The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Asterisk Man's Thoughts On The Tribute Video
Thu, 30 Jan 2025
Does your heart stop when you sneeze? Does coughing help you poop? How about picturing a dog pooping? We kick off today's show with Dan getting offended by Amin's pejorative nickname of Asterisk Man, Greg Cote's old song as the singing sportswriter, and Paul George's complaints over still not receiving a tribute video in Indiana. Then, Tony is our resident Jacksonville Jaguars expert and joins us from his paternity leave to break down the proper way to say DUUUUUUUUUVAAL not DUUUVALLLLLL. Plus, we hear from a ghost that is great at trivia, and we go back about a month to the state of University of Miami basketball after Jim Larranaga's retirement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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shadow show shadow show shadow show shadow show shadow show shadow show shadow in it shadow in it chris does amin have stomach problems um from our shit chat i can tell you he's very regular so i don't know if that's a problem but he goes almost every morning yeah he's over a dump a day
Well, but that doesn't really answer my question because he keeps leaving here. He's supposed to be here. We brought in the biggest of reinforcements wearing one of his finest shirts. Amin will be back from the bathroom shortly, but at the moment, Greg Cody is holding up his book, even though we have no video at the moment.
He still doesn't understand that there is not video to this portion of the show.
A couple people in that chat have a DiMaggio street going in 2025. There's a few people in there that have pooped every day in 2025 so far.
Oh, but I never go a day without pooping. There's no such thing.
Really? I mean, I'm sure there might be a day that you go two for one.
Yes, correct. But there's never a day. Put it on the poll at Levitard Show. Do you go an entire day without pooping? Yes or no?
I do quite often. My GI issues are well chronicled here. But also now it's just I'm not eating as much. My diet has changed. You've lost weight. You've leaned out a little bit. Thank you for noticing. But also, I've got mass. I take creatine as well. Mike just flexed for the people on the list.
That's right. He did just put up his biceps and flexed.
You said thank you for noticing. He mentioned it, for crying out loud. No, he does look good.
Thank you.
I would be a threat to that DiMaggio crap streak because I'm the kind of guy who can crap on demand. Like, even if I don't have to go, I can do that. And I've learned over the past few years battling my chronic cough, I've learned that coughing really brings it on.
It does. It relaxes the anus.
Yes, it sure does. And I enjoy that.
Guy wants to learn.
Yeah, guy wants to learn, guy wants to earn. And, you know, so I crap on demand. So my stats would be illegitimate, I think, because if I want to average three craps a day for a month, I can do that.
Put it on the poll, please, Juju. Does coughing relax the anus? at lebitard show sure does opens it up there's a the initial tense but you know after you after you tense up it'll just yeah you can't it's like magic uh i wouldn't call that magic i'd call that the opposite of magic no if you're stuffed up and you gotta go a little fake cough oh there it is
You can't sneeze and pee at the same time, correct? That's not something that any human being can do. A human being cannot sneeze and urinate.
Doesn't your heart stop when you sneeze? It's like everything is a brief halt.
Yeah, everything in the body pauses. Glenn Howerton of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia said on their podcast about a year ago that when he really needs to poop, he closes his eyes and pictures a dog pooping, and that for whatever reason, it really changes his brain chemistry and helps him go, and I'm not gonna lie, guys, I've used this trick and it works. Inspiration.
This is the visual of Jeremy using that technique, like closing his eyes and being like, now I see it. It makes sense. Golden retriever.
It makes sense, though. Glenn Howerton, method actor.
Put it on the poll, please, Juju, at Levitard Show. Does your heart stop? Does the human heart stop when you sneeze? Because I don't believe that that is accurate. I believe Chris Cody just made that up.
This is the Dan Levitard Show with the Stugatz Podcast.
I have some sound that I want to play for you of Stephen A. Smith lecturing LeBron James in a way that you would if somebody, if a father were making a decision about his son, that was sending him off to certain death. Like whatever that decision was, you know, that he was adamantly against. We'll get to that sound in a second.
But I erred in not giving Amin enough room a couple of places yesterday, and one of them in his accusation that I am asterisk man. That I because you made one you made you volunteered one example of me being asterisk man, which is me saying that Saquon Barkley can't have Eric Dickerson's record or OJ Simpson's record if it takes him more games to do it.
If he's playing in more games, you accuse me of being asterisk man. How else am I asterisk man? Well, no. So it starts with.
Do you believe the term asterisk man to be a pejorative? I think an asterisk is neutral. I don't think I didn't say negative. I'm saying that the calling of you as Dan Levitard is an asterisk man. Is that a pejorative?
I'm fine with arriving in a I think it's a pretty good description for me to be the guy who shows up and is like, well, hold on a second.
Chris, do you think it's a pejorative? Super pejorative.
Alright, so then number two is, prior to Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds, who was the all-time home run leader in a single season? It was Roger Maris, right? Was it? Was it? Because he did it in more games than Babe Ruth did. So 61 asterisk was how they had it.
That was the HBO movie. It was. Barry Pepper. Barry Pepper.
Yeah, that's my guy. One of the grossest things I've ever seen in a movie when he shows what's happening to his leg late in his career. It's just like, ugh, gross.
Yeah. But the point being is there was, you know, Roger Maris broke this record that no one thought would be broken. And for the longest time, They would not allow Roger Maris, who they thought was beneath the honor of holding this record that the great Bambino held, right? So they had an asterisk on that for the longest time.
And then finally- I think that's where the asterisk in sports was invented for its usage. Like I think it's the spot that everyone points to and says, that's the first time the asterisk was used to diminish someone's accomplishment. Right. And then eventually-
Baseball came to its senses like, look, this is the record. The seasons are this. We don't need an asterisk. We don't need a footnote. And then, obviously, other people came along and hit more than 61, and we don't put any asterisks on that. Barry Bonds, he did it. With performance enhancers, as did McGuire, as did Sosa. Do we put asterisks to them for their accomplishments? We don't.
So Saquon Barkley merely, they said, hey, this is a season. Go out and rush however many yards or whatever. Obviously, he didn't break it, so it's kind of a moot point right now. But the point is, had he done it, he does not deserve an asterisk or I don't think or whatever because these are the rules of engagement.
But wait a minute. We've got it on Roger Marris. Roger Marris was your example. Roger Marris does have the asterisk.
No, he doesn't. It doesn't. They took it off. It's actually never been in the record books. It was just a societal thing. Also, I took a tour at Churchill Downs, and in the early 1900s, I believe there was a Kentucky Derby that had very few horses in it that everyone was actually trying to lose. Why? I don't recall. Let me get on that.
Greg Cody of the Miami Herald is in with us on a Thursday. Stu Gotts is feeling beat up but confident as he heads into Radio Row. I'm enthusiastic about whatever he produces on Radio Row, but I thought it was super instructive yesterday.
the different ways that Stu Gatz and Billy interpret the same experience at Radio Row, where Stu Gatz thinks he's the most reliable version of himself on Radio Row, and Billy says, no, that's an appearance by Lieutenant Fullershit. captain of the lieutenant of the Stugatz army. Like there's he's not reliable. He's just at the Super Bowl. We've seen it before.
He's just at the Super Bowl to shake hands, to slap people on the back and to feel important about being Stugatz. It's his army. He's not even a general in it. He is not. It wouldn't make any sense for him to be the general of his own army. He can't be in charge of anything. What are you kidding me?
You got to delegate.
The army would march straight into a corner with its bayonets and stab itself in the face while trying to grab more money. It's not an army that would try to defeat anybody. It would just be an army that would try to accrue funds by illicit means.
By the way, you're a little behind the times because of my instigation. About five, six or seven years ago, the NFL officially changed the name of it to Sad Sad Radio Row with a comma between the two sads.
What I remember about that, some of you may not remember. that song on this show and song in general in sports media, 20 years ago, Greg Cody was the singing sports writer on ESPN Radio. He had that lane to himself. It was not everyone else at that trough. He ran out of songs about a dozen songs in, and everything became row, row, row your boat. So sad, sad, radio row, like everything, every song.
He just ran out of songs after about a dozen songs. He stopped trying, not unlike with his Back in My Day. Right.
Yeah, you run out of ideas. You know, I want to play the Sad, Sad Radio Row song. And I don't care. Like me, perhaps the song hasn't aged well. It's not very good. Well, but it's a classic.
Well, I recall it as you stopped trying the moment that you descended into an assortment of songs that were row, row, row your boat, that made it clear that you weren't doing any prep on the songs for Sunday morning.
I think you're maligning me.
The 1891 Kentucky Derby was the slowest Kentucky Derby of all time. Each rider was under orders to stay off the lead until the final stretch. There were only four horses.
Thank you. I knew that was coming. He's fairly useless in that regard. He's got a Tourette's now. Roy, you're laughing at it, but it is Kornheiser's sense of humor for 20 years. Someone says they vacationed in Rome, and he goes, Jim Rome. And that's it.
It's all he's got. It's valuable information.
Jeremy, can you help me with something since we're correcting things and adding nuance and asterisks? I said the other day that there was a position in royalty in which a person would stand next to the royal and absorb criticism and blame for their farts. You were unable to find this job or what it was called because you were searching the Internet for English royalty.
My error was in telling you or not telling you that it's Japanese royalty. Wow. Yes, this was in Japanese history, so if you can find for me whatever that job was called, the fart absorber.
Eurocentrism strikes again.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, you know what? Ichiro used to have one of those. His interpreter was also paid to pretend like he farted when Ichiro let a pet.
That's not true.
No, it is true.
It's not true.
You're making... No, I witnessed it in the Marlins clubhouse. It's real. Like, it happened.
He's royalty then. Yeah. I don't know if you know this. He is.
I did know.
Yeah, he is.
In Japan's historical court culture, there is no well-documented official position where someone was designated to take credit for another person's flatulence. However, the concept aligns with historical practices in some royal courts worldwide. That's just off the top of my dome. Go ahead, recall. But it appears to be more of a legend than truth. Go ahead and play it, Chris.
That radio row, row, row, your beat opining about your team. Merrily, merrily talk up the game enough to make listeners scream. At the Super Bowl site, local radio stations pontificate and preen. Will Manning get sacked? Hey, both coaches are black till somebody ruptures his clean. Along radio row, many wonderful sites may be witnessed behind the scene.
Like Tony Saragusa stealing pastry and eating so much that witnesses vomit and scream. Airtime is scarce and so scheduling guests is not as smooth as it seems. That's why the singing sports writer from the Herald gets bumped by Larry Fitzgerald. Get sad, sad radio programming guests to join in the fun. Hey, there's Hank Goldberg with Weird Charlie Brecker. Somebody hand me a... Faded out there.
I thought that it was like, you know. Couldn't tell what was coming. Good job. It was a great fade out.
It was clearly a bun. Someone hand me a bun we were eating at the Super Bowl.
Different times. I was like, you know, let me fade that out a little bit. There wasn't gun violence way back in the early 2000s.
I thought he was going to hand me my son.
There you go. Paul George is saying he is wondering why it is that Indiana is so salty about him leaving for the right reasons, and he's saying he hasn't even gotten a tribute video. And I'm wondering what the line is on tribute video, and is it Paul George? I'm asking. I'm not condemning Paul George as a player. I'm just simply asking what's the line...
on returning tribute video where you're like, you know what? I don't think that requires an honor.
The idea that that would be a complaint. A complaint maybe at the time, his first time coming back with Oklahoma City, back to Indiana, say, hey, I did a lot for this franchise. You say, hey, man, I think I deserved it. I earned it. It's all right. That's okay.
But wasn't it a situation where he kind of forced his way out?
He forced his way out. Okay, so then at that point, you just have to basically say, you know what? We've got to wait until the end of my career, and then I'll come back and I'll have a hero's welcome. You don't have his jersey retired, right? I believe so. I think he did a lot for that organization, and especially an organization that's got a rich history of championships outside of the ABA. So...
He definitely deserves to be honored, but to bring it up midway through his career as he's actively playing is just such an odd thing. But then again, he has a podcast. Sometimes you need the fill, right?
Well, he says it sucks that he's never gotten a tribute video, and he clearly feels he's the one making this a topic because literally no one but him is thinking about it. It's not something that anyone is giving any consideration. He's noticing it. He's volunteering it. And I'm asking, what's the line on this? I know Miami's going to get made fun of when they celebrate Udonis Haslam this way.
Like, however it is that they decide to celebrate Udonis Haslam because it's something they've been trafficking on for about 10 years. They already did, right? They retired his jersey. They're just going to keep doing it, though.
Yeah, he's going to get a statue. I think people get it with UD just because of the culture stuff and all that. But I also think there's a generational divide. We're all predisposed to laugh at Paul George.
And it was me, actually, I believe, who explained to us that for an entire generation that was rooting for not LeBron, for a long stretch of time, for like two and a half years, he was like the chief not LeBron guy, at least in the Eastern Conference. You had KD doing his thing in the West.
But the guy that was routinely going into battle against LeBron was Paul George, which is why the perception of him with a younger generation is probably outsized. He was Josh Allen. Thank you.
pretty much. He was our Josh Allen. Our shining prince of a Josh Allen. Good, but not good enough.
I think he deserves a video. You know, not a statue, but the Basketball Hall of Fame door is very wide. Everybody gets in. So, he's a Hall of Famer, right? We agree on that? He's a future Hall of Famer. If we agree, and if he is associated with Indiana, if that's the franchise you think of when you think of Paul George, then that certifies him as deserving Not a statue, but a video.
He's now three teams removed. I think the bigger thing for me is... like he'll get whatever honoring. It's just not gonna happen while you're active, my man. Like Mike said, those active memorials that we get is typically beloved player who finally moves on gracefully to another place. Not get me the hell out of here, this place isn't good enough.
That guy doesn't get the memorial service or the remembering fondly while they're still actively playing.
But that's an artificial rule, right? I mean, I agree that that's the modus operandi, but I think, for example, I think you should be letting the Hall of Fame as an active player if you're going to make it five years after retirement. That's another artificial rule.
If you're a Peyton Manning at the end of his career, why not let an active player get that Hall of Fame honor while he's still playing?
Because when we play the video at the Hall of Fame, they want the video to be complete. What if you have an amazing, like think of a Kobe Bryant. He had that 60-point game at the last game of his career. You don't want to have a Hall of Fame enshrinement for him and then leave off amazing things that happen after the enshrinement. The idea is that this is supposed to encapsulate your entire career.
I think the opposite is more of a danger there. I think if you induct somebody into the Hall of Fame while they're still playing and then they throw 40 interceptions or get into some off field, you know, nightmare, then that is something that makes you go, wow, maybe we should wait five years, you know.
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Don Libertard. Billy, somebody has written in here, I need way more...
I'm sorry. I just said in his headset, haven't you been to all of them too? It sounded like you were speaking aloud. My bad. Totally on me. 100% on me. Stugatz. But that goes without saying. Right. That it couldn't have happened. Well, now he said it. He didn't say it.
He didn't say it. He said it again. Greg, why? Greg, Greg. My apologies. Greg, why? Greg. Yeah. Greg. He apologized. Greg. Sincerely.
This is the Dan Levitar Show with the Stugatz.
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Playoff P eventually became Halliburton, right? However it is that you arrive at doing all of the transactions that make that team Halliburton's now instead of Playoff P's?
I forgot all about that catfishing thing.
Paul George was traded for Victor Oladipo and DeMontis Sabonis. And later on, Sabonis ended up being traded in exchange for Tyrese Halliburton and Buddy Heald in a multiplayer trade. So they... Kind of ended up working out okay in the long run.
It's kind of crazy. Think about it like at the height of their careers. Would you rather have Paul George at his best or Sabonis and Oladipo? I think I'd rather have Sabonis and Oladipo.
I think that Paul George is right about at the line of where it is we'll find the tribute video. I don't know where the line is. I'm asking you guys. I'm telling you it's going to be whatever Udonis Haslam gets next. That nationally, everyone's going to wonder.
Indeed, if it's a statue, if it's a statue for Udonis Haslam, that's going to be something that people in Miami understand and no one else understands. No one else.
Nobody healed is higher on the three-pointers made list than Dirk Nowitzki. Yeah, man.
That's what happens when every shot you take is a three-pointer.
Well, I want to ask you guys about this because Adam Silver's now talking about making the quarters 10 minutes instead of 12 minutes. And if we keep making these adjustments for television, we're really going to distort all of these numbers even more. I don't know if the numbers matter to anyone listening to this anymore. We tend to obsess with the numbers in sports pretty frequently.
But Asterisk Man is telling you that they need to matter. You've got to respect, asterisk man is here to tell you that you guys are bleeping with the numbers in a way that's not okay. I know you hate math, and I know that you occasionally, if you're Greg Cody, you don't want any more new information with your sports. None at all. You don't want to add any learning to your sports experience.
I'm looking at the top 50 in three-pointers made right now. They're all guys that played in the 21st century.
Oh, yeah, of course.
There's an inherent asterisk with the eras.
Yeah, like I think that's the thing. Unlike baseball, a sport that's very married to certain numbers, basketball is just basketball. Like Mike just pointed out, a great example is three-point shooting. Another one that I bring up is offensive rating. Did you know that like 45 of the top 50 best offenses of all time have happened since COVID? Like that's insane.
Where average teams in these last few years are among the top 50 of greatest all time.
One of the great things about watching sports today is seeing how it distorts how dumb all the coaches were previously doing all of the math. the incorrect way, like wear it all on fourth down or throw the ball in the post for an inefficient shot.
One of my favorite stats, I don't know where it is that you guys, what you guys have for favorite stats, but I'm pretty sure that Magic Johnson, his rookie season when he won the championship, I think that year he was either 0 for 16 from three or one for 16 from three. Something totally absurd that he was able to play the game the way that we're no longer playing it.
I'm not going to say that that player would be Ben Simmons now, but not having a three-point shot would make it very difficult for someone like that to thrive today, would it not? Not as a basketball player. Obviously, he would figure other things out, but I don't know if you can be Magic Johnson, the way that he used to play, I mean, which is, it was all packed into the paint.
It wasn't something he was doing around the three-point line.
I think when you're 6'9", you can play however you want to play. Like, you're a 6'9 point guard, you can play any way you want to play, but yes, it is harder... it would be harder for a smaller player.
So the example a lot of people bring up a lot is Isaiah Thomas, the original Isaiah Thomas, that like, hey, this is a guy who shot, what is it, 29% from three for his career, never shot higher than 31%, and that was like, oh, excuse me, 33.8%, which is awful by modern standards. He attempted less than a three-pointer a game for much of his career. Yes.
And no, because empirically, I can look at Isaiah Thomas and say, this is a guy who has all of the characteristics of someone who can shoot, right? The only reason he couldn't shoot threes was A, part of it is he didn't shoot threes. So many of those attempts that you're seeing are heaves and end of shot clock and not like true, I lined up and took this shot.
And B, you gotta understand, players like Magic, like Isaiah Thomas, that whole era, They didn't see a three-point line until they got to the NBA. There was no three-point line in high school. There was no three-point line in college. They got to the NBA, like, here's this line, and then every coach tells you, ah, don't worry about it. That's only in special situations.
So I don't use it as kind of a judgment. I'm like, oh, you're garbage. You could never play like that. I think Maddie Johnson in the modern era would be a better three-point shooter, as would Isaiah Thomas, as would all these guys. because it would be emphasized to them.
To Amin's point, if you look at the stats for Magic Johnson, Dan, the rookie season you mentioned, he was 7 for 31 from 3 as a rookie, finished second in rookie of the year. What's funny is that in his fourth season, he was 0 for 21 from 3 and finished third in MVP voting. But by near the end of his career, in the 1989-90 season, he shot 38% from 3 on 276 attempts.
So it completely changed just over the course of seven or eight years.
And again, that's mid-90s? That's late 80s. Oh, late 80s. But that's still not a widespread kind of adoption of this, right? You think about even the 90s, the first time we get a spike is when they move the three-point line in. And then there's a bunch of guys who are like, oh, I already shoot this shot, but now it's a three-pointer. Let me go ahead and take a three. But...
That's why, you know, Dan, you texted me the other day about, what do you think of Jokic versus Jordan? And I said, I don't like these conversations because they're kind of inherently flawed in that we're trying to compare, you know, things that are not of the same time. In the same way that I was saying, who's smarter, Chris Cody or Isaac Newton? Isaac Newton could work an iPad.
Isaac Newton could work a soundboard. Like, he could do all those things. So clearly, is Chris Cody smarter than Isaac Newton? I don't think so.
That was very pejorative.
Can you look up for me, Jeremy, what it is that Magic Johnson did that fourth season? Like, what did the team do while Magic Johnson was going 0 for 21? So the next time I say that this is one of my favorite stats, I actually use it correctly. Seven.
Seven for 31 doesn't slap like over 16.
But the rookie year wasn't the one that I'm thinking of. I got pretty much everything wrong in it. It was the fourth year and it was over 21. And that is kind of amazing. And it is also kind of amazing to see that immediately go to 38% as soon as, you know, survival of the fittest evolution makes an appearance.
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Don Levitard. I want to address Tony and all men who would wear that shirt in public.
Stugatz. Don't do it. This is the Don Levitard Show with the Stugatz.
I want to ask all of you, and if you'd get me an expert on this, I'd appreciate it because we need our renowned Jacksonville expert, even if he's on paternity leave and even if he's busy, you know, fathering a baby and taking care of parental duties to explain what it is that's happened with his beloved new coach. Ever since Tony alleged that Jacksonville Jags We're a good football team.
They have basically not been. And now I think Liam Cohen is going to have a hard time, since they're not playing games anytime soon, living all of this down, including the sensual caterpillar of eyebrows that run across his forehead.
That's what this is about. Jacksonville. The community. Duval. How do we do this together?
Tony, what is the correct way to say that? Do you want to help Cohen and welcome as Jacksonville's biggest supporter in the national media?
Thank you, Dan. Yes, they have been not great since we took the mantle of the bandwagon for Jacksonville. I actually brought a couple of props here. Number one is a little bit of an explanation here for Coach Cohen and for what Duval County does, right? So Coach Cohen hit us with the Duval, right?
A lot of L's.
It's got a lot of L's in it. A lot of L's, which we don't like. As Jacksonville does. As Jacksonville does, I couldn't fit all the L's they had this season on the paper, as you can see, which I wanted to. I should have made it smaller. One, two, three, four, five, six. Only six L's here. You could have. There was a lot more.
You really could have. You could have done it to have all the L's in their schedule by just making Duval a little smaller.
Duval. You hear that L, right? Duval. There it is. I've been in the linguistics lab, and that L, that trailing L, is something we don't like in Duval. It's more Duval. Duval. Right? Du. The U is very important here in the Duval County. By the way, I brought another prop that I've been absolutely persecuted for having in my possession.
I feel like I've almost been hiding it since the day of its inception. But, Dan, I brought out...
Oh, wow, the Basselli candle.
Nice. The Basselli candle, Dan. Do you remember in the first scene in Inglourious Bastards where Christoph Waltz asks if they're harboring people under the floorboards? I was asked, are you harboring this? When I moved it to my new place, are you harboring a Basselli vintage candle? And I said, absolutely not. I don't know what you're talking about.
But here I am to say the Basselli candle is alive and well. Dan, Coach Cohen is an interesting person. An interesting situation.
Duval. That sounds like a ghost. Like, if I told you, if I told you you were sleeping, if I told you right now.
Who was once considered the second best golfer on the planet? Duval. Duval.
I don't sleep, by the way. But that's another story for another day.
Duval. Who did I love starring opposite Sean Penn in Cops, the 1980 movie?
Duval. Which outfielder played for both the Braves and the Marlins? Duval.
That is a ghost. This ghost is amazing to trivia. We're taking him to trivia night. Or her. Whoever you are, spirit.
All of us together are having a good time. We're out. We're drinking beers. We're having fun. Miller Lights. And it's midnight. And now we're walking into a dark cornfield.
Duval.
Horrifying.
Who played the wife in The Shining? Duval.
Tony, how is he going to live this down? What is going to happen? He can't live this down until he's played a game. Sirianni was wearing that terrible press conference until he coached a game.
That's the thing, right? We've seen coaches have really weird press conferences, be really weird on camera, and then all of a sudden the game starts and you're like, oh, I kind of forgot Nick Sirianni. I heard Sugat say the other day, is he the best Eagles coach of all time? Maybe if he wins a Super Bowl here, like possibly, right? I think the thing with Cohen is this.
He's been around cool people for a long time, but when he says the lingo of cool people, it sounds weird. I don't want to throw Chris Cody under the bus, but Chris is somebody who has the lingo, but then when says the lingo, you're like, ooh, that kind of doesn't sound right. It doesn't connect. What's good, bro?
Tony, let me ask a question. Is it possible, because I didn't catch the feeling that he's just awkward saying the cool lingo. I caught the feeling that right moments before the press conference, you want me to say it loud? Okay, got it. Like he learned about it.
moments before coming on stage he's repeating something that he was told to say or or maybe even he incorporated in his research for the press conference not anything he's never heard of it before that day for sure like when he was in tampa he had never heard that call i i have a different appraisal of this this is what i think happened the head coach and especially the first time head coach in a press conference has to be some version that is him but repressed
And so he's like, watch this. I'm gonna show them personality outside of my repressions, but I'm not confident about what I'm doing, and I'm a little scared, and showing these people big personality might not be something that I should do, and so now I'm leaking confidence as soon as I've started. I didn't think that that was confident. I thought he was leaking confidence as he did this.
I see in his eyebrows the fact that he doesn't know if he's saying it right.
Duval. There's pride in those eyebrows. What are you talking about?
Let's play it again. You guys tell me if there's pride in these eyebrows. Play it again for the people and watch. Again, I will tell you, the audio of this is funny, but the video is funnier because of what his eyebrows are doing during the Duval.
That's what this is about. Jacksonville. The community.
Duval. See, that little sway side to side is like, oh, I'm about to get him.
He thinks he's crushing it. I'm telling you.
I'm about to get him with this one. They're not ready. First eyebrow is like, oh, yeah, I'm going there. Second eyebrow is like, went there. You came with me.
Look at that smirk. He nailed it. That's the confidence that got him the job.
Duval. To Dan's point, though, there's a bit of a lip quiver when he says it. Watch his mouth and watch the lip quiver a little bit. Like, am I about to nail this or am I not about to nail this? Watch the mouth. Let's play it again and watch the mouth really quick.
That's what this is about. Jacksonville. The community.
Duval. Duval.
How do we do this together? I guarantee you, not only is it confidence. Tony, he didn't even know he messed up until after he got off the press conference podium. He was like, I killed it. Let me see what Twitter says. Oh, my God.
He's like, you hear my Duval? You hear my Duval? I crushed it. Like, that's how he walked off that stage.
One last refresher, Tony, on the correct way to do this with your helpful video aid, please. Absolutely. So, again, Coach Cohen. Duval.
Duval. Yeah, a lot of L's there. Hopefully not this season, but a lot of L's. You need Duval. I didn't add as many A's and L's, but the U's are the most important here. You got to get the U's in, boys. That's it right there.
And you made it right in that you said multiple A's, one L. If there's one letter that's going to get sacrificed here, it's going to be the L at the end.
We don't take L's, baby.
Noel's in Duval. Excellent analysis. Worth you coming back from paternity leave. Thank you, Tony. Appreciate that you are forever a jag off. Thank you, sir.
This segment was fire.
I want to backtrack a couple of weeks here. This has been a glaring omission by our show, and I'm embarrassed by it, especially here in the local hour. We have not talked.
beyond a one-sentence mention of Jim Laranaga leaving the job at the University of Miami and the total state of disrepair that is the University of Miami basketball program, where completely squandered is a Final Four appearance from a couple of years ago.
in a way that is jarring to see a program not only not be able to capitalize off of a Final Four appearance, but to do the very worst of the opposite of whatever capitalizing is, where you're losing games at home to Charleston Southern by 25 points because the program is completely broken. But I do want to celebrate that.
Instead of the fleeing at the end, the fact that that was a monumentally successful career at the University of Miami for a coach. One of the best runs across... the sport that you will see. The greatest coaches in the University of Miami's history are him and Leonard Hamilton, correct?
Jim Laranega retires as not only the best University of Miami basketball coach that there has ever been, but we're on the list of best coaches, period, with Jim Morris, with Jimmy Johnson. Where does he go on the Mount Rushmore of Katie Meyer on University of Miami coaches?
Well, I think you have to start with championship-winning coaches. But Laron Yeager's distinction is always going to be that he was the first to get them to a Final Four, a major deal that we thought would be the beginning of the greatness of UM hoops, and it went downhill fast. But I think Laron Yeager was a victim of a sport. cannibalizing older coaches.
I think Laraniega and coaches of his generation, they're running as hard as they can, but they're losing ground to NIL, to transfer portal. They just, they're not suited to that. They grew up in a different age of college basketball and the sport changed around them. And I don't think Laraniega wanted to or was equipped to reinvent himself. And he pretty much said that in his parting comments.
I don't disagree at all, Greg, but it's weird to understand that take, agree with it, hear the man say it himself, and reconcile that with he just had his greatest recruiting class in program history. And they did very well early on in the NIL space. Look, this team was a half away from consecutive back-to-back Final Four appearances.
um yeah it's very confusing what happened here i know he struggled as did katie and they articulated it there's an energy associated with talent acquisition now that goes beyond just normal on life on the road recruiting high school kids it is perpetual the communication is constant between you and your collective and it's easy to understand why he would burn out at that stage of his career i think you know
It's easy when it's at the end, right? Like, I don't need this. I'm the Danny Glover. I'm too old for this shit. It's not an indictment on the new rules of engagement. It's just who has the patience and what stage of career are they at where they're going to tolerate learning a new language, right? Like, hey, your job just moved you to Russia, right?
I'm really gonna learn Russian at like 62 years old? Nah, it's all right, we're good. I retire, right? Number two, I think the, I keep saying this, I don't think NIL is the thing that has ruined the game. Because again, most of these big programs, we're offering incentives, let's put it that way.
I think it's a transfer portal that a guy can be like, I don't want to be here, I'm leaving, and I'm going to play somewhere else tomorrow or next season or whatever. That's the part that I think made it harder for many of these older coaches to kind of come to grips with that.
That is 100% accurate. I know from what Katie said, she really struggled with, you invest yourself so much in a relationship, and no matter how well it seems to be going, the college basketball players in particular are always going to test the market. It is very strange. Look, we retained a lot of talent that entered the transfer portal. We talked them away from it. We lost some.
Guys like Luka Poplar in particular has kind of reinvented himself over at Villanova. Bensley Joseph is doing well. Nor Chad O'Meara is still rebounding like a beast over at Baylor. It's just really confusing to me. you kept wondering, wow, this is happening in Miami. Jim Laranega is showing you what the ceiling at this program can be.
And for them to not only do nothing with that momentum, but become one of the worst Division I P4 programs we have ever seen during a 16-game losing streak, not even being close, historically being one of the worst against the spread teams in the history of college athletics. Oh, yeah. It's crazy what's happened so quickly.
The talent does not compute because they have a fair amount of talent when you look at recruiting star ratings and whatnot. It does not compute with what you're seeing on the court.
The against the spread record sort of explains itself because when you make a Final Four that recently, there's the assumption, all right, this is a good program that's going to start being good again. And therefore, I think they're always going to be favored by more or an underdog by less than they should be because of that.
guys just stopped listening, too. They were not playing Jim Laraniga-style defense. They were not active hands at the top of the key. It was just a little unrecognizable, and it was really confusing because I would argue entering last season, that's one of the more talented Miami basketball teams we've ever had.
A lot of talent that made deep runs consecutively in the tournament and with new talent that's now in the NBA and George, who's in the Rising Stars game.
I would love to have an honest conversation, like a truly honest conversation with... with these coaches on what it is that they're dealing with with families and with teenagers now that they're more powerless than they've actually been because of the stuff that you're talking about.
Like a truly honest conversation about what happens when it's teenagers and their families fighting over your money and you have no control over making anybody listen because there's nothing that you can do to exert power over somebody who's unhappy. They don't have to eat it anymore. It's not old coaches. It's not just old coaches.
Sure, I want my coaches to connect across generations and cultures and everything else, but that has to be something that's hard for anyone who's in management right now trying to govern something that can't be governed.
Guys, I just want to close this segment with an investigation that I've had pending. I'm here to argue that Liam Cohen's always been cringy, and we're just catching on to it because this is the first time that you've seen him speak. But I recall a video, because I'm a big Baker Mayfield guy, of them being reintroduced after Liam Cohen was named offensive coordinator.
By the way, it's very interesting. People are so confused and at the back of their minds still doubt Baker Mayfield that we've hired two of his offensive coordinators as head coaches because we're struggling to explain this. But watch this video. I submit this as evidence. Liam Cohen reuniting with Baker Mayfield.
Ah, let's go. What up, though? Hey, I had to do something light, you know? Oh, no. What up, though?
I had to do something light. He's like Kyle Mooney. I'm seeing so much of myself in this guy.
Let me see. Well, the red hair's not helping him here. What up, though? I don't know if you can pull any of this off as a ginger. Let me see that again, because he is again going with sensual shoulders and the head monod.
ah let's go what up though hey i had to do something like you know hey howdy listener why don't you sit down here next to me
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