Adam Mikolch the Goat. Although Adam, I am disappointed. I'm looking across from myself in the studio. I don't see across from me, man. I thought we were doing this in person.
What gives?
I am so sorry, Man, I just cut up doing some marins and stuff today and I got to be into the station here at three o'clock on the nose, so I didn't want to I didn't want to cut it too close today. Sorry about that, man. There's nothing like doing radio studio, especially with you.
All good, All good, Because Dave Fox is on another lengthy vacation. I just need to ask you, how has Dave had a forty year career without ever working a day? Just out of curiosity, because I'm honestly impressed. He's like a mentor of mine. Forty years in this business without ever working a day.
Well, that's the goal, right, And there's two schools that thought. You know, there's the old cliche, find something you love doing, do it every day of the rest of your life, and never working another day of the rest of your life. I'm calling bs on that from the top of mountains fence. It's just not that easy for our generation. Let's put it this way. When it comes to Dave Fox, he's got a lot of quality people that he surrounds himself with. And I'd like to think I sit into that umbrella.
So when you've got a nice umbrella like that going life, life can be pretty smith well said.
And we tease. We love our ged, we love our guy Dave.
But of course Adam meglitch the goat, and Adam, I refer to you as the goat because somehow, some way, regardless of how dire the circumstance or situation, you hit us with positivity and anecdotes that kind of bring a smile to people's faces even when stories are hard. I wonder where that comes from. I wish I was more like that. Where where where's that approach come from?
Oh that's seriously, that's just about one of the nicest things anybody said to me in a really long time. In all sin charity, I have really really good parents, and I'm one of those guys too, where you know, I'm I don't have children myself. So when you talk with somebody and you get to know somebody, there's something that they bring up quite a bit, right, And so anybody who has kids. They love talking about their kids. They've got pictures of their kids on their cell phone
or pets. I don't have a pet too. So when I come up on conversation and I talk about good things that are going on in my life, it somehow always comes back to my mom and dad, who are my best friends. My dad is what I like to refer to as a Hall of Fame caliber track and cross country coach. Going back home, so my house, growing up, sitting down at the dinner table together was a big thing. Athletics were a huge part of our existence. You know. I was taught to try and break a sweat every
day and just put your best foot forward. And so again, I was raised in a really really good household with two really loving parents, and I guess I just try and spread the love around and pay it forward whenever I can, because I'm a pretty lucky guy.
You're also a pretty big dude. For people that don't know this about Adam, are you six three? It feels like you're about six three.
I'm six four. I'd like to be about two ten. I'm a little bit heavier than that. And one of the funniest things about me, Spence is I have a seventeen shoe and I've worn to say, seventeen shoes since I was sixteen years old. It's one of the weirdest
things about me. And as a kid who was sixteen and nineteen ninety four, so this is before the Internet and before everything, my life was very, very weird, trying to get shoes and trying to fit in as a normal member of society with feet that were way too big for my own good.
We are the very same age. I don't know that I knew that until now.
I was also sixteen in nineteen ninety four, because I bring it like were you an athlete?
I don't even know this about you, Like what did you play growing up?
So when I was growing up, like any other kid, the first sport that I got into was soccer, and I was actually really good at it. I was a
really good midfielder. And then if you look up my hometown the Wikipedia page Snahomish, Washington, one of the claims to fame is that there was a semi pro soccer team that rolled through there by the name of Stormich United, and Stormich United started as a Premier League team for thirteen fourteen fifteen year olds and it was a traveling crew and I was actually on the first ever Sinahamas United team. So soccer was a huge part of my life. I loved playing it the reason I was a pretty
good midfielder. Again, I say I have a Hall of Fame caliber track and cross country coach for a father. I was a distance runner growing up. I ran my first competitive race in about first grade. Hung on my dad's coattails and just running was a huge part of our life, and so I had a ton of insurance. So I made a midfielder because you never had to pull me from a game. And then again, I'm a
little bit big to be a distance runner. So once I started growing up and growing into what would be my adult body, a guy who's five eleven sixty with a size seventeen shoe doesn't make a lot of sense to be running competitively in three mile races. But it's something I stuck with. But then when I quit basketball. When I quit basketball in the eighth grade, I dipped myself into a pool and that is what became my calling. So I was I was an All American breaststroker. It's
the Homus High School and by all American. It doesn't mean that I was, you know, an absolute world beater. I just swam a good enough time to get that consideration. But I was a breaststroker and I swum the individual medley, and I really wanted to be a college athlete. I wanted to be a swimmer in college. The only problem was I just wasn't good enough. So I had a
huge work ethic. I lived at the pool. I was a lifeguard, swim teacher, and if I wasn't in the classroom or at home, I was at the pool, and I poured my heart and soul into them. And I absolutely love that stuff. Athletics was a huge, huge part of my life and a huge part of the reason I got into the business I got into.
So let's transition over there.
For our audience, it isn't familiar because Adam is not a very consistent guest of ours. So, like I've always found this interesting for guys to kind of do what you and I do, and we have different jobs, we're in the same ecosystem. You have guys like us they played sports growing up, and then you have and I honestly I'm not.
Judging one way or the other, but For instance, I.
An Eagle who is a good friend of the show, and as a guy I've known my entire life. Like I will tell you, do not throw a football at me. I don't know what to do with it. But he wanted to be a broadcaster when he was like eight. Right, So you have a lot of play by play guys, and most of the play by play guys in our market breaking news. There are not athletes. Then you have guys that tried to play sports like you I want. I wanted to be the starting point guard for the Knicks.
I mean that was my thing. And you know, I played until I was about nineteen when I tried to play against pros and then I realized, Okay, if you want to be around this, you got to find something else to do. So what kind of lit the fire for you to follow this path and how did you land in our market?
That's a great question, and it's actually something that I really like talking about because you're right there, there are many many different kinds of you know, professional sportscasters walking around. Some of the smartest ones when it comes to the analytics and the x's and o's and maybe memorizing stats and things like that, our guys that weren't athletes themselves,
they just fell in love with the sport. And probably there's a certain sense of living vicariously through it now when it comes to me and the one sport that I left out, you know, when talking about you know what made me tick when I was growing up, all I wanted to do when I was maybe ten through sixteen was played baseball. That was another sport that I played and unfortunately had to give up at one point because I just wasn't good enough. But Holy Toledo Spence,
I was the biggest baseball fan, baseball card collector. I grew up about forty forty minutes from Seattle, and I would do everything I could talk my dad and to take me to Mariners games. And it wasn't just to you know, to go sit in the know in our seats and watch the game. It was to go down and try and meet the players and take a handful of baseball cards and trying to get autographs and stuff like that. And then it was a really really strange twist.
I was actually playing on a Pony State championship team when I was fourteen years old, and I was still clinging to this idea that I could work hard enough and probably grew up to be a professional baseball player one day, and I was just kind of crossing that threshold of being a little more realistic as a human being. I feel like, once you get into high school, you kind of have to start facing certain realities. And at one point, and I think my dad and I had
just wrapped up. Uh he was, you know, he was running marathons at the time, and and so he would run for an hour, hour and a half at our local track and then I would throw a baseball against the wall while he did that, and then I would probably run for maybe, you know, the last ten minutes with him, something like that. So I'm going on and on like I always do, about playing baseball and maybe I can be a switch hitter and this and that
and the other thing. And for whatever reason, my dad had finally had it and he just said, Adam, you're my son, and I love you, but you are never going to be a professional baseball player. And it just broke my heart. And I trust them, there's a there's a happy ending to this story. And so I was so kind of irritated by like I walked into the house and had tears in my eyes and didn't pick a fight with my dad or anything like that. I just kind of had to let it sit and digest.
And then it was probably a couple of days later. I thought to myself, you know what, he's right, and good for him for actually saying something like that. But I didn't want to let the dream die necessarily like right there. So what I did is I thought to myself, what can I do, What can I possibly do with myself to make sure I stay as close to the arena as possible. How can I figure out a way to go to baseball games for the rest of my life.
And I've got a famous uncle by the name of Rick Lukens, who's a sportscaster in Spokane, and by him being on television, he was with the local ABC in in Spokane for thirty years. With him being on television, it was kind of a reality that I might be able to do this if I go to school and pay attention and set goals and try and run him down.
So I decided then instead of being a baseball player, probably the next best thing would be to be a sportscaster and get to interview people at the King Dome and Seattle and lo and behold, I think I'm twenty two years old working at Fox Sports north West in Seattle, and wasn't one hundred percent sure that I wanted to go the career paths that This is right after I graduated from Wazoo. And it was the first time that, you know, a reporter took me on a story with
them and I got to help out with it. And I called my mom at her office at home from the field at safegu Field and I just said, hey, Mom, I'm going to be a sportscaster. And she said, well, good honey, go for it. And then the rest is kind of history. Sorry, that was a long story, but that's that's the truth right there.
Adam Is, I sayed, all my guests, I have four hours of space to fill. You can take forty five minutes if you'd like. So you've been you've been here for fifteen sixteen years.
It feels bad.
Yeah, it'll be fifteen years in July.
Okay.
So here's the question I wanted to get to as we move into kind of where we find ourselvesselves here locally, you know, I've got a kind of unique paradigm when it comes to this community because I was born here and then moved and grew up elsewhere, and then came back and went to college here, so it's kind of home and then kind of isn't home. It's been home essentially for twenty five straight years, so and it's good living.
I love it here for sure. It's why I choose to live here.
And I am pretty stunned when I take a step back and consider how much we have grown as a sporting market and community. I would say since I was in school at the University of Utah in the late nineties.
I mean, it's pretty stunning.
Of course, we have additional properties like ray Al, Salt Lake and the hockey club, but we also have evolved into this really undeniable college football market, and we're an NBA market, even though our team right now is on serious about winning. How have you seen our market change and grow in your fifteen years.
Yeah, that's a really good question. And again it's another thing that the keep train coming back year after year because you know, not only do I have some stability here, I mean you know the fact that there's still multiple radio stations that that cover sports in this market is a real indicator of how strong it is here.
Multiple stations, Adam, I didn't. I thought there was only.
One man to say. And I apologize well, and you know, all four TV stations still do sports, and sports is the first thing to go when when times gets up again. You know, I always mentioned them from Seattle, and I am and Seattle is a good sports town. But it's it's fairweather. It's not. It's not like it is here with with the diehards. I mean, people in Seattle have lots of other things that they'd rather do, rather go do,
than watch sporting events. I I I grew up with a love for Utah because I was a Sonics fan, and the Sonics and the Jazz had great rivalries over the years. My brother used to impersonate Jeff Hornisack in the backyard when the red he chewed up a three ball. And so it's funny it took me moving here because I had this this remembrance of Salt Lake City. And you know, of course, my my my career path took me in a southeast Sideaho and then a long ways
from home. I was in a Champagne, Illinois before I got my job here. And so when I moved here, I was hit with the realization that Utah had become a football town, and that has everything to do with the success of the University of Utah and a lot to do with what you know happens just down the road in Provo too. They're absolutely sports praised here, and then you know, the Jazz are are kind of the main attraction and they make the whole world go around.
But I think one of the coolest things is the fact that the hockey club has taken out the way that it has, and that's the biggest change that I've noticed. I don't I think people here are absolutely sports praised, and the pulse of that has only gone up since I've been here. But with the hockey club, it's like anything else. I like to call it an experiment. When it's just taking off, and when it's just getting legs, I no longer referred to it as an experiment. And
the first whole season isn't done yet. This town has absolutely wrapped itself around that club. The atmospheres are so different and so rocking and so much fun. And I think Salt Lake has not changed as a sports market since I've been here, But it just continues and continues to impress me. And then let's be honest too. I mean, we meet a lot of people who are like minded in the industry from different places, and they all just kind of sit back and marvel the fact that we've
got a really, really good thing going here. I don't think the place has changed, but the fact that it has stayed the same and gotten a little bit better rather than trend in the opposite direction, That's what really really knocks my socks off. Because so many other places sports aren't gaining in popularity, they're actually waning in popularity. Does that make sense?
Yeah?
And you know it's wild to consider if the Millers are able to to successfully bring us major League Baseball. I mean, for you, as a kid growing up in Seattle, can you imagine covering a Mariner's game three miles from where you're working right now at them?
I couldn't. And honestly, you know, the stadium plans kind of stick to the Rose Park area, which is where I live now. I mean, honestly, if a Major League Baseball stadium was built within five miles of where I have my home right now, I don't know what I that I'd be able to contain myself and as a professional in this market and somebody who relies. I mean, we cover sports for a living, and honestly, sometimes it
can be a bit much. I mean, we have so much to cover as it is, and then don't forget, you know, for someone like me who goes out and shoots video the turn stories on a daily basis, I get really enveloped in the spring high school sports season. I mean, you're going to see me out at state championship soccer games, softball and baseball games, things like that.
So there's already a ton to cover. So it'd be a really really good problem to have to add one more professional franchise here and yet again, and I mean, if that happens, it's gonna work, Spence. Nothing doesn't work in Salt Lake City. These are sports crazed teumans here and it's a really wonderful place to be.
So let's move over a couple questions about the here and now, and then I'll set you loose because I know you got to get to it, and I reference your ability or just your choice or whatever it is to wax positive regardless of what's going on, and the jazz for the first time in fifty plus years of basketball. Just lost their sixtieth game, and they've just lost their sixty first and they're probably gonna lose the rest of the way. So this is the deal for me, Adam.
I mean, you know, I'm a child of this organization. Nobody wants me to see them, you know, but nobody wants to see them win a championship more than I do.
And they're doing the right thing. It just sucks like with the you know, right, like with the ecosystem of the NBA and the way that the league is structured, and you know, essentially how you kind of have to go about this because of the way that the NBA is you know, put together to bring to certain markets based off to certain mechanisms, namely the NBA Draft.
I get the approach.
I think they should have done this two years ago when Victor Weimanamo was available.
But it is what it is.
What has been the biggest challenge in covering a team that's unseerious about winning? And what are some of the positive things that you've noticed this year?
And just to kind of elaborate a little bit more for everybody at home, how significant this season has been I think the inaugural season of Jazz basketball that was in New Orleans and what was it, seventy three, seventy four. I'm close there, right, yeah, huh yep. Twenty three wins total in the first season ever, and I believe that's the all time fewest wins for a Jazz team in
a single season. They are going to eclipse that if everything goes well, and as weird as that is to sound, they're going to They're gonna set a franchise record for the fewest wins in a single season. And it's by design. So here it's kind of been an evolution thing for me. I wasn't ready to and and again I have because you know, we're we're we onwn kjazs, kutv on Kjazs, and we are the Jazz station. I'm you know, I'm I have an obligation to cover this team, and it's
a wonderful obligation to have. I've been doing live shots at Jazz games this year, probably more so than any time before, and it's because we want to be there and we want to we want to represent our product as best we can. And it took me a while to kind of evolve out of the mode of Okay, well, let's talk about the positives. They almost got the win tonight, and then finally to saying, okay, the jazz last tonight, and that's a that's that's a beautiful thing. It's just
absolutely weird. But once it kind of became you know, Danny Ainge hasn't had a press conference and given us the exact blueprints of this plan whatsoever, but it's it's implied that this is what they want to do, if it makes sense what I'm saying here right now. So just looking at the development of the youngsters has has been something that I've been trying to do the best
I can. I've we had you on Talking Jazz on Tuesday night and you and I were just going on and on about how much we like washing Isaiah call you play. So it has been kind of a work in progress, and the hardest thing for me to do was kind of allow myself to accept the fact that losing is by design when it comes to this team. And once I let that kind of go, it just became a little bit easier to focus on the young talent.
And you know, the other thing, too, is the locker room these guys kind of know who they are, and so I kept waiting for it to get to a point where it would be really difficult to go in there and talk to those players. But they've been terrific this season. They've they've made it easy to kind of look at the positive side of things and to know that this is what the team needs to do to grow it in the right direction. Those kids in that locker room have made it real easy to do my job,
and I guess I'm really appreciative of that. And so has Will Hardy too. Like he he's a great sound bite, he's very thoughtful, and he's he's also really you to talk to. So once once you, I guess, learn to accept the fact that losing is winning. This season in a very unique way, it kind of became easier and easier as it went along. That make any sense.
It does. It does, and it takes some time to understand.
Like, if you're working in an ecosystem that incentivizes losing, you're going to lean into it because the incentive structure says this is the right thing to do. So it's kind of like a don't hate the player, hate the game thing, Like I just don't like that the NBA incentivizes what the Jazz are doing, but the NBA does, so the Jazz have to do it.
But before I set you loose at.
Him, we are the home of the Utes, and we had a rough football season and another rough basketball season. But I think there's a lot of optimism for next year on both sides.
We'll finish with the football program.
But before we do that, Alex Jensen has been hired as the seventeenth coach and men's basketball history. Keiato Dawes withdrew from the transfer portal, he's coming back in Terrence Brown has been added as a transfer from Fairleigh Dickinson University, and when you look at the composite rankings, he is one of the top guards on the transfer market.
So we have two pieces in place. But you you know, Ajay, what would you say.
To you fans about what they should should expect now that he's in charge.
I just I love Alex. I think he's a great guy, you know. You know, it's been one of my favorite things about him. We work in a really hectic profession, you know, especially you know again covering post game for a living. I mean, you know, at least once or twice a week. I go to a sporting event, win or lose. I go do post games, scrap it all together, and then you know, just get to a live shot, you know, running to get there and make it on time.
It's a it's a hectic environment. Alex has this laid back, cool, calm demeanor about him everywhere he goes. And I got to know Alex when he was, of course working for working for Quinn Snyder and the Utah Jazz and he was never not sitting down courtside with Rudy Gobert with an iPad just looking through video and he's just calm, impatient, and a welcoming person. I think it's going to be really really interesting to see him developing college level talent
because I think he's cut out for it. I think there's like a nurturing side to Alex. I think there's a thoughtfulness that is perfect for coaching kids who are coming right out of high school and growing them into a program. I just think he's going to create a family environment. And I'm not saying that wasn't present with Craig Smith. I was a huge Craig Smith fan, and it broke my heart when he got let go. But Alex is going to bring the family aspect of Utah
basketball back to Utah. I think that's a big part of the reason they want him for this job. And then, you know, you've kind of prefaced this part of you know, our segment today talking about the transfer portal and how competitive it is there. I think the biggest thing that a coach can bring to the table for a program that wants to be competitive these days is to find a way to keep kids at your school. Don't have kids three quarters of the way through the season when
they're not perfect and nothing's going absolutely perfect. Get them from putting their heads in the gutter and thinking about leaving. Find a way to make a program that kids don't want to leave. And that's why I'm so excited for Alex to come here. I think he's going to be great.
At that all right.
Last thing, you know, Utah football last year was installed as the favorite to win the Big Twelve by our friends in Las Vegas. The media pick Utah to win the Big twelve local national you know, and I wonder, Adam this year, if you pull up the way to early Big Twelve lists as far as what people think is going to happen next year. Utah for the most part is like five, six or seven. They're mid table. Okay, Okay, So you remove the pressure of everybody saying you're going
to win the Big Twelve. The cfp's expanded to twelve, so you're going to that too. What gives you the most hope that year two in the Big twelve can be a lot better for Utah football than year one was.
Okay, I hope he's not listening right now, because I don't mean it the way it sounds. But the fact that Utah has undeniably moved on from Cam Rising, I think is the first step in the right direction. You know, Cam his last two seasons was never a sure saying, and there were lots of ups and downs that were just there and always it already is as long as he was around. What's Cam going to do? How's Cam
going to be? It looked pretty good through a couple of games this last season, and then I don't know what he was trying to pull in the game against Baylor. I've got a ton of respect for this kid. I think he's one of the best, not only quarterbacks, but one of the best leaders that the Utah football has had since since I've been here, and he's got a tremendous upside and he's going to have a right future.
But the fact that they're moving on from that era and moving into something else, I think is the first step in the right direction. And then, yeah, I think there's a little juice up there too with Jason Beck. I hadn't had a change to meet him until I was up at practice on a Friday a couple of weeks ago, and we got to talk to a lot of the coordinators and he just looks bright at and bushy tailed and ready to make mistakes and fix those
mistakes and get his hands dirty. And the other thing too, is he's playing for you like to call me the goat. The goat is Kyle Whittingham. I mean, that's the biggest arrow in the quiver that the University of Utah has, is They've they've got one of the deans of college football running their program, and guys just seemed to love to play for him. And I think I think as long as Kyle Whittingham is there, I think Utah's is going to be a force to be recommend.
Adam you're the man. Appreciate the time. It was fun being on television with you this week. Have a great weekend, buddy with chat soon.
Okay, thanks everything, Sence, Appreciate you all right.
Adam kolitch Ku TVs on Twitter which is just his name at Adam miklitch is where you find brought to you today by IFA Country Stores. Weather's about to turn and it'll probably be more or less warm moving forward, so it's time to start thinking about your lawn. IFA Country Stores has everything you need to care for your lawn, no matter its size or shape. Their four plus long care program can promote a healthy, green lawn.
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