I think a lot of it comes down to what
you want. Do you want to be constantly entertained and stimulated or do you want constant boring, drudgery consistent success. I mean, I don't think it's buying right, and I don't think it's gotta be one or the other. But it's like we swing wildly between these two things. Either you're Bill Belichick and you have to beat all the fun out of the world in order to succeed, or hey, sports ball, let's have fun, right, And it has to be somewhere in between and making sweeping sort of things
that it's got to be one or the other. That's just not realistic because you're gonna it's gonna swing back and forth because these are still people operating this machine. So you know, human frailty is going to be part of the equation always. So, Darren, you wrote an incredible piece this week with some voices that Panther fans love to hear from Tell us about Sam Mills and all of the people that had things to say about him. Obviously, for those of you that haven't been looking at our
stuff going to Panthers dot com, he was. He is a finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. UM. There is round of voting that happened this week. UM and and Darren wrote an incredible piece about I appreciate that and and it was cool. It was one of those stories that, UM, the actual writing didn't take as long as you might think when you see all that
stuff together, because it's such a lived experience. I mean, when you've absorbed twenty five years of what Sam Mills means to people, it's kind of easy to get people talking about it. And Steve Smith was amazing. And if you haven't read that story on Panthers dot Com, I had encouraged you to do so for no other reason than to see what Steve Smith said about what Sam meant to him when he was a rookie coming in being latched onto and the stuff Sam taught him about
not just football, but about being a dad. And I think it was a side of Steve that a lot of people don't necessarily expect to always see, but it was it was neat. And we'll find out Sam is a finalist for the Hall of Fame. The announcement will be made February tenth at the NFL Honor Show, prior to the Super Bowl. UM, and we don't know. We don't know right now, up down, good, bad, what the news is gonna be, but we're hopeful. I mean, this
was Sam's last year of eligibility. And and again it was so easy, whether it was Luke Keikley or Thomas Davis or Dan Morgan or Steve Smith, to get guys going about Sam because it's a topic that everybody into Carolina's understands the history of I was talking to some folks down in Raleigh yesterday because Sam is being inducted to the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame that's coming up in April, and we know he's in that one,
UM and that's gonna be a great thing. And I was talking to some of the folks down there about him, and he said to me, the guy was talking to you said, everybody understands his story. This one touches everybody. I mean, no matter if the team's good, the team's bad, whatever it's like Sam is this permanent part of the Carolinas. And you know, because they were talking about it from the standpoint of Sam Mills from New Jersey. But he's
going to North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. But who's created more mythology in North Carolina sports than Sam Mills. It's really really short list, because keep Pounding is just one of those messages that resonates, and that was one of that was one of the other neat parts of that story is you put something like that online and you get a dozen versions of I still wear the keep Pounding bracelet every day. We started wearing it when my mom was in the hospital with breast cancer. You know,
those kind of things. And when you hear what that means to the people who you know, have just been surrounded by it over the years, I mean, it's it's part of our culture, uh here with this football team in the Carolinas and beyond. And you know, we'll see we've got our fingers crossed for Pro Football Hall of Fame. But any any time I get a chance to talk about Sam, to write about Sam, to talk to people
about Sam, that's a good day. You have some familiarity with just what the Hall of Fame is are there people that are currently in it? Because obviously it's difficult to to split hairs. I mean, there's just such incredible people that have been part of this game, and not everyone can get in every year. But are there people that are in the Hall of Fame now that are more than just stats? You know, that that had that kind of like, you know, like who what would be
an example? I mean, Joe Nameth is a guy who statistically is not a Hall of Fame quarterback, and his statistics, frankly, are kind of comical related to a lot of guys were talking about in terms of the all time great quarterbacks. But he's Joe Willie Nameth for god sakes. I mean the guarantee the Jet Super Bowl, I mean, that's the game is bigger than that. I'm close friends with Kent Summers out in Arizona, who presents for the guys who
came through there. And when he was talking about Kurt Warner a couple of years ago, you know, Kent and I were talking about Kurt and I said, Kurt Warner or somebody said, Warners one of the greatest stories in the history of football. And it's like Kurt Warner is one of the greatest stories in the history of stories. I mean, he's just a former grocery bagger turned MVP quarterback. That doesn't happen in real life. They should make a
movie about that. Oh wait they did, um So, I mean, I I do think as a Hall of Fame, it's important to include not just the guys who have the most sacks, the most rushing yards, the most touchdown passes, but also great players who transcend just being great at football. And and that's that's the gist of what I talked about when it was when we were discussing Sam. I hope it resonated with people, uh in that room and
we'll see on February ten. Yeah, and it it felt at this time, you know, where you're kind of stepping away from the season, you know, kind of taking a breath like it felt really good too. This week kind of hear the stories of keep Pounding and into kind of reintroduce that to us and too people you know,
kind of on the internet. It was a kind of a jolt in the arm, I think, yeah, And I'm glad it was able to do that because again, online culture can be awfully negative all of the time, and when it's always negative all the time, that wears you out. And so yeah, being able to do stuff like this, being able to do different kind of stories, refocusing on something everybody's behind. Yeah, that's good speaking of stories of
of things that are fun and not always negative. Uh, Darren, I think we're gonna close today's podcast with moments of mascots. Mascot moments, and we were talking before the podcast. It's just some things just happened to, like come up on my feed that we're very surprising to you. So I'm gonna start with you and then we'll get into me. Do you have any good mascot stories? We know we wrote a neat story on Panthers dot com about it.
What a year and a half ago November twenty of Christian McCaffrey joking a mascot out of issues during a kid versus mascot football game at halftime in one of his dad's games. And and I remember talking to Christian, and I remember talking to Toro the Bull, And even though mascots aren't supposed to talk, after he and I talked for twenty minutes, I was like, wait, are you
supposed to be doing this. Um, but that was a fun story and it was you know, it's always kind of interesting seeing professional athletes relate to something from their childhood or something like that. But talking to Christian about that was a need one. UM. I don't have a lot of other experience with mascots. UM. My wife's daughter once worked in a smoothie shop that had a monkey mascot suit, and I did walk around with the head
on one day in the shop and that was pretty cool. Um. But that's kind of the extent my My mascot stories aren't very good. So the impetus was this was that I got a Facebook memory from ten years ago today, UM, that I shared around the studio this morning of myself as Clyde the Cougar, the mascot for College of Charleston on Anderson Cooper three sixty for their election coverage. Okay, let's hit Paulse right there. Let's just hit Paulse for a second and run through the elements of this story.
College of Charleston has a mascot. His name is Clyde. He is a cougar. Anderson Cooper is in Charleston, will is in the cougar suit. Okay, I'm called up pro seed. So this was for CNNs uh Republican primary election coverage. They were in Charleston. I was working for the College of Charleston. Students are still in winter break. So our marketing people got a call that they wanted the Cougar mascot on The Anderson Cooper Show. And there's nobody in
the office. There's nobody there to do it. It's so it was like, well, you're in the Cougar deal. That was you know, other this is other duties as a signed But at the same time, I'm kind of like, this would be kind of cool, you know, growing up around sports, you know, as a kid, you're always like, how cool would it be to be the mascot? You know, I don't know, So I I put it on. I went there. Uh was sitting in the green room with the head on next to Ari Fleischer, which was I
think fun for him. This is like an ESPN commercial. Is just sitting there, just sitting there in the room talking to Ari Fleischer, and um, who was the guy that was Clinton's uh, the guy with the tall guy, the ball guy that worked for Clinton back mcgon uh No, not him, the other one kind of narrow eyes anyway. Yeah, yeah, but you've got the head on. Got the head on sitting in the green room just and they're they're asking me questions thinking I'm a student, and I'm just going
with it. So then it's like the end of their show, um, and they just say just go out there and kind of pump up the crowd. Anderson Cooper is gonna cue you in. And it was some weird story about like there was a high school that were the Cougars, but then a group of Facebook moms got offended because they thought they were making fun of them for being fifty plus and single or something, so they had to change their mascot name. And and Cooper is like making fun
of how stupid that was. And by the way, they're here at College of Charleston and there the Cougars and here's the Cougar. And so I walk out and kind of like do my thing or whatever cougar I don't know, whatever that is. Yeah, and then they're rolling and going to the end of the show and I just lean over grab Anderson and start rubbing his hair, knowing how like perfectly quaffed his hair always is. And it's live TV, so all he can do is just kind of smile and try to pull away from me. As soon as
they go off air. He's got this look of just utter anger that this happened on you know, like who messages with my hair? And I just walked off? You'd ever do? Who I was? Just head on? I just walked off the set, walked walked down the street. That's so fantastic stake. I never knew this story before I walked into this studio today, and it's already in my top ten all time Wheel stories and that's a pretty
good list. Um, that's amazing. The idea of andre A, the idea of Anderson Cooper being salty about having his hair messed up, that's a great layer to this story. But you having the presence of mind and the presence of cougar head to leave the head on while you
made your escape. And so then I'm walking down King Street with the yeah, and so people are like high fiving me, and you know, it's just it's a completely different, like metaphysical existence to be in the world but not really in the world, because nobody knows who you are, and you can just do whatever you want and you can take on a different life form as a cougar.
It's just it's it was incredible. I hope everybody has an opportunity sometime in their life to put on a mask at head and do what we'll did, because listen, I'm looking at these pictures now. You didn't just have the head on, you had the arms too. It was the whole thing. This is a swollen cougar. Man, he's pretty pumped up. He's got muscles. Yeah, man, we'll as Clyde to Cougar. We gotta put that out on the Twitter later on today when we post this podcast. Yeah,
we'll do that. Absolutely. This is phenomenal. This has made my day so much better. This this, this is the definition of a happy half hour. Yeah it is. It surely is. So everyone, come back next week. We'll have have some more Panthers news for you, and maybe we'll have stories stories by