1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Nebraska Greats Foundation: March 26th, 2026, 11:00am

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

Events coming up across the Nebraska Greats Foundation. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This time of year, the school calendar really starts to fill up, spring activities, testing season, and that final push toward the end of the year. It's a great moment for kids to stay focused and build confidence in what they're learning. That's where Iexel comes in. IXL is an award-winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand their schoolwork, from math and reading to writing and science. It's designed for pre-K through 12th grade, with personalized interactive content that adapts to each child's level and pace. I-Excel makes it easy to stay on track with instant feedback and clear explanations, skills organized by grade level, and simple progress tracking. It fits into even the busiest spring schedules. It's also trusted nationwide.

In fact, I-XL is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get I-Exel now. Listeners can get an exclusive 20% off I-XL membership when they sign up today at I-XL.com forward slash today. Visit Ixl.com forward slash today to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Part of Lincoln America, a 937 the ticket and the ticket FM.com. Sponsored by the Downtown Lincoln Foundation. Here is your host, Derek Pearson.

Welcome to one-on-one on 93-7 the ticket. How about a Sweet 16 game day, boom, to get you going here on a Thursday afternoon. Not quite afternoon, I suppose. it's 11, so technically that's not afternoon. But it feels like the afternoon, we're just counting down the hours till Nebraska takes Iowa, takes on Iowa, takes down Iowa, and goes to the sweet 16. At least that's the hope for tonight. This is one-on-one with D.P. D.P. is in Houston, along with some of our other friends,

Jake Sorenson, Austin Omerman, Bill Bush, Steve Sibble, of course, early break did their show this morning. And it, I mean, this is game. It is what it's all about. It is crazy that we're here. Nick Sainter in studio now with me. And we've got a guest on the line. We'll get to here in a second. But Nick, happy, happy game day. Here we are, Bach.

It's an exciting week for us, obviously, with Sweet 16 tonight. You hope that Nebraska continues their opportunity to play on Saturday in what would be an elite eight, which is just bonkers for us to even sit here and talk about. But we're also 48 hours out from Nebraska football spring game in exactly about 48 hours. just kicking off Nebraska football spring game. And so there's a lot that's on deck. And I think Husker fans, I said it to AD earlier, Bach, and I'll say it to you. And I also said it to our guests while I was talking to him on the phone before we came on the air here.

It's March 26th, and we are still in full Nebraska basketball season mode. And we're just not necessarily accustomed to this, but none of us are complaining about it either. Yeah, I still go back to when Nebraska started off, obviously beat BYU, won a couple games. You and me and Austin were in here talking about how, ridiculous it was. And we got to this point. It was like, what about if they only lose five games? It's like, okay, okay, now we're getting a little bit too excited. That's kind of like the Duke conversations. And here we are in the conversation

with the Dukes of the world in the Sweet 16, with a chance to get to the lead eight. We got plenty to break down about that. But we do want to get to our guests here. Monty from the Nebraska Grates Foundation on the line with us. Monty, are you there? Absolutely. I'm here. Thanks, fellas. It's so good to talk to you, my friend. We've done a lot of great events together.

We just had one a couple of months ago. I can't believe it's already been a couple of months. Obviously, Moni, you're involved with the Nebraska Grates Foundation. But before we talk about what you guys have going on this Saturday, I mean, just talk about it from your point of view. You work with a lot of former athletes, notable, not so notable ones. I mean, just you get to have a lot of these conversations with people in the space. What is this doing for just the morale of Husker fans?

The fact that Nebraska basketball has been the sweet. sweet 16 tonight. They could be in the elite eight for the first time ever if they win tonight against the rival Iowa Hawkeyes and then obviously the spring game on Saturday. Well, absolutely. It is uncharted territory, right? I mean, those of us that have been

Husker fans of all sports for a long, long time, we're doing stuff that's never been done before and how exciting is that. And it's just a fascinating sort of a thing to follow a basketball team. We've all followed March Madness, our entire lives and got excited and had our teams that we've picked and whatnot and all of a sudden it's us and uh it's just so fun and the other thing is so fun is you know obviously

fred and and his team are so likable i mean they are just they're so easy to cheer for their style is easy to cheer for and i happen to know some of them just from you know personality standpoint and know them and feel fortunate enough to to to be able to talk to them but when they're not playing and they're just they're just great kids and that that's that's that even makes it better for a guy like me. Monty, I always love when we have you guys on, whether it's you or bread or whoever from Nebraska Grates, I always like to just remind people what you guys do

because there might be some misconception, some miscommunication on what you guys do for the community, for former athletes as well. Kind of just give us the elevator pitch, if you will, on the Nebraska Grates Foundation, what you guys do and how people can get involved if they so desire to. Absolutely. Well, I appreciate you asking. And the elevator pitch is basically,

We are a nonprofit foundation that raises money and gives it away to people in need. And those people to be a recipient, it is not a Huster Foundation. It's Nebraska-Graits Foundation. So any former letter winner, male, female, from any sport, any of the four-year colleges in Nebraska, if they are facing a financial need because of a medical issue, that type of thing, where their insurance is not taking up what they think it should, or they're just in some distress and financial standpoint. We help them with that.

And we're very, very proud of the way we do things, how we do it. As of right now, life span of the foundation, we have over 71 recipients. We've given away almost $1.7 million. Some of that is $1,000 for a wheelchair. And in some cases, it's long-term care for ALS patients. So a wide variety serve on a great board. And basically the premise is, just what I said, we identify people in need. We try to raise some money and we give it away.

And just want to clarify, if somebody knows of an athlete that might be in need, obviously you guys are always willing to get recommendations, if you will. Can you just go on to the Nebraska Grates Foundation.org is your guys' website. Can you refer athletes there or where should people go if they know of an athlete? This time of year, the school calendar really starts to fill up, spring activities, testing season, and that final push toward the end of the year. It's a great moment for kids to stay focused and build confidence in what they're learning. That's where Iexel comes in. I Excel is an award-winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand their schoolwork, from math and reading to

writing and science. It's designed for pre-k through 12th grade, with personalized interactive content that adapts to each child's level and pace. I-Xcel makes it easy to stay on track with instant feedback and clear explanations, skills organized by grade level, and simple progress tracking. It fits into even the busiest spring schedules. It's also trusted nationwide. In fact, Iexel is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get Iexel now. Listeners can get an exclusive 20% off Iexel membership when they sign up today at Iexel.com forward slash today. Visit Iexel.com forward slash today to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price.

100% Nick. And it's really interesting with our database. We started to track where our recipients come from. And so much of it is word of mouth. So much of it is, hey, have you talked to so and so lately? He's not doing very well. He needs some help. And we now in the last couple years, especially,

we're hearing about those people. But we have a great website. We revamped our marketing on our website, NebraskaGrates Foundation.org. You can go on there. You can refer an athlete. You can see our athlete's stories. You and see kind of what we do and how we've done it. And to your point, that is exactly right.

If somebody out there knows of a former athlete that's really struggling, and however they are struggling, we vet them, and we vet them very well. We vet them financially, but also medically. And we don't have very many people that just have their hands out looking for charity. We have people that really have a need. And so that's how they do it. Get on the website, Nebraska Grates Foundation. or any of you, you know,

shoot, reach out some of the guys that take it. They all have my phone number and they can talk to me and I'll see if we can get them from help. Yeah, happily there. Okay, Moni, we don't want to bury the lead

on what's going on this Saturday for you guys. Because, I mean, here's the thing. I don't want to say that Husker fans forgot that there's a spring game going on on Saturday morning at 11 a.m. here at Memorial Stadium, but it's kind of been on the back burner and it's been for good reason

because there's been a lot of people cheering on Nebraska basketball and rightfully so, but there's still some business we've got to take care of back here at Memorial Stadium. Tell us what's going on this Saturday for you guys on the spring game. Well, there's no better place to be on a weekend downtown than Barry. And we all know that. Some of us have been frequenting Barry's for a long, long time for different reasons. But Barry's reached out to us and said they wanted to be involved in a partnership for the spring game,

and they were very generous and what they decided to put together a pretty good plan. And so really our responsibility is, you know, we're going to have some stuff. signage, some banners. We're going to be there talking about if people ask about Nebraska Grates and what we do. But the proceeds and part of the proceeds from 8 o'clock in the morning when they open up right and early till right after the game is over. And I'm guessing it'll be 1 o'clock, 1.30, a portion of that is going to go to the Nebraska Grates Foundation and its recipients. And so we really want to thank Berries and they're wanting to be part of this partnership. Again, they've reached out to us when they heard about us from you guys, Frank

So we got to thank you guys as well. And again, downtown varies. And not only is spring game, you mentioned the spring game, maybe it's flown under the radar a little bit. But, you know, we've got March Madness going on. It's, you know, Nebraska baseball going on. There's a lot of reasons to be downtown and watch TV and go down there and get a beverage, get a meal. It is pretty family-oriented, especially on spring day, spring game deal. And so come on down.

You don't have to do anything special. You don't have to donate. There's not a QR code, although, you know, if you want to bring your checkbook, we'll certainly take some money. But it's one of those things where Barry's is helping us out and keeping track of the receipts and then giving us a part of those proceeds, and we really appreciate that. That's incredible. And Monty, I'll ask you one, just kind of put a bow on it here before we let you go.

If people have any questions, who can they contact, where can they go? In addition to the event with Barry's and you guys this Saturday, 8 a.m. to about 1, 1.30 just until the spring game is over. Part of the proceeds will go to the Nebraska Grates Foundation this Saturday during the spring game. If people have additional questions or they can't make it to Berries, who should they contact, where should they go, kind of give us all that information if you can. We have a pretty good social media campaign where we have the Instagram,

we have the Twitter, we have that Google machine. Use a Google machine and get into Nebraska Grades Foundation and it will come up to our website and also all of our socials you can get on and find out information about us. There's always a click to donate or click to refer or contact us. You can do that. And a lot of people listening to your station have my cell phone number, good or bad. I don't know what that is. But reach out to me as well.

Reach out to anyone that's a ticket and get a hold of me and we'll help some people. We'll take some money and then we'll give it away to people in me. I happily second that. and I will be making my way down to Barry's to just make sure that we participate in that the fundraising event that you guys got going on. We'll get a picture together. We'll get a picture together and splash it across the social. We would absolutely love it. Now, Monty, hopefully we can be recapping a win against Iowa on Saturday morning together and a preview of not only the spring game, but an elite eight matchup against either Illinois or Houston.

But there's Monty of the Nebraska Grates Foundation. Monty, enjoy the game tonight. Enjoy spring game on Saturday. We always appreciate the time, my friend. Well, I love your support. Love your station. Appreciate it. There he is. There's Monty, Nebraska Grates Foundation on the Allo VIP line. So don't forget this Saturday, we always appreciate the partnership with the Nebraska Grates Foundation. It's not just Nebraska Cornhusker athlete. It's the entire state.

So we're talking. You go on their website and it's UNO, Carney, Creighton, Midland, Peru State, Shadron State, Bellevue University, Wayne State, College of St. Mary's, Nebraska, Westland, Done, Hastings, York University. it doesn't matter. They didn't have to play at the highest of levels. They could have played at some other smaller colleges around the state. If they're in need, then they're absolutely able to be eligible for any help from the Nebraska Grates Foundation. You can refer an athlete or take part in their fundraising event this Saturday at Barry's 8 to about 130 or so. Part of the proceeds will go to the Nebraska Grates Foundation. Thanks to Moni for taking some time.

Absolutely. Great cause there. And great start to our program here on one-on-one on 93-7. Let's go ahead and take a quick break. When we come back, we'll dive into the Nebraska-Ivo game. I heard there's a little talk about what should be the X-Factor. What could be the X-Factor going into this game? We'll try to give ours coming up next. 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 and the ticket FM.com.

This time of year, the school calendar really starts to fill up. Spring activities, testing season, and that final push toward the end of the year. It's a great moment for kids to stay focused and build confidence in what they're learning. That's where Iexel comes in. I Excel is an award-winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand their schoolwork, from math and reading to writing and science. It's designed for pre-K through 12th grade, with personalized interactive content that adapts to each child's level and pace. I-Xcel makes it easy to stay on track with instant feedback and clear explanations, skills organized by grade level, and simple progress tracking. It fits into even, even though,

in the busiest spring schedules. It's also trusted nationwide. In fact, I-XL is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get I-Exel now. Listeners can get an exclusive 20% off I-XL membership when they sign up today at Iexel.com forward slash today. Visit IxL.com forward slash today to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price.