1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Barry Thompson (Fairfax Football Academy): May 12th, 10am

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

Student-Athletes graduating, what goes through their minds as they walk the stageYou can't be scared of workFormer players giving back to current or prospective playersAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Coming at you live from the couple Chevrolet GMC Studios, here is your host, Derek Pearson, presented by Beatrice Bakery on 93-7-the-ticket-in-the-ticketfm.com. Welcome to 101 on a Thursday, 93-7-the-ticket and the ticketfm.com. The 93-7-ticket FM app, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch. We are live on Twitter, the Twitter. We're live on it. You can see the video stream. Follow what we're doing along the way.

402-464-5-6-85. Sartar Hammond text line if you want to contribute to the conversation. Again, thanking the folks from Ambition Electric Joe Davis and Company for making this hour of sports radio happen as it does and allowing us to say thank you to our guests for constantly adding, you know, conversation necessary. Good stuff. He's been doing it for free for so long. Now we get to actually pay him for it. He's a paid broadcaster now.

He put that, add that to his resume of great things. Deservably so. Before we get started, let's stretch. Stretch the arms. Get the back straight, chest out. And then let's hit. Let's hit his music. The autumn wind is a pirate.

Blustering in from sea with a rollicking song he sweeps along, swaggering boisterously. His face is weather-beaten. He wears a hooded sash, with a silver hat about his head, and a bristling black mustache. He growls as he storms the country, a villain big and bold. And the trees all shake and quiver and quake as he robs them of their gold.

The autumn win is a raider, pillaging just for fun. He'll knock you round and upside down and laugh when he's conquered and won. Yes, set the toe. You always said my coach and he says to set the temperature in the room. don't beat the thermostat. That's right. That's the thermometer. Talk to me.

Talk to me. That's great here, Barry Topsy. I'll tell you about that. But listen, you know, the end of that song, that thing, the way they let it breathe, you know, there's something in music where they allow in it in movies where they allow for space, right, rather than trying to fill space up. And a more current version of that I was listening to the end of AWD Schoolboy Creve. crush.

And at the very end of it, it's just funny how they let that song kind of breathe and the little emotions and little chance and the rhythm of the beats. So anyway, but yeah, you want to be a thermostat, not a thermometer. They, look, most people, a lot of listeners don't know AWV. They don't know average white band. The average white band, I'm just going to put this out here. You can go pick up the pieces. school boy crush, they can go back.

And for a long time in music history, AWB was the baddest group of white dudes on the planet. Yes, yes, they were. It really, I mean, just remind yourself, I know you're knowledgeable, but go back and listen to the end of school board crush, right? When they're done with the song,

and they just, whoever produced it, so I'm going to let these cats go for a little bit. And it was, it's well worth it. The harmony and then the pure funk. Yeah. Like the pure funk of average white band. Yeah, and the best thing about them is they weren't pretending, you know. Right.

They weren't trying to, hey, this is a way for us to be popular and we'll get in and we'll do a little bit of that stuff. Now, this was them. This was them. I mean, they had the bones of whatever funk was, but it was definitely AWB and it's unique. and, you know, we don't talk about another band being like AWV. They were AWV. I'm looking at this week as one of those crossover weeks. It's a celebration for student athletes, right?

That they're, they've, a lot of these folks are graduating this week. And it's a culmination of all the work. All the work comes in. into fruition. Barry, what does it mean for the student athlete to go

through, whether it was four years, five years because of COVID, whatever the case may be, to go through and finally walk the stage? What does what goes through the mind of a young person? Well, that's interesting. I think there's certainly a celebratory

mood, right, that it's over. Maybe some are thinking, it's accomplished depending on their perspective of achieving it. At the high school level, you know, you want for the athlete to have options. And so I think the ones that I've worked with at the high school level that they've had, that they're sitting there and they have options, there's a combination of yay and you're with the family and all the standard stuff that walks up to it.

But then you're sitting there and it's got to be a prideful feeling. that, you know, I started here and I came through, and now I'm sitting here, and now I have these choices to make, and hopefully they're good choices. On the college level, I think that degree is really meaningful. You know, that's what they know that they went there for school. They may have lost sight of it at the end, but I think just because the money and time that's involved to get it, I think it really does mean something.

I got this college degree, especially as for, like football, we have people coming from all ranges of backgrounds. Still to this day, you can have maybe multiple members of a football team who might be the first in their family to graduate. Right? So you've got this spectrum of kind of things. And you're hoping that for the college students, they still have that sense that, hey, this hard work has led me to these options.

you know, what do I want to do next with my life rather than that lost feeling of saying I don't know what I'm going to do. I mean, that's what you're hoping. You know, right, that there's going to be time to graduate and don't know what they're going to do next.

And for all of you out there like that, don't worry. Just keep moving forward and you will find it and it will find you. So don't fret that everybody's doing this and doing that. They seem like they got it together. sometimes they don't.

And don't worry that, you know, you're not quite sure. Just find a way every day to get up and get going, get moving. And you, this thing that you're not sure of, you'll recognize it when you see it. Do we have this conversation? Do we have the right conversation with student athletes and students who are graduated from college? Because remember, they've spent. somewhere between 18 and 24 years, single focused to a point, right, to get to graduation day, are we giving enough conversation to that moment after?

I don't think we're giving enough conversation on the perspective during. Yeah. You know, so one of the things I'll talk to my quarterbacks about, you know, and they'll say, hey, I want to play football in college. And I'll tell them, I said, okay, well, make sure you love it. Don't just like it. Make sure you love it. Because, you know, if you love the requirements to do it, right? And it's the same for school in general.

The requirements to be happy with your grades and be happy with your social life, you know, and you can say athlete, be happy with his position on the team. The requirements to keep that level of happiness, those requirements increase every year. And so if you don't love it, then those requirements are going to seem like chores. If you love it, then those additional requirements are just going to see more of what you love. So it's real important that you love it. Two is you better be, and I talked about this last time, you better be doing it for something bigger than yourself. Yeah. right because it's just so hard and in the another perspective on that is that if you're not doing it for something bigger than yourself in a temporary emotional um down downward moment you could easily too easily give up on something that you really love so it's almost a protective device that you have this bigger pursuit and then finally you better have a plan

as to how you're going to get to the next thing in your life, right? Because whether you're talking to the student, the college is going to end. You love that life at college. It's going to end. So you better have a plan to get to wherever you're going to next. And if you're an athlete, you better, I tell them, it doesn't matter why it just is, like the sun coming up in east. If you play football in college at any level, you are on a different platform

than almost every other athlete in that area. And I'll even go for the state of Kentucky, Kentucky basketball, because of this. The fall is the largest gathering point for the school, between alumni, between parents' weekend, between homecoming, and the football games, all that stuff. That is the largest time, which means it's the greatest opportunity. If you're playing football, to engage and to ask and to meet, and to find out, right?

There are so many people that will talk to you while you're playing who, once you get that degree in your hand, you won't be able to get through to their first secretary. You know what I'm saying? They have one in front of that one, and they don't have any of talking about. But while you're on that platform, man, if you don't take advantage of finding out what Rob's the guy as his dad does for a living or, you know, this Rob Smith, mom who's a lawyer and patent attorney, if you don't engage her and ask how did you get started, do you really like it if you had to do it all over again?

Or, you know, Barbara's dad that owns a trucking, you know, business, you know, how'd you get started? Would you do whatever? What would you do? If you don't do that, man, you're missing the boat. So I think that we lacked the conversation before and we lacked the conversation during to encourage the types of things

that when that degree is in your own, hand, man, you're ready to take off and go. I bury that, I think that's such a superb point, but I also think that the NIL conversations maybe are burying the lead because maybe this should be the focus of NIL, is

to allow those conversations to happen. Look, it can be job recruiting and networking. It should be those things. And maybe it affects it. Hey, listen, I would imagine that if you're a big company, and you say, listen, I'm going to recruit student athletes for leadership

because they've already proven that. I can identify people that fit what we do. And then, you know what? As a part of N.O.I.L., there's some internship opportunity or paid intern opportunity for folks to partner with these student athletes and to make it a little bit easier bridge to cross. I like the second internship better than the first one. Well, of course, of course, of course.

And that's because I had to do an unpaid internship. And this one time I was like, y'all can give me no money. But, yeah, you know, yes, I think so. And it's just, we've had this conversation about NIL. For any criticism of NIL, any criticism that you want to put on it, those faults existed before NIL. Right? So you could say, yeah, we want to use NIL money to do these things with points of really good things. And that's a great thing.

but the fact is people weren't being pointed to those things directionally before NIL, right? So, yes, it would be a great thing. My other comment, this little off track, my other comment about NIL, it seems to be focused a lot on short money. And we know in life that long money is what wins. And it's just like short money, you know, somebody gave you, I mean, think about it. somebody gives you, I don't know, I mean, in the span of your life, probably gives you $25,000. Okay, so what happens after that?

I mean, 25 can go really quickly. It really can. I mean, even if you lived off it, it could go in a year. So what's after the 25, right? I'm not saying it's not bad for a college student to have, you know, all that stuff, but man, what goes after? I think that's what NLI is really missing, the long term. Well, but I mean, this is kind of the place and the vehicle for those conversations to happen to remind parents, to remind student athletes, to remind coaches and administrators that that next thing matters.

And we can put all of this stuff in play at a base level. But my goodness gracious, if we said, I can give you five grand now and then pay you 20 as an internship to learn what it is that we do. and so you can make a decision on whether that's something you want to do, is to me a greater way to have that, this stuff, move forward. Yes, it would be, but one of my favorite wits of all time, Mark Twain, says a lot of people miss an opportunity because it's dressed up in overalls. It looks like work. Well, but here, but the beauty of Samuel Clement is that, listen, he told the truth. He told the truth.

Like, listen, and we wanted to know that truth. Like, we wanted to know who are the people that are afraid of that overall work. Yeah, there is. And go back to the short-term thing. If you flash back to the 80s, early 90s and just picking up on my point about this short-term, when you look at, like, Sonny Baccar and those guys that were heavily involved in Nike and Reebok and doing those little shoe wards, the things that people were doing for sneakers and some sweatsuits. I mean, like, you look at it now, it doesn't even make any sense.

The Reebok barely exists as a brand. It made perfect sense. Yeah, and you go, like, what was it all for? But they were, like, fighting tooth and claw and doing all kinds of things, right, to get somebody to wear this sneaker versus that sneaker and paying money and doing our stuff and getting in this camp and all that energy and doing it. Everybody thought they were winning because I got the Chicago.

The only person that won in that whole deal is Nike. Well, no, no, no. So this is, we were talking about the Big East 30 for 30 with ESPN. And they brought up this very deal because the real shoe game turnover happened, one with Michael Jordan and then two with Georgetown and the Big East. and what John Thompson said was pause on how you think it went down and how it went down. But what really happened was you had poor kids who were paying Nike for shoes. They were paying somebody for shoes.

Now the best shoe is paying us to wear them. Yeah. Right. That's the long game. See, that's the long. game that I'm talking about, that John Thompson, look, John Thompson got paid. You got paid. He said, listen,

you know, some people want, they want this, that idea. John Thompson said, I want to be rich because rich people get listened to. And so I hope that there's more people that if it's administrators that are shaping this thing, that they structure it so the rewards

are toward this longer view of things. And that will protect a whole lot of people from themselves. How much of this is simply because they didn't know, like, understand every time the game flips, like every time the game flips, no matter what sport it is and what part of the sports,

or whether it's NIL or shoe deals or apparel deals or sponsorships for podcasts or actual paid interns or whatever. Every time it turns, there are people who sit idle because they don't understand it. and they get caught up in the wash because there's somebody who's already thought of that and moved it. The coaches figured out long time ago, listen, I have power in putting my players in shoes. Right. I have power in putting them in Nike gear, Under Armour Gear, Reebok, starter, whatever it was.

And then the players figure out, oh, this is what coach is doing. I probably better understand it. Right. And that led to the next iteration is where we sit now at NIO, right? From that now, the players have finally said, hey, and got enough power, went to the lawsuit, and they said, yeah.

So my point is, it was easy for the coach to kind of figure out, right? He just had the pockets of money in there. But the players and the people that say they care about the players have got to figure out now how are the players going to benefit. And you're not going to get everybody.

And, you know, the guys that make money make money. But you can swallow up and lift some people if it's done correctly. We're talking to Barry Thompson. And I want to consider this, right? We were having a discussion yesterday about, you know, jerseys and giving players an opportunity to reap benefit of their name in that way, right? that that and then I said well if but if the university understood the power of having all of its former players speak for them to them about them right any former player that's willing to put on the jersey of his school is doing the ultimate that that should be the

long game for me that no matter where it is what a high school college pro team that if you keep the people who have worn that jersey connect and selling your product, then everybody gets more value. Am I right or am I wrong? Yeah, I think that's a great example. I'm sorry I missed the show. But yes, if a player, we keep missing the same names over again. But Bronco Mendon Hall, one of the things he did when he's at UVA,

they had a shield in the locker room, and it brings right back to Jersey. But then he also had the players construct their own shield. Like, what is it that you're representing? And the most basic thing that the football player in particular represent is that jersey number that's on his back. That's how he's recognized. And so, yes, if you gave them a larger percentage of that jersey number sale, I think a whole lot of classes at college would have a greater context. Because people talk about branding. You know, you're whoever on the team, you know, what does branding mean?

I start a Twitter account. You know what I mean? But now if you tell me that not only this jersey that I'm wearing is helping the school, but if I represent this jersey in a way correctly and market it correctly, right, learning from the colleges and how to do that, then I can benefit too. And now you're telling me as part of this family, I get to represent this number for the rest of my life as long as I do it correctly and benefit from it. Yeah, now you're talking something that's structured long-term and something that almost all players can understand.

And you would also promote a little bit of collectiveness because there's going to be three or four guys in the teams that don't know really want to, hey, should we band together? Or you have a receiving core, right? And they're pretty good. They decide to band together. And, you know, like the hogs did and back in the Redskins, right? Those guys understood, you know, hey, let's come up with nickname, let's go. and, you know, so anyway, yeah. It carries 50 years later.

It does. We'll throw it to break. We'll throw it to break. When we come back, Barry, I do want to ask you about that because, look, I, from a business standpoint, if we asked how many former Husker players there are in every sport, and that if each of them received a jersey, their jersey, how many of them would be bought. How many more would be bought? Like if there's a number

10 W&L jersey, I'm pretty sure I can think of, I can think of 10 people that would buy them. We'll have that conversation when we come back to one-on-one. Me and Tommy Terrell be the first one. We'll talk about that when we come back.

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