1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Steve Taylor (Former Husker QB): February 21st, 9am

Episode Date: February 21, 2022

Steve is working on connecting older former players back with the programWill you bring the current players to the meetup after the Spring Game?Advertising 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 Coppull Chevrolet GMC Studios, here is your host, Derek Pearson, presented by Beatrice Bakery, on 937 The Ticket and The Ticket FM.com. Welcome to it, one-on-one on a Monday, 402, 464-5, started hitting the text line. Honda-Legon Hotline, you can join in the conversation. We appreciate it.

hit us with a what's up and we can have the conversation. You can follow the live video stream, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch. You can see what's going on in studio and participate. The chat rooms are open in those spaces so you can do that. It's a good Monday. Sometimes on a Monday you need leadership. You're somebody that can handle the huddle. Get us in, get us out.

Only on Mondays? You've got to be a leader every day. Well, you know, somebody offered you the opportunity to be here every day, but somebody, somebody like playing golf too much to have that kind of accountability. Let's bring it. Let's bring it Steve Taylor from a QV Oscar. How you doing today, QB? I'm good, man. You know?

I've never been better for the most part. Yeah, looking good. Looked good. Like that top. If you come up missing, you know where to go. Is that right? You know, far as well, everyone compliments me on my stuff. Not everyone, but one of my assistants, obviously, she calls it fire names.

I go, no, that's our firethrowing logo. It's a nice flame. You like that subtle flex. Everyone compliments me on my stuff. Well, I, well, no, that is the Steveism. My bad. That is a Steve. My bad.

Subtle flex. Almost everyone. Steve Swagger. He's like, I just walk around, I just walk around people see me there and like, dang. He's like, yeah, I know. No, I know. It's the scene, watching Steve walk in any place is, there's a scene from, from Bruce Almighty where, we're, we're.

Jim Carrey recognizes that he's he's got the power and then the song comes on he's just walking up and down the street finger pointing people that's Steve that's Steve on a regular basis I can't help myself you shouldn't you should all earn nothing given

to do that how you doing bro you good? Yeah man it's uh I I really have to pinch myself every day you know I've been really fortunate a lot of areas and things I'm healthy I just got I just had my 55 double-nickel exam the other day so all my stuff came back really good so that's thank you that's always comforting you know because you never know it's um it's been it's been a tough year you know a lot of great people have fallen a lot of huskers have fallen you know so um you know

you start you start reflecting and think about your age and everything and you know you got to enjoy every day now because it's not it's not given so through give us your your usual day you don't want to know I do because it's fantastic to me. Like I like to think of myself as being somebody that juggles several things at once, right? What's the typical Steve Taylor day? Okay, well, I have the end season and off season. Like I said, and I've been doing this for almost 30 years, and now it's a lot slower. But, okay, let me see.

Like today, Monday and Wednesdays are my day off. I take Monday afternoons and Wednesday afternoons off. So I don't schedule any meetings, no showings, no showings, no. listing presentations, nothing like that. I just, back in the day, I used to take my kids to school. You know, every Monday and Wednesday, Wednesdays and Thursdays. I'm really weird about some stuff. Like, Tuesdays and Thursdays is a workday for me, and I always wear into blues and browns.

Okay. People, and they give me crap about this all the time. Monday and Wednesday, Friday's is a black red day. Obviously, Friday is a black day, and Saturday's a Husker red day. And that just helps me with my wardrobe. don't have to think about what I'm wearing, right? I'm with you. I'm with you there.

So this is how it starts. So Mondays, you know, I get up and my wife goes to cradles every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So she's up. She has her coffee. I get up. And I brush my teeth and I get dressed. I get a thing of coffee.

And I do my crunches. I do, I stretch in the morning. I stretch and I meditate and I do some crunches, you know, and then I get up. Then I shower. Then I get dressed. And then I head to the office. So I get to the office. I check my emails and, you know, that,

kind of stuff, inspections, make some follow-up calls, that kind of stuff. And then my wife's I, we go have, we go have lunch every Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 11 o'clock. Now, during the season, it's the same routine. I'm just doing that. Then I go to the golf course. And then I have an evening meeting, like a 5, 30, or 6 o'clock meeting, a listing presentations, show houses, things of that nature. So my downtime is really from 12 to 5. 12 to 5. I'm running errands, a little shopping, you know, make some appearances, things of that nature. So that's pretty much my day. And then obviously Husker Saturdays and I'm golfing, like, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday,

and Sundays and I throw on some tournaments. And then post-game shows with 9-3-7 the ticket. You know? You never know. I have no post-game show obligations right now. It's just kind of nice to be free, you know. But that's always an option, I guess. You know it would be a nuisance of that, right?

It's all good. You have to. You wouldn't be where you are today if you didn't. Right. I'm going to be a nuisance about it. I think, one, because I think your voice is important, and it's a great connector. Yeah. I appreciate that. To the eras. And part of what we've been trying to do is to connect the old and the new. Yes. The easiest way to keep a standard, set of standard is to do that.

You're right. And not talk about it is to actually do it. Right. You know, and that's the key. You know, we've had a lot of talk about stuff like that, but I'm a guy of actions. I like to see action. And when I see action, then you're doing it. Talk is talk is talk. But, yes. Well, I mean, being active in it, what is required, what can be done to build the bridge

between former Huskers and the way things were and the way things were done and the way things are currently? How do we bridge that? We're going on, and this is why I'm here, we're going to start this all over because I've been here for, since I retired from football, Canadian football league since 19. I've seen all these decades, a few decades, and it's been a lot of stuff. And I've had relationship with players of all the Callahan era, the Boa era, you know, the Solich era, you know, now we got to Frost,

and we had the Riley. So I had connections. I was traveling with the team doing a lot of radio. And throughout these years, players didn't feel connected. Like I would talk to a Husker, and they would feel like, dude, you guys did it this way. We don't feel part of the group or this and that. And it just blew me away. was like that for years, it just blew me away and didn't understand it because it wasn't like that

when I came here. And so that was always in the back of my mind. And then we had the Husker Nation reunion back when Steve Peterson was here. And that was a great deal. All the Huskers came back. And it was a great, great thing. But we haven't had anything like that since. And we've had a lot of, unfortunately, we've had a lot of losing. You know, we had a lot of stuff going on with players leaving and not coming back for whatever reasons and all that stuff. So anyway, with Mickey Joseph coming back this year and, you know, he bought one of my houses, by the way. So we're just, you know, we're reconnecting, catching up. And we're just sitting down there and, you know, just having a glass of water, just talking about stuff. And he said, man, I've been back here. I've gone to Omaha.

And, and he said, we got to get these players back on board. This is crazy. You know, so, we need to do something. I said, you know what, Mick, we need to do that. And so that's where the idea came from. And so I put, I say, you know what, I'm going to put something together and let's do it for the spring game. So I'm calling it the decades, you know, a Husker game, a Husker player reunion. This is specifically for the players and immediate staff, administrators like, you know, equipment guys, things of that nature, who are really part of the program.

So we're going to put together this reunion of all the decades. You know, we're going to do that to Rococo after the spring game from 5 to 8. And we're going to try to reconnect. And already people are starting to get the word out. And it looks like we're going to have a good showing. So I'm excited about it. Coach Oz was excited about it. You know, I talked to Frost about it.

I talked to Matt Davidson. We want to get everyone on board. So we can just come together and fellowship and get this foundation stabilized and get everyone on board. We've had too many Huskers not come back and Husker players have gone to other schools. So we need to secure our borders and get everything back to it, try to get things back to where it used to be a rebuild this foundation so we can be stable and get this thing going to right direction. You mentioned some of the names. So let's go a little bit deeper into it. Who was some of the folks who were going to be involved in this event?

Oh, well, really, you know, Coach Osam was going to be there. Mickey Joseph. We're going to keep it kind of small as far as people being involved because this is for the players. It's not a political thing. It's not a thing for the coaches to get the word out. This is just for the players to get back. But Mickey Joseph will say a couple words. I'm going to say some things just thanking our sponsors, things that nature.

Aaron Davis is going to do our prayer. He's a great guy, got a good, strong faith-based, and all the players. I mean, they've been reaching out from the 60s, the 70s, and 80s and 90s and all over. So so far it's been very well received. But primarily the speakers will be Coach I was going to see have some words. I see a few things. And then Aaron Davis and, of course, Mickey Joseph.

Will there be any current players in this? That I'm going to, I have not gone that direction yet. First of all, anyone who put on a scarlet and cream is welcome. And we are going to talk to a few. You know, we got the NIL stuff nowadays, you know. So we're going to see what we can do. And hopefully they would just come out as players. but Mickey Joseph will be contacting a few years.

I'm going to try to get Trey Palmer. I've met a few guys that are there now to try to come out with a young quarterback from Florida State. So we're going to hit that next, but I want to make sure I get to okay from the coaching staff and the administration because, you know, there will be alcohol there and whatnot. There will be exposed to that, and I just want to be careful and respectful of that. I've been in that theater, and as a matter of part of a meeting that was talking about said event that day, there is space in the Rococo to separate

alcohol areas from the general public. I think it would be interesting to have the current players have access to do that. Maybe that's not the event, but my thought would that would actually be the perfect event. No, we have that window there. We have that ability to do that. Like I said, I'm going to talk with the

administrators there at the university to make sure with Treb and those guys to make sure that's a good safe environment for them. We've also considered opening up to the public to some degree, but we haven't decided about that. There will be, right now, we're putting together some live entertainment. I'm working with them with Irwin Sweeney, then also Jackson, a VJ with that. So there may be like an after-party, a concert.

There's some local artists that we want to feature. So we're trying to, we're going to try to tie that into that. And we're going to meet with the lady today from the Rococo about that and see what's involves but that's a strong possibility miss pam that's right that's right yeah we met with her and she's great so we got some really good things lined up and i've heard just a couple of tapes on these artists and they're they're familiar i mean they're awesome you know actually erin graham son i'm looking at maybe doing something with him as well cooper uh saw him at duffy's um a few months back and did a great job and this is all this all i have husker ties you know so but for sure the reunion is

set that's going to be a blast and uh we're looking at how we can add to it and not try to take on too much in such a short period of time, because obviously when I do something, I want to do it right and do a professional and make sure it's a safe environment for everyone. So, but it's exciting. It's exciting. So right now, we're hoping between, you know, anywhere between 100 to 3 or 400 players have come out. So, and we got the space to accommodate them.

And a lot of sponsors have stepped up. Valentinos have stepped up. My buddy Landleads from Ace Renton, own. A good friend of mine I met just this year, Jim Krause, with targeted communication strategies from Omaha. Big, big, heavy hitter in Omaha. He's done a good job. And obviously, MP Dodge, I wouldn't say obviously, but I'm with Lincoln First Realty,

and we've been bought out by MP Dodge, and we're going to make that transition the first week in March. So they stepped on board. Cornhusker Bank is John Dittman and his family. They've just been absolutely fabulous and great supporters of the university. So, you know, we've got some really good core sponsors that have Husker ties, and I've always supported to Huskers, and they know what we're trying to accomplish. I just appreciate their support.

So in an event that is player-focused, player-centric, how would you involve businesses, local personalities who want to be involved in? Because, yeah, it's for the players. Yeah. But you just mentioned sponsors. How can people be involved? Because they may want to contribute to it.

Yeah. How would you propose they do that? That's interesting because when we had this vision to do this, it's not a money-making deal. We're not making any money off this. whatever we raised is going to three foundations that have been very supportive of the University of Nebraska. That's Nebraska Great Foundation. Jerry Murta, we're going to donate a percentage of the proceeds to go there. Steve Warren, the Dream Foundation, we're going to donate to them.

You know, so that's a great foundation as well. Yeah, and teammates, you know, with Coach Oswald's thing. So I've always donated to them. So those are the three charities that I have chosen to donate to, and majority of these funds will go to them once the expenses are paid for the venue and food and that kind of stuff. but it's just been awesome. Valentino's, you know, they're a premier catering company here, Lincoln. I've known Mr. I've been seen him for years, and when I called him, he stepped up right away. You know, so right now it's looking very, very positive.

So we should be able to give a fair amount of dollars, you know, to those three foundations, you know. So we're taking corporate sponsorships, you know, but right now we have enough to give, not, I wouldn't say enough, but it's been successful to this date, so we've accomplished what we're trying to accomplish with that regard. but if someone else wants to step up, obviously we'll look into that and we'll donate to those charities. How would those people, how and who would they reach out to? They would just reach out to me. You're going to see this information. Just contact Steve Taylor and Lincoln First Realty.

You can give me a call at 402-429-0809. I'm plaster all over the place. You can just Google me and get my number. Then we'll work it out with me and we'll show you all the documentation of everything. And you can see if it's something that you want to be a part of. Why the spring game? Why is this so attached to it? Why should this be attached to it?

You know, it's weird because, and I was just thinking about this late at night, we used to have a lot of great events that used to bring all the Husker players back. We used to have the Husker Legends, they used to call it, where it was around the springtime. We went to the spring game. All the players came back, and we used to have like a golf tournament. We had two days of golf at local country clubs here. Then we'd all go to the spring game.

But really, it was just a time for all the players. players to come back. It was really exciting. When I was here, you know, players used to come back that played professionally. So they would come back for the spring game and they come back in their fancy cars and they look good. They're far and everything. So it was just a time for the players to come back. And so you just try to keep doing what they were doing. And we did the same thing. When I played when I retired, we came back, went to the spring game and hung out and talked to young players. And if you're a young player, that inspired you to do what you need to do on the field so you can make it to the next level.

Those little events were extremely important, and we just have not, they counseled the Husker Legends many, many, many years ago. And then, you know, with what's been going on with all the different coaching staffs that we've had, and we've kind of lost that tradition, you know, and so I want to try to recapture that and get that back. So the spring game has always been a good time for that.

And the weather's getting better. You know, it's nice. It's just a nice time of the year. So I just thought everything could just work together pretty nicely. You've been here throughout all of these regimes and groups. What's different now? What's missing now? Leadership.

It was missing. I would say that. Leadership, you know, and that's another thing about this. It was so refreshing, you know, first of all, Scott came back four or five years ago. He had a really good reception. All the former players were there. We came back. We met the stadium.

You know, we're all on board with that. And then, unfortunately, you know, we just, just haven't been winning. When you don't win, things just go south. You know, things go south. And before him, you know, you had Riley, then you had, you had Callahan before him and that kind of stuff. You know, Solich had a good record and everything, but we all know how that went down. You know, so unfortunately, we just had a lot of losing, and players have just kind of not felt welcome to come back. They didn't want to come back for whatever reasons, because they didn't have any connections, you know, we had the same coaching staff for 25 years, you know, so players came back, and

to see their coaches. That was a huge part of that, you know, and so they were more well, they would come back. And when you don't have those coaches there, there's no reason for them to come back. They have no connection with the university. So this is what we're trying to do. And then we also, you know, unfortunately we've had more coaches,

turnover, you know, we just had four new coaches this year, you know. So it makes it tough. And that was one of the great things, and things change, things evolve. You know, I understand there's different times. But we need more consistency. We need to be stable. You know, we need to have coaches here for, 10 or 15 or 20 years to build those ties to get that back to where it needs to be.

So that's what we're trying to do with this, with this event that we're doing with this reunion and celebration. We want to celebrate what we did in the past, but we want to bring everyone back and say, okay, let's get this right. Let's be consistent. Let's be stable and give Scott the support that he need. And Mickey, by Mickey coming back, he's, he knows that. He's been away so long, and now he sees the condition at its end. He wants, he wants to restore that. So this is what prompted all this. We're talking to Steve Taylor, former Huskis QV, and I think this event has the potential and the possibility to reach everybody it's intended.

I'm curious as to the layout of the day. So spring game is what? 11? I think it's 1 o'clock. 1 o'clock. 1 o'clock. Be done 3 o'clock? It's a shorter version because they run it.

clock and that kind of stuff. Okay. And then within that space, right? So three o'clock folks were at the Haymarket and get out of the building. Will there be some sort of directive? Will there be some sort of presence at the spring game to lead people to this event? You know, another thing is great. Now Steve Warren has his dream foundation, which a lot of players came back for that. I mean, he had a Friday night event up at Omaha. He had a bowling thing. He had a dinner. So a lot of players went up there. You get your shirts. You get all. your credentials. We did that thing. And then we meet at the spring game the next day. So, and we're working in conjunction with Steve, uh, because of his dream foundation and,

and, and his, his database of players that he has. So, so we're, he's going to do something Friday night in Omaha. All the players are going to come back to, uh, they're, there, there's just now starting to finalize that stuff and get us, get that all worked out. So, um, they have shirts with the dream and then we'll meet at the game, the spring game on Saturday. And then, uh, we'll do our thing. We're on the sidelines. We're around. We're tailgating. We're doing that kind of stuff. And then we're going to make our way to the Rococo. The doors are going to open at 5 o'clock.

There's so much engagement in this thing. I'm an outsider. Yeah. I'm an outsider looking at. Why the Omaha engagement rather than the Lincoln engagement? Well, Steve lives in Omaha. Right. Right.

And he used to live in Lincoln when he started the foundation and then he moved to Omaha. There's a larger database there. I mean, there's a large number of events that are held in Omaha rather than Lincoln. Well, we're going to switch that up. Okay, well, that's why I bring it up. No, what I try to do is I try to work with people and together. So I call Steve. Okay, Steve, I remember you have your events.

What days do you have your events? What are you doing? So we want to compliment one another and we want to work in conjunction with him. So he always had a Friday event in Omaha, right? So I say, okay, let's keep that because we support one another, right? There was no event in Lincoln, right, that I knew of for the spring game, and then afterwards. So I said, okay, there's a window there for us to do something, right? So, and then BJ Jackson had this, he had this vision a while ago anyway, which I didn't know until we started talking because he's on your show and that kind of stuff, right?

So he had his own ideas about what he wanted to do. And I said, okay, well, let's work together. And then Irwin Sweeney, you know, he's in that business. He has some entertainers and some some hip hop artists, some R&B artists, and a few rap artists and whatnot. And he had his idea, what do you want it to do? I said, okay, let's sit down and work together to see what we can do and offer this fun, field, exciting day for the spring game and have a win, win, win, for everyone. So it works out fine. Steve can have his event in Omaha, and he's going to come to, he's going to come to Lincoln the next day.

Then we're going to have this celebration, this reunion with the players, and then hopefully if we can get this thing going, we're going to have some live entertainment. We're going to have a celebrate. We're going to have a party at a local venue here in Lincoln. They're looking at it to Rococo, but there's a few other sites that they're going to try to nail down and get this all lined up. So it should be a jam, a jam, fun, exciting day for everyone. And we're working in conjunction. We're working with everyone. And just get this excitement back, get the energy back that we need, get everyone on board.

So we can go out there and win some football games and start being competitive again. I still need to hear that you guys. offer your hand to the current players. Absolutely. Like, I don't know what has to be done. You know what needs to have that much power in the room? Yeah,

we're going to do it. I've already, like, here's, here's how we're going to do this, right? Because this is how this is done. Mickey Joseph was talking about a.

6 a.m. Winter conditioning, right? And I've never been, I've never experienced that, right? So once again, that was a good opportunity.

Because I haven't, and COVID set us back. I had some other ideas that we're going to do, but then COVID came out. So I said, you know what, dude, I'm going to get up and I'm going to go and experience that 6 a.m. Before I talk about something, before I make an evaluation by something, I want to experience it for myself, right? I said, I'm 55. I'm going to get up and I'm going to go down there and see what they're doing at 6 o'clock.

And it was impressive. I mean, guys were awake. They were pumped up. They had their stations and everything. And that's when I took the opportunity to go and introduce myself to a couple of the players, you know, the Thompson kid, the quarterback. I played against his dad of Oklahoma. I've heard about him. Mickey talked about him quite a bit, so I went to go and meet him.

So we chatted a little bit while he's doing his exercises. He knew I was, not just that's important, but he was aware of that. You know, a couple of nights, a couple of weeks before that, Mickey spoke out of a rival's event that was put on by Sean Canahan at St. Michael's church and school. And so I went to that. I met a few more players. I met the quarterback from Florida State.

So you start building those relationships and everything. So it's going to happen, and each player would do their thing because we know. no players here and there. And we have to take the initiative of players to go down there and make our presence known. And that was weird because I used to hear things like from the players, well, I don't feel welcome at university. I'm like, that's bull crap. You play down there, your sweating tears are down there. You can go down there. You should feel comfortable to go down there anytime you want. No one can't. Now, there's protocols in place. Don't misunderstand me. But you should never feel like you cannot go down to University of Nebraska and say hi to someone.

they feel that way because they don't know the coach. They don't know the coach there that coached them. There's no coach Samuel. There is no coach Donaldson. There is no Teneper, right? There's no Osborne. There's Frost now, but there's no Osborne. Now there's a Mickey Joseph.

So these players are going to come back because it's like old times. And that's how it starts. And when younger players see older players coming back, that sets a standard. There's a certain swag to it. And it changes the whole energy, the whole dynamic of being a Husker football player. It opens the door to those conversations. I go at this all the time with your boy, VJ, right? Because he talks about 94.

And I hear this all the time in the community. I hear the 94-95-97. A lot of people think that's all that happened at University of Nebraska was the 94-95-97 championship. And that's bull crap, right? And I said, I don't have a national championship, but I got five. I'm a Husker. I helped build 94, 95, 97. I take ownership in that.

We started the narrative about winning national championships when that wasn't the narrative before. You know, so I tell BJ, there's a reason why you won those championships. Even Coach Osborne evolved as a player as a coach. Oh, you're standing on my shoulders, bro. What? You're standing on my shoulders. You got to tell the 95.

Listen, man. Yeah, first of all, don't keep throwing at it in all these young Huskers face because you feel like they're not up. to the task. You know, that's not the case, you know. Well, there's also, they need to be led. They need to be led. They need to be led.

Exactly. So we're changing the narrative about all these things and about a lot of things, but we have to do it as players. We have to do it as players, each and every one of us. We'll go to break on this one. Mark Davis says this. Sounds like an amazing event. Hopefully, we'll become an annual spring game tradition,

which will reunite former Huskers. Mark, I'm full agreement. You'll listen to 101 on 937 ticket. We'll be right back with Steve Taylor. our app by searching 93.7 the ticket in your app store. You're listening to one-on-one with DP on 937 the ticket in the ticketfm.com.