Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Actor Riley Smith joins to talk about his experience as an Iowa ball boy, the painful Lickliter era, and this year's team

Episode Date: September 1, 2020

Actor Riley Smith is joining us for three episodes this week starting with part one today where he talks about his experience being the ball boy for the Iowa men's basketball team the game after Chris Street passed. We also discuss his friendship with Kenyon Murray and Drew Tate, why Kirk is such a great coach, and the painful Todd Lickliter era. We wrap up with some high praise for Fran McCaffery and his son Connor before touching on what is going on currently in the state of Iowa.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.ManscapedGo to Manscaped.com and use code LOCKED to get 20% Off and Free Shipping. Manscaped is #1 in men’s below the belt grooming and offers precision-engineered tools for your family jewels.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON,” and you’ll get $10 off your first order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I thank God I was born on the good arms of the Midwest, and not on the battlefields of the U.S. It's a time of panic, and it's intercepted! It's picked off right away! Intercepted by Marty Hooker! Pick six! Eight seconds into the game! Buffen sets up deep in the pocket, goes down the field for Smith!

Oh! He's got it! Smith! Touchdown. 85 yards. High on. Touchdown, 10. Taking a shot in the end zone.

It is caught. No offense. Touchdown. That's either one or you have it. Go ahead and three. Yes. Two-point lead for the Hawkeye Nation, to another episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked On Sports Network.

As always, I am your host, Andrew Wade, and we are kicking off the first part of our three-part interview with actor and native Iowan Riley Smith you may know him from Nancy Drew Frequency Nashville even 90210 there's a lot of he's been on a lot of awesome tv shows and movies and he was gracious enough to give us a lot of time and talk to us about uh you know all the great memories as an Iowa Hawkeye fan. He has lived a lot of awesome memories. We started off this episode talking about his time as a ball boy for the game after Chris Street passed away. Growing up a Hawkeye fan and knowing some of the awesome players from some of those great teams such as Kenya Murray. We even got a little bit onto the Drew Tate topic.

He's a big fan of Drew Tate, is good friends with Drew Tate. And we started talking about the Holiday Bowl, the crap show of the Todd Licklider years, and what this Iowa basketball team could do this year before jumping into a little bit about the DeRay show and what is currently going on in the nation. That is what's coming on today's show.

We have two other episodes on Wednesday and Thursday to continue our conversation with Riley. So I hope you do enjoy it. If you like these episodes, if you like the episodes we've put out, please make sure to like, review and subscribe. Give us that five star review wherever you've downloaded this show at and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And before I jump into the conversation, I know you all are waiting for.

I do want to quickly bring up a few things that were kind of came to or come to light over the last 24 hours. First of all, 93 athletes in the Iowa sports, you know, the athletic community have tested positive for coronavirus. So practices have been suspended until September 7th. Also, the Big Ten released a little bit more information about what actually happened to make the decision to postpone fall sports. It sounds like school representatives voted 11-3, and the Big Ten is going to be providing more information on the decision-making process here in the coming days. And on the other side of the state,

Iowa State has announced that they are going to allow 25,000 fans to their games this year. All I can say is it's Iowa State being Iowa State at this point. But what else can I say about that? That being said, that is what has kind of gone on in the news the last 24 hours. Let's jump right into our conversation with Riley like I said it was a great conversation basically we just talked for you know two hours

I think you're really gonna enjoy it I enjoyed it so much that I actually forgot to hit record until a little bit through it so we're gonna pick up right where we started with our conversation about his time being the ball boy for the game after the Chris Street death yeah but I was saying I started off like growing up like 20 minutes from the university um not only was I obviously like a die-hard fan but um my my parents had a friend that was uh affiliated with the university and helped get me to become a ball boy uh that's awesome. And that was so much fun. Like that was one of my earliest memories. I was like 12, I think.

And, you know, they randomly give you games that you get to ball boy. But I looked out and it was right after the Chris Street debt. Oh, wow. And I got the next game, which was, I believe it was Michigan came to town and we beat them and I was uh I was ball boy in that game that was one of the best games I've ever seen and it was so emotional and so what's crazy is years later I mean like this is probably like 10 years ago I was reminiscing watching uh different old Iowa games as I always do yeah and uh I saw the that Michigan game and I had forgotten that

I was there that I had ball boyed it it's been so long and so they start doing the Chris Street Memorial and they're bringing out his jersey and their parents are out there and they're showing you know the court and all of a sudden I see myself like little chubby 12 year old Riley and I'm like whoa dude that's me like I'd never been on TV before I was so excited I see myself like little chubby 12 year old Riley. And I'm like, Whoa, dude, that's me. Like I'd never been on TV before. I was so excited to see myself, but it was weird seeing yourself that long ago and forgetting that you were there. And then I was like, that's my chubby little ass right there. That's wild. So wait, so did you recognize like the gravity of that situation when you were in it?

Or do you just kind of like, Oh boy, this is cool. Or did you realize like how big of a deal that day was? I will never forget where I was when uh I found out he died I think that that was like uh you know shook everyone to the core in Iowa but I was at a my I was at the high school basketball game watching and my mom came in and got me out of the stands and it was a close game I was like why do we have to go she's like you just we have to get in the car we gotta go and I'm like? I think this is a good game. And, and I can tell something's wrong. And I got in the car and she was like, Chris Street died today in a car, tonight in a car accident. And

it was like, and I was close with all of them because I was a ball boy. So, and then, you know, I got lucky throughout the years because the same folks that were alumni supporters, they were good friends with a lot of players. So growing up, I got to know a lot of the players. Kenyon Murray was another one that was really close to me through them. And then as I got into high school, he would come to my high school basketball games. That's super cool. It was so awesome of him. I mean, you know, Friday nights and he'd show up in Albernetteette Iowa and of course like the whole gym goes crazy and I'll never forget the news would come to some of the bigger games to do some

highlights for the nightly news yeah and anytime they came to Albernette and Kenyon was there they never showed us playing it would just be like in Albernette Kenyon Murray at the game tonight and then they show one layup and that was the end of the clip I'm like there was a basketball game somewhere yeah yeah but uh yeah so Kenyon was really close to me. Really cool story. I when I was younger, I loved this is pre ball boy days. I was like, you know, it was the 87 era when we were so good. And I was the biggest Jeff Mo fan. Like I wanted to be Jeff Mo. Yeah. And, and so randomly, my parents were flying in Germany on their way back to the States. And Jeff Moe is in the airport with like a traveling team. They were playing over there for the summer. My mom runs up to him and she's like, you're my son's favorite player. And everyone's laughing.

They're like, you know who this guy is? You know, we're in Germany. And my mom's like, yeah, you're Todd Birkenpass. And they're like, everyone dies laughing. No're Todd Birkenpass and they're like everyone dies out of the no Todd Birkenpass paid like in the late 70s I think and you know it's Jeff Moe she's like yeah I know I know that so anyway I grew up on a horse ranch and my parents uh you know told him all about it and he was interested in wanting to ride horses so they surprised me I was in like second grade at the time and I'm in class and all of a sudden my parents walk in

with jeff mo and the whole school knows who he is lost their mind everyone goes nuts he takes us out that like we break for recess right then the teachers let us like go out of class we go out and i'll never forget it was me and jeff mo versus everyone else at basketball and and then after that he came back to the house and we uh well first we went and we ate we ate made rights which is like an Iowa state I love made rights I miss it I heard the one in Marion where I grew up closed down I'm pretty sad about that but anyway he came back and he rode horses and it was right before they were going to the elite eight to play Arizona and uh we're riding together out in the pasture and Jeff's horse took off on him and he's like obviously a big guy and he's wrapping his legs around the horse to hold on which is the

wrong thing to do because you're squeezing the horse so it's going faster and I'll never forget it my dad who obviously was older so you can remember better he was like he goes I just saw my life flashed before my eyes because if Jeff would have broken something right before the elite eight game, everything would have been blamed on our family. And luckily situation with the Cubs, man. What's that? You've been like the Will Bartman situation with the Cubs. Yeah, no doubt. Right.

So luckily they got the horse stopped. And as soon as they got the horse stopped, he was like, Ooh, look at the time I got to go. But you know, like he gave me, me I'll never forget he gave me his phone number and I'm like second grade I like call up his dorm room and talk to him and it always meant a lot like I met over the years so many players that that I looked up to that I got to become friend friends with and then now eventually I'm their age and then they're my buddies and now I'm the old guy it's hard for me to imagine I'm like double their age now, but still, you know, get friendly with certain guys via Twitter and stuff like that.

And it's fun. It's a cool camaraderie that brings everyone together. And I think the thing that I take away from it, too, is that realistically, a lot of the college athletes aren't going to become pro players. But we love them no matter what. Yeah. They're still legends. I had to quickly pause the conversation with Riley. I hope you all are enjoying it,

but I do have a message from our sponsor of the show today from rock auto.com. Rock auto.com is a family business serving auto parts customers online for 20 years. They have a fantastic catalog that is unique and remarkably easy to navigate and has all the car parts you will ever need. No longer do you have to go to a traditional chain storefront to get the parts you need. Go to rockauto.com. And my favorite part about rockauto.com is the fact that prices are always reliably low and I don't get a markup because I'm not a professional. I'm a do-it-yourselfer and I do it pretty poorly, but at least I can get my parts cheap at rockauto.com. So go to rockauto.com right now

and see all the parts available for your car or truck and write locked on in their how did you hear about us box so they know we sent you. Amazing selection, reliably low prices, all the parts your car will ever need, rockauto.com. All the parts your car will ever need, rockauto.com. Yeah, you know, it's like Drew Taprins is another one who I love. And he's from Baytown, Texas. My family's from Baytown, originally some of my cousins. So we knew each other through that and became friendly. I went to his last game down in San Antonio and they sat with his parents

and, you know, like I wanted Drew, Drew wasn't a pro style quarterback, but, but nevertheless, like we stayed friends. I followed his career. I've been up here shooting Canada and he had played in Canada for a while. So he got to stay in touch because of that. And that's, what's cool about the Iowa camaraderie. I couldn't agree more. I mean, that's, that's what's cool about the Iowa camaraderie dude I couldn't agree more I mean that's that's why I love this state that's why I love doing this I mean the people that I've made connections with and just being able to chat with them and I'm building a relationship with those folks and like you said there's players who never went pro they never

even sniffed the NFL and you know they're still legends in the Iowa community and Drew Tate actually I've had him on the show twice. And that guy is – he's hilarious, man. He just – just a straight shooter. Just says exactly what he's feeling. And I love him, man. He's always great to have on the show. Yeah, he's like – that's how his game was too, you know. He was just so gritty.

I mean, that era for our football was – I loved that, those years. Yeah. His years. I mean, we've had some amazing football in the last 15 years for Iowa. It's been a great time. Kirk's been – yeah, Kirk being there. I mean, the fact that they can go from Hayden Fry to Kirk and only experience a few years of, you know, really kind of bad football

and then make that, you know, progression up again is pretty impressive. You don't see that with any program really. I mean, Penn State somehow managed to kind of get out of the Joe Paterno era and get into the James Franklin era but you don't really see a lot of coaches transition that well or that no programs transition that well and I think it'll be interesting when Kirk retires what what happens yeah I mean I think they're setting it up for for Brian to take over um which uh that's the Iowa way is is keeping things in the family and, you know, sticking with things and I guess just being, I mean, that's, I know sometimes over the years

with the Iowa football, it's been frustrating at times for fans. I remember when, you know, our run to pass ratio is way lopsided and then all of a sudden we started opening up the playbook. I mean, you look at – I went to that game last year in San Diego, the bowl game. Yeah. And we were calling crazy plays against USC, and they were working. And it's like, that's the Iowa that's exciting. Yeah.

It can be. Yeah, I mean, I was at a sports call and watching that game, and I was like, what is going on? And, like, can we do this every game? Can, like, can Brian just do this every – I mean, some of his play calling is – I think he's a really good yin and yang to what Kirk is. I mean, he is fiery. He's explosive, which I also think is some – you know,

sometimes can be controversial and whatnot. But from a playing calling perspective, he does a good job of at least adapting. But there's sometimes I just get so pissed at his play calling. I'm just wondering, what the heck are you doing on a game in and game out basis? I mean, some of the time just doesn't make sense. Yeah. The ongoing joke. It's like a third and nine, a better hand it off.

Yeah. It's going to be a draw, but sometimes, yeah, it's Kurt's Kurt is it's interesting because sometimes it's very telegraphed and we know what's happened. We know what's going to come. And, and then every once in a while, he'll, he'll shake it up. And, you know, even when it doesn't work, we're still excited that we try. Yeah. But you know, you, you gotta, you have to appreciate that he sticks to his guns and what, you know, the style that he does use the majority of the time does work the majority of

the time. So if we had a coach who was just running crazy plays of the time does work the majority of the time so if we had a coach who was just running crazy plays all the time and we didn't have a great success ratio we probably wouldn't be so excited about double reverses um yeah but yeah i mean talk about frustrating if we go back to basketball the lick lighter era oh that one almost made me quit watching Iowa basketball. I mean, it was hard to watch us just try to stall out teams week in and week out. They ruined – I mean, like Matt Gatins was around. That was Matt Gatins' era, right? Yeah, towards the end maybe.

Yeah, because Licklider was there for three years, I believe, and Gatins I think came in for his first two years or the last two years, I think, and then played with Fran for the last two years. But it's sad to see like Gatins who was an Iowa City product a guy who had a lot of potential just kind of get screwed by playing with Licklider. Yeah that system was just depressing for anybody who wanted to play offense and what's sad about it is I can't even remember many players on those teams because it was just a it was not a memorable era luckily you said it was only three years it felt like 10 yeah I'm checking right now come I'm trying to confirm

when Gatins was actually there but if the Licklider was there in 2008 2009 2007 2008 looks like three years yeah so Gatins was there for his last two years but Licklider was there for three years and it felt like a decade well and that's like because every game felt like it was a decade I mean you know when you come down and stall for 35 seconds yeah that was incredible I can't believe that that was but then you know what it was was it McCaffrey came right after him or was it yeah yeah so Fran came in 2010-2011 and had a pretty bad pretty bad record the first year and it looks like he went 18 and 17 in 2011-2012 well he was you know he was dealt a pretty it was a crappy roster yeah yeah because who would want to come

to Iowa to play like that so you know he basically had to start from scratch, but Fran is, uh, he's put together a great, a great, uh, college basketball school now, you know, Iowa is going to be on the map for a while. I mean, people love the way he plays. They love his style. And, uh, and he is feisty, you know, at times he's a little out of control. I love it though. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh. Yeah, yeah. I'd rather see that than the opposite. Yeah, so your thoughts on Fran? I mean, there is a very big divide, I feel like, in Iowa Nation pre the last year.

I think last year kind of sold a lot of people on Fran McCaffrey. I was always kind of a big Fran fan. I feel like the anger, the passion, to me it was more just passion and concern and the care for his players. What are your thoughts on Fran pre the last year, and then what are your thoughts on the program going forward? I step outside. My daughter just woke up.

Yeah, no worries. She's supposed to sleep for another hour. Damn. Not ideal. Yeah, so about like where the direction of Iowa basketball is going. I mean, I'm so excited. This year has to happen. I mean, this is the year.

But I think it also is just setting up now with this kind of success we've been having, we're going to be able to get the recruits that we want. And so I don't see this stopping for a while for us i think we could be a top 10 team for years to come i mean fran knows what he's doing took a minute to put it all together um but you know we've got a great i mean the team isn't young they're they're experienced right but we've got great young people coming in behind them um like speaking of kenyon murray i was gonna say i was going to bring that up. Yeah.

Are you, do you still talk to him a lot? I do. Kenyon and I are still good friends. His little brother, Mitch, slept on my couch in LA when he moved there. I took him under my wing and he's like a brother to me. So Kenyon's still family. I haven't seen his boys since they were shorter than me. So it's been a long time. Yeah. I just don't get back. I haven't been back to Iowa in two shorter than me so it's been a long time yeah I just don't

get back I haven't been back to Iowa in two years now it's so so sad but oh dang um but yeah I think it was a smart thing for them to go to the prep school yeah get another year of uh experience and and some size and uh I know they're gonna be working hard because their dad and uh and I just think they they they shoot well from the perimeter and they're long and tall so they fit really well into france perfect for france system yeah so i i haven't seen them like in action myself personally just the highlights and stuff but i think with the right kind of work in that system they're they're perfect for for france so yeah you know he's going to start getting these upper-tier players. And I think he knows how to handle them as well, you know,

keep them in line and have them respect the system. So I think the sky's the limit for basketball. And Luka coming back, I mean, speaking of Frank, I mean, that was so huge. And I love the way Connor dangled it for us with the tease about respect. Connor is such a sandbagger, man. He is, I love him on Twitter. He's entertaining. Yeah, no, I got excited.

He started, I follow, you know, all the players that I enjoy. And he followed me back. I was like, yeah, Connor. But yeah, I mean, dude, that guy is the band-aid for this whole team. And, you know, Toussaint is going to be – he's going to be a sleeper, a point guard. We've got – dude, we've got a team. And Luka, I don't know how he tops last year.

I mean, he saw doubles and triples last year, so he's definitely going to see it. But looking at that stuff, I love that Frank Post saw the work that he's doing in the offseason. And looking at those videos, he's pulling up from half court every day and draining them. Like, how do you get better? And I feel like Luka's only going to improve significantly.

And then you bring back all those players. You got Jordan Bohannon, who was injured. You got Patrick McGee, who, like, didn't play at all. And he's been talked about for a while. Then you think about Patrick McCaffrey, who is an athletic freak who can guard four positions. I mean, Iowa's second team, like, their six through ten players could beat some of the low teams in the Big Ten, I feel like.

They would have been our starters for many of those years. You know? I mean, yeah, you think about the way it worked out for Bohannon. I mean, he was you think about the way it worked out for Bohannon. I mean, he was our star. Yeah. And then all of a sudden he kind of has obviously been dealing with the injury. But the fact that we have like three stars all on this next squad. And Nungi, I can't wait to finally see him.

I hope he can stay healthy because I think he's got that Utah kind of vibe that you throw that into the mix and it's going to be incredible. Like we have to, everyone needs to come together where mass and you've got to get this thing under control. I do think that basketball will happen. I don't think that the, I think that, man, if we could talk about the whole big 10 decision with this football season and then how that leads into basketball.

I just have to say for the record, no one wanted football and especially Iowa football to happen any more than I did. And I'm so upset that, you know, it's not going to happen. But that being said, instead of placing my anger, frustration at the university, who is completely liable of any of these student athletes, and that's the key word, they're students before they're athletes. Any of these students get sick, and this thing is a ripple effect of what we don't know, we don't understand. We've already seen what it's done to the world and especially our country with the lack of respect for it. And with the lack of, of social distancing, we don't know what it could do. If you look at the liability that the university would have to take, it's just, I understand why they made the decision they did.

And I think that they felt the big 10 felt that they would kind of be the first and then everyone would follow. Maybe everyone will still follow but uh you know the sec is gonna hold out as long as possible but either way uh i think it was the right decision instead of placing the frustration and anger at the university i'm placing it at i'm placing it to america you know if we who's to say if we didn't follow the guidelines and take precautions back in March and respect it instead of making it a political thing, who's to say that we wouldn't be playing right now? Who's to say they wouldn't have figured something out and maybe they wouldn't,

but either way is, is our selfish need of watching football or the selfish need of playing the sport worth the serious potential of of students health and you know and then they say well kids are still going to class uh it's different going to class than literally like tackling each other and bodily fluids i'm not a scientist but that just you know to me sharing a locker room and sweating on each other and tackling each other. And we've all played sports, you know, hell, I mean, how many times you lick your hands to get a grip on the ball? I mean, you can't, you can't compare the classroom and football. And so I just feel that it's as angry as I want to be that we're not going to get to see it. I'm not going to place my anger at the university or the Big Ten when America hasn't done its part to try to make this

any better. And, you know, I'm sitting in Canada right now, getting ready to start season two of Nancy Drew. And it was really tough, number one, to get into the country. We had to have a work visa because the borders are closed. And in fact, the borders are closed to almost the entire world. America can't leave their landlocked. And why? Because the rest of the world doesn't want anything to do with us. The rest of the world is in a better spot.

Yeah, because a lot of the world, they listened and they followed directions and they trusted the science and they didn't make and um they trusted the science and they didn't make it political because it wasn't their election year and i could say has politics played a part in the fear of it of course but this isn't an american pandemic this is a world pandemic that america's failing at yeah and you know i'm sitting up here and it's like literally i want wouldn't say it's back to normal, but they're on phase three. Things are open. Everyone wears masks and it feels normal because everyone just, you know, respects the process and social distance.

And so because of that, my daughter can go play at a park, you know, and we can go and do things and it feels like some semi-normal again i don't feel scared um we're in la for the most of the quarantine march to july and we were just stuck at home we couldn't even go to a park the parks were closed yet at some point they opened up bars and uh you know it was still there were like loopholes and things about how you could go to the bar if it was outside or whatever but But I never thought I'd be the guy to complain that I couldn't take my daughter to a park, but I could get a beer. But I was pissed off. I'm like, why is a park closed, but you can go to a bar? And then sure enough, guess what happened?

It got out of control again and LA shut down again. So I think that we have to understand, you know, it's just one year, hopefully, if we can all come together. And then, more importantly, going back to basketball, my long-winded COVID talk. But, you know, if things can get sorted out and they can think ahead now, I think that this all happened so fast, and I don't think that they thought about solutions as much as just shutting down.

So now, between now and basketball, they can try to look ahead and find some solutions. I don't know about the bubble because that's a little bit different. Again, those are pro athletes and we're talking about student athletes, but a little bit more difficult. Yeah. But I think that they can, if they think ahead and I, and I do think that unfortunately after November, it probably will, the fear base will die down a little bit. And that is part of the politics.

But I do foresee basketball happening. Maybe it won't start until January, but it has to happen. This would be the funniest and saddest thing if the one year Iowa can win the national championship and basketball doesn't happen. It just feels like something that would happen to Iowa, right? Like the opportunity to win a national championship in basketball for the first time since the 90s or like the early 90s we have an opportunity to win a national title in wrestling and we might not have either sport that is that is sad but yeah i mean i would trade football in

a heartbeat to get an opportunity to watch the basketball team this year and i hope as you said i hope that people are i mean i just drove back drove back to Iowa in July to see my dad, to talk to him about some stuff and everything kind of going on. And I'm in Denver and everything. Everyone's wearing masks. Everyone's following the mandates. If you aren't wearing a mask, people literally scold you, which is great. I love it.

Everyone should be smart about what they're doing. And then as I progressively got closer to Iowa, it got worse and worse as far as compliance and there was a point where I walked into a restaurant to just get some food to take out and I was the only one with a mask on the waitresses didn't have a mask there was no social distancing and I'm like can we all just it's like is it really that hard to just for the love to stay six feet away wear a mask try to be smart about going out like it's not that difficult no and you know again like i said places like canada where uh they when we got here in the beginning of july

uh mid-july they were averaging one case a day here in vancouver one they had an uptick because of some drum circle on the beach and the uptick was like 50 and they were like freaking out that they have 50 cases so that's a good day in america yeah right dude that's like my block in la but um no it's like you know they canadians are rule followers and they respect they respect each other and um they didn't ask questions they didn't make it political. And they just, hey, look, what's it cost me to wear a mask? Nothing. And if it could help somebody else out, you know, and people are saying like, I don't know anybody that had it. Well, I do. I know a guy who died of it. And I know a few other people that had it and it was very serious. And maybe it wasn't so serious for other people. But if there is even a question that you could help your fellow human

being out why wouldn't you you know and that's just what i don't understand and it's saddens me that it that it's driven such a wedge into our country you know it's you look at even on facebook or twitter or whatever i guess i'm in the public eye so i'm trying to be careful about what i say and i try to keep my opinions to myself because i'm not one of those actors for the most part that I try not to use my voice as a soapbox. But I have said a few things about this because I just I'm so frustrated that with the whole system. I mean, for instance, when we came up here, because the borders are closed literally to the whole world uh my family can't come see me um you know i have a little one-year-old daughter and uh she can't see her family or grandparents because they can't get into the country and if we leave we have the

14-day quarantine when we come back and it was a that was a tough quarantine because it was we got here in the middle of the summer it's beautiful i I'm looking out over the seawall and everyone's walking around and we're just like stuck here, but yeah, it wasn't so hard to quarantine in LA cause everything was shut down. There was nothing to do anyway. Yep. Yeah. So anyway, basketball has to happen. I think it will. It might just happen a little bit later than we thought. And then hopefully we get a vaccine.

We start to get this thing under control and uh and then people take the vaccine yeah i don't know um but we'll hopefully watch football the following year um i am interested if the sec continues to go forward in the big 12 i do i do feel sorry for for the college athletes that don't get to play and then some do um and it will be interesting how that plays out with red shirts and how it plays out with transfers and and especially recruiting but i do think this is an anomaly it's like a once in a lifetime thing we hope so yeah um uh yeah and and iowa's been through a lot as a state too recently with uh storms was your family impacted by that yeah well my mom called she uh she called me crying and left

the voicemail and like literally was saying goodbye and i got the voicemail and i'm like holy shit i never thought i'd get a call like this like this is like a goodbye call and she really thought she was going down but um no everything around her like most everybody just got destroyed all the trees and um but she's okay you know they don't have power and so i'm trying to do what i can to spread the word uh you know and other friends of mine from iowa like zach johnson who is just the kindest human being there is he's done a lot um he obviously has a lot of means to help and he uses those. I know Kutcher has said some things recently about some more federal government

leadership. I don't understand Kim Reynolds. I haven't this whole time. On Friday, she said, oh, well, on Monday, we'll call in for help. And it's like, so the weekend, just take the weekend off and wait until Monday? I don't know. You and me both. The Kim Reynolds thing has been very – it's been interesting to follow her leadership in Iowa. And it's been interesting to follow just the public's opinion on her and just like the state of Iowa in general. Iowa has been just an interesting state

in the United States given coronavirus given what's going on now with the I mean it's just it's been wild yeah well and they had the caucus problem it's like we're definitely keeping our name out there but nevertheless but you know one of the things that I think is cool about Iowa is I noticed that someone had said that this storm had as much monetary damage as Katrina. That is one of the facts I heard. And, you know, same with I think it was the 08 flood. But you never really it doesn't make national news as much as it should. You don't hear about it and my thought on that is that iowa iowans are just humble hard-working uh people that aren't looking for sympathy or handouts for the most part you

know and and things like this hit they put their head down they they come together and they help out their neighbor and and that kind of stuff unfortunately in today's media doesn't make the news you know had they looted and rioted because there was no electricity that would make the news yep um so that's unfortunate but um that's why i'm trying to do what i can along with some of these other people to raise awareness but um they have a lot of work ahead of them from what i've seen and heard yeah i mean i think that's again that kind of falls back to what you know i think we both can agree on, we love about Iowans. I mean, they're like, you know, that sucks that there's not national attention or not nationally.

And then let's go help out our neighbor, get their tree out of their yard. And I mean, yeah, there's a guy that played high school football and Newton was a big time player. Newton went to you and I, and played a little bit of football there and, you know, he's living back in the town and he spent all weekend with a chainsaw, just going around clearing up people's yards not charging them not doing anything because that's what Iowans do I think that kind of falls back to like what also

makes Iowa so great as well as the fact like you know what people aren't going to help us and we don't care we're going to do it with by ourselves with our you know with our community which I think is pretty incredible really really cool really cool and you, I'm sure there'll be a lot of different donate donation things that are set up, set up and to help everyone out. But it's, you know, I've talked to a lot of my friends back there. They don't know when they're going to get power and, and just the cleanup. And then you talk about insurance, that that stuff gets backed up. And yeah, I feel and I feel really horrible.

It's just the timing of it all, too. But if everybody can hold on, we should have a lot to celebrate come basketball season. Oh, my gosh. All right, and that will finish it up for Part 1 of our three-part series with Riley Smith. I hope you all enjoyed that. We are coming back tomorrow and Thursday with more content from Riley. Again, a big shout-out to him for hopping on the show.

I know he's a busy guy right now in Vancouver. He was actually just about to celebrate his daughter's one-year birthday the day after we talked. And he spent time during his daughter's nap to come out and chat with me. So I really appreciate that. So make sure to go follow Riley Smith on Twitter. Make sure to check out Season 2 of Nancy Drew coming on the CW. Hopefully soon once, you know, they get back to finishing up that season. I know they had a couple episodes left to film there.

And again, thank you all for tuning into today's episode. If you liked the content today or have liked the content before and you haven't done this already, please make sure to like, review and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Thank you all for tuning into today's episode of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. wherever you downloaded this podcast at and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Thank you all for tuning into today's episode of the lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. Have a fantastic day, Hawkeye nation. And as always,

let's go Hawks. you