Andrei Iosivas | Renee All Dey

Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Renee All Day. Joining me right now, Andre Yosi Vash. What is the worst butchering you've ever heard of? Somebody's trying to say your last name?

There's this.

Okay, So when I was a freshman in college, my you know, people actually called me Yoshi for like two weeks there, but then I was like, don't call me that. But here it's cool because people want I don't want I want people to call me Andre, but Yoshi is now is kind of like a like a character, so it's.

Like it's kind of cool.

Everyone loves Yoshi.

Yeah, exactly, anything wrong.

Yeah, But in my freshman year, you know, I was like four string receiver or whatever. My office, some coordinator was like calling someone to get in and he kept saying like.

I will see this. Get in there, I will see this.

I'm like, there's there's only three receivers out on the field, like there's supposed to be one more.

Who's who's supposed to go in? And he runs up to me, yezing me in my face like get the.

Yeah, oh oh Kait, that's me.

So that was I think that was the worst butcher Okay.

Fair enough, Okay, so I'm doing a little research to get ready for this interview. Wikipedia is telling me that you were born in Japan.

Is this true?

Okay?

Great?

How long did you spend in Japan?

I was only there for like three years. So I was born there and my brother was born there. We're two years apart. We moved to Hawaii when I was yeah, like three or four. Yeah. I didn't get my citizenship until I was seventeen years old. Maybe really, yes, I was on green cart up until that point. So my junior of high school is when I finally got my US passport and stuff like that.

Oh my god, it's crazy.

That is crazy. What I actually just became a citizen a couple of years ago. Yeah, I'm from Canada, and it's like such a rigamarole to go through together, all that stuff done, it is, Yeah, I mean yeah, coming in you had no choice. You had to figure it out.

Yeah.

Well my parents did all that stuff. So, like I'm pretty sure my mom and dad had to take a test. I just was like, oh, here's my passport.

So it was oh, yeah, that test, that quiz. You're like, oh my good please, that's so crazy. On a green cart up until you're seventeen. That's that's interesting. So what is your nationality.

I'm half Romanian, half Filipino, so yeah, you know, my mom's like straight out of the Philippines.

My dad straight out of Romania.

And they met in Japan, so my mom was like studying and working in Japan and my dad went over there for a job. They met in the club.

And love. Yeah, exactly where you find it. So when you were miked up recently, you're doing a strange bird call on the field. What's the bird call?

Yeah, it's just like a thing that Stan made up.

Like Stan whenever he would take me out, he would make the bird call, and then when he would take Jamar and it would take the bird call. So it's kind of like between me and Jamar and Stan, like we all have that like that noise can you like Stan, oh, and then we go get or Jamar and then he because you can, he'd be all the way down the field and you can't, like Jamar Jamar to get up, you have to do that bird call and he can hear it all and so he knows to get out.

So it's pretty pretty.

That's great. I have those little signals on your Instagram, you have a whole section dedicated to different snacks. I would like you to rate me your top five snacks.

Top five snacks. Okay, yeah, I need to add to that.

Actually, yeah you do. It's been on a minute since.

I would say, like, like hot Cheeto puffs are up there. I can't eat that too much though, like you know, my stomach will start hurting, but like this taste is amazing. It's like sour patch kids or watermelon. I would say, like those two are pretty pretty even top five chips.

I don't know.

I like I like rice, like things with rice. So like there's one time I started like rice and like just it's called forty kaka on top of it's like a Japanese like delicious.

Yes, it's like seaweed. How do you say it?

I never know how to say it.

Forty cock forty cock, Yeah I buy it.

Yeah, would never say it out loud. I didn't have the confident now I do.

Both my parents actually they speak Japanese like fluent, so like when they don't want to, like they don't want me to understand what they're saying, that like speak Japanese just kind of messed up.

But no, I think it's smart.

I like that.

I respect that. Okay, so rice things, hot puff, Cheetos, watermelon or sour patch sour guys. We'll go one more.

Uh, there's gonna.

Be some good like different wine snacks.

Oh yeah, like like a like good dried mango or something. Yeah, like from but only one company like this called sevent Dy Dried Mangos.

They have the best ones by far.

Yeah I don't added sugar, no, thank you. They're sweet enough.

Yeah. Oh I'm not sure if that one has added sugar or not.

Oh, okay, they're pretty sweet.

Where do you stand on spam? I'm very pro spam. Me too pro spam.

Really, I love spam like that.

So I did not have it until I moved to the United States. My husband got me to have and I was like, oh, I don't know about the spam. I love some spam.

I don't think I've met anybody that like actually has like on the mainland of what we call it on the island, we call it the mainland. But like the only place I know is that the Hawaiian spot down here, like the Delicious or something. They have some spam. I don't know anywhere else where you like, would willingly buy spam.

So well, I feel like spam gets such a bad rap, but most people have not actually had it. If you try it, oh, it's a lovable meme.

Yeah.

Yeah, if you prepare the right way, you can have it for breakfast. I used to have it for breakfast every day, like spam eggs and rice for McDonald's in Hawaii.

They have that at McDonald's.

It's a special breakfast platter. You get spam, eggs and rice and then that's like put some soy sauce on top of the on top of the rice, and you're set to go every day.

What an absolute dream. All right, well we'll circle back to food maybe if we need to. Renee All Day is presented by Gellette Labs. Gellette Labs is not your dad's razor. It's Jellette's ultimate shaving experience. Let's talk about that first touchdown. What an incredible moment. And then the moment with Burrow giving you the ball. Talk to me a little bit about that.

Yeah, and your birthday. Yeah, and it was your birth day.

Yeah, I cut the ball obviously, but then I saw a flag in the backfield and so like usually when a flag is throw in the backfield. It's a holding penalty on the offense. So I kind of just like threw the ball away because nobody saigned anything. Nobody was celebrating, so I just stood there waited for someone to signal something and then everyone started going crazy and then me and T did the dance that we said we were going to do like.

For how how many weeks?

Yeah, but I completely forgot about the ball, and Joe was like he like I saw the video after he like ran like.

He was asking like where's the ball? Where's Yeah? And that's that was pretty boy like super boys of him.

So yeah, like what does that kind of say about Joe Burrow as like a human and like as an athlete, as a quarterback.

I mean, you can just tell like he knows how much like little things mean to people. If I forgot the ball, I would have been like, oh, like I forgot that ball.

I would have.

Been it was it would have been a nice day. But I've been like, dang, I wish I had something like memory. Yeah, And so you can tell he like he thinks about the little things, and you know that's how he plays the game.

So you were the most physically perfect, esmon should go through the comfine getting the score of nine point nine six almost perfect? Does it kind of kill you that it wasn't perfect? Was that it didn't get that time?

Yeah? I mean I was.

I wanted to be like one of the best. I mean I was based on like this raz score whatever, like Combin score. I was like one of the best ever. But I was aiming to be the best.

But what do you think gotten the way?

What was it? I don't know.

I thought I could have run a better forty because I'm fast, So I don't think my forty was indicative of like how fast I really am.

Yeah, yeah, being this physically gifted. What other sports do you think you would have crushed? I mean, I know that you were a double athlete at Princeton and we'll get into that, but other other sports, maybe I.

Wish I played like soccer or something like. Yeah, as I got older, I really liked playing FIFA a lot, and so like I was like, oh, yeah, so I started following a bunch of soccer players, and I think soccer is really cool sport to be good at. Yeah, I mean I was, I was okay at basketball. I never like had the handles that I would just like jump.

Yeah, like sixty three six.

Yeah yeah, so I could be all right, but soccer, Soccer would be a cool sport to be Yeah.

Yeah, certainly this rookie contract. What are we spending the money on? Would you buy?

Well, my apartment?

A car Toyota four Runner that's like a big car in Hawaii, Like if you know, if you go to Hawaii, it's like all Toyota Tacoma's fore runners. Okay, if you drive a jeep in Hawaii, like you everybody knows you're a tourist, you know what I mean.

So like it.

But and they're also like very reliable and you can read the resale values good. I've been spending mostly on like door dash probably I got the I got the I got the dash pass, saving a bunch of money doing that.

What do you order?

What's your go to?

Like? Usually it's Asian based, you know, I like, you know, like ramen or some like chicken katsu. It's like that's bread and chicken sushi or something you know is good. They have good stuff over there. So but yeah, mostly food and like expenses, some clothes, like some shoes I've been buying more.

Shoes now, like a sneaker guy becoming one.

I didn't I didn't really like to spend like a bunch of money before I wasn't making my own money. So I feel bad if I like spent my parents' money buying stuff, you know what I mean. But yeah, I'm just kind of upgrading a bit.

Get a little tighter, get that fit going right. You're one of the few Asian Americans that are playing in the game. Is that something that do you recognize that?

Yeah? Definitely. I think it's super cool.

And I think you know, a lot of people from Hawaii are Asian too, like descent, so it's like, I think it puts a lot of people on the map in that respective perspective or like respect. You know, a lot of Asian Americans can look at me if they're not in Hawaii and be like, Okay, look, you can look up to him as a as a role model, and even in Hawaii you can just look at that as well me being from Hawaii and being Asian.

It's like, it's I think it's really cool.

Yeah, it's very cool. Going from Hawaii to Princeton, the beautiful midwest of Cincinnati. What do you miss the most about Hawaii.

I mean everything.

You know, when I was when I first moved from Hawaii to Princeton, that was probably like the saddest I've ever.

Been in my whole life. Yeah, you know it was.

I went from beaches like seeing the ocean and the mountains within, Like I could just look to my left and right and I could just see the ocean in the mountains and the best food in the world, I mean, in my opinion, Yeah, those poke bowls or oh yeah, like a real pokele like that, like the stuff you put like cucumbers and stuff in it. You just eat fish and rice and that's all you need. Yeah, but yeah,

Yeah, and your time here in Cincinnati, what's kind of stuck out to you? What are you What are you liking about the Midwest and all of its offerings?

Yeah, I like it. I like it a lot to be honest. I mean it's super chill. It's quiet. If you want to be quiet, you can find stuff to do. Like the city is always putting out stuff like a there's always stuff to do.

There's always events.

There's like these squares that things happen, like that Red Bull event that was happening. Oh yeah, there's a bunch of cool stuff going on.

And the people are really nice too.

You know Midwest they have like a certain hospitality to them, you know, like on the East Coast, like like I was in New Jersey for Princeton. Like you go to New York and like people won't like smile at you when you're walking past them, like here, like you kind of have to get used to it again. Yeah, because people you walk past themody, you know, you give them a smile, you say, hey, how you doing, all that kind of stuff.

So yeah, it's it's I like it a lot over here.

During the bye week, you went back to Princeton. What was that like going back there? Were you welcomed with open arms?

Yeah? I mean it was super cool. It was homecoming for us. We played Harvard who was undefeated, and we beat them. Shout out to the Prince. Some boys for beating Harvard. They were undefeated, so that was like it

It's really hard.

You know, you get there, everything is expected of You're supposed to be this dude, but you know, it's all a process. And so it was nice. I hope I give some kids some inspiration, and yeah, it was.

It was good.

And my track coach retired as well, who was there for forty seven years. Oh wow, and so I was able to like it was his one time retirement party and so it was really nice to see him and all my track boys as well.

So you because you were a double athlete at Princeton, you were doing obviously track and football. Could you have gone to the Olympics? Is this something that I heard? Were your Olympic bound?

Well, definitely I would have trained for it. Yeah.

My year at indoor Nationals was like the best year for my event ever, Like statistically speaking, like all the scores were like way higher. Yeah, so I think I definitely could have been a hopeful. Yeah, I think well, and I only trained for that like half the season. I got fourth in the nation, you know what I mean.

So, and the athletically, yeah.

I've been blessed. I've been blessed for sure.

Yeah. Is your family athletic?

Like that?

Was this genetics? Not that I know.

I mean they didn't ever played really that many organized sports. Yeah, my mom didn't. And my dad was in like Communist Romania doing all that stuff. So it's yeah, like they were doing anything outside of it.

Yeah.

But you know, there's like a hypothesis that I made. It was my dad's Eastern European strength and my mom's fast twitch Filipino muscles, Okay, combined and and here we are.

Yeah, we found the perfect mixture. That's great. I love that. Renee All Day is presented by Gillette Labs. The best a man can get, keeps getting better. Look, good game. Good Talk to me about your relationship with Charlie Jones. You guys are like pretty inseparable.

Huh.

Yeah, No, that's my boy. I remember actually when he got drafted in the fourth round, I was like, Okay, there's no.

Way I'm going to the Bengals.

Yeah, and then I got drafted in the sixth I was like, okay, cool, and let's see what this Charlie Jones dude is like, you know, let me see what he's about. And he's just you know, I try. I'm gonna try to say nice things because me and him are banter, are just like kind of not very kind to each other, but like that's my boy, he's my brother, and I'm like, I'm really glad that he's here because

Yeah. So yeah, it's nice. Yeah.

Did you guys gel instantly or was that little like feeling out for us.

Pretty much like you know, we had zooms and stuff before we came here. It was shed too and we kind of were like, yeah, we're joking around on there already.

Sorry, I good, we've already figured it out. Okay, So from you going to playing for Princeton to hear in Cincinnati and this spotlight that it seems to have found you. How do you feel sort of stepping into this new role in these new eyes.

I think it's cool.

It's kind of I've always you know, when I was a kid, I always wanted to be in the spotlight. I wanted to be like, not the spotlight, but like be famous for football and be like Julio Jones or like a J Brown or something like that. So it's kind of something that I've always wanted. It is interesting, though, just to see how many eyes are on me, how many like random people are like saying good job, like congratulations, We're so proud of you.

So it's nice to see that.

I haven't been to the level where I'm like walking in public and people are like stopping me a bunch, So I think that part is nice. I'm not sure like if I'll ever get there. If I do, then we'll see, but I'll just have to keep working. But yeah, I mean it's cool so far. And the fans are super supportive too, so it's not like I'm getting hated on or anything like.

Sure, no, I feel like your social media stuff all like blew up.

Oh yeah, definitely. There's like some tiktoks and stuff. Of me, and I think that have blown up. Yeah, so I think that's been helping me out a bit.

But I love it.

Okay, so Princeton Tiger, Cincinnati Bengals. Let's do some tiger trivia, shall we. I only have a little bit, but let's see what we have. A group of tigers is called.

Okay, what's the first letter?

There's two options. One starts with an A and the other one starts with an AX. I have no idea an ambush or a street.

That's pretty cool.

This one came up really common. I'm not a freak for picking this one. Tiger urine smells like what apparently it's a thing?

What do they eat the most? Is it like, does it smell like something they eat?

No?

No, no, is it supposed to smell good? Kind? Okay, give me a hair, like.

Give me a hand, like you're going to the movies and what do you like?

Butter bops have thrown off big time.

Oh yeah, I'm looking at these facts and that that was like very common. That kept popping up. I guess I'll put it in there. I don't know, I don't know if it's a thing, but no, two tigers have the same stripes. Is there somebody on the team whose style that you would like to kind of borrow steal?

Oh?

Like, now I like to steal. Well, there's one dude who's always swagged out Orlando. He's always swagged out. I'm not sure about the tail thing. I think it's cool for him, but like a fox down, I think it would look interesting on me for sure, someone would I want to emulate, though, mm hmm.

Stan Stan has a lot of Okay, I like.

Yeah, there's no lack of style team. I mean that's been pretty no doubt. And tigers can survive on one meal a week. What would your meal be?

It's called Synagogue soup. It's like this soup my mom makes. I could I told her I could eat that every day. It's like it's like you can put any type of meat in it. It's like a sour soup. It's not like super sod, but it's like a sour soup. You can put rice in it, a bunch of vegetables. I honestly have no idea what's in it besides the meat and that it's sour.

You just know that you like it. He likes what he likes. There was a Rookie Talent Show. What did you do for it?

Oh?

So as me, Charlie and Mack Hippenhammer, who's not here anymore. We made a video imitating like the guys in the in the receiver room. I'm better at impression, but if I if we do it on a video, you know what I mean, Like, if you're just putting on the spot, it's a little bit.

You need it to prep you need to drop into the character.

If we did like a live performance, I don't know how good it would have been.

Did you have you made any rookie mistakes that you've noticed so far.

Like on the football field or in the locker room?

However you want to answer that, I guess like.

When I was miked up, I didn't tell everybody that was miked up, and everyone was.

Like hounding me for it, but they're like.

Other people I want to say names, but other people were miked up and they didn't do anything. I'm like, okay, so it's just you guys want to hand on me because you guys are trying to hound on me for no reason. So that's pretty much.

Don't yeah fair enough? In five years, where do.

You see yourself hopefully here on a second contract or something. Playing playing for the Bengals.

I really like it here. I love the coaches, I love the culture.

Obviously playing with Joe, so I think that would be the perfect fit for me.

Love it, Love it well. Thank you so much for hanging out with me. Looking forward to see your star on the Ascent and to get all those followers all eyes on Andre.

Yeah, love it well.

Thank you for hanging out with me, and good luck this season.

Appreciate it.