All right, I really only know one meat love song. It's the I would Do Anything for Love song. I'm not familiar with this one. Which which meat love song? Did you decide to go with her?
A little? Two out of three ain't bad? Okay? I think the next most popular meat loaf tune?
All right, maybe, so let's let's get a little I would do anything for love, next spump deal, I got you? Okay, So Trevor Riley's live in studio, Trevor. The question is is there such a thing as simply good music?
Like?
Can you define what good music is? Or is it simply discretion and left up to one's taste.
I would say, if you like classical music at all, if you like drums and violin, guitar, piano, I think Chicago, okay, obviously the album where they had David whatever his name was Foster produced the album That's pretty good music, ok okay. That mixes the pop with some you know, old school instrumental stuff with rock and roll yacht rock type stuff. I mean, it's smooth and anybody can listen to it,
because not everybody likes rock and roll. True, not everybody likes rap, but yacht rock seems to be one of those I can like Billy Iole, He's all right, okay, like you can digest it easily. Yeah, it's it's like people who speak Spanish from Peru, not a heavy accent, easy to understand. Right, you go to Dominican republics can be a little tough. Yeah, yeah, that two years of Spanish is going to be out the window now. Fair enough.
Trevor Riley is live in studio, one of the best to ever do it for the utes, longtime NFL VET. All right, I do this with you every time you hop into I just want the update, man, I just want the update because I have no specific questions.
You never know where this is going to go. What's going on with you as of now? It's been a wild ride. Okay. I just got off the phone with Brian Bleckin and Sennie found Nukul nice. That's my defensive staff here with the UTA Islanders. So sell that community College affiliated. We're playing Snow College two Saturdays from tomorrow in harrim at Zions Bank Stadium. Tickets from five dollars
right check us out Utilanders dot com. But we've been game planning, okay, and so we were putting a roster together. We went from about fifteen guys to we're up at about fifty five now, and so that's cool. We got a Utah Players Association we formed, you know, Jesse Boone, Nate Orchard's our president. We got Sly and Matt Martinez on the board, myself and a few others, Derek Shelby.
So we got a scrimmage tomorrow with the Utes. Okay, so we're gonna have our first official meeting there and then maybe some radio stuff and then you know, newly married. So that's fun.
That a boy, Congratulations, I met your bride. She's lovely, isn't she beautiful?
Yeah, gorgeous sched job at Lichiatre's art by the way, great watercolorists, very nice, very nice.
All right, So Utah Islanders, Utah Islanders dot Com is where you go. So Trev, let's kind of go back a little bit because radio is not linear for our listeners who were not tuned in prior to take us through the origin story. When did you first come up with this idea and then unpack exactly what you're trying to do?
Well, all the credit goes to Chrystalin and his wife Jess. They kept this semi pro football team alive just for the love of the game. Neither of them have kids, and it's a couple who are They own a company called screen Protect and they were He wanted to get involved in football, so he starts this. He gets involved with the Sentinels that used to be okay, and this is low, low level. This is beer league ball, right, This is the old school beer league ball. Got to
start somewhere. So this is a couple of years ago. So then they morphed it, and you know, he's an entrepreneur. He gets this idea, why don't we link up with the college and so Solid Community College, as you know, does not and has never had football. That was a void that's easily filled. So he set that up and then we got a couple of guys on board, T Kenny Kenny from the University of Utah and a few other guys. And then you know, he called me and said, hey, I need you to kind of put a bow on
this thing. You put this thing together like how you were doing it Jackson State and Colorado and helping out. You know, I learned from Bobby Black and at Utah. He's my best friend up there, and so there's a lot of continuity there. And so the idea was this that we can put together a team where we can do a life after ball, right, you know, an entrepreneur school, trade school, and that way, if you don't want to go to class Spence, you can still play secondary ball.
And at the same time, if you do want to go play Division one, we'll set you. We got an academic advisor, you got a scholarship here at the community. So there's a lot there. But the biggest thing is that we have junior college ball. I call it single a football now, Okay, in Salt Lake, in Utah County. You don't have to go to eat from anymore. And that's kind of a big deal. It is. There's a lot of kids that are gonna I mean they're showing it. They're calling me every day, dude, I love. I love
to hear that. So I have the website up.
I'll tell people continuously go to Utah Islanders dot com and you have a roster.
You have a roster up on your website.
Uh, last time you joined us, you said, one of the young men practicing with you was wearing an ankle monitor.
We're all about redemption. Baby, I'm with you, you know me, I'm with you. Did this? Did he make the team? Yeah, he's great linebacker. Okay, Uh, he's just he's a great kid, all right. He's actually related to the schools. So I coached at Utah nice me by sool, very nice and so uh he's shown up every day. And we have other kids. We have a kid who's an engineer. He wants to be an engineer. We know a kid wants to be a doctor. We have a kid who's a plumber, and we have a kid who's a welder. We have
a kid who owns his own car detailing business. Just got a new Beamer. Nice. So, I mean, there's a lot, it's a potpourri of people. But the good thing is it's local. It's about ninety percent local. So this game on Saturday, the twenty third, it's a celebration in the state of Utah. You're going to see a lot of the great high school players you've seen in the last five to six years. And then Snow College is going to put a great team out there. And Nashley rank
last year and what we have to start looking at this. Everybody, listen here this is developmental football. Now, Okay, we are the farm teams for Utah and BYU, and so that's what this is. You want to come see what the talent looks like. Right. We just saw what BYU did with Jay Hill. Yep, they farmed about six of them out there, right, brought them on over one eleven games. So the blueprints already there. And I think we're heading the right direction. And thanks for having a song, but
that we really appreciate. Oh of course, you know you're my guy. So your reference. You're going to scrimmage the Utes? No, no, I'm just saying we want to feed them players. But earlier you said you have a scrimmage. Is that true? This Utes have a scrimmage tomorrow? Correct, And well I'll be there. That's the Utah Players Association. Oh, I see we have we now have got we've become official. Okay, we went on the internet, so I guess it's official. Not on social media, but I guess that's how it
goes now. Nate Fakafula Orchard is our president of the the mayor of sac Lake City. Indeed, Jesse Boone vice president, and I said before it was kind of a brain trust between those guys and myself put this thing together. And you know, we're working with Pablocanno and Rudy Rudy, we're trying. We're trying to We got to get the alumni involved, right And that's that's this thing that you tells as you know, as a you, that's one thing
we've always talked about. I think you know, Jeff Rudy and his crew and Pablo there, they're bridging the gap with us and I think we're going to have a good family of meeting on Saturday. How how can you and alumni get involved with this? Well, first thing we need to support, right we and for all U ex players, if you played one day of University Utah football, please come to the scrimmage on Saturday. Reach out to Adam
Fry or Pablocanno. We got a We had a lunch at El Cholo Restaurant after from two to four and that's going to be our hangout spot and we'll have you over there. Spence. We're going, We're we we got it going though now. So now it's we're like every other university. It's like some novel things like it's already just this is what it is now, so you feel like you have some good momentum. You know, the things are just going in the right direction. What do you think?
I mean, imagine this if you are a donor, right, what if we start a hedge fund? What if I get some private equity money? Would you got to give you money to the school? Give it ust We'll go buy players. Yeah.
I mean it's out of the box thinking like this that's happening across the country. That honestly, you got to figure out some angle, Trev. Because ultimately the reality right now, and this is not surprising to me because I said this five years ago when NIL started to become a reality. I said, this is going to really benefit BYU. It's
going to really benefit Brigham Young. They have a lot of entrepreneurs that have graduated from school and started companies and MLMs and whatever else they've done, the Silicon slopes, the tech bros who have made hundreds of millions of dollars sometimes billions of dollars, that very much love BYU Athletics and the interesting tie. This is something we talked about this week because Notre Dame and BYU right now have massive collectives and economic tax free money based infusion.
It's tax free money. But the other thing it is trev and you know this because you have an LDS background. If you're a Catholic and you love Notre Dame, and Notre Dame says to you, Notre Dame football is a great conduit in a vehicle for the exposure for the Catholic church. If you're a member of the Catholic church and you love Notre Dame, you say to Jack Swarbuck, how much money do you need?
If this is the deal, If you're telling me that my.
Football program or my basketball program will lead to more exposure for the church that I love and that's my faith system, here's a blank check. And if you're a member of the LDS church and Brian Santiago comes to you and says, we believe our football program is the best missionary tool that we have in athletic department to spread the gospel, what are you going to say? How much money do you want? Utah does not have that
built an advantage. Yes, plenty of LDS people on the coaching staff, plenty of LDS people the administration, plenty of LDS people that are alumni. But Utah does not utilize their message as a missionary tool the way BYU does. So whatever the out of the box idea is, Trev, you got to come up with something for Utah to keep up.
I agree. And to answer a few of those points there, I would say this, We've never had an alumni meeting ever. Never. Huh. So that's interesting, right, I had a football team, right, we've never now that And maybe that's not a normal thing. But I'm sure they've had the meetings. Just no one's showing, at least I'm not, and I've heard that from a number of people. That's not anybody's fault. We were a commuter school, right, we were not. They just put dorms
up there. What for the Olympics. This is not a place where people like moved to and went to school. It's downtown Salt Lake City.
Yeah, they had dorms, but I can tell you it is somebody that spent some time up there in the nineties. They were it was like a Lakita in compared to like a Marriout, which they have now that the dorms are a little bit better now.
So some of the things, right, they tore up the golf course and they you know. You know I'm going to say this. I mentioned Brian and Sinny. You know, I'm going to give up my generation a little credit. We bridged the gap from the Mountain West to the Pac twel he did, and so there's some of us meet and Brian, especially Brian really he was there, I know, and he started as a freshman. We met, We beat Aaron Donald in that team Pittsburgh twenty ten. He has
the game when he picked his first game. Amazing play. But anyways, you go from that right to the PAC twelve. The money, right, that was the biggest deal. We were always small time, yep, because we had no money and we had no facilities and so urban and I know, obviously coach mc bride started the whole thing, Chris Hill hiring him and hiring Majeris. You know, Chris Hill doesn't get eno credit for those two hires. Those are two big hires. Man. You don't have to worry about basketball
football for ten years a decade. And so going forward, we got to start collaborating with the school. We don't want to fight the school. We want to work. We all want to win, Okay, the goal is to win, and for players like for one thing. We want healthcare. That'd be nice, right, we got twenty five hundred X players, we could put something together. Right, That's something we could do so that they're among other things. Right, that's a
good goal to start with, I think Spence. And then for us, we want to be a vehicle to drive money for the school. We need to start earning money for the team. We need an a owl money now, a lot of it. Yep, okay, or it's people are going to start getting fired, and the people start getting angry and you start blaming people. It's because we don't have any money. You're athletics right in Vegas, it's always the talk. You don't want to be the A's. You don't want to be Utah State where they got one
guy that's in a OL money. That's it. I'll be the quarterback. So we do not that where we're going to be that. But it's the have and have nots. I just these Texas schools they got money, and you're in the Big twelve, right and the Mormons they got money. So we got to figure out a way. So I'm hoping we can collaborate with all the great minds who've played here or who are alumni like yourself, who are doing big things. We should we need to start meeting. Yeah, and you know the interesting thing.
The Athletic did a piece today about the Big Ten looking into private equity. The Big Ten is going to make over a billion dollars this year and every member institution is going to take home about eighty nine million. That dwarfs what the Big twelve schools are going to take home. BYU will be a full rev sharing school next year. They're not full yet. Utah was full of rev right out of the gates, which says a lot
about how the Big Twelve wanted Utah. But when you compare the Big Twelve to the SEC and the Big Ten, the gap is huge and it's just going to keep getting bigger. And if the Big Ten gets ahead of this with private equity money, you can just kiss it goodbye.
Because I really still think Trevor, at the end of the day, there will be this line of delineation that occurs between We'll just use the easiest example, the Big Ten of the SEC doing their own thing and everybody else being left OUTNC basically, and so if your Utah, if your BYU, you know, the two schools that we
cover the most on the show. You have to have everything in order that if that phone call comes from the powers and the Big ten of the SEC and they say we are breaking away, no more NCAA, we don't give a rip about partnerships with you.
We are breaking away, but we are interested in you Utah.
To join us, you have to have everything in line and none, the least of which is your economic model.
And I honestly don't know what it is at Utah. I really don't. Well, my grandfather tells great stories Wayne Riley about when the Arizona schools. He says, I remember the pack a, those Arizona schools got in here. They took a decade even be relevant. And he had a point. I went back and looked at if he wasn't wrong in a lot of ways. And so what happens is if you even if you know we're going to scale, it'll probably be a two conference football thing in college football.
And the NCAA has already done anyway. I mean at my level, they did. They allow all intent and purposes. At our level, we're playing junior colleges Division two and Division three and semi proteins. So it's already. And I used to tell people I was at Jackson State. Okay, I never saw our compliance officer. We had one. She was awesome, you know, she was for the whole school. And it wasn't because we were breaking rules. It just
they know at the bottom, they don't care. And so when you start scaling up, right, we're at the point now where they don't care anymore, the big schools because they've lost the recort case. And so going to what I think for Utah, we don't want to get caught like Arizona's or we get into the big time and then we're ten years behind. Yeah, yeah, you spend a decade catching up financially, Let's get ahead of it. We know what's coming, right, Yeah, I mean that's where I think it's moving now.
There are some complications with some of the television deals that don't expire for a few years. I mean, if you would have asked me to have five years ago, what will the sport look like in five years meaning now, I would have told you I thought we would already be in that model. Okay, so five years later, what we're looking at now a few complications and there there are there's some momentum in Congress or the ability for players to collectively bargain, now, that will be something that
has to be passed through legislators and local leaders. And there are some complications when it comes to treating football players like employees.
Certainly for public school.
Like Utah, BYU does not have the same complications and they're not beholden to the state the way the University of Utah is.
They still take federal dollars though, I think, which means they're going to be beholding to somebody.
But as far as the ability to treat people like employees and collectively bargain, so the players and look, the complications will be taken on by very smart lawyers who see dollar signs. Like the best career right now in law is to sue the NC DOUBLEA because like over the time, over the past five years, like every lawsuit that's been filed by the NC DOUBLEA or against the NC DOUBLEA has gone against them. And so whenever I
hear people, I think it's lazy analysis. When I hear people say, oh, there's too much red tape, you can't traverse it, Yes you can. And powerful lawyers will take on this task of teaming up with college athletes and saying we will collectively bargain on your behalf, and we will negotiate a salary cap. I know there's the twenty point five mil that's been out there, but that's low compared to the revenue.
That's brought in. Plus there's private money on top of that.
Private money on topic. It will negotiate a salary cap. We're going to negotiate a pension. We're going to make sure that you're taking care of long after you play. And then the powers that being in the new era of college football, will negotiate with the lawyers.
And it's going to look a lot like the NFL.
And honestly, this should have happened yesterday because if we do this, Trevor, what it does is alleviate the issue of players leaving after a year.
Why why would you you sign a contract?
Okay, you're here for two years with a team option for a third year, and that option will not be exercised. If you're a top two round pick, you can lead to go to the draft. If you do that, players do not transfer willy nilly. You can keep them on campus and develop a program instead of trying to break it.
Bronco Menerha's eighty new players this year. Most schools have between sixty and seventy.
It makes it impossible for a coaching staff to build a program, and it makes it impossible for a community to latch onto players because they're here for a year.
What I mean to your point, just to bring it back the Islanders, just to include us in one little thing. If we are really the bottom, right, if we are the single a ball, and we'll say Utah States triple A. If you're a kid right now and you have an offer from Utah State, it's a linebacker. You get to go burning. You'r a Velligi a billion start as a freshmen. We're not going to pay any money, or you can come play for us. I take nine units. Your clock
doesn't start now. You can see where it starts getting a little fuzzy there right right. If you're a parent and you're a kid, like well, if I see my kids, will it developed? Why don't we just take this year over here? And so now the system becomes such where it cannibalizes itself at the bottom and so at the top. If you have some structure, you know, he's seen that movie with the Duluth Eskimos with George Clooney. Well, it's about in the twenties when they when the government got
involved because people were dying in the NFL games. And so I don't think that's not I don't think people a dying in college football. But it's getting out of hand. Trust me when I tell you, I mean I have some off air wild stories about negotiations about NIL that are just like a but just think AU basketb. They already made the documentary with the AU basketball. We've already seen this show, right, It's not something that's totally crazy.
So we got to get some structure up there. I think Congress is going to get involved becaus I mentioned earlier when you take federal money, right, they want to say right now they see that they're not getting a piece of this pie. Let's be honest with Curre administration not getting political, but they're they're taxing everybody. So Trump's made it a thing where he's he'll get involved if
they don't government themselves. And Trump's a football guy. We know that from the what was the league, the USFL okay, and he tried to get in the NFL. So I could see him. You know, if this thing goes south again this year where it's just a complete s show, as we would say, I think the FEDS are going to get involved because they're they're the ones spending money on these schools well, and they're trying to get involved.
The problem with that red tape is that it's so bipartisan that any Republican bill has to pass through Democratic votes and they're just not going to vote in lockstop for everything because they have different approaches of how they think that this should work.
Maybe football can save America is the only bipartisan thing left right when you get together and.
Get some legislation, please, football will make America great again.
There you go. Okay, So Trav, let's let's go back for a moment.
If we have any listeners right now, know of a nineteen twenty year old that played high school football, was really good, couldn't make grades, didn't have money to pay tuition, couldn't get a scholarship, or just didn't have Look, man, this is a tough game because ultimately, with the way it is now, you have to pay a ton of money for your young man to start playing soccer or basketball or football at a very young age, and it's a very specialized situation where if you want to play
in high school, you kind of have to be a part of the pipeline when you're six, seven, eight years old, like expensive man baseball, dude, exactly. I mean my son played club soccer. I remember the first trip you had to take. I was like, wait, I'm playing thirteen grand
for that, Like what's going on here? So if you don't have the means to expose your child to a high school coach and by proxy a college coach, if you have that young man who you think has potential, you have a home for him with the Islanders, right.
And I got to preface this right now, I need a couple of big boys. I need some offensive lineman, he's a defensive lineman, or two need a quarterback. Right. But when the season ends, right, it was short season, we're done in October eleventh, we'll be having tryouts again. And we're always looking for talent, right, And it's gett a little closer to the edge here. That's why we're narrow down to those specific positions. But absolutely and not
just nineteen to twenty. I want guys nineteen to twenty six there's gonna be return missionaries. I got a guys twenty three as a freshman. This is guys, This is not called this is pro ball now. This is single A ball and single A baseball. They got thirty year olds in there. I'm not saying we want that because you want to graduate, guys, right, but you know there's gonna be certain that Chris Wanky won the Heisman at what twenty eight twenty Yeah, that was twenty five of
my senior year. So yeah, to your point, if you don't want to go to school but you still want to play ball, we got a spot for you. If you're trying to go to a bigger school, we got a spot for you. If you want to do welding and you need free welding school, we got a spot for you. How about trucking, we got a spot for you. Yeah.
So there's a lot going on. Plus, if you figure this personal train and football, you talked about that, how about they don't tell you if you want to really get good at soccer, your son needs to go to three days a week to a personal trainer. That's fact. Yeah, we are offering personal training as football coaches. It's basically a walk on when you go to Utah State or BA or Utah you used to walk on. That's an expensive amount of money you're paying to play football. Yeah,
for sure, like fifty a year to play football. One hundred percent. It's not that cost here.
Well, and let me just say this for anybody who's listening who might feel little skeptical, the one thing that wins in sport is talent, period, end of story. Okay, So if you have a or if you know all the family that as a young man, if you're listening and you know a family that as a young man that for whatever reason didn't get the exposure to his high school or college coach, couldn't make grades, didn't have tuition.
If you take advantage of what Trevor's offering, all it takes is one practice where Morgan Scalley shows up and says, wait, who is that?
That's it?
And then and then guess what they do, Trevor, They figure it out. If you have the talent, they will figure out how to get you into the University of Utah.
Jordan Cameron you remember him, sure, yeah, yeah, he just shows up at SC I want to play, And now he's getting made. He made thirty million dollars. Now that's a one off story, but there's a lot of those stories. Man. I found a guy at Betos one time, Betos when I was playing. You can ask Klonie Sataki was his cousin. I didn't know it, Okay. I seen this big Tongua cat in there eating burritos, had about three of them.
I said, hey, dude, we could use you on the scout old line, all right, and so I shot him showed up. That was when I was a sophomore in college. They called him Beatos and he stuck it out for a while. But you will find him anywhere. I found a guy at church, okay, six seven three twenty wow, like two years of college community college basketball. He's my starting left tackle. There you go. Okay. I found a guy at the nightclub, all right, big old Mexican dude
playing a receiver at some junior college. He's playing defensive end for US. Great guy. Yeah, so we'll find him anywhere. Okay. We've also found kids at other schools, so it's not just backyard boogie. I'm saying to your point, if I see some talent, right, I'm gonna ask a question. Hey, are you available, right, because that's what the name of the game is. It's the currency of this game. Yeah, if you have talent, you have you have a say always.
I mean, look, I could go on and on about stories of you know, random NBA people going to street ball games at Rucker Park or in New York and saying, wait, who's that kid? That's it and suddenly he's got a college scholarship and suddenly he has a chance to play pro bawl.
There. This is not linear. Life is not a straight line.
There's not one way to make this happen, which is why the model is pretty intriguing.
Let's use your upcoming scrimmage to Snow College. Okay, and then that's actually a real game. Okay, the scrimmage is tomorrow with the ut I keep like I might I probably cross those but a little bit. But let's go to the game that you're playing against Snow.
Yes, maybe your goal is Utah or b YU or D one or P four, but Snow is a great conduit to that. I mean, how many great Snow college players or Rick's college players went on to play at b YU and Utah and Utah State.
Been the lifeblood, right, they've been the life blood of those two programs.
So if you can get with the Islanders and they're playing against and the head coach of SNOW sees that one kid and is like, what's his deal? Suddenly you have a chance to play college football and then you'll be exposed to even a bigger audience.
And SNOW is playing the same team as we are. We're actually playing better teams than SNOW because at our level we're playing Laverne College, Redlands University. Now I say better, let me rephrase that thir D two and D three and on a hierarchy that they should be better. You know how that goes. Some of these powerhouse jac's could be beat small D one s a player. But to your point, we have junior college football in Salt Lake and Utah County. It's in Harriman, it's at RSLs Indo.
You know where that's at. Your family built the dang place. So we're you know, you guys are taxing. Then they're taxes, but it's a good deal. Okay. So the key is this, if you want to play ball and you have some talent, you don't have to go to Ephraim. How does that sound? Yeah, I've been Okay, so spot, I stopped and I left right on the spot. It's a great place. Senny's from me from Okay. He's running a cattle ranch out Okay. So to each their own. But you don't have to
go there. I don't do what Salt Lake in Utah County. They are two of the most growing places in the world. Ay Probo has an airport that's flying direct to DC. Yep. You wouldn't have thought that twenty years ago, not at all. And so we're in the spot now where we're a national dude, and if we joined this Big Ten, one of these two schools are going to be in the Big Ten soon. I think. I think you're right about that.
And another way to look at this. I'm sure we've all watched the documentary Last Chance. You where either a football program or a basketball program from a small juco in Mississippi or whatever has three or four dudes that are good enough to play at Bama and some have gone on to play in the pros, but they just didn't have the same access that some of the other kids had. It's kind of another way to look at.
It, think Marshaun Lynch, I sat clipping him yesterday. It formed a guy on the sideline with his camera caves protective, right camera, that's right, yeah, Junior College. Yeah, okay, he's from your Richmond, I think at Oakland. But I mean there's so many guys and I could just Shakey Smithson all American, right, So Terrence Kane, I mean, there's just so many guys throughout the year. Garrett Bulls, Aaron Rodgers College. Yeah, so everybody knows that we don't need to blay in
that point. It's just now it's here, and now we have a game Saturday, August twenty third. There's no other game. We're gonna have live DJ, We're gonna have food trucks. Right, this is a twelve to ten event. Bring your kids, and it's football on a Saturday. Dude, you're gonna see some of these local Joe's right and the next guy's up. Really, you're gonna be I mean, this is like baseball. Now, guys are on the East Coast. You know what they talking.
They talk baseball and Spring the Yankees and I lived in their talking. I mean, what's the name of the two guys, Francesca and the other guy. They're talking Spring training by they're talking double a ball, right, And what was the movie with with Richard pryor okay, the baseball team out there? Oh, come on, Porter, suck the bulls, right, whatever it was. But they're talking to the developmental players.
And so that's where this thing's at now, especially all gambling. Right, this is it's starting to be a thing now where it's who's the next stup? Right, people are making their spreads and doing all that stuff. So we're we're in the action. Our goal is to send out two or three players, and we want as me as we can't to utahn By. You are any school, but those two.
First Utah Islanders dot com. Hey, before I say you lose. Chris CAMRAADDI was in studio yesterday from the Athletic. He wrote a piece did you know Greg?
Greg Newman? Did you know Greg Newman? Knew him very well? You knew him very well? Eat friends, Okay, John Peel, myself, JJ Williams, Christian Cox, myself. I was a freshman, right, Greg had just graduated. I wasn't gonna play pro. Greg was tight. I was tight with Greg, dude, real tight. And I got to tell you when I read the piece it resonated. Ye, something clicked, Okay, something happened. If you read the piece. I don't want to give it
all away, but you can. I'll let you expound. But yeah, it was one of those things where when that whole thing happened, we were all just stunned, sick and stunned. And I feel for his family. Let me ask you did did uh?
And this is a tough one because I don't want to paint it like anyone gave up on him, because obviously he was on Weell, at what point did the group that you were friends with, as far as being tied with him? At what point did you feel like it was the point of Because even if I almost cried when I read that his parents brought him Christmas dinner in his tent when he was living in a tent in California, so even his family at some point was kind of like, there's really nothing we could do.
At what point did it feel like, Yeah, the Greg that we knew is no longer the Greg that we knew.
I saw him probably my senior year, I don't know. We saw him somewhere and he was a little bit off. I offer me he wasn't what he was, and I called him, I say, hey, have you talked to Greg? I don't remember who I called it, and it was one of those people I mentioned and they kind of said, yeah, he just seems a little off. But just to bring it back, as you said that, I can't help but think, what if we had this alumni association better? For sure?
Can you imagine? Or if we had to reach out and I take responsibility, we should have got it and got it done earlier. And you bring this up right, and I don't know, it just makes me think, right, we don't want to have a repeat of a Yeah, and I think we mentioned what we all need to start meeting, figure some things out. But players, again, I talked about healthcare right, having some healthcare right where we can afford to take care of a guy like that.
Not all of us are going pro man, and even some of those who go pro, you don't get insurance unless you play three years, and even then my insurance is up. Man, I got twenty years. I'm on my own, so my pension kicks in. And so you start thinking about guys like Newman, Okay I call them Newman, Okay, Yeah, it makes me sick and I wish that this should have been done earlier, so all U ex players are
listening or please send this message out. Please contact pablo'conno or Adam Frye at the University of Utaught, Jesse Boone, Nate Orchard. We need you to register with us that Spence springs up a great point. We can't let this happen and we got to take care of each other.