1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - DP stories: July 12th, 10am

Episode Date: July 12, 2022

His time at a Texas HS, helping a college choose between recruits, helping a transfer pick the right school for them, Rico recalls his time looking for a collegeAdvertising 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. Brought you by Mary Ellen's Food for the Soul. On 93-7 The Ticket and the Ticket FM.com. Welcome to it out of Tuesday. One-on-one, brought to you by the folks for Mary Ellen's Food for the Soul, Charles Sillips and the Magicians, the crew of Magicians,

and the crew of magicians he has in the kitchen back there smoking, smoking and grilling and frying and this assorted yumminess. They were doing brisket sandwiches. Brisket sandwiches. Yeah. Yeah. I'm interested. Yeah, we said, so, you know, from time to time, especially with the student athletes.

And again, we thank them because they help us take care of the student athletes and the student athletes can go in there and get fed and we sent the big boys down right the real test right let's send some of the pipeline down there right so we sit noree and banks and there's somebody else who went with him

another line I went with him but was the verdict oh Brock Bando Brock Bando and they went down and of course he you know Charles took care of it right as he does and yeah they yeah so so full unhappy so full so happy um so full so happy um i don't i i try to to be decent about not overhyping stuff but when it's

fortunately for us like the people we deal with all they all they all they're doing they're They know what they're doing. They know what they're doing. They know what they're doing. They know what they're doing, right? So it's not. As a matter of fact, he just posted some pictures of him with Larry the Cable guy and Kevin Swarbo and of course, Nick from Mujajas.

Right. And I love the fact that they get along. So what he, the picture he posted. So he had, this is the smothered pork chops. beef brisket, baby back ribs. He posted a double cheeseburger that, wow. Where is this posted? It's on Mary Ellen's Facebook.

Okay. And then he goes through it. You can have the jumbo Colorado smoked sausage, catfish filet, mac and cheese, baked beans, collard greens, mashed potato and gravy, coleslaw fries. But this double cheeseburger is a work of art. That looks amazing. It's a work of art. So kudos of that.

And of course, they've got the... I'm a massive fan of Porchopson. Oh, my goodness. Right? Like, he just had... Like, he did like a 10-second video of it, and it's talking to the camera. Sir, that should be illegal?

It's talking to the cameras. That should be illegal. Oh, my goodness. Right? So, anyway, you know, just give yourself a chance. That brisket. Brisket is no joke, bro. It's no joke.

it's no joke. It should be illegal. You shouldn't be able to make food this good. Well, so in Tuesday they're out on the truck, so they're around town somewhere. Of course, Charles can let folks know. You can find that on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,

and from their website directly at maryallens.com. They will be open tomorrow at four. I don't think they're open at 11. I think they're open at 4 tomorrow, but we'll have Charles text in and let that know. 4-02, 464, 5-685.

Sartor-Hamondon, text on Honda, Lincoln Hotline. The video streamed by Sartor Haman is up. Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and Twitter Live, Twitter Live as it happens. Thomas, I'm sorry. He says, y'all make me hungry. I don't need to until later. I don't have energy. Chill my guys.

Yeah, I just wanted to give a shout out. Just wanted to give him a shot. And it Willie says on the text line from the previous, from old school, He says, what a fellow. Shout out to Jeff for the good stuff he contributed. That's a great call from Jeff. And I love hearing from coaches. So if you're a coach, teacher, mentor, you have an open invite to call in at any time and share a stories.

Because it really is, it's some superhero-ish, man. Just to have people who are willing and not, we're not talking about college coaches or pro-coaches who make six figures. Although, you know, when I was in Texas, I made six figures for coaching high school. That's different. I have to, I have to. Texas high school is different. Texas high school is different. Plus, this was a private high school.

Oh, okay. In the Woodlands, Texas, which is so in a money area with a private school, the private school only accepted 50 boys and 50 girls in each grade. So there are 100 kids per class. and you had to test in and they only took the 50 highest scores but also you had to pay $35,000 a year a year every year just to go to school there.

Sir, that is college. That's really what this is. That is a college tuition. Well, this is college prep except if they do it from kindergarten all the way up there. Imagine paying 35 a year every year. That's a different.

of money for 13 years for 13 years yeah no well but the kids are going the kids go wherever you want them to go yeah i mean you know it's it's it's a facility kids want to go well the kids will tell you the kids will tell you they get a pretty good idea early on a lot of it is legacy based right where actually checks out right where their legacy folks like your grandmother has the building has our own building at the university of texas or bailer or your father's on the board of regents for Texas A&M or like it's that kind of situation. That makes sense. I believe kids.

I believe kids. And there's several things that happen with that, right? So that ninth graders played varsity. Because you only have 50. You only have 50 boys in each grade. And imagine that these are the smartest kids in the area. So not all of them are athletic. especially not athletic at the level that

Texas. Yeah, you're talking about Texas athletics. But the kids who are athletic excel because, again, the way you practice is the way you study is the way you practice. So you can put information into this pool and know that you're going to get some payback. A lot of the travel ball kids,

like these are kids who all play AAU and they travel a lot, and they've got tutors that help them through, and the study program helped them as well, helped them get through. But you only had 50 boys, and not all of them were athletes, and not all of them want to play football. So you had the cross-country guys, right, which was a much higher percentage of the student that the boys in the school ran cross-country rather than playing football.

That happens. Right? It makes perfect sense, right? That's what that was. Same for soccer, right? That you had a lot of soccer players. So we would probably get 10 kids per grade. Per grade, maybe 12.

And then we would line up with 50 kids because we would have ninth graders. But the thing happened was, and I always said as a coach, give me smart kids and I will win. Give me kids who are willing to be taught coach slash coached slash mentored. I can win with those kids more than I could. Now there were times where we would just face the monster and I'm going, okay, I'm just not going to beat these dudes. Like, I'm just not.

But we were beating the people who were less disciplined than we were. We were beating people who were less connected than we were. As a matter of fact, the coaching that, that team that when I came in, the year before, they were 1, 8, and 1. And they tell you, the DP, like, we just know we're not going to win. Like, that's not, one, that's not why we're here, too, that's not what we do. I said, well, but you're smart. Yeah, I'm like, okay, we'll be fine.

That group that we got us, that I got as freshmen, went to three straight state championship games in football. But they don't win. That's what, that's not what they do. The basketball program, the group I got won four of 25 games the year before I got there. The same group, I want to say we were 16 and 7. The baseball team, and actually I was coaching the JV guys down there because the varsity group was pretty established. But that group the year before was like 6 and 19.

And we went 18 and 7. And I said only because you just eliminate the nonsense. Yeah. Like just the nonsense. Right. If I don't have to worry about them academically, I can focus on just teaching and coaching. Like, oh, my goodness gracious. Like once I learn how you're taught, how you learn, it's candy.

So I'm always fascinated. Virginia was a little bit of a different story. They would tell you that, you know, hey, we can't win here. but they had won like 17 straight district basketball championships but they could never win regions or state and I didn't my job wasn't to come in and like demolition it and break it all down my job was to fill in the spaces of need which was connection and direction

and how they talk to each other and themselves and that group won back three straight regional titles and a state title so it always this thing transfers. It translates. So in the era of transfer portal, athletics, it's easy to identify.

Like for me, if I'm a coach in the transfer portal, I want to know what your academic goals are first. I want to know what your life goals are first. Like before you can play football for me or basketball for me, tell me what you're going to do with. Because that'll tell me how hard you're willing to work what restrictions you have, what boundaries you have.

Like tell me the entire conversation before season starts with student athletes for me is about what you're doing away from the field because it tells me everything about what you're going to do on the field. Knowing why a kid wants to play is important. You'd be amazed at how many kids don't know why they want to play. I don't know. It's just a thing to do. Okay.

Okay, well, that tells me, that tells me a, tells me a ton yeah um and because of all this and and again um i do more of this outside of nebraska than i do in for whatever reason hands to this guy like i don't i don't know but um i have a cousin who's on the staff at north carolina and so he reaches out and says okay here are some of the issues that we're having in this um give me your thoughts on this group of players. And you can look at a group of five players, right? Five people that they're recruiting for a specific position on the team.

Yep. And he goes, here are these five. And I'm like, he goes, can you develop a player profile on these five? And I'm like, yes. So I send them the study program. I'm like, have them fill these forms out and get them back to me. And I'll tell you who's going to be your guy and who's going to, you're going to have to work.

He'll be worth it, but he's going to be work. Here's the guy that's going to just drain you. He's going to drain you. And then this is a kid that you need to run as far away from as humanly possible. And so I sent him to him. Two days later, he calls back and he goes, well, this is where we are. We're down to the three. We eliminated the two you were thinking about it.

He goes, and yeah, he goes, it was really weird. We knew, like, within five minutes that we couldn't bring in those two kids. I'm like, well, how did they get to your finals list? He goes, well, different coaches brought them in. We get to the three, and he wants two. I tell them the two. He gets them in. He brings them in May.

Walk on or preferred walk-on status. They work out for the two months. They're both under scholarship right now. They're both under full scholarship right now. Because they came in and got to work. They did all the stuff that they said they were going to do, and they helped the coaches know how to talk to them, what was important to them, what their weaknesses were.

So, again, a player is only as good as his weaknesses. Right? The standard is at the bottom, not at the thought. Right? What you allow is at the bottom. What you teach is at the thought. Scholarships, full scholarships. Now, entirely different situation.

There is a player. There's a student athlete who played at Nebraska, who was ready to move on, and they wanted to know how to choose their next school. So you go through the list. And I said, now you need a coach's profile. Like, what do you need? What's going to make you successful? And so you get with the athlete and the parents and you go through.

Like, what do you need? What are the priorities? What are the priorities? And the assumption is that the player and the parents know what it is they're looking for or how to find it. And they don't. They don't. They're like, we don't know about these other programs and we don't know what these other communities are like. So I'm like, okay, so what do you need?

What do you want from this? What do you want to accomplish? What's the thing that when you wake up the morning that you don't want to have to worry about? and then what's the thing that's going to help you be the greatest version of you? So they go through and then they get down to their five. And I'm like, well, here are the coaching profiles. Here are the university profiles. And they make the decision.

And they get there and they're going, this is amazing. This works. This is amazing. Like they push me the right way. They ask for the right things. They answer questions. I get whatever I need because they probably. Thomas that as a part of the original negotiations, you know, that, hey, from an academic standpoint, this is what I need.

And lo and behold, because they actually asked for it, it actually exists. Wow. Crazy. Think about it this way, Rico. As much as you know about U and K now, how much did you know before you made the decision? None. Right? None.

I don't even, right. Like I've told you before, I didn't go on any visits. No, no official visits to any colleges. I went on one unofficial visit, two unofficial visits to UNK. And the first one I went because my friend, one of my best friends was go. Was on an official visit for wrestling. And I just texted the coach. Well, I found the number online, texted the coach, let him know who I was.

And I was like, I'm coming down with my friend. I would like to meet up with you and talk about possibilities. Right? Sure enough. How much did you know about the coach? None. Right? You didn't know about the coach?

Didn't know who the head coach was. Didn't know any of the position coaches. Right. Nothing. None of that. None of the event coaches. How much did your, did your parents know? Right?

Nothing. If they haven't gone through that process, they have no idea of knowing. I told my mom I wanted to go, at first I wanted to go to Iowa Western because I didn't think that my academics were up to par for anywhere. And she told me, you are not going to a two-year university. You are going to a four-year university. And I said, why? I don't know.

That's what she told me. I said, okay. Why? I was like, okay. Right. So think of how many student athletes and parents are out there right now, going through a process or at least beginning to get into that process without having real knowledge of, I mean, unless your dad's a division, former division one player, you're behind.

the curve anyway. I was told I should have started looking my like middle tour end of my sophomore year. I didn't start looking until like middle of my senior year. But how many people know their place in athletics as as a sophomore?

I was not anywhere close to where I was. You can't know. Like it's very rare. The Dylan Ryola's a real those are unicorns. Those are unicorns. And again, remember he's Royola. So he's got point of reference for people that can give him information on the process who are still in

the upper level of this vacuum. I made state in long jump my sophomore year. I didn't make it in either hurdles. And by the time my senior rolled around, I was top three hurdler in the state. I was not all anything as a sophomore. That's not my testimony. Now, I was, the weird thing was that I was all American in my level in track and field. but I didn't love track and feel the way I loved baseball football basketball, mainly because, I don't know, my brother was an Olympian and I wasn't as good as he was.

Some big shoes to fill. Yeah, like, no, I want to stay as far away from that as possible. So big foot footprints to follow. Well, because it was, but at least he could tell me about the other stuff. Oh, yeah. And he was the one that said, look, if you don't love track and feel, that's, that's, you. not it. Like, you're not going to be good at anything you don't love. And he made that thing for me. I didn't even love it until my junior year. I didn't even know that Summer Track was a thing.

Right. Until after my sophomore year. And then my friends were like, oh, yeah, we're going to go to summer track. I was like, what's that? And they were like, you know, we run for this place and we do this and we go to these places. I was like, that sounds fun. I want to do it. You know what my travel ball was, was to go to a different neighborhood and play baseball against those kids rather than kids of my neighborhood. Counts his traveling. Well, here was the thing. They would talk about, hey, they're going these tournaments and they're going to go do this.

They're going to play more, right? And I said, yeah, but you're playing against other 12-year-olds. I'm playing against 15 and 16-year-olds down the street here. That's where my advantage was. But I also didn't know that that was. for baseball. I just thought that's just what it was. I was just playing.

Yeah, you were just playing. In the summer, I didn't go to seven-on-seven camps. I would go up to the playground to the rec center and play against the 15-60 years, the guys who were actually playing in high school. Oh, yeah. We would just go to my friend's house at North Omaha. We would go to Benson,

and it was just people out there playing. We're sophomores in high school, and it's guys that are like seniors and some guys that might have come back, like they're in their first year. We'd go out there playing with them, playing football. And when you got education from the people who actually went to college, and again, in my neighborhood, going to college wasn't the priority or the focus. It wasn't the thing.

My brother was a unicorn from that neighborhood. Like, he really was. Oddly enough that, I think about a lot of the women went to college. The guys didn't. The guys went to work or went to the military. But my brother, having gone to college, like he would go to track meets in college, and he would see. send me a t-shirt from whatever meat he was at. So Ball State Relays.

That's awesome. Like any of the big ones, he'd go out to Oregon. He'd go up to New York for the indoor sessions. And you'd get these shirts. And that shrunk the world for me a little bit because he would give me stories. Did he run at the armory? Yeah, he ran at the armory. Oh, yeah. That place looks so amazing.

I mean, just the stories, right? But he at least could tell me what was required. Now, his journey was a little different because instead of choosing Tennessee or Nebraska to run track at, he decided he wanted to go to a place where if he got hurt, they would still care for him. He was like, listening. I mean, my brother was recruited by Nebraska. But he chose a little school, David Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, because if he got hurt, they would take care of him.

But he also turned down the athletic scholarship and demanded an accident. academic scholarship instead and said I would much rather have the focus and attention be put on because I'm going to do the track thing because I love it. But where I need focus and be held accountable is the academic side. So they did a thing that they had never done before, which was give this track athlete an academic scholarship. My brother is the first thing to get the school to do it. And it worked out perfectly for him.

But he would also tell me you don't need to go to Virginia to do what it is that you do. Now, I, again, I was, I went to a, my high school was pretty strong academically. You know, a lot of who's who, right, sort of situation. And because even if I was in the middle of the pack there, I was ahead of a lot of people that was trying to go and play ball back in the deck. Right. So my 289 coming from W&L would have been a three, three. somewhere else. And then if you put the historically black colleges and universities in that fold, I was at the top of talent and academics. So I could go to any black college I wanted to go to.

But I kind of, you know, is that really what I should be doing? Right? That thing, that you're going through the process and not knowing what you're doing. And finally, your brother goes, well, if you want to go, go. Like, that's how simple this is. But let's figure out why. you want to go and where you want to go. So for the parents and student ounces out there, one, I didn't accept a deal until May of my senior year. May. That's when I decided where I was going.

It doesn't. I get so many texts from parents. Hey, we're at that point. I'm starting to panic. Don't panic. Don't panic. Don't panic. There's time and there's a way for this to happen.

We'll talk a little bit more about that when we come back into one-on-one. Download our app by searching 93.7 the ticket in your app store. You're listening to One-on-One with DP on 93-7 the Ticket in the Ticketfm.com.