Advisory Opinions - Sweeping to Gold

Episode Date: August 24, 2020

Today our hosts are joined by Phill Drobnick, head coach of the Olympic curling team, for some hot takes about the sport that inspired Sarah’s new campaign newsletter The Sweep. Listeners who are unfamiliar with this sport, which gets even passing national coverage only during Winter Olympics years, might be wondering about curling’s origins. “It started in Scotland, like every goofy sport that involves beer,” explains Drobnick on today’s episode. The sport then took off in Canada and then around the world. When people watch curling during the Olympics, they become armchair referees who don’t realize how much strategy is at play behind the scenes. How similar is curling to golf and hockey? Do sweepers make or break the game? Is there a culture of collegiality or trash talk in the professional curling universe? Coach Drobnick has got answers. Tune in to today’s show to hear Sarah and David also discuss the partisan skew in absentee voting, the increasing likelihood of another Bush v. Gore-style debacle over mail-in voting, and the RNC’s nonexistent platform moving into this week’s convention. Show Notes: -Sarah’s campaign piece about curling and The Sweep. -“The Grand Old Meltdown” by Tim Alberta in Politico. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

maple syrup we love you but canada is way more it's poutine mixed with kimchi maple syrup on halo halo montreal style bagels eaten in brandon manitoba here we take the best from one side of the world and mix it with the other and you can shop that whole world right here in our aisles find it all here with more ways to save at Real Canadian Superstore. UV rays don't skip a day. Neither should your SPF. Introducing Daily UV Moisturizer from Umbrelle. Broad-spectrum protection and all-day hydration in one lightweight formula from the number one recommended brand by pharmacists and physicians. It's the unskippable SPF for your unstoppable day. New Umbrella Daily UV

Moisturizer, now available online or at your local retailer. You ready? I was born ready. Welcome to A Very Special Advisory Opinions. This is David French with Sarah Isger, and we've got a fantastic guest later in the podcast, an Olympian, a coach of a gold medal team, an athlete in a sport that, well, I guess, you know, a curler along with me, a fellow curler is on the podcast, Sarah. And so you're going to have to hang in there for, hang in here for a few minutes of political commentary. And then we're going to

get to some really elite level curling and it's a real treat, isn't it? The nerdiest of the Olympics winter sports. Oh, and it's just so fun. If you've not curled, run, don't walk, or should I say skate, don't walk to your local ice rink and try it. It's fantastic. But before we get to that, Sarah, I think we need to undertake a public service.

And you know that the dispatch is against alarmism. It's sort of like a brand. Yeah. But there are some times to be alarmed. So, Sarah, can you please... And I'm not a ranter. I don't rant on this podcast much. And I have a rant. Scare us and rant at us, Sarah, please. Okay. This is the headline in my inbox right now.

Democratic group launches $7.5 million campaign to encourage voting by mail. I am livid. This is the opposite of what we should be doing. People who need to vote by mail absolutely should. And we should make sure that the system is working, that the postal service is ready to go. All of that. I'm not against absentee voting. 23% of voters in 2016 voted by mail in one form or another. And no problem with that, David. None. That's not my issue. My issue, however, is encouraging people to vote by mail who otherwise would vote in person. Why, do you ask? A couple reasons. One, we've never had a partisan skew in absentee voting before. And this time around, because

the Republicans and the Trump side are discouraging their folks from voting by mail and encouraging them to vote in person. And the Democrats are clearly not just saying you can vote by mail because of coronavirus, but encouraging voting by mail. There is now, but encouraging voting by mail. There is now, we don't know for sure, but there could be a three to one voting disparity by partisanship. Okay, why does that matter? Because voting by mail has a much, much higher error rate.

Two types of errors, David. One, failure rate, which means that either you requested a ballot and it didn't make it to you, or you sent your ballot back and it didn't make it to you, or you sent your ballot back and it didn't make it back at all in time, et cetera. And then there's a rejection rate. And this means that your ballot did make it back, but for whatever reason, you did not follow the instructions or it wasn't postmarked as happened in New York, et cetera. We know that the rejection rate, for instance, in an all-male state like Oregon,

can actually be fairly low, probably around 2% in a state that does this for a living. I'm going to use that phrase. It's higher in states that just do absentee ballots. But even there, in the past, we've seen a relatively low number, maybe around three or four percent rejection rate because the same people vote absentee every time. And then this time around, we now have the huge majority of states, 44 states that either had or have switched to no excuse absentee voting. This is going to be a lot of first-time absentee balloters. And what we've seen is that that can skyrocket the error rate and the rejection rate. In New York, it was running at around 20% in their primary. Overall, in the primaries in 2016, we have had more ballots rejected, twice as many ballots rejected in 2020 primaries than we had in 2016's general election, despite the fact that more than twice as many

people vote in the general election. So we're looking at potentially, I mean, and this is, I think, actually conservative, four times as many rejected ballots as in 2016 absentee. That will be in the millions. And it is a problem in a close election. There were more rejected ballots in the Wisconsin primary this time, David, 23,000 rejected absentee ballots. That was bigger than the margin in 2016. 2016. So Sarah, walk us through your scenario. And it's a scenario that reminds me of the movie Ghostbusters, which I just introduced. We just introduced our 12-year-old Naomi to Ghostbusters over the weekend. It holds up. I hadn't seen it in several years, and it really holds up. But there's that memorable scene where the Ghostbusters are talking to the mayor and they're describing the coming apocalypse.

And it has the memorable line, cats and dogs living together, real wrath of God stuff. What is your cats and dogs living together, real wrath of God stuff, apocalyptic scenario that seems all too plausible? That because of the partisan divide, Donald Trump is leading by a very healthy margin

on election night. And sure, the AP on in-person voting and the AP isn't going to call the race, but everyone's going to look at these numbers and say, you know, Donald Trump is up 10 points on election night. I'm going to bed. This looks like it's over. And what's going to happen is you're going to have,

you know, roughly 130 million people voted in 2016. David, 23% voted absentee in 2016. I think we're looking at around 40% probably this time around. And I'm basing that on some polling that we've seen as well. That's not just back of the envelope, but it's pretty close. So tens of millions of absentee ballots will be outstanding on election night. And so those are going to decide the election. And so what you're going to have happen is a whole bunch of people screaming that the election isn't over yet. And then lawyers are going to descend on all of these places where the absentee ballots are being counted. Now, it's very state by state.

Some are counted actually in the precinct, some are counted at the state level, whatever. And let me just use one example that happens in a lot of states where you have to sign your absentee ballot. And that signature has to match the signature on your voter registration card. For a lot of us, that's going to be your license, by the way, because you probably registered to vote when you got your license. Thank you, motor voter laws. I don't know if you've ever gone to the bank, David, and tried to get a cashier's check or anything like that. But I have actually been rejected in person with my license at the bank where they tell me that my signature doesn't match my signature card at the bank. It's a very subjective test. And so what you're going to have

happen is you're going to have, in the recounts that I've been involved in, someone from each campaign looking over the shoulder of the person looking at the signatures. Now, you won't know how that person voted and why in previous years, it's actually been okay when that happens. Because you don't know who voted which way, and so you're more likely to actually have a good faith, like, I don't think that signature matches, or I do. But what happens when you know that that ballot is three times as likely to be a ballot for Joe Biden in a purple district in a swing state. And the answer, it's really going to be bad because like a juror, you know, why we declare mistrials, you can't unknow that fact. And so it's not that I think that the workers,

the poll volunteers who are doing yeoman's work, by the way, every cycle are somehow going to be biased one way or the other, but they can't unknow something that we all are going to know. And so I'm very, very concerned about what the country looks like for those couple weeks as we're counting absentee ballots, and that no matter how it turns out, 50% of the country is going to think that this was a faulty election. Yeah, you know, and here's how we're going to even amplify this a little bit. So I think because everything becomes culture war right now, so masks became part of the culture war, which I'm still, every time I say that, I'm going to say it's still the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my life politically. But you know what else has become culture war? Mail-in balloting. Mail-in

balloting has become culture war. It has become a marker. If you're a Democrat, you're going to support mail-in balloting. If you're a Republican, you're going to oppose it. And even deeper than that, Sarah, this is what really concerns me. What really concerns me is now at the most recent polling indicates

that only about 20 plus, maybe around 23% of Republicans have confidence in the mail-in vote count. 23%. And so what that means is, let's say Trump is winning after the in-person voting, and then the mail-in starts to come, and the mail-in, because it's been culture warred, is overwhelmingly Democratic, which we're going to, which all the polling indicates it will be. And you're going to have a GOP public that will not believe these returns, period. They will not believe the returns that will be highlighted and amplified by the president.

So you're going to have a situation in which we will have potentially less confidence in the actual outcome of the election than we've ever had in our lives, even less confidence than 2000. I think so. That is a really important point. And maybe, David, we can dive into the legal aspects of Bush v. Gore on Thursday, because a lot of people either didn't really pay attention at the time or have forgotten. You know, rereading that opinion is fascinating now, and I don't even think it's close. This will be so, so much worse legally, the equal protection stuff. We need to get into that on Thursday.

Bush v. Gore in a nation that is far, far more polarized, I shudder at that. But this would be what we're imagining is something that's not Bush v. Gore in one state. It's Bush v. Gore in state after state, precinct after precinct. And that's why my view is, look, if you have a health condition and it is not safe for you to vote because you have a health condition, and it is not safe for you to vote because you have a health condition, look, of course, don't disenfranchise yourself. Vote absentee. Yes, do that. But if you do not have a health condition, if you're somebody who can go to a grocery store, if you can go to... I think here would be a good test. If you can go to a grocery store with confidence, go vote in person with confidence because it's going to be social distance. There's going to be masking. I have voted in person during this pandemic.

It was incredibly efficient. The masking was universal. The social distancing was rigorous. I felt perfectly safe throughout the whole process. I actually felt safer in my precinct than I felt in Kroger. And so if I feel like maybe that's a good rule of thumb, if you go to Kroger, if you go to Walmart, you can go to the polls. And I think that should be a near universal message. Yeah. And most states have early voting. Some states are going to start their early in-person voting in mid-September. So check on your state, see about voting.

I'm actually, you know, I don't... Voting in person in September, we've talked about whether we support having early voting quite that early. But you know what? For sure, definitely go do that over the mail stuff. Well, and there are a lot of, you know, the pandemic has scrambled a lot of equations. I mean, I've not been the hugest fan of early voting in large part because

it's not uncommon for lots of information to emerge as in the days that approach election day. And so there are people who've cast early votes and learn material things about candidates where they wish they could unvote, especially in the primaries where sometimes your candidate drops out after you've already voted for them. But pandemic is different. And this is a situation where early voting is often far less crowded,

almost always far less crowded. And so you can vote with some real confidence in those circumstances. So yeah, I, you know, look, I am, I've long been negative on how we catastrophize every presidential election based on policy. In other words, that the policies of Hillary Clinton or the policies of Donald Trump will end America. No, no, no, no. But what can really hurt us is hatred and enmity and mistrust. That can really, really hurt us. And I just feel like we're cruising towards that right now

in a highly fraught electoral environment. And it's alarming to me, to be honest. And if we have 40 million or so outstanding absentee ballots, it almost won't matter what the election night outcome is because that's just so many. Oftentimes, we don't even worry about absentee ballots because we know they're split about evenly between the two parties, and there's not that many

that can change the outcome of the election often. This time, if we're really looking at a 40% mail-in rate, it could be really a problem. And I think we should be sending the opposite message than what the $7.5 million is going to encourage people to vote by mail. And we should be saying, if you need to vote by mail, let us help you figure that out. But if you don't, please go vote in person early on election day, whatever, but go in person. Yeah. Amen to that. Okay. So time now, before we get to our fantastic Olympic segment, for a feature of the Advisory Opinions podcast, for a feature of the Advisory Opinions podcast.

It is called the Sarah Isger has dissected every syllable of the Republican platform for 2020. The Republican National Convention has issued a platform statement. Sarah, you've dived into that statement. Tell us all about the GOP platform for 2020. Well, it fits on one page, David. And that's because there is

not a 2020 Republican platform. There is a resolution regarding the Republican platform. It has a lot of whereases and a few resolved. Let me read you the resolved. Resolved that the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the president's America First agenda. Resolved that the 2020 Republican National Convention will

adjourn without adopting a new platform until the 2024 Republican National Convention. Resolved that the 2020 Republican National Convention calls on the media to engage in accurate and unbiased reporting, especially as it relates to the strong support of the RNC for President Trump and his administration. By the way, was that a problem? Have I missed that? I don't think anyone questioned the RNC's support for President Trump. And then the last resolved is any motion to amend the 2016 platform or adopt a new platform will be ruled out of order. So the 2016 platform is still in effect by virtue of there not being another platform. But what this really says is that the platform is the president's agenda. And so then

a bunch of people were like, but there is no second term agenda. The president was asked about it several times, Sean Hannity, for instance, and there wasn't really an answer. So a few hours later, we got the Trump campaign announces President Trump's second term agenda, colon, fighting for you. It is longer than the RNC. It's more than one page, probably a page and a half. The headlines of them are jobs eradicate COVID and our reliance on China, healthcare, education, drain the swamp, defend our police and illegal immigration and protect American workers, innovate for the future, America first foreign policy. David, if you do a word search first foreign policy. David, if you do a word search on the agenda, the words that it did not contain were fascinating to me, especially when you think about the three-legged stool

from the Reagan era, and I'm going to call this the 1980 to 2012 Republican Party. These were words that you would have seen. Constitution, limited, life, judges, religion, faith, liberty. None of those words are in the second term agenda. I just found that really fascinating. I was actually flabbergasted by that, to be honest, because one of the selling points for Trump, especially to evangelical conservatives, is that they have said time and time again in the Trump administration, we are not an afterthought. We are the main show. And Trump has really highlighted his relationship with certain, you know, with evangelical leaders. And so the argument has long been, hey, you know, in the pre-Trump GOP, we were kind of like on the

sidecar, you know, like we weren't driving the motorcycle. We were in the sidecar just kind of along for the ride. And it just strikes me as not, I would say political malpractice, but he's got enough of people who are just completely, you know, enough of an evangelical vote that's completely dedicated to him at this point. I'm not sure it'll make any difference. of an evangelical vote that's completely dedicated to him at this point i'm not sure it'll make any difference but in some in some way it's utterly mystifying that the word abortion doesn't appear life doesn't appear religious liberty doesn't appear there's no section on social conservatism at all not at all i mean if you read that plat that that agenda you would think that social conservatism had just been written out of the party entirely,

which is really surprising. Also, nothing on debt or deficits, which is interesting compared to previous, you know, the Tea Party, for instance. Yeah, I mean, this agenda, it's just a series of bullet points. It's not real. You know, there's some policies that There are some policies that are implied from the bullet points, but it's a series of bullet points. And it would be one that if you read it, would be largely unrecognizable to any GOP voter prior to 2016. And I'm still pretty surprised i it's it's still hard for me to believe that no one in the white house said um shouldn't we have something about in here about

life and religious liberty something anything i also found the education section interesting it only had two bullet points one provide school choice to every child in america and two teach american exceptionalism. Now, those two things I think would have been in any of these previous platforms. But nothing on outcomes. Right. You know, lead the world in STEM or increase scores or, you know, encourage trade schools. I mean, it could have gone any number of directions, but no outcome-specific stuff on education,

which, you know, if you're really thinking about the future of the country, we should probably care about the outcomes of our education as well, not just the choice. Well, and never mind that both of those bullet points are largely out of the control of the federal government. Mm, there's that. Curriculum is not set at the national level,

history curriculum, and school choice is decided at the state and local level. So, yeah, you can incentivize it financially at the federal level, but both of those are making promises the federal government cannot keep. But, you know, it's all culture war, Sarah. So, now, another thing that was striking to me was the RNC released its key speaker list. Of the 12 key speakers announced, six had the last name Trump. Six of them, including some of the lesser known Trumps, not just the first tier Trumps like Melania and Donald Trump in the president or Ivanka, Don Jr., but also like what Eric and Laura as well. Six of the 12 are Trump's is what message is being sent there, Sarah?

Well, you know, having the president's family speak at a convention, not unusual. You know, certainly Biden had his children introduce him uh and family and friends and that's great what is to me more surprising was the overall list and again just i we're not surprised by this but take a step back and imagine telling your 2012 self that uh you know the only former living republican president not included george w bush, Dick Cheney, not on the list. The former Republican nominees, Mitt Romney, Bob Dole, House Speaker Paul Ryan, who was speaker when Trump was in office, not on the list. Governors like Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis from Texas and Florida. I mean, big states. Florida is a swing state, not on the list. And Florida, I mean, big states. Florida is a swing state, not on the list. There's no rising star.

Like normally the conventions, especially on the first night, the platform is given to someone who you want to highlight down the road and introduce voters to. That does not appear to be happening. None of the Senate candidates that are in top tier races, Joni Ernst is speaking and she is in a, you know, Iowa's pretty competitive. But, and then,

of course, you had people like John Kasich and Colin Powell speaking at the other convention. Yeah. Well, I think that's a really good point that you raise

about the overall list because, you know, and the rising star portion especially. I mean, I think Tim Scott could be considered

a rising star and he's featured. But that's about it. And the interesting thing is it really illustrates the extent to which the elected portion of the GOP is kind of now in the sidecar compared to Trump and the conservative media entertainment complex is really driving the vehicle at this point. And I highly recommend Tim Alberta's piece that came out today, by the way, on what does the Republican Party stand for now? Set aside the platform debate, whatever.

Honestly, the Republican platform in any given year is a disaster and so is the Democratic platform. It's taken over by the sort of grassroots fringes of the parties most often and says some crazy things that you wouldn't expect to see necessarily. So I don't really care about the formality of that. But what does being a Republican mean? Just when you're walking down the street and someone says, I'm a Republican, what is that shorthand for, a mental for and tim alberta really breaks it down that right now it means that you support donald trump yeah and that's what this convention says and um

the the only problem with that is that november will be the last time that donald trump appears on a ballot and so what the republican party stands for on November 4th is going to be a really interesting question because it can't be voting for Donald Trump anymore. I mean, there are other Trumps to come. And there's polling data to indicate that Don Jr. right now would be a leading contender for the GOP nomination. And, you know, it's interesting. You know, look, there's a lot of commentary about sort of cults of personality and things like that that occur. But, you know, it is becoming a phenomenon.

And and there was this really weird tweet from Adrian Vermeule last night who's blocked me. But somebody threw it back on my timeline. Anyway, this is the Harvard Law School professor who we've talked about before, who urges a common good constitutionalism. And we've had a lot of, we're talking a lot about legitimacy of the election and legitimacy of our democratic process. And here's what a Harvard law, right-wing Harvard law professor tweeted. What if loyalty to an abstract form of government turns out to be too weak and pallid in the long run to substitute for loyalty to living rulers who embody the polity in a concrete way. So that's kind of the GOP right now. It's a loyalty to a living standard bearer who embodies,

in the view of the GOP electorate, their polity. And that's what the GOP is. Am I wrong? their polity. And that's what the GOP is. Am I wrong? It's hard to come up with a different definition of what the Republican Party is right now. So, David, for the RNC convention, what are you going to be watching for? You know, I think I'm going to be watching, and I think I know how this is going to go, but I'm going to be watching a lot on tone. Are they going to go for some optimism? Are they going to sort of go for that, you know, how much is it going to be? We made the economy the greatest.

We made a great economy. We'll make another great economy. We'll beat the virus and make another great economy, which is an optimistic tone versus how much will you be dominated by the alleged dystopia of Joe Biden's America. And that's gonna be what will be interesting to me because it feels like to me,

if you say we've made a great economy, we've got this sort of moonshot vaccine effort that we think is gonna pay off and we'll be able to make another great economy. We've got this sort of moonshot vaccine effort that we think is going to pay off and we'll be able to make another great economy. And that's an appeal to persuade some people who might be on the fence. If it is Joe Biden's America is unending darkness and we're hurtling towards the abyss, then that's the base play. And to what extent or which way are they going to move as a matter of dominant tone is going to be interesting to me.

So I have a couple like minor things. One, I'm really curious what the television executives are going to do because it's going to be such a different convention than last week. And normally there's just sort of parallel coverage. And I don't know that they can do that this time. And so how are they going to address why they covered some things and not other things like the Democratic convention? They covered the roll call. It was done by video and it was done during primetime. On the Republican convention, they did not cover the roll call. Well, it was also done at 11 a.m.

So, but they're going to get hit for not covering the roll call. So that's going to be really interesting to watch. Fact-checking in real time, things like that. Obviously, then there's the after, the bounce, and I'm sure we'll talk about that on Monday next week, of whether there was a bounce. So we can save that conversation. But there's this new thing, and I love the name of it because I think it actually is descriptive.

So you know soccer moms were like a Clinton. So, you know, soccer moms were like a Clinton invention, David, the term soccer moms. Yeah. And then there was security moms after 9-11. So there's a new thing called rage moms. Yes. And like, here's the fun fact that the Kaiser Family Foundation found in June. Mothers with children in the house were twice as likely as fathers to report participating in a protest this year. I mean, that's fascinating when you think about it. You know, and these are women who are taking the brunt of the childcare, the education, and, you know, they were in a two income household. They're the ones who are having to quit their job to stay home and teach their kids this fall. And they're pissed off. Well, that's my family. My wife took our two youngest kids to

protest in Nashville earlier this year. She wrote about it on the dispatch. And if you were going to profile someone who would take her kids to a protest, my wife would not be on that profile list in too many previous years in the history of the United States of America. Yeah. And now these women are indefinitely teachers, caregivers, employees, parents, cleaning their home. Everything that was outsourced before so that they could work is now falling disproportionately on women in our economy right now. And yeah, rage moms seemed like a really good descriptive term to me. Yeah, it's fascinating. And I will end this segment of the podcast by saying,

subscribe to The Sweep. If you do not read The Sweep on Mondays and the Wednesday mop-up, correct? Isn't the Wednesday mop-up? Yeah. I'm really upset that you did not go with the Wednesday mop-up, correct? Isn't the Wednesday mop-up? Yeah. I'm really upset that you did not go with the Wednesday vacuum. You know what? Mop-up came from a listener.

So thank you, listener. Yeah. So please subscribe to The Sweep and thedispatch.com generally. And now, without further ado, shall we hear from a coach of an Olympic gold medaling team? Before we go to our guest, let's hear from our sponsor today, the Bradley Foundation.

Making sense of current events during this extraordinary time can be trying. Conceived in Liberty, the Bradley Speaker Series is a new video series that offers meaningful perspectives through engaging 15-minute interviews. Visit BradleyFDN.org backslash Liberty to watch their most recent episode featuring acclaimed historian Dr. Alan Guelzo. and Director of Initiatives on Politics and Statesmanship in the James Madison Program at Princeton University, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a 2018 Bradley Prize winner. In this episode, Guelzo eloquently argues that while the COVID-19 pandemic is indeed extraordinary, we can still apply valuable lessons from history in our efforts to effectively deal with it.

A leading scholar on Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, Guelzo also shares his perspective on American exceptionalism, leadership during this crisis, and the importance of getting history right. For Americans, he states, all that we have is our history. That's Bradley with an L-E-Y at the end, fdn.org slash liberty to watch the video. New episodes will debut weekly, so come back often and subscribe to their YouTube channel to be notified whenever a new one is posted. And today, we are joined right now with Coach Phil Drobnik,

the 2018 gold medal Olympic winning coach, USA Curling. This is thrilling. I've never met an Olympian before. This is amazing. Well, thanks for having me. I'm excited. Uh, that being said, so this is our nerd, you know, August. And so we tried to find on the one hand, like the coolest thing, which is the Olympics representing the United States and winning a gold medal, but also combining that with the nerdiest thing, which is curling. Yes. I'm a self-proclaimed nerd. So that's very fitting. And when you showed up to the Olympics and there's, you know, the rest of Team USA is there, do they treat you like the nerds? Like what is the high school breakdown of Team USA and where does curling fit in?

You know, we're kind of just like the little brother that everybody wants to see win. So it's kind of, you know, it's pretty fun where, you know, the younger brother, right? Now, it's a lot of camaraderie for Team USA. And, you know, I think everybody looks at everything pretty equally. But there certainly are some differences in the sports, especially when you consider back in my first Olympics in 2010 when there were professional hockey players and then there was us. So there's a bit of a gap there.

So they didn't shove you in any lockers? No, they didn't shove us in any lockers. Nope. They didn't shove us in any lockers. They're, they're the, they're the really nice older sibling that really treats you great. So, and I mean, you know, you guys won gold. So at the end of the day, like you've got the to show it. Right. Yeah, no, absolutely. And, and, and tons of support from the rest of team USA, which, which makes it a lot of, uh, a lot of fun and, and. And just to see how much of a team you really are when you're over there, whether it's the hockey team, the skiers, no matter who it is, everybody's supporting everybody. So it just makes the whole trip a lot of fun. Okay. As someone who plays really competitive shuffleboard in bars after a drink or two. What is it that I don't know about curling and when you explain it to other people and what your life is actually like

as a curling coach? Well, if we're going into what curling is actually like, one thing we've done in the last two quads, I would say, since 2006, really, we've tried to, the game in general across the world's been built up to be, took that change to be a woods uh joined and all of a sudden now every golfer out there is um very fit and training and they work with sports psychologists they do all the things back when uh back in the early 90s when you know most of their sports psychology training was uh was jim beam they they've changed the culture a lot so um and that's the culture change that curling's taken uh you know the game is is is pretty intense it's as you know it's 10 ends it's uh it's a lot of endurance out there and uh and and it's a lot of strategic um moves so i would say you know similar to when you're playing shuffleboard at the bar um you know there's a

strategy behind it and and that's one of the most intriguing things for in-curling for me is the strategy behind everything that you do, whether it's in pregame warmups to the end of the game and to a postgame interview. So that's one of the fun things. Sarah, why didn't you ask me these questions

before the coach came on so we could go straight to the advanced stuff? Because as listeners know, I'm a fellow curler with coach. Yes. You're insulting him, David. No,

no, no, no. I mean, I'm amateur of, I'm, I'm the rookiest of the rookie, but there are two categories of people in this world.

Those who have curled and those who have not curled. And I am with the coach in the category of those who have curled. And coach, the reason I have curled is that it felt like in 2018, curling had a moment. And I remember the Olympics are on and I started getting texts from friends, texts from friends, dude, are you watching curling right now? And I would tune it in and I was utterly captivated by it. Did you guys sense sort of a groundswell of interest? I mean, of course it helps to win, you know, it helps to get the gold, but did you guys sense that there was like this real sort of spike in interest at that time could you feel it in real time we could it was it was it was um you know you just especially with social media right you probably wouldn't have known it 10 years back without the without the social media presence but

um just to be able to see the i mean we've got calls from mr t we got in a feud with christy alley i mean we we had it all going on while we were there and uh I mean even even there was a curler that tested uh that tested positive for Russia um during the games I mean it just like tons of attention was brought to curling and uh so I thought that um you're right we did have our moment and that was something that we really needed as a sport um everyone always seemed to tune in every four years and especially 2010 and 2014. And, you know, we struggled to get it done. We struggled to really put up numbers to be able to bring back a medal.

So this time was we were the underdog. And we were going in where, you know, we were a medal contender. You know, bronze would have been great. But all of a sudden, we hit our stride. The best part about the story was that we were down and out. We're two and four. Basically, everybody wrote us off except for ourselves. There was only nine people probably in the world that believed at that point that we could still get a medal. It was the players and the coaches in the team room.

I think that's what really made the story so special and really allowed us to do what we did because there was no more pressure. We were eliminated by everyone else. So now it was just an opportunity for those guys to just go out and play and show exactly who they were and show what kind of a team we were. And going into it, we had to play Canada, as you know,

which we've never beaten Canada in an Olympic Games. So we were 2-4 and had to play Canada. So really, everyone already had us at 2-5. And to be able to beat Canada in an extra end, you know, overtime, and kind of give us life, it was exactly what the, what the team needed for that to, to go on to the confidence they needed to go on to a gold, to gold medal. Okay. There's lots of curling terminology. I mean, every sport, I guess, has this, but when it's curling and it's something that, you know, little American boys don't grow up playing on Friday nights type thing. I think

some of the terms can be kind of funny to us. Can you give us like, I don't know, a sentence in curling and then define the terms for us? A sentence in curling and define the terms. Let's play a soft way to hit around the guard and just tap it through the rings. Yeah, perfect. I have no idea what any of that means. You're speaking my language. Yeah. I know I have no idea. I get that. You're speaking my language. Yeah. I know David knows exactly what I'm talking about. I mean, yeah. Why is Sarah even on this podcast? I mean, really? Just should be you and I, right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. No, it's probably

because I've promised Sarah a curling lesson. So she's getting ready and getting prepared for that. Yeah, so a soft weight hit would mean that we're going to, the goal is that we're going to remove the other team's rock from the rings. Around the guard would mean that the team has a rock up in front of the rings that's protecting their rock. So we're going to go around the guard and then we're going to tap it. So then the goal is to tap it through the rings and keep our stone in the ring

so that therefore we're still counting versus them counting one. That's awesome. I love this. So what are the origins of curling? I mean, I got to say, I'm so excited you're here because honestly, I'm, you know, obviously slightly exaggerating my curling prowess, but that was really fun. I mean, shockingly fun. And really surprising.

I was actually sore after I did it. And I tried to stay reasonably fit, but the sweeping alone was... Yeah. So what are the origins of the sport? I'm just fascinated by that. So it started in Scotland, like every goofy sport that involves beer. It was curling and golf, both originating from there. And it really started to grow overseas. And Canada was the Canada in the in the late 1800s. Canada was the one who was and into the 1900s was the big country. And Canada is right now still kind of the capital of curling.

Right. They've got, I want to say, upward of one to two million curlers, which is way more than anyone else in the world. You know, it's intriguing, right? You go up to Canada, we play all of our events, a lot of our events in Canada, especially on the World Curling Tour. And we're up there and you go to dinner and curling's on. It's on TSN. So it's on constantly. So they're all household names up there. Many of the top curlers are

all household names and you know we're not but um we're changing that we are doing our part to change that right here and now yeah no but and they are and so they get a lot more television coverage and uh so i think that you know the the sport was in the olympics back i want to say in in one of the and i think it was 1934 1936 one of those olympic games back in the Olympics back, I want to say, in one of the, I think it was 1934, 1936, one of those Olympic Games back in the 1930s basically, as a test run. And it didn't go, so it never kicked off. Because I

don't believe at that point there was enough countries that were playing. But now, in 1998 was the first year it was actual, a true Olympic sport with a medal. World championships started back in the early sixties, late, late fifties. And it's grown.

I mean, we have, I think to back to even, you know, when I started playing, there was, there was very few countries that, that curl that was, you know, still, you know, probably under 20. And now we've got our mixed doubles world championships. A couple couple years ago i'd like 50 countries i mean it's all over brazil mexico um all these uh small places in europe it's um it's it's pretty interesting uh to see how many places are wanting to get into it and get involved in it so um it is it is a sport that's growing. And I think I've heard the story

that you just told a billion times. People are like, well, I thought it was going to be easy, and I didn't know if I'd like it. And all of a sudden, I got on the ice, and we were able to with my buddies, and it's fun. It's something that it's challenging, and you want to go back. A lot of people find themselves wanting to go back to do it once they try it and they want to get good at it. And they realize quickly that when you're sitting there watching and you've never played it during the Olympics, because that's usually what everybody watches. And it's easy to be like the armchair quarterback and say, oh, that looks easy. How can't they do that? How can't they do this? And then they try it and they're like, oh, yeah, that actually is hard. And that sweeping thing, that's a lot of energy.

It's funny you mentioned the origin along with golf, because I think it has something in common with golf beyond the beer, which is when you think of golf, if you've never played golf, you think the ball's just sitting right there. How hard is it to hit the ball? It's just sitting right there. It has this sort of deceptive ease to it. And then you get into it and you're thinking, oh, there's layer upon layer upon layer of difficulty here. And you get that exact same sense, except it's also got a layer of physicality to it that doesn't come across as much on the TV screen as when you're actually doing it. Yeah. And the mental side of the two sports are so similar because, you know, when you're up, when you, when you sit up to a golf ball and you're going to hit your shot, you know, you're visualizing, you're seeing that shot, you're picturing it, and then you're hitting it and

trying to do what you see when you, when you do the curling shot, it's the same thing. You step into the hack, you see the shot being made, and then you slide out and throw it. Like there's so many mental, most there's not a lot of mental skills books out on curling. So I have, I signed a lot of my, uh, athletes golf books because it's, they're so, they're so similar. So, uh, as part of nerdery here, I was president of my high school orchestra. I played viola. And a big thing about violists, and it's kind of a chip on our shoulder, is that most violists started as violinists and then are recruited at some point to switch to viola. I, however, am a very proud viola originalist, started on viola, played throughout. So my question to you is, is there

an equivalent in curling? Do you look at a specific sport to recruit people from and say, hey, you're great at hockey, you should try curling or something? And did you have a sport you were playing before you switched over to curling? Are you an original curler? I am. Well, I would say I'm an original curler. However, I come from a hockey family. So I played hockey too. And at one point I had to make the decision, am I going to play hockey or am I going to, or am I going to curl? My, my, both of my grandfathers were very heavily into hockey and my grandpa was a high school hockey coach and played for the U of M. And so it was a challenging

decision, but really we're pretty open. We take them from any sport we can get them from. And I think hockey, especially in the northern parts, tends to be where we get them. Maybe kids that didn't make the team or kids that are looking for something to do in the winter. But we're really starting to grow the grassroots program, and we're trying to get ourselves more involved in schools. really starting to grow the grassroots program and we're trying to get ourselves more involved in schools. So that way the kids can get that opportunity to not have to come from someone and they can be the original curlers. Traditionally, if you look at our athletes that are, you know, curlers that are 30 to 40 right now are learned from their family. Their family was somehow involved in curling and that's how they got involved now we're changing that we're turning that over we're now it's they've seen it on tv or they've seen they've seen people

be successful at it and they've wanted to play so i think uh traditionally it would come from other winter sports but uh john schuster was a basketball player got uh our olympic gold medal skip he was uh played basketball up until ninth grade and got cut from the team and and jumped uh jumped right to the curling club and you know the rest was history for him too. All right. You hear that, guys? We have at least two wonderful high school students who listen to this podcast and email us on the regular. At least two. Okay. You guys need to be out there recruiting curlers for our Olympic team to make our country proud in the next generation. It seems to me that you've got, you know, I, so I'm down in Nashville and we have the Predators here, which the Predators have absolutely like captured Nashville.

Nashville loves the Predators. And there's just very little ice around here. You know, like there's no ice rinks and the ones that exist are just covered over with youth hockey. Is this a real issue for you guys in that how do we grow the sport without much ice out there, if that makes sense? Yeah, it's a challenge. And what we're finding is that clubs are really building the independent curling club. They're figuring out ways to fundraise because they can't get ice. A lot of clubs will start as arena clubs, and they'll play on Tuesday nights at 10.30 p.m.

That's when they get the ice time, right? That's the only time they can get it. Then they'll find out that they've got such a push for people and members to want to try curling that there's actual people that will financially back the building of a curling club and now they can build a four-sheet club that's been the more popular route especially you look at arizona we've got we've got a dedicated what we call them dedicated facilities dedicated curling facility we've got them in arizona we've got them in california um in areas where you wouldn't expect't expect. So that seems to be the trend that we're going to. They're playing in arenas for a time being. And then once they get enough membership, they're really going to build dedicated facilities.

So you wear shoes on the ice, but do you need to be able to skate in order to be good at curling asking for a friend? No, you don't need to be able to skate. Actually, it's balance. It's all in balance because it's a slider that you use. So you wear basically a pair of tenor shoes. We call them curling shoes because they've got a little bit more grip on the bottom of them. And the main thing is when you're sliding, when you go down into the lunge position and you actually throw the stone. That's when you use the slider on your foot. And it's just balance at that point. So if you're able to balance in your living room, you can balance on the ice.

Okay, I can do that. I can balance. It's not that easy. David, did you fall while curling? So, Coach, let's just say that some of us might be naturals at this sport. And some of us might have spent a little time on their back or side sliding. Yeah. Just for the listeners out there, cause we have, we have a spectrum of listeners. Um, if you start curling when you're 50 years old, um, and you're not somebody who's like already like, say, uh, I don't know, a gifted skater or anything of that sort,

expect to fall. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Expect to fall. You will. And it it's it's all about falling gracefully right then making sure you hit you land on your butt instead of your head um on that though i i actually my i talked about my grandpa that was a uh um that was the hockey coach once he retired from coaching hockey i actually got the opportunity to teach him how to curl so he was 58 years old when he first started curling and uh, uh, so that was, so, you know, I mean, there's, we see that all the time actually is, uh, we people retire and all of a sudden there's senior, there's a lot of senior leagues at these clubs, especially dedicated facilities. So one o'clock in the afternoon, they have a, they go out, they curl,

they have coffee and donuts afterwards. It's, it's really a social aspect to it. And so we see a lot of guys in their 60s that start curling for the first time and they love it. So it really is a sport that's for anybody and it's a lot of fun socially and recreationally. Okay. Let's talk metaphors. You and I met because I wrote this thing that if I had... I mean, thank goodness I did not know that you would read it or else I think I would have gotten too, I would have chickened out because I'm embarrassed, right? I have been using curling as a metaphor for my own job. Knowing so little about curling, it's insulting. But the metaphor was this. Everyone asks what I do for a living

as a political operative in my previous life on campaigns and whether anything I do matters. And honestly, I've wondered that myself. And curling was just this epiphany when I saw the guys with the broom and how hard they were working for what looked to make very little difference, but obviously some difference. And that some difference mattered a lot. And I was like, that's what I'm doing every day. That's what I've dedicated my life to is sitting there with a broom, sweeping ice and not really knowing if this is making a big difference. You were so gracious and said that that was a, you know, I think you basically said that's a fun metaphor, but actually the sweepers make a huge difference. So A, I want to give you

the opportunity to really critique the metaphor and B, tell us how big a difference do the sweepers make a huge difference. So A, I want to give you the opportunity to really critique the metaphor. And B, tell us, how big a difference do the sweepers make? Because it kind of looks ridiculous on TV. You know, I believe that anytime we get curling in the media, it's a positive. So I think that the metaphor was close, right? Like, I mean, I could see that. Like anyone from sitting at home could be like, yeah, that makes sense. But, you know, truly, actually, sweepers make players.

You know, you have some of the best sweepers in the world are why some of the best skips have the best sweepers. And there's no reason why someone's not the best shooter when they got the best sweepers. Because sweepers are able to take rocks and maybe put them in spots that nobody else could put them. That's what makes them so professional. They can, they can. How? Why? I don't understand the physics of it. So when, when the rock, when the stones let go, so I slide out, I let go of the stone. If I've got the best sweeper in the world, he knows exactly where that's he, she knows exactly where that's going to go as soon as I let go. So in order to make a great shot, the skip on the other end, who's the captain is telling them where he wants it. So he'll put his broom and say, I want

this right here. So that sweeper will take that stone right there. They'll be able to judge it based on how fast it's going based on the line and be able to stop it right on a dime. So that, that's what makes it so special. Like they are, they are professionals. They use stopwatches. Some of them use stopwatches to be able to judge the time that it's coming from the, from a certain place to a certain place. But it is, it's, if you can really, um, that's why it's, I think curling's really cool about being mic'd up when it's on TV, because if you know what they're doing, you can actually hear their lingo. They use a number system of one to 10 as to where it's going to end up. So that's why you hear them yelling out a lot, three, three, three, four. That's where it's going to end up. So three is just

short of the rings and four is in the top of the 12 foot. What they do is really something special because they also have to know how hard they're sweeping and how much it's going to affect it. So they do a lot of practice to determine how straight they can keep it, testing basically, to determine how straight they can keep it and how fast they can make the rock go by sweeping it. And yeah, so wait, is the goal of the sweeping, first of all, is it that it melts the ice? How is it working? And B, the goal of the sweeping is actually not to curl the stone but to make it go straight uh actually uh we've found that you can you can do both now um after curling happened for what 300 years um it was uh it wasn't until uh about three years ago i think it was four four years ago when they we actually realized, we can actually make the rock curl and we can make the rock go straight

if we do things certain ways. So there's been a lot of studies done recently. And so, yeah, you can actually make it curl. You can make it go straight. But yes, it melts the ice surface, slightly melts the ice surface. So then that way it makes it go faster. There's really no way to slow the stone down.

So if it's going too fast, you can't really slow it down. But by sweeping it, it makes it go further, I should say. Wow. So my self-own was like a double self-own, David. No, no, it's not a self-own, Sarah, because it means that your job was far more significant than you knew it was. Yeah, it's like a reverse self-own. I tried to self-own and in fact failed.

It was a humble brag. It was a humble brag. That's what it was. Okay, coach. So I've got a question. I've always wondered because so you have this array of Olympic sports. And especially in the Winter Olympics, most of these athletes are not um unless you're you know a hockey superstar you're not in this sort of the day-to-day american sports conversation

until that once every four years and it i've always wondered about the psychology of being an olympic athlete where you know you have that one moment every four years where, you know, like the, the, um, your NHL guy, if you're in a, if you're in a, um, contending team, you've got that every year shot at the playoffs at every year shot at Stanley cup with the Olympic athlete. It's that once every four years. And it feels like the psychology of that, the pressure of that would be, let's just say, very formidable. And I've just wondered about how do you guys prepare for that? Do you prepare for that? This is your moment, but relax.

I mean, how does that work? It's such a huge part of it, right? And I think that it's really who's successful in the Olympics and who's not successful. Because you're right, our athletes are not prepared for it when they go there, unless they've been there before. But an athlete, or for example, I coached in my first Olympics in 2010. I was terrible. For example, I coached in my first Olympics in 2010. I was terrible.

I mean, I was more of a spectator than I was a coach. And, you know, you get caught up in the moment of it. This is the Olympics. You're worried about you want to go see all the events. I mean, there's so much going on. There's media. You want to go to support the hockey teams. You want to go and do all these various things. So for athletes, it's the same way, right?

Like they can get caught up in focusing on the Olympics instead of focusing on what their goal is. So it's really important to set those parameters ahead of time. And I think as my story, being able to coach in 2010 and being able to take it forward to 2018, I was able to get my coaching staff to set up really systems that allowed our team to have an opportunity to be successful. We ensured that they had a schedule every day, so they knew they had certain times where they could go and do things, but they needed to be home at a certain time. They needed to be there to their rooms at

a certain time. Same with the coaching staff. You know, we were there for one reason. We were there for to bring home a medal, right, to compete and to represent our country and bring home a medal. So it really is. It's there's training that goes into it. We put them through media training. We put them through, you know, scheduled training. We, we had a mock event where we would, you know, this is, this is the way it's going to go. And, you know, everybody gets up and has breakfast together. Everybody gets up. It's really a, a, a team driven, um, week, uh, well month, actually it's a month, it's a team driven month. Um, but that's the important thing because it, at the Olympics, it's so easy to stray. It's, and as soon as you stray, you're gone. Your mind is elsewhere. You're wanting to go watch the girls' hockey team play every time, or you're wanting to go watch the speed skaters skate. And it's cool. It's great to be able to do that, but that's not the reason you're there.

And what I would tell any athlete that was going there for the first time is, you're going to be able to go back as a spectator to watch the olympics and you're going to have access to everything so just wait until you go as a spectator and take in the moment and really be in the moment and go there for what your goals are because um it's as hard as it is while while it's going on once you win the gold or once you win any medal there you've got an opportunity to do so many more cool things, right? And to be able to experience the Olympics in a way that very few people are able to experience them. Okay. Little footnote on what you're saying, because that's fascinating. I mean, the Olympic Village is kind of known to be maybe kind of an orgy once you're done with your sport? I knew you were going to ask this question.

Yes. Yes. How wild and crazy does it get after you're done? Oh my goodness, Sarah. I just want to know. I think a lot of those are myths. You know, I think a lot of those are myths. I think, you know, that.

I was sort of hoping that Team USA was using this opportunity to breed like super athletes. Super stars. No, you see, you know, like our event runs the entire time. The hockey, both hockey teams run the entire time. There's so, typically there's two villages. It's the snow sports up that are outdoor sports are in one village. And we're with typically the figure skaters, speed skaters, hockey players, and sports are in one village and we're with typically the figure skaters speed speed skaters hockey players and us are in a village and then the village is actually

everybody together so even though we have an apartment tall apartment complex for team usa it's all the athletes so when you go to so when you go to um breakfast it's it's every athlete from every country for those sports and And, you know, they're pretty focused. You can see that athletes are, especially in our village, there's a lot more focus because the events run the entire time. Up on the hill, you know, they may only have one race and it might be slightly different. I've never been there. But yeah, there's a lot of focus and there's a lot of stuff, a lot of importance that's laid to quiet time and ensuring that athletes are ready to prepare. I mean, this is off color, David, but are there like Team USA branded condoms? I have not seen a Team USA branded condom, no.

Okay, I'm going to bring this chip back um okay so so here's my curiosity is there a culture of collegiality or trash talk in the curling community or some combination thereof are there particular teams or there's some maybe bad blood uh Is Canada particularly resentful of what you guys did in 2018? I mean, you know, that's, what are the intense rivalries? And is there, is it collegial intensity or is it intense intensity? I would say it's collegial intensity, but Canada certainly didn't like us raining on their parade. I mean, we never beat them.

And then we, not only did we beat them in the round robin but then we eliminated them from play so that was uh you know pretty special but uh yeah and i don't think and then they didn't meddle right they didn't meddle on the men's side they didn't meddle on the work on the woman's side and that's like i don't even i mean i don't even know what to compare that to because that's like someone they're predicted to get two golds and they get nothing like that so that was i think a lot of the other countries really like that but um you know uh you know we played against sweden in the in the championship game and uh two of the guys from the sweden team um had come to had flown over for one of my other athletes uh wedding just just the summer prior so um it's there's there's a lot of friendships that that happen you know you're traveling week in and week out and

there's a lot of camaraderie among all the countries uh in curling and um you know the athletes tend to get along pretty well you know they may trash talk but when they trash talk it's in a friendly way and it's not in a like they really despise you type way. And so I think that that also for us, I think it helped because Sweden was the number one ranked team in the world, even though Canada was predicted to get the gold. You know, it helped for our players because these were the guys that were just at my wedding, like for, you know, Matt and, you know, or that we've spent time with. It was easy for them, right? It wasn't as pressure, the pressure wasn't on us because we weren't supposed to win.

And, you know, they're the team that is supposed to win. And now they've got to play against their friends in the gold medal game that could stand in their way, right? So it was, it really worked out well for us. So part of our nerd series here, we've called it that, but the truth is we have so loved inviting these super duper experts, not just experts, like the top of their profession onto this podcast and getting to talk to them. It's such a treat for us because I'm such a generalist. So to talk to someone who has reached the pinnacle of their

career in any area is just amazing for me. And so I so appreciate you being here. But we've talked a lot about their careers. Because when I talk to college students or high school students or whatever, and they're like, yeah, it's like the West Wing or House of Cards or whatever. And it looks kind of glamorous. You're on TV when they see me, but there's a very specific type of personality who can thrive in political operative world. Uh, and there's, uh, you know, sort of a, I, I sort of compare it to being an Anaconda, like you'll go 18 months with no food and then you'll have, you know, then you'll go, you know, eat a whole gazelle overnight. And, and some people are going to thrive in that. And some aren't what, you know, eat a whole gazelle overnight. Um, and, and some people are going to thrive in that.

And some aren't what, you know, as an Olympian, a you're, uh, you have a, another job that you do. You are not a full-time curling coach. Uh, and how do you talk about your career either as an Olympian or a curler and what types of personalities would go with that? What's the lifestyle like when you talk to kids and they're like, this would be a good fit for someone who is fill in the blank. Yeah. I think, I mean, some of that's self-driven, right? Uh, so one of the things in, in most sports is that you have a practice and all your athletes are there and, and, and you practice as a team all the time. And unfortunately in curling that that's not the case. I was, um, you know, we curling, that's not the case always.

You know, we have athletes that are all over the country and they're spread all over the country. And you're right. They don't have full-time jobs. And, I mean, they don't have – curling isn't their full-time job. So they need to live life. And so you have to be self-driven to be able to go and practice and practice on your own and be able to manage life. So you have to be time management is an important thing. I look at one of some of our top athletes that I've got one athlete that runs a law firm that employs 60 people, right? So he runs a law firm, he's got two kids, and he's got to get up at five

in the morning to go and do the workouts. And then he's got to go and run his business. And and he's got to get up at five in the morning to go and do the workouts. And then he's got to go and run his business. And then he's got to go home and see the family. And then he's got to go at, at nine o'clock at night and get his practice in. So you really have to be, be, be self-driven, but you have to be good at time management because how easy would it be to say, I'm just not going to go and do that. I'm tired or I'm, I'm, I'm worn out. So, um, and you know, I would say you have to be driven, uh, which kind of goes along with some of those other things, but, um, driven in a sense that you're, you have to be able to work harder than everyone else. And, you know, there are going to be some, some athletes out there that, that are just fortunate enough to be able to curl. They, they, especially in other countries,

we have, there's, uh, other countries that get paid to be full-time they they especially in other countries we have there's uh other countries that get paid to be full-time athletes so you have to be driven enough um to be able to practice and want it as much as them so china for example china's they're full-time athletes scotland's paying their athletes full-time um it's just the trend that's changing over. We'd like to get there someday, but we're just not quite there. I mean, it's going to take a lot more money coming in. And obviously, with everything that's going on in the world or in our country, it's not the best time to be changing that type of culture. So what's it looking like for 2022, coach? Are we going to send the Canadians home in tears again?

How are you feeling? I actually think we've got a great set of athletes. We've got our carryover from 2018. We've got three of the four gold medalists that are still playing together, and they were joined by another great athlete. And then we've got two other men's teams that are really pushing them. They both had great seasons last year and on the ladies side we have uh we had um our olympic team from

last time did a little adjusting in their lineups and and and their personnel and they they had a phenomenal season last year they were going into the world championships um which they had landed in uh british columbia and the event got canceled because of COVID. So they had gotten there. It was like March, right when all this came down. And they would have meddled. I believe strongly that it meddled and they would have contended for gold. So I think we're in a really great spot moving towards 2022, provided we have an Olympics and provided what everything looks like. That's the scary thing is everything's unknown. And, you know, unfortunately for us, you know, we're behind as a country for COVID versus the rest of the countries.

And they're all able to get on the ice and start training. So that definitely has an impact on us. And it has an impact on, you know, our potential performances at world championships and Olympics. So, you know, we're trying to do everything we can to get our athletes on the ice safely. They've got to use masks. So that's a new change. I just had just on the ice for the first time in five months over the weekend. And, you know, to be able to wear a mask and to compete, It's a different environment now. So you also were a volunteer for the Amy Klobuchar for President campaign,

and you've been tweeting pretty routinely during the DNC convention. I expect you might continue tweeting during the RNC convention. What attracted you to presidential politics? Did you have a moment in the dnc convention that you thought was the best moment last week um what attracted me to i guess um i care uh i care about our country um you know i've i've always been interested in in in politics which is probably

why i consider myself to be a nerd because, you know, I remember back in, um, uh, when I was in college and, uh, when, and Bush and Gore and being up all night watching the polls come in and watching Gore win. And then all of a sudden Bush won. And, uh, so I just, I was been really involved in politics and I've been involved in, in various, various campaigns throughout, um various campaigns throughout just at a small level, right? Just volunteering or doing some phone calls or doing some things like that. But we've been traveling. Fortunately with Curling, I get the opportunity to travel the world. And what really stuck out to me in the last four years is that everywhere I go, someone's asking me about what's

wrong with our country or what's wrong with our president or what's going on in America. And I traveled just as much the prior eight years when we had a different president and take that the prior eight years before that, right? I'd never, nobody ever talked about American politics, really, you know, unless it was the nerd, maybe that was like me. Now it's everyone, everywhere I go. And I feel like we are the laughingstock of the world at times because of the positions that our president currently puts us in. And I think that we need to, I mean, you just look at how decisive we are, divisive we are across the country. And you can't talk to one friend and you have to do this and you have to do that.

And we just need to come together more as a country to, as you probably see on my tweets, I spend a lot of time hashtagging spread love because I think we spread hate too much. And I think that's why I got involved in Amy's campaign. I felt like she was someone who cared about people and genuinely was smart and she could make changes to the office. And she recognized that. So that's why I got involved. And of course, Minnesota Nice, and she's from Minnesota, and it made it easy to get behind her. I was a bit

surprised when she had her campaign called and said, we want you to start hosting some events. She's going to be gone. Could you be a surrogate? And I'm like, wait, wait, I don't really know what to do here. And then I'm thinking, well, this is like a different level, because if I say the wrong thing, it could really go bad, right? The only thing that can happen is I really didn't think anyone was going to change their vote for what I said, right? But I could certainly stop people from voting from her. So it's like a lose-lose situation, right? Have you thought about running yourself? Yeah, maybe one day. I've always said my dream job was to be a senator, but, you know, we'll see. Yeah, but that's what got me involved.

And then to take it further into the last week, you know, I really thought that, I mean, there was a number of highlights. I thought President Obama was a different version of himself, and he really did something I wasn't expecting him to do. His third portion, the last third of his speech, where he really, truly just went after change in our country. where he really, truly just went after change in our country. And he didn't do it in a way where he really, he didn't really focus that much on President Trump, but he called out some of the things that needed to change.

And I think that overall, it had a sense of decency and let's just come together and let's change the culture of this country. I was a little, to be honest, I was a little worried about how Thursday night would go for Joe, because we haven't really heard him speak a lot, right? I mean, he hasn't done a ton, and I thought he nailed it. I really did. I thought that he was able to get people to understand that he's the candidate for change and he's someone that's going to bring this country just back together. He didn't talk a lot about things that he's going to do or think. But really, what we need right now is we just need to bring the country back together. Let's bring it back together and let's figure out what's best and then move forward. And because there's no doubt that right now, unless we bring the country back together, we're not going to be able to get anything done anyway. So we have to start with point A to be able to get to point B

and C, I think. You're wearing a USA shirt, by the way. Can we get curling swag? Where do I get? Oh yeah, that's a great question. As a curler, I need to know this. So that's a good question. We're actually doing a launch of a new logo over Labor Day weekend. And we've kind of changed our image. And so we're going to be selling stuff. We're going to have things available for everyone. So I would say post Labor Day, I'll make sure I get you a link and we'll get things out there and start getting some swag. Oh man, David and I are so in on that. Try to get you a link and we'll get things out there and start getting some swag. Oh, man. David and I are so in on that.

I am all about the swag. So, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Because, you know, swag is kind of some of your identity. And I have good dispatch swag because I'm a dispatcher, but I have no curling swag despite being a curler. So, this is important for me. Yeah, especially being a curler, So this is important for me. Yeah, especially being a curler, right? You need to have that.

Yeah. I mean, we're a small but yet exclusive club. I mean, so... Bring it home, David. Well, Coach, this has been a real treat. It really has. Really appreciate your time with us. And we wish you all the best going forward. And I have

high confidence we'll see y'all in 2022. God help us if coronavirus is still out of control at that point. But yeah, this has been a real treat. And I can't wait to tell my friends who are texting me during 2018, hey, dude, curling's on. You got to turn the channel that I just talked to the coach. And so thanks so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. Oh, man. When he retweeted my sweeping metaphor story, David, I ran downstairs screaming to my husband. The USA Curling Coach had just retweeted me. So this is the coolest. And listeners, how many political legal podcasts

will you listen to where you will get also an Olympic coach? So cool. Who's also been a presidential campaign surrogate. Yep. I mean, this is it. That's why you need to go right now

to Apple Podcasts and you need to rate us five stars and leave a fantastic comment because this is the content you're getting nowhere else. So this has been the Advisory Opinions Podcast with Sarah Isger, David French, and Coach Phil Drobnik of the U.S. Olympic team.

Thanks for listening. Bye.