1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - The Elite Level of Talen at the Pro Volleyball Federation - February 19th, 6:25pm

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

The Elite Level of Talen at the Pro Volleyball Federation Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

You're listening to One-on-One with D.P. Brought you by Mary Ellen's Food for the Soul. On 93-7 The Ticket and the Ticketfm.com. Welcome back to one-on-one on a Monday. Good to be back. I will be doing this from the road the rest of the week, although tomorrow's a travel day. So it's 6 o'clock I'll be on an airplane.

We got outside the box tomorrow. Yeah, we're set there. Yep. And then Wednesday. What's Wednesday? Wednesday's game night. Correct. Or it's Thursday a game night.

We got a game, Supernottles game, Wednesday. Wednesday. Thursday, I'll be able to do a one-on-one I imagine, but I think that Huskers are playing. So if we do that right, I'll be on East Coast time. So you'll have to remind me that, you know, world works differently. Can I tell you the biggest thing about traveling is that I'm,

The time zones really wear me out. They wear me out. Like there's no, like I never get it right. Mm-hmm. And my laptop is constantly on Nebraska time. My phone is always actually where I am. And I get confused. Your phone doesn't, you don't just trust the phone to sync up with the time zones?

Because a lot of time I'm working. That's fair point. You're staring at that computer screen. Yeah, I'm staring at the computer screen and I never get it right. So it's always like it's a thing. We're going to Columbus, Ohio, tomorrow. It's supposed to be 50. It's 30 today, and thank goodness they're going to add 20 degrees for us tomorrow,

so I don't hate myself. I get most frustrated about the weirdest stuff that, oh, I have to pack a coat just for one day for Columbus and then get, be mad, just spend my entire time packing angry at having to pack the coat on top. just so silly. But it's supposed to be 75 in Orlando. So we're going to go from Columbus, Ohio. Rico's never been to the state of Ohio. He's probably getting a lot of first.

Rico's, you got four straight road games here. Oh, Rico's good. Oh, let me tell you, let me tell you, Rico is brand new. Rico's, first of all, so Rico, I mean, again, we give Rico grief. Oh, yeah.

About being less than tall, right? I don't call him short. He's just not tall. Right? But we travel with 12, six footers. Yeah. You know, and it's, there's a weird thing that happens to men in general when they're around six foot plus women, especially when there's a group of them. And the comments that I've heard over the course of the first six games of this season would blow your mind.

Let me tell you. So the dude was like, is that a basketball team or is that a... And I'm like, no, it's volleyball. Pro? Yeah, pro. They're tall. Yep. Part of the job.

Part of the job. Hey, are they cool? Of course. Like, bruh, they're just volleyball players. How tall is the tall supernova's player right now? A little Supernova's player, I think in theory is Daniel Hart. I think she's 6-4, legitimate 6-4, maybe 6-4 and a half. Yeah, Dixon's 64.

Tori Dixon is 6-4. Daniel Hart. 6-3, Daniel Hart, 6-4-Dixon. Yeah, so those are the two middle blockers. Then you got a 6-2, a 6-2, a 6-1, 6-1. It's all sitting around that's 6-1 if you're probably anywhere near that front row. So the rules of pro volleyball federation are different than, CAA.

Substitution rules are different. So because you have limited substitutions, you need for everybody on the floor, so aside from the little barrow and the setter, but even the setter, you need for everybody aside from the libero to be able to serve, block, set,

kill. Like you got to be, you got to play, everybody has to play the net. And you only get two substitutions, or you get eight substitutions for the game. That's it. for the entire game.

That's all you get. Okay. So you can't, you can sub for the Libero to serve. But everybody else, once you replace somebody, they're done for the set. Have you noticed a chess match going on with substitutions? 100%. I feel like that's the biggest chess match going on. That's why Coach Byrd is so good, because she's figured out how to double substitute and get

the change of pace that she needs. She's got different types of middle blockers. She's got different types of servers that come off the bench and then they still need to like sometimes you'll get a weak rotation where you've got a smaller setter up front. Right. And you try to get them off the front line, but then that also affects you offensively if they can't kill. And so sometimes the smaller setter just gets abused at the net. Even though she's 6-2, she's not 6-4-6-5. And And the two young ladies, and for those who went to the game last night, they noticed a thing, that Orlando had two hitters who were under six feet. They both had 40-inch vertical leap.

Oh, Harrison, bro, to watch these five, like, this is what removes the ego when you're dealing with this? because these 5 foot 7 women with a 40 inch vertical leap. It's a side to side speed that gets me watching. Because like I'm not even, I'm 6'2. And my side to side speed, I look like I'm just all limbs trying to get side to side speed. Like the amount of speed those guys have too. It's incredible.

The young lady, apparently she had had a run against Nebraska when she was in college. Teeler. Tealer. Tealer's 5-7. and that lady just bounced off the floor. Like it was like trampoline bouncing for her. And then the younger Joe Gillen, who was actually drafted by Omaha,

I want to say she's five. She's only five seven. She's five, like, right. Out of Arkansas. Right. And it's just an elbow and a hand above everybody else when she leaves the floor. it's just incredible.

Like, I'm always just to make it, because we kind of talks about it on Sunday, and Haas kind of broke it down. It's not anything sexist to say that guys naturally have a little bit better of a vertical. But what those guys do, I mean, they would put most,

not not even just like your high school, you get some pro athletes in there. They put those guys to shame. This is, this is, and I have to humble myself constantly around this team and around those, in this league.

It's easy to like, until you, turn it on it's easier to see the Olympians out there in my in my head i'm i'm me when i was 20 and i thought i was more athletic than most people at 61 i know i'm not but i also can recognize that they do things now that i could never do like there's i mean you know betty delacruz vertical of, she can reach 11 foot 6. So, hey, bro, my key don't, my hotel key don't go to that floor. Like, I could try.

I had a rim grazer package. If you're jumping 11 foot, like you're, that, it's two hands plush and it's looking nice like down. Like, I was the point guard who would jump up and grab the net and pull myself up. Like, just, like, ah. Just to touch the rim. Right. Like, ah, this is, you know, and you go, okay.

It's, it's amazing to watch. Right? And you go, okay, I'm not, okay, I was never that. And I was never that in baseball. I was, I thought, I was, okay, so I thought in my head that football was my best support. And I thought that I was as good a receiver as there was in the state of Virginia, in my head. That wasn't the reality, but in my head, I had at least justified that when I go to Virginia State Allstate, our camp. I'm not looking at Gary Clark with envy. I'm, well, let's go, bro. Like, okay, I got these hands, man. I got these feet. I got dancers feet. Like, I'm a better

dancing. Like, that's my claim to fame with Gary Clark. I got better feet than you do. And Gary Clark had phenomenal feet. But in my head, I ran routes differently than he did. In baseball, I ran the bases better than anybody that I knew or played against. I was never as good at anything as these, as the, as the, as the, as the,

as the, as the, as the, as the, as the, nothing. Nothing. So I sit and just,

I find myself applauding. Mm-hmm. Like what, wow. I think that's what most people end up doing. That's why I have a pretty good feeling about this league's success is when you do turn it on, there is that moment where you're just like, oh, this is different. Like, this is a different type of volleyball.

Like, nothing against the college game, but you, watching those teams. it's insane the level of talent they have. They don't have the big six foot eight towers for you to fly over. They don't have that and you can't free substitute and just kind of do that sort of thing. You get out there and these, this is where you say these are the best volleyball players. These are the best athletes playing volleyball because everybody has to do everything. That's an all-round game. Right.

And if you have a weakness, these pros will find it. Matter of fact, they already know it because the elite volleyball players, it's a very tight community. And as the league expands, and it will, I think the talent level will go up because people will trust that they can leave their current situation to come be a part of it,

knowing that it will survive and it will exist. The money behind this is good, the operation behind it is good. There are other leagues that are going to try. I don't feel all warm and fuzzy about the other league that's going to try to do this because I saw their business plan. And, oh, well, it's a weird thing, Harrison, like, when you, because I was that dude for basketball.

And so I would see CBA, ABA, CBA, D League. So before G League, there was D League. Yep. Right? And there was no D League, there was just CBA. So in Strix Day, there was CBA was CBA. there was CBA was the highest minor league or you could go international but around here CBA was the thing and then other leagues tried to build and other teams tried to add and you would recognize pretty quickly

okay they're not going to feel because they own talent or they're not good they've got bad ownership or they got bad management and you go okay that's like they're going to go through their money they're going to waste their like all that bad gym all that stuff and identifying this volleyball league what I can tell you is that they have the financial resource and they've been wise about how they planned, planned to attack and that they have actual owners. The other league, the league owns all the teams, which tells me,

oh, man, that ain't going to be. It's going to leave some discussion. Oh, man, it ain't going to be. It ain't going to be good. Josh and Davey,

I want to get back to a thing that he said, I wish that Lincoln still had a hooters. I understand. I understand. Man, well, you know what? There's two things that happened when I first got here that bothered me. So I was living in Houston. And in Houston, Twin Peaks is Apex Sports Bar.

It's the thing. There are Twin Peaks all over the South, and they are immaculate and amazing. Apparently, there's a Twin Peaks here that closed. Yeah, I've never even heard of it. Right. The Twin Peaks are closed. And let me tell you, Twin Peaks done right, is better. Like, hey, I'm not mad at nobody else.

But Twin Peaks got it right. They closed here. The other one was the old Chicago. Yeah. And when we were visiting Lincoln to figure out if we were going to live here or not, that place was, I was like, oh, this is, this is my jam. I'm good with this. And then it closed.

I was like. Yeah, I was going to say, well, I remember that. What, what year did you get down here? I got four years or four and a half years ago? Okay. That's about the same time I got here. Yeah. And it closed.

Yeah. I was like, what is happening here? And I've never been into the new place. that's hulahans. Huligans. I walked in there once and I walked back out. And they've never been really warm and fuzzy with us. So there's that whole thing.

Right. And then, of course, Rosie's closed. At least the one here closed. And I kind of walked through there pondering whether, you know, I was having a moment. Opportunity. Ah, I was having a moment. Toward the break, we'll close up one on one.