Is this Kenny Rogers hell yeah something? Uh, the only reason I know that? Does he sing the Gambler?
He does?
He does? And also little known facts lu seal a few others little known big big day fact. My pops loves the Kenny Rogers Christmas album. I have no idea why I grew up listening to the Kenny Rogers Christmas album way too much because it's awesome. I'm not a Christmas music guy. Awesome is overstating the Kenny Rogers Christmas album. And so yes, Chris Com, let's ask Chris Com running I didn't strike you as a Kenny Rodgers fan? What's what's the deal on a Friday?
Hell words during opening tip?
Sorry say again?
We did?
We didn't have you pot it up? Say again?
I heard that there was some some fighting words during opening tip, something about me being a coward. So I thought that it would be uh on points to roll with the theme that apparently is part of I guess. I mean, you're not wrong. It's thirty five degrees, it's cold. What else am I gonna do? But Kenny Rogers is good man, Big Dave has get taste?
Did I use the term coward? That is oh man, that's okay, Okay, well that was too much. I apologize.
I would just say I heard of Academy though it's good. It's a great song. Kind of it's kind of fitting for me at this time of year. Just not really willing to budge when it comes to what I feel like doing or don't feel like doing. But we're almost there, man, I believe staunchly that we're almost there.
I must be grumpy today because I said Dave mcmanniman looks like a keebler elf too.
You're being mean to all our guests.
This is the day after Josh Grant. Are you gonna be mean to Paul Pugmyer? You can't be mean and to Paul Puppet That's what I'm asking. But Josh Grant yesterday on the show told me that I was way too nice, So you're over correcting. Yeah, c K what you? Josh Grant rolls on the show yesterday and accuses me of being way too nice and says I'm too nice all the time to a fault.
On air or in life.
You know you don't have to do that. Only on air, Okay, only on air.
I don't think like I listened to the Bilberr interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air this week, and it got somewhat. He was pretty demonstrative, as he's known to do and known to be, and like it was engaging and it was fun because for once, like people were having an honest conversation. I don't think you necessarily need to be the type of host that pokes the bear and goes for you know this, you know the hyperbolic ESPN screaming at the universe type stuff. But I think
you tell the line pretty well. Man.
That's kind of you, and you should know that. Both Porter and I were just sad that you didn't, you know, honor us with your presence on a Friday. So I apologize for the name, but we were mostly just sad you're not here.
Well. I mean, name calling is normal in society and it goes all the way up to the very highest ranks. I was taught when I was a kid that you're not supposed to call people names. But you're my close friend, so you can call me whatever you want on or off air. Also, I don't know if you've got Duke in. I don't know if we wanted to bring Leo in.
Leo and Duke Live Radio. Don't know if that necessarily blends with the type of audio that listeners of the Drive want to deal with on a Friday, So we'll just have to resort from a remote hit from home.
Fair enough, Duke is in the house, the station mascot is in the house. Would have loved to see Leo. I still haven't met the young lad. Maybe at some point we'll do that. Let me ask you this, Chris, now that we've wasted five minutes, because that's what we do. Do you have friends or family or relatives that just believe that because you work in sports, you need to fill out their bracket like this time of year? Do you get it? Do you get people asking you for advice?
The only one who does is the most important one, and it's my wife. Every single year. She sent me actually a text yesterday saying that there is a prize amongst the teachers at her elementary school this year, and I would love you to guess what the what the prize is for the person that finishes with the best, most accurate bracket at the end of March.
Mad is this going to make me depressed to the state of how we treat teachers in America. It will a free packet of erasers and tensils.
No, no, no, somehow even worse at fifteen minute break stop it.
That's the first place prize at it. It's at a mandoned school. Is If you win it, you get to take fifteen minutes off of your class fifteen minutes. Oh gosh.
So that being said, I have a lot riding on my shoulders this year. Man. You know that nobody grinds college shoop like me, So I'm going to have to be very judicious when it comes to picking my you know, teams that are going to make a deep run. I'm always obsessed with, you know, a thirteen seed making a run that I always get wrong. So I don't know if we're going to necessarily have one of those this year. But there's a lot riding on my shoulders, no doubt.
Goodness, gracious, your wife seems like such a pleasant person. Is that fair to say? A very happy, pleasant kind person.
Yes, I mean probably among the most happy and pleasant people that I know. You would imagine that if she wasn't, her and I would not work out very well because the yin the yang, you know, I believe there needs to be a balance for some people, especially for folks like me. So, yes, you are right in that scouting report, but I mean, listen, she's the only one that really
asked me. My buddies who I grew up with still are holding on to the dying embers of a bracket pool that we're down to like five guys sometimes four. And no nobody even really watches college basketball obviously as much as we used to. We're all old, we have kids. So sometimes you'll get, you know, somebody that's gonna pick like a ten seed to win it all, And it's still fun, but it's I like to remind people that
nobody cares how your bracket's doing in public. You can, you can talk about it privately, but nobody cares about how many picks you got right or wrong. Nobody does.
It's the same thing as your fantasy team. Nobody gives a rip, you know, so don't talk about it in public. I just because I can remember at one point, maybe this was during COVID when nothing was real, didn't Amanda Hop on the show I had you on, right, and didn't I make you give her the phone? And I remember I saw that, Okay.
I think you did. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean that was back when, like you said, nothing was real. It was the time of year that you could like be outside even though everything wasn't real. We didn't have a kid yet, so you could enjoy anything. Not saying you can't enjoy things, but you know what I mean, and that your listeners who have been there like you and I know what I mean. So yeah, but we're ten minutes in and we haven't even talked a lock about sports. I love it.
Yeah, we'll get there at some point. I did this exercise with some friends of mine not too long ago. We had everybody send to the thread your most COVID picture, right, the most COVID picture. And I can't even tell you what I look like. It's hard to describe. I look like a hardened criminal. It's like a Charles Manson type look, super long hair. I didn't realize that my beard was as loose as it was. But long story short, I had to renew my driver's license during COVID, which, by
the way, hours in line and my license picture. I've got to show you my license picture next time we're together. It doesn't look anything like me. It is wild.
I'm trying to think what mine would be. I didn't change that much. I mean, I guess I kind of got bored and I dyed my hair and got a little more extreme. But there's a picture that comes to mind of hiking Mount Olympus with Trav, Aaron Falk, and Bill Or while Bill was in town for a day. We hiked Mount Olympus in the summer of twenty twenty and Trav had this amazing huge beard. He had like a Nate bench bull hat. And that's the one look and like thought that I always go back to because
everybody went there separately. You know, obviously we were together, but we were outside. It was a very interesting time. So that's if I had to pick one, and I'll send it to you. It's amazing.
It's that Yes, please do, and I'll send you mine. And you're gonna be horrified at what you see when I send this to you. I actually just found it, so I'm sending it to you right now. Hey, while we're in this nonsensical space on a Friday, because hey, you know it's Friday. This week, I think it was Wednesday was the five year anniversary of the Jazz in OKC. When go bear tested positive and then the game was canceled. Hour later we get the WOJ bomb the season has
been canceled. I wonder what your memories are of that night now for me, because of course I asked you so I could tell you my thing. I was finishing up the show and I had a hit on Talking Sports, you know, our guy Dave Fox. I finished up the show, I said to my producer, Okay, I'm just walking across the street. I'm gonna go do this KTV thing. And right before I walked into the building, I get the
alert go bear test positive. Jazz OKC postponed. This was before the whole thing was canceled, and I called Dave. I'm like, hey, what do you want to do. He's like, well, you still got to come in so we can fill the time. And we put on our best Joe Rogan amateur epidemiologist hats and tried to walk people through what was going on. In my mind, I'm like, is Rudy gonna die? I mean, we didn't know anything yet about
the entire situation. And then an hour later you get the text and the alert from Woes the season is no longer. Where were you that night? What do you remember? What are your memories of that five years ago?
In honor of the great Lester Bangs. I'm home. I'm always home, So like I was where I was right now, watching on TV. I was texting Tony, I was texting Andy.
I just remember it being crazy because like an hour or two after the game got called off, Andy was on CNN, like like they just got him on talking about it, because like everything had stopped, and I was just like, no, there's Andy and he's on CNN to talk about, you know, how they're going to get home and all these requirements that they had to go to,
the rigorous testing and so on and so forth. So that's that's always going to be my memory is Andy on CNN and texting Tony and Andy and just like seeing if they're okay and seeing how they were going to get home.
Best Lester Bangs quote, See you made friends with them. Friendship is the booze they feed you. They want you to get drunk on feeling like you belong. Potentially, that's got to be in the mix.
Yeah, I like more random ones like give me a thousand words on Black Sabbath like that. That's that's like classic you know, nerdy editor talk, which really pulls in my heartstrings. But yes, there is a bevy of them, and that one that you mentioned is probably at the top.
You you'll meet them all again on their long road to the middle. And I remember that one, yes, yes, correct, that one's so good. What a great movie, Philip Seymour hop and rest in peace? What a loss? Huh?
Yeah, man, I mean watched The Birdcage recently, which is one of my favorite movies. You know, two of the three out of the you know, the main people in that movie are now gone. Obviously, the goat Robin Williams left way too early, Gene Hackman. If we'd all be lucky to get to ninety five, man, so like I I would, you know, I would wish that for everybody that I care about. So yeah, man, it's just that's where we are right now.
My son was doing an informal excuse me, an informal poll and he texted all of us to send in our top ten actors of all time. And I think I had Hoffman at three, and he was blown away. He didn't really because you know, he's a young I don't you know, I don't know that he's familiar. I definitely force fed him. Almost famous, probably too young. I
don't think he's ever seen Boogie Knights or Lebowski. When you look at the body of work of Philip Seymour Hoffman, I think perennially underrated as far as just a great actor with range. That's my take on a Friday ck.
Sandy Lyle, one of the nice one of the best Robbins to a Batman in any movie history. The Make It Rain montage and Along King pay My colleague Doug Holler actually wrote a story about that last year, like just about how Philip Seymour Hoffman basically ad libbed so much of that pick up basketball game in New York and just to make It Rain and all that silly stuff. So yeah, I mean, probably almost famous, probably Boogie Knights,
talented mister Ripley. But Sandy when he's at the end of Along King PAULI, when he's pretending to be Ruben Fepper and he's he's in that boardroom and he just faked fake coughs the entire time to try to get through the fake presentation. I feel like that's what I would do if I was really hard pressed into something that I didn't know I could pull off. I would just you know, basically try to mask it with a fake cough for a good fifteen minutes.
Charlie Wilson's War Underrated Foulk was in the bubble right.
Did you us? Were you?
Were you communicating with him during that time, because I can remember him sending out some social posts of like the food that they were that they were feeding them down. It was Orlando, right, bubbles.
And yeah, I mean it was it was at your place, man, it was in Disney World.
Why is that my place? Because I happened to be in Orlando last week.
Somebody went there recently and it wasn't me.
Well, I crushed the Toy Story ride. I have to beat my brother.
Listen. It took me like five or six times to beat Amanda, Like she's so good at that. And I don't get jealous or like competitive all that often, but after like the third loss, I was like, I can't do this again, and it took me a while. So I'm glad you.
Want, okay, but it takes it's like an hour wait to get on that ride. You guys got back in line like four straight times, so you could beat her in the shooting game.
I think this was back when you could get those fast passes, so we would always just get a front of the line bump for that because the line was so long. And I was weirdly and like I said, I'm not competitive really about anything in life. But she was just taking me to school every single time, and I was like, come on, man, have a little self respect.
It's not that hard, you know. Okay, No, No, Like there there are cheats like the bo peep level. If you shoot the lambs that are coming out of the top of the barn, you get an extra thousand points for each lamb you shoot.
The poor lambs they're screaming.
BYU's playing Houston tonight, Chris Let's transit does March Madness move the needle for you at all? I mean, we've already gone over because this is the time of the year. I already have three requests to fill out brackets, and no matter how many times I explain to them, it doesn't matter how much you watch, this is impossible. I still get the same requests every single year. I am of the opinion that this is the best individual sporting event that we have on our calendar. Every year. I
love it. I geek out on it. It's the only reason college basketball still generates revenue. Does March Madness move the needle for you at all? Personally?
I will say Thursday through Sunday the first weekend does, and then after that I'm kind of like tapping out because I don't necessarily need to see Duke play Tennessee in the Sweet sixteen. I mean, maybe I do this year because I got to crush the Cooper flag tape. As we know, I mean, hopefully he'll be healthy and playing then, but the opening, first and second round is it for me? I agree that it's it brings people in at a level that the average kind of nonsports
fan doesn't get brought into any other thing. I think, like yearly annually. You're right. I think the World Cup, the Olympics would be on that list, but those are every two to four years. But yeah, I love it. I love hearing of a school that I've never heard of beating a school that I have heard of, and then looking at my bracket and be like, oh, I didn't.
Have that, So BYU Houston tonight. If they win, they'll advance of the Big twelve. Championship and maybe grab a top three seed. I've been saying, c K and I don't know what your gig was back when jim Or was at BYU. Were you still in college?
Were you still no? When jim Or was in college, I was the high school sports writer for the Park Record in Park City, covering Park City High School, North Summit High School, South Summon High School. One Porter Larson I think was dunking the basketball back in the day. I think there are stories We've talked about this before, but covered Porter's basketball and football exploits and covered Olympics. So that's where what I was doing back then. I was. I was very, very very low on the total port.
Wait, Porter, what years were you in high school?
Twenty thirteen was my last year there.
So were you on the beat when one young Porter Larson was catching touchdowns and dunking putbacks? Do you have any memories of this?
I know that Porter was on He was on a pretty good team that I think won the football title in like twenty eleven. Porter might have to correct me on this. Hayden Packard, great running back.
We actually didn't win football we should have and got upset every year. Second place every time. But no, yes, was on the byline of a game winning touchdown had against Bridgefield nice in the in the playoffs. And then it was the basketball team we had a title in like twenty ten and then they won.
A bunch was on that team. Who else was on that team?
Porter, A bunch of right ulches, a bunch of as we know, get all the righte ultras. You're doing just fine, but yeah, shout out to my Camus folks. Oh there you go. All right? Well, anyway, so you were not covering college basketball, you're covering high school all the time. But this I think it's their best chance at something special since then. And you know that team with fordet probably I don't know if they're a Final four worthy,
but you know the whole Brandon Davis thing. He gets ratted out apparently down there honor code violations suspend him. And I think they went to the sweet sixteen if I remember correctly. But is this the beginning of something pretty special with aj de bants are rolling into town next year? Like it seems like BYU is really the talk of national college football pundits. You know you you name it or excuse me, college basketball pundits, you name it.
Right now, they're talking about this run BYU is on and then what they could have coming into, uh, you know, kind of coming into the season next year.
Well, with AJ coming in, I think you would need one of, if not multiple current star players on the roster to decide to come back. Richie Saunders is a junior. Does he come back? Does? What does his draft braide look like after this tournament? You know, a Mission kid, so he's older, his window is going to shrink like all Mission kid windows do. Dollen Hall's a junior. Kevocado
is a junior. Now, I don't think the NBA is going to be busting down the door for all these guys, but maybe Richie, You're gonna lose guys like Triore and
your guy Trevinell. But I think in order for BYU to keep this thing going and potentially be better, you can't necessarily start over from scratch with the number one player in the country with you know, guys that have been you know, role players, you know, trying to think of this, you know, Dawson Baker looking at the roster, Cannon Catchings, who apparently is going to be a lottery pick, but I haven't seen him, like really play one minute
this year despite watching some DYU basketball games. Are we are we assuming that Igor Demon is gone? Yeah?
I think he's a lottery pick. I think he's a top ten pick. From everything I read, I think he's probably gone, but I don't know.
Well yeah, So basically what I'm saying is if if BYU and it's very deep, Nil donor base can convince Richie Sonders and Igor Demon to come back next year along with Aj Debonsa, then we can have a legit conversation about, yeah, these guys can potent, potentially, like you know, have a hell of a season, But I think it's really hard to be able to pull that off with the weight of pressure that's going to be on a
kid like Aj Debantsa. And I know they're bringing in another kid who's apparently really good, but focusing on what this year's team does really well, I mean they shoot the ball like crazy, and I know, and you know, talk about basketball cliches. If your three point shooting team and your three point shot doesn't fall one day, you
could be in a heap of trouble. So I'm fascinated to see how this BYU team does when they go up against either a really good team like they do against Houston to night, or maybe a lower seat in the first round of the tournament, and a three point shot isn't going down. Are they the type of team that can overcome that?
I have a philosophical question for you about college basketball coaching based off of some topics we've had on the show over the past couple of weeks. Now that Alex Jensen is high speed ahead of becoming the seventeenth head coach in Utah men's basketball history. So when they fired Larry Skoviak, I heard from a few different alums on and off the show that they didn't love the way Larry handled the alumni. They didn't think he embraced the past.
They didn't think he understood what Utah meant. Montana guy would have you. And now after Craig has been let go, I've had a couple of guests, Josh grandmothers talk about the same thing with Craig. Like alumni tried to reach out, he didn't necessarily reciprocate anything. He wasn't open to those
relationships or conversations. And I got to be honest, man, I don't think that's the job of a head coach in college basketball to just appease the alumni, even an alumni base as rich in tradition and history as Utah basketball is like, you've got a job to do, and I don't think part of your job description is to answer every phone call you get from an alumn to make sure they have front row seats or they can
go observe practice. What is the job when it comes to college basketball and an alumni base that feels like they have not been taking care of the way they believe they deserve to be well.
I mean, the alumni is always going to have a bone to pick with coaches that don't worship the ground that they walk on because they believe that they have a direct say or impact on the success of the program. Presumably, if you're a deep pocketed donor alumni, you're you're gonna say, like, I help facilitate deals in the nil era. If you're a former player, you're wondering like, why can't Why isn't the red carpet rolled out for me? I don't know
the ins and outs of it. I would I agree with you, but I also think like in the Grand
scheme of things. It's probably very small potatoes to be like, hey, Keith van Horne, come talk to our team, like on the anniversary of your putback against whoever the belief that would Like it's I understand that you're not supposed to cowtow to you know, the ghosts of the past, but it's not hard to just maybe take I don't know, one day a month, one day every two months to bring somebody back to talk to the team or let
them see it in or just hear them out. I don't know, like the amount of money that these guys get paid. Like, I know you're busy, I know you have a lot on your plate, but like you have to basically be willing to do whatever you can in order to make your program successful. For example, this is
a hard tangent, but it's kind of local. Recently talked to Mark Matson, the mad Dog now coach at CAL Basketball, was at UVU, played at Stanford, played with kobein shak for a story about Cal Basketball's travel in the ACC
in the first year. Mark decided to take it upon himself to leave a bunch of open seats on their charter flights their cross country charter flights for high profile alumni and donors to get to get a sense of like how difficult this reality is in the ACC because you open the door to people, you let them in. The odds are they're gonna you know, your team is going to be humanized, They're going to be excited. I know it's not for everybody. I know. Mark is a
very unique dude, a very jovial, easygoing guy. But like that is a that is an anecdote that I would like lean on. Just God, yeah, like it's it's worth trying. I don't I don't see like how it could hurt. But every coach is different. And you know, Larry was a pretty hard nosed guy. And the Craig thing was pretty surprising to me because I always, you know, figured that he was a type of guy that maybe always talked about the spectrum magic at the Utah State then
the huntsman magic at Utah. I always figured maybe he would be the type of guy that would want to lean on some people who would have success here. But listen, it's it's it's a difficult job. It's going to be a difficult job for Alex. I mean, I know there are people that are talking about, you know, you're gonna have to retain players in order to hit the ground running,
like this roster was not good. Like if we're talking about the dude who hit the portal today as like a building block, he averaged six points a game, man, Like I think you got you gotta really like look at this thing with your roast colored glasses like smashed on the floor. Like this is a This is a rebuild, and it can happen either really fast or it could take some time. But the Utah men's basketball team just doesn't have a lot of good players, and they haven't for a long time.
All right, TK, before I set you loose, b YU playing Houston and RSL also playing team from Houston. It has been since twenty eighteen that RSL has been able to win in Houston. It's a nine game winless run. We're talking US Open Cup, League's Cup, MLS Cup playoffs, regular season. They can't win down there. It's odd. It's like Seattle can't win here. I don't fully understand it, but you know, obviously the start of the for the
lads has not been great. My guy Forrester, your guy Pole, the two Young Nines, with a lot of pressure on them. We wait every day to hear this announcement of this you know, mythical maybe fictional number nine that apparently is on the way. But what are you looking for from the lads tomorrow as they travel down to Houston. At least it's not August. At least it's not going to be one hundred and ten degrees.
Correct, Yeah, and that has generally been a thorn in the side of anybody going to Houston in basically July to September. But listen, they RSL had their chances last week, and it's just a team that doesn't have a lot of confidence in itself right now. You can tell, like, I know they're probably you know, I know your your vibes, guy Pablo is probably waxing poetic about you know, how
they got to fix things. But you had three one on ones, three individual one on ones with the goalkeeper last week against San Diego, and you put everyone wide. You didn't put one in the goalies like stomach like that is that to me is evidence of a team that is currently low on talent where it matters in the attacking third and be low on self belief in the attacking period, and that doesn't get you that far in this league anymore. So can they get the Houston
can they get rid of the Houston bug? Maybe you know, the the Ben Elsen Houston Damo have had Pablo's number for a while, So interesting to see what they do. I don't know if it's going to be Peel or you're a guy Forrester, but it it came across, it came apart at the seams very quickly last week, and it shouldn't have been the case. And I just think this is a team that just needs more talent, and I don't know if they're going to be able to get, you know, usable high end talent in house in order
to make a you know, a potential playoff run. Because you know, I'm banging this drum on your show until the end of time. Like it's going to take anybody coming into this league a long time to acclimate, whether they come in in April, May, June, July, or August. So you can't necessarily count on those guys because they're learning on the fly. Now, if you can acquire somebody in the league who can do it and it's proven they can do it, I think that's a different story.
But right now, I think RSL just has to figure out who they are, because clearly through the first month of the season, they've been all over.
The place, all right, c K, Well sincere, apologies. That was immature to call you a name to start off the show. I was just depressed that my friend was not joining me in studio. So I take it back. You are not a coward. You are brave, you are strong. I see you, I hear you. Have a great weekend, Okay, I feel seen. Thank you, Ah the great Chris Comroddie. It's important porter these days to let people know that you see them and you hear them. I agree, I see you and I hear you.
I can barely see you with the glare in this.
Don't now now I'm having mental health issues. It's no, it's a vision. Take it back. Just say that you see me and you hear me. I see clearly. Thank you. So you just sent me a PK. Did cover a game that you played in?
Yeah, he was on the sideline for some some two way football action.
Well, if you ever want me to bring in my six A championship rings so you can look at it, I'm happy to do that, you should do so all right.