Episode 81 - Mitch Brindley (ODU Sailing)

And I had at the time, and this is, you know, this was in the late 1900s and, um, I was a freshman in 85. I think it was. Yeah. Um, but I had heard about the only time we had heard about Old Dominion at the time outside of their sailing program was women's basketball and everyone else in my family, uh, went to University of Texas and. And so it was a big step to do something different. My father was on the golf team, uh, at UT. My mother was that cheerleader at UT.

My older brother was at UT at the time. My younger brother went there. So everything about, uh, my growing up was being a longhorn. And so, you know, I wanted to do something a little bit different. Growing up sailing, wanted to sail in college. It was not a better place to go. Um. Then Old Dominion. And so that's how I found myself here and I've pretty much been here since.

All right, so you're in your 29th season at the helm for the Monarchs here, having led the Monarchs to an amazing 10 national championships, seven as a head coach, one as an assistant coach, and you won two while you were a student at Old Dominion, if I have my numbers right, hopefully. How has collegiate sailing changed over the years? Uh,

We're sailing kind of the same slow, stupid boats that we were sailing, um, when I was on the team, very similar style boat, but. The, this, the style of racing has become more competitive, you know, just the athleticism of the participants and the athletes, the coaching, um, has, you know, except for myself, it's gotten better across the board and we're, you know, we see, we're seeing growth there. Tons high school has grown dramatically, uh, around the country, feeding college sailing.

The thing about college sailing, it's a very low, um. Barrier to entry and so, um, it's a pretty efficient way to get people in the water. It's a pretty efficient. Part of sailing, uh, cost efficient, uh, and so. That's 1 of the reasons we've had some success and growth. We're in other parts of the sport. We haven't had as much. We haven't had growth. Um, but in sailing, it's, it's become very competitive and, and, uh, and certainly over the last. 10 years in particular, that's it's.

Become very competitive, and that's the biggest difference we're seeing and, um, growth at the by growth, the number of teams over the last 15 years is is pretty much the same. But the, the, before we were dealing with, it was the top 15 teams are really good. And now is the top. 18 top 20 teams are really good now. It's a really a top, you know, 40 that are very competitive and so on. And that's the biggest thing that we're seeing.

I was the president of college sailing for, um. 27 years until last year, I got to retire, which was nice from that part of it, and it was great to see some of this growth and development and just kind of organizational and has become a lot much more sophisticated, um, well managed sport and, um, and recruiting now so much harder than it ever was. It's our biggest difference. It's our challenge as a team, as state, uh. School State University. That's our challenges. The recruitment side now.

Really?

And so if we have a great athlete that was played field hockey or soccer, um, and we can teach them to become a great sailor and that's typically for a certain position in the boat, the front of the boat, uh, we call crew in the boat, um, as opposed to driving or home or skippering. Um, it's.

Someone that can come in newer in the sport, we can teach them that role and, um, we've had, we have several walk ons, so to speak, uh, that have learned the sport in college sailing and that's their access point. And a lot of times it's generally female. Small size, the boats were sailing pretty small and we have in college sailing, the ability to switch who's in the boat based on the wind condition. So, if it's light air, we'll have a lighter skipper crew combination. As it gets windier.

You might put in someone that's heavier or taller to give yourself more weight in the boat when it gets windy to keep the boat. Flatten and control. And so for some of the lighter air condition, we can start with someone that is, as long as they're a good athlete, we can, we can teach them. And they're willing to freeze their butt off in February for a sport. They didn't know anything about two years ago. We have a couple of sailors like that now that are great contributors and are learning.

So from a recruitment standpoint for the drivers of the helm and the boat, the skipper, it is, it's very competitive, all of our top. Sailors are coming in with extensive experience, having sailed often at a youth national or international level. And, you know, those are some of the things that we're, we're looking for and we're recruiting all over. We, we're fortunate that we have some great local kids that.

That choose to come to Old Dominion, and that's certainly been a focus over the last, um, really probably eight years of working closely to develop athletes and, um, participate in the development of, of the high school and youth sailors, because, uh, Old Dominion can be expensive as an out of state student. And so it's attractive. from an in state standpoint.

And the more, the better the, the kids that are competing at, uh, some of the local high schools here, uh, are, then the better, it's more local talent that we get to have on our team. You know, for years, so many local sailors would go to College of Charleston or go somewhere else. And we're, we've now created a situation where it's, we're, we're really, Working to get a lot more of them locally to stay here. And we fortunately have quite a few of our team members are local.

And then we have, we have someone from Portugal. We have some, we have two from St. Croix on the team. We have Chicago. We've got, uh, New England. You bet. We've got Rhode Island all over. So Texas, um, so like every coach always have to be recruiting.

And so it's generally, and also from, from our standpoint, from a roster limits and, and in Title IX perspective, we, we carry more women on our roster than men. Um. But it's typically looking for someone for the front of the boat for crew and in one of our boats at FJR 420, you know, oftentimes we have someone that's when 115 to 125 or something like that. And then someone driving, there might be 145 to 155, uh, are bigger and then the guys are typically bigger just in general. But then, um.

Yeah, for some of our, some of the sailing that we do is in a 1 person boat, single handed boat, some Olympic equipment that we race in college sailing, um, called an Ilka or laser and they, um, those guys for that to be optimal is like. 175 180 and tall, taller, the better type thing. There's a little bit they can get too big for the double handed boats. If you're too big. So, it just depends on what we're looking for. We typically, we're trying to bring in more women every year.

And that's certainly a focus. Someone that's athletic and fit. And it serves us well. And that's where if you're, we've had quite a few that might've, that were played soccer or field hockey in high school, or maybe were did cheerleading and so forth as well. It was a good size. Um, and you, you see that a lot.

A good broad base of competitive experience sailing multiple different classes, but probably wasn't, you know, not competing entirely at the, uh, Deeply in the, at the international level, but she was driven, incredibly smart, um, and a great athlete and we work to provide her, um, an opportunity to get as much experience quickly in the boats and the collegiate boats that we're racing.

You really focus on the, the learning, the development and the mindset that every, what are we going to learn today? And that's the big thing that we're. Pushing is what are we, what are we going out on the water to learn? What are we coming off the water as, as a knowledge point that we've gained?

And, um, and that's what we're doing, trying to do across the board, whether it's someone that's come in with a great deal of experience or someone that's primarily sailed, uh, on the Chesapeake Bay, we're really looking at developing talent and we're going to do that through starting. in the most competitive event that person can compete in and not get their butts completely kicked. We want someone that's gonna be trying to match people with the event where they're gonna be challenged.

We don't want them to totally get completely beat up. We want to feel the team that's going to be challenged by an event, especially early in the season, learn from it, then move up and get to more and more competitive, uh, range of events. And we also don't want, we're not going to go to an event just to. Kick everyone's butt either. That's not, we're not gonna learn very much from that.

And so that's where we're, when we might sail a freshman at an event, we're going to try and write event where they get the most, most competition. So when you look at our schedule and we have three events a weekend, we might have an event where we're just really using it to develop some race experience for someone. And that's why we carry that schedule where we're going all over the place. And instead of showing a weekend.

I might be taking a team, taking a team 1 place and Tyler's taking a team to another place. And Morgan, she's taking a team to a 3rd place. We might have 3 events a weekend. We've certainly scaled that back a little bit just from a 1. it's expensive travel. So expensive these days, just being mindful that our team, we've brought our roster size down a little bit just to. Manage the bigger the roster to keep everyone happy, you have to do a lot of competition.

And so, um, we've brought our roster size down a little bit and might not be doing 3 events every week. And like, we used to some events, some weekends we're doing too, but that's how we're kind of developing that experience is, is creating a really competitive, uh, great competition outside of home. Certainly.

We have strong competitive practices, a really skill based practice scenario that we're working on and then taking what we're learning from practice and taking to regard in a, in more of a strategy format, longer, longer format. Um, and where his practice is working on more, um, skill based.

And part of it's because early on in the development of college sailing, it was Harvard, Yale and Princeton all competing. And so that's kind of how a lot of our rules have followed that Ivy League or D3 format when it comes to scholarships. So all of our athletes. Are on their own dime here. We can't give any. Athletic scholarships, we have quite a few there on academic scholarships and so that's a recruiting challenge for us.

There is more pressure now than ever to change that rule and it's certainly in the landscape of college athletics and landscape of college, uh, financial aid and expensive college. There is, there are schools and we would be 1 of them that would like to see, um, scholarships, particularly women's scholarships and from a title 9 perspective by having, uh, participation opportunities for women.

We are helping 1 of the 3 prongs and title 9, and that's the providing opportunities for participation by female student athletes, female students. And, uh, and then we also count the expenses and so forth that we're, we're, we're spending on our female athletes and and so forth, um, in terms of meeting that proportionality. But what we don't aren't able to do, because we don't offer scholarships is we can't.

Balance out the 85 football scholarships, but from a title 9 standpoint, um, we are supporting the participation opportunities and that's where they want to look, see that we're. That we have more women than men. Um, and from our, you know, our sports co ed and because we have is, you know, so many events, the women, we have a greater need for women on the roster too, because there are more events that we're doing.

And so, um, there may be a change in the future for, for college sailing to allow scholarships, um, before all the Ivy leagues were so against it, but now, um, they're not as, Yeah. Against it as it used to be, um, because their need based aid is so high. Um, and they really don't have to worry about losing a recruit to a college of charleston or old dominion.

They're going to lose recruits to another ivy or to Stanford or the naval academy, but they're not losing recruits to even if we're offering full scholarships, because there's the demand the social demand for an ivy league education. So high right now. In the U. S. and we can't do anything with that, but there's great sailors at those schools, great programs, well funded, or you've, and it's just something that's changed dramatically in the last 8 years.

The Ivies have really stepped up and been, uh, they just have so much admissions pull now than what they had. 10 years ago in college sailing, so we're seeing more kind of just not necessarily dominance by the Ivies, but a, a very strong presence overarching presence in the competitive success of the teams. And so teams like us and college of Charleston, for example, it's also a state. State school and and other public D1 schools.

It's a challenge and we have other schools like Tulane, which is a relatively new varsity program. They don't offer scholarships either, but the admissions pull into Tulane is helpful and because it's a private school, they do have a fair amount of need based aid compared to a public institution like Old Dominion. So, I know it's kind of a long answer, but, um, we don't offer scholarships. So, when it comes to recruiting, it's a hustle. It's a sales.

I'm convincing kids to come, you know, sometimes across the country across the globe. To sell for us and pay for it themselves. Um, unfortunately, some of them are good students, and they're going to get some academic aid, some merit aid in that sense. And they want to be here. And that's the awesome thing is they want to, you know, the two kids that were from St. Croix, a freshman and a sophomore, a freshman and a senior from St. Croix.

They're freezing their butts out there today, uh, in February and on the Chesapeake Bay, and they chose to come here and do that and sail for us. And likewise, the ones from, um, Kecoughtan, we have Pocosin and local sailors too, but it's. They're fitting the bill right now. So,

And, uh, three of the sailors that were on that squad, th you know, three of the four that were racing became Olympians. And, you know, and we can get, you know, certainly get back to that. But it's just, it's a, when they're offered admissions to Yale, something it's. It's a tough way. They're not going to turn that down. Their mom's not going to let them. So, we gotta keep outworking them though. So,

I mean, there's some, you know, some stuff that's really backwards right now with the NCA because they're stuff they don't care about anymore that they would really have liked to cared about, but now they can't and that is making a big difference. And then little stuff that they are trying to care about that. Might not be that big of a deal. And so in college salience, we're really trying to fit in the same box our season. We're playing.

We have the same plan and practice limitations and stuff like that. We just look at a little bit differently. Um, we're really a full 2 season sport. We have a fall really. All year, we see all from September, the 1st, we get September through really about the 1st, we get in November and then start up again when the water's good and cold in February and go through, um, that really the 1st, part of May, uh, and the championships can be, you know, later later in May 1st, by June.

But we're practicing the same hour limitations and all that we fit into the NCA box. And we're at ODU, we're counting all that. Most of a lot of the teams are doing the same reporting at their school that we'd be doing here in terms of your countable athletically related activity and so forth. So, there's not a whole lot different and the thing to remember from a title 9 standpoint, the title 9 doesn't give a damn about the N. C. A. there's no correlation there.

And they really don't title 9 is all Department of Education, um, office of civil rights issue, not a, uh, N. C. A. The other thing about college sailing is we are competing across divisions, which is similar to other sports do that as well. There are other sports that are national championship sports instead of NCAA, instead of division one championships and so forth.

And of course, I always do like to point out, especially it's changed a little bit now, but for years, anyone in the bowl subdivision really wasn't competing for a national championship. They're competing, they're not competing for an NCAA championship. They're competing for a bowl championship. And so that's a little bit different. And I always thought the same way and say, well, we're not competing for an NCAA championship.

We're competing for an intercollegiate sailing championship, but it's, it's all the, we're all trying to be our, our best with. Among our peers and who were competing against whatever whatever school that is.

You're talking about team sailing in the spring and maybe there's a talk to modern nation about that a little bit.

And just for boat speed to make it go as fast as possible, then you're working on, um, how you maneuver the boat, how you turn the boat when you tack or jive, which is our primary maneuvers and sailing how you can do that without losing any speed or or by gaining speed through those tax.

And so it's how you, you know, that might be like a. Um, uh, like a, a ball handling drill or something like that, how well you can, how efficient you are in passing the ball or dribbling and not just your, your pure speed or how quickly on football, how well you can run a route and hit the, hit the. Hit your receiver and so forth and so that's kind of our boat handling drills and how well we can tack without losing speed. And that's we don't want to capsize and attack or anything.

And you do capsize sometimes turn upside down and college sailing and small boats, but, um, you don't like to do. It's not very fast when you're doing upside down, then you have, um, race course strategy and that's how you would sail the race. Even if there's no one else out there, you know, how you would sail around this course as fast as possible. Um, what would be the quickest route? And there might be 1 side of the course that has. More wind, and so the boats are going to go faster.

There might be 1 side of the course that has, um, a, that's a flatter, smoother water and less choppy. On the other side, there could be a lot of motorboat chop because you're out by the. Channel in Annapolis, and there's motorboat shopping, we're in that slow when you're hitting those waves, or there might be favorable current on 1 side of the course of the other. And then there's, there could be a wind shift that shifts from 1 direction and, and, um.

Those kind of strategy things that make 1 side of the race course, faster, slower than the other. And so we, we have to look at strategy. We have to look at. Our local, what's what's this cloud pattern going to do to our condition and how's the, is the wind going to veer? Is it going to veer to the right? Or we're going to have a wind bend off the shoreline. You're talking about Lambert's point. There's what is what I call when we have a South wind here. Um, there's a. A constant shift.

I call it the Norfolk Southern and it's the left shift off the Lambert's point right there by the coal piers. And it's we're raising here and kind of count on 70 percent of the time. There's we have favored left shift and that. Favors once out of the race course and, um, don't tell anyone else that no, just kidding. Most, most of the college teams that come here, they've, they've learned that.

But so, but anyway, there's, there's those, there are those things that affect strategy and how you race. And then the, then the fourth thing, and really the top of the pyramid, when you put all these together is your tactics and that's how you're going to race. How are you going?

Compete against the other boats, how you can make the boat get around the race course as it's relevant to the boats around you and how you employ the skill, your skills and the racing rules and so forth to control the opponents around you and position yourself relative to the, um. The opponents around you and the, maybe the wind shift and so forth.

And what you see behind me here is a, you know, a lot of times we use just magnetic boats on a white board, or I have some in my office here where we can go over a scenario. It might be a rule scenario with a team member or some of our plays in the team race. And it's, it's 3 on 3 team racing where. We'll have 3 old Dominion boats racing against 3 Georgetown boats, for example, and it's a short about 12 minute race, uh, around a course.

That looks like a digital and you start you sail up into the wind, um, around a mark. Then go across when run another mark, then come down that down when cross another to another mark, then back up when you finish. And so you're making this digital in shape. And so so much. In sailing, when we're racing, other than the marks that are fixed, the buoys that you're going to define the course, there's so many changes that are taking place. And imagine if you are on the.

Soccer field and the goals keep changing sizes and moving and the sidelines change and our basketball, the court keep is dynamic and is moving around and that can happen to us as the wave state changes, the wind strength changes and, um, we in Salem, we can't stop the action. We can't call a timeout. We can't freeze. Because the boats are always moving, it's hard to freeze and reset. And so there's certain points in a race where the boats have to get in order.

Um, as you're rounding a buoy, you might have boats that look like that going up wind. And then as they approach a mark there, when they change course, they'll all end up in a line and now are in order. And once they're in that order, um. We have a set play that will do from that that particular order that they might be in. If we're in a, um, a, a, say, we're in a 2nd, 3rd, if we're in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, our 3 boats are in 2, 3, 4, 2nd, 3rd and 4th. We're in the opponent.

We'll have the 1 1st place. I might be winning, but they're in 5th and 6 and it's 1 point for 1st 2 for 2nd, so forth. And how the math works is 10 or less. You're winning. And so, um, we have set plays. It will do. We'll have a play to where we were trying to get being a 234 that's winning. And so we have set. Set moves that we'll do at each mark and so we'll go through these plays and I encourage the team to come in and talk about why we do certain things.

We have certain rules of thumb that we know if we're rounding a mark and it's 2 teammates together, what, what, when teammates always going to do and what the. And then we have an understanding of what the opponent's going to do. And there's some, most of the same, most all the teams are kind of operating out of the same playbook. They kind of all have the same plays and even some of the same names of the plays we have.

Everyone's got a few different code words or different things you use when you're communicating. They're always, some of the principles are all the same. It's all a matter of executing, uh, as smoothly as possible and understanding. Communicating well with your teammate across the race course, so they know whether you're trying to go fast, or you have to play back on the opponent behind you and pass the teammate through.

The 1 thing about sailing, even though our courses are relatively short, I mean, it doesn't take too long to sail a 12 minute race. And we'll do a bunch of these throughout the day, most sports, you know, how far in football, you can't get that far away from anyone else at any given time. In sailing, you can, in a matter of moments, you can be a quarter mile apart.

And so, uh, you know, it's managing that separation and that leverage that an opponent might get on you is one of the, one of the things that we work through.

1st of all, the problem is, if you do that, you have to be right and might not always be right. If I was spending, but we do in practice. Sometimes we'll use. We have some, some headsets that we use and, and talk to them. And, and one really liked to listen to them and how they're talking. And then on a lighter day, it's pretty easy to communicate across the race course. When it gets windy, it's very hard to communicate. And we have.

When you're trying to communicate with someone and you're, when you're trying to tell your teammate to go, you say, go, go, go, that can sound like no, no, no, pretty easily. And so we always use rabbit and dog. If you're your teammate to slow the opponent, you say dog. If you want them to go fast, you say rabbit because it doesn't. Sound the same and we have little things like that that we do and, and, uh, and it can be tough.

And sometimes they feel like they're yelling at each other and, and you're just trying to communicate across the race course. They'd be loud, laughing, luffing sails or flapping sails. And even just from the coach to the athlete and the water, it can be really hard. I use a megaphone frequently, um, but I can't hear them very well at an athlete. You know, kind of upset yesterday. It's like, you never listened to me. Never. You, and it's like, I can't hear you. I've got, they're laughing sales.

It was blown like 15 to 18 yesterday. And I've got an outboard right in my left ear. I can't hear anything. Not to mention I'm, you know, 56 and I've lost some of that, uh, from years of an outboard and a loud whistle. But the communication can be a challenge, but we do, we do emphasize you need to practice clear, concise. Communication. It's so important.

Um, and they're, they can talk across the race course to each other and team racing, but having that clear, concise communication is really important.

And, and most of our racing here at ODU is going to be right off the dock here, as close as the tide will let us get there were, or when I first started in coaching, we always would go really far out and get the best wind and the best conditions we could for the racing we've learned. It's like, well, no, let's just. So, so many other places we go to don't have it this nice, this open water that we have here.

And it was, if we go to the, we go to Georgetown and their sale, they sail under Reagan National Airport and, um, it's a really not a great place to sail. We might as well do all of our race in a crappy place too. So we'll get close to show. It's actually not never crappy here, but, um. We'll get close to shore and so you can watch and come down to any of our home events. And even if you don't really know what's going on, you can see the sailing going on and there's a lot of other cool stuff.

Look at we have yesterday. We had a bald eagle over the top of us in practice. We have dolphins year round. Just about now there's a lot of other stuff to see otters, but from the sailing any of us, anytime someone's down, if someone asks a question, if I'm not in the middle of. Yeah. Coaching my team at the moment. We'll happily try to explain what's going on. And that's the best thing to do is come, come out and check out one of our events and, and look at what's going on.

We do have a couple of good events. One of the challenges is, um, a couple of our events are in, um, and we have one event coming up in, uh, the first week in March. We have a women's team race event. And, um, you know, March on the water can be pretty chilly. Um, and we have 1, 1 event later in March, our team race. It's a great event. It's always very competitive.

All the top teams in the country will be here for that 1. and then we have a conference team race championship in early April as well. And so we have 3 events. They're always on weekends. Um, so, you know, that's, that's nice. Uh, back when the golf course was there, it was great. You could play golf and, and check out some sailing at the same time. So knock out two slow sports at once. Um, so it was good, but I just encourage y'all to come down and check it out.

Anyone wants to come out and watch practice? Our practices are open. Yeah. Come on out, come on out here. Our practices are open. We don't have a fence. Sometimes there are ways out there, depending on what we're doing. Good pair of binoculars. Is the suggestion.

There's some great from a youth sailing standpoint, they're great programs around that are access, um, the open access. Uh, there's Norfolk, yacht club, Hampton, yacht club, both have excellent. Um, junior. Sailing programs, junior learned to sail program, junior racing programs, kids that come out of those programs that go on to, um, compete at, at, at really high levels. Um, and then, uh, youth sailing, Virginia over they operate a Fort Monroe. It's a great program.

There are 2 high schools, a couple of high schools, the Hampton sea, high schools and roads Academy, both practice out of there. They have great. Yeah. Summer programs as well for the community at youth sailing, Virginia. It's a really nice place to sail because it's right on the. Yeah, it's right on the, the mill Creek side, you got in inland side there of Fort Monroe and it's a neat place to to sail and then, um.

Sail Nauticus also, um, has a great program, Sail Nauticus Academy, and they're selling a little bit bigger boats and sailing like 20 foot boats. And, and Sail Nauticus also has adult sailing programs as well, learn to sail programs, as does Youth Sailing Virginia. Um, and then Big Blue Sailing Academy, which is something that we run out of here. We've had some camps and classes and we have a focus a little more on some.

Um, Like, youth competitive youth, like travel team level stuff, but we may offer some learn to sail as well for both adult and youth. If we can get an instructor lined up for the summer. But then the other thing is, like, especially for the adults, um, there are always people that own boats that need people to sail with them and race with them. Especially when I get into racing, people buy boats, I know over at Willoughby Harbor Marine at Willoughby, they sail, they race. On Thursday evenings.

Um, and these are very casual races. They do something I think on Wednesday out of Little Creek and then out of Hampton Yacht Club on Wednesdays as well. And generally, someone could show up and walk down the dock at. At 5 o'clock and hop, you know, find some to go sailing with someone that needs another body and, you know, they'll tell you, tell you what, what to do on a boat. And it's a great way to get get out of the water. So,

Wouldn't have a clue about and also, if you could change 1 rule in sailing, what would it be?

And it's like, oh, we need to, if everyone is allowed to have that, is there an advantage or, I think it's another data point that we should be able to use. And And so sometimes I get frustrated with College Talent that we're a little too, um, conservative in that stuff. And, and I think if there's one rule to change, I would say, uh, I would, I think that we should up our use of technology during races for the athletes. And it, and, um, it'd be fun to see them.

Even the team race allowed to communicate among teammates. That might be an interesting dynamic. And, um, I don't need to talk to them again. I'd have to be right. And I don't want to do that. I can talk to them about, I get a few, I get a few minutes to talk to him between races and that's, that's fine. Maybe adding more technology in the racing. So,

Um, and the it's you're selling in the way of North and it's cold and nasty, even during the summer. But to smell the vendor food as you're motoring in on your coach boat. And that's pretty nice. The nice. German food and maybe the crepe stand or something that I always like that, but we're a little more domestically like in terms of the college venues. I like to go to to coach at Saint Mary's College of Maryland is a nice place to go. It's 1 of our closest venues. It's 3 and a half hours away.

Um, beautiful venue and it's nice. Up up on a hill and so being high when you're coaching up up on a hill is, um, gives you a better perspective than right on the water level. And so, uh, it's 1 of the place like to go to coach from. So, St. Mary's one of my favorite places there, um, part of it, we're spoiled. We've got a great venue here. It's great sailing here usually, and it's nice access. Um, there's some pretty cool, I was coaching down in St. Pete a couple of weeks ago.

That was nice to be in Florida. Um, weather, wind wasn't great, but it was okay. So it's, um, yeah, no, some places I don't like to go, but we can't mention those.

And there was no, um, and there's no wind or a thunderstorm. You would watch wind. I think, um. There's another 1 that had a scene about college sailing in it. I can't remember. Is that is that guy from I can't remember that 1. so, yeah, I would say wind is probably the big is the classic, uh, is a classic sailing movie. There's 1 recently out that had. Um, some really cool sailing scenes in it. I can't remember what it was. I didn't see it, but it was a very modern movie.

I can't remember the name of it, but some really cool sailing scenes with, like, the, the foiling, like, America's got type boats and it was, it was neat. So,

They're always carrying something. When the golf course was active over here, there was an Osprey nest over on one of the channel markers out here that at one point had five golf course rakes in it. So, the wooden rakes from the golf course, I don't, I don't think the golf course knew what was happening to all the rakes, but an Osprey was building its nest out of it. It was hilarious. It was awesome.

But the coolest thing to see, because you don't see it as often is when we've seen a loggerhead sea turtle out here. Um, usually that's usually. In the fall or during the summer, but that's always cool to see him right here off of campus. So,

We really would, I would love to, I don't really care who I would like to go see someone play at Red Rocks and, and I would like to go. See, you can go to Austin City Limits, and I really don't care who, because any of those shows are always good. But I, you know. So,

It just feels like you're somewhere. Special and Austin state limits. That's a goal of mine too. So I hope you get those done, man. That sounds awesome.