The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Postgame Show: We Run a Tight Ship

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

With comments from Tony Parker, a lawsuit at Ole Miss, and a TikTok generation taking hold, is it time that coaching will finally start moving away from abusive tactics and toward player empowerment? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to Giraffe King's Network. So, money's the thing, but it's not everything. I think you really look at the importance of what are you doing with your time. The conversations that we've had with our financial advisor is very much building what that framework looks like that helps support those important things. The places where you're investing your your time and your resources, your family clearly, and those closest to you. Edward Jones,

we do money differently. Visit EdwardJones.ca slash different. Stu gots I've been talking to you for years about wondering when it is that all the stuff that comes to other workplaces with this is an okay anymore. This is toxic. This is unacceptable. How you did it in the 80s, 90s, 2000s. How you learned how to do it in terms of creating environment. Young people, a new generation, doesn't like so much. The hard ass ways that have been unacceptable for workplaces that get filed under discipline,

leadership, we run a tight ship, etc., etc., stuff that I don't think they're wrong about. But of course, the people in power, people who are used to governing abusively, aren't going to want that power threatened or changed. There are a couple of places that I wanted to bring this up because over the weekend, Lane Kiffin was sued, and the University of Mississippi was sued by DeSanto Rollins, a defensive tackle who was claiming a number of things during a mental health crisis. He is saying that he was racially discriminated against in a way that white players would have been treated differently

and he's saying he was sexually discriminated against because he says women would have been treated differently if they were suffering from whatever it is that he is suffering from, that it makes him now seek millions of dollars in damages. And I was putting that next to to any parker in the hall of fame saying of gregg popovich

borderline abuse is what he thought popovich was giving him when he was playing for gregg popovich but he wasn't doing it to sue or condemn him he was being honest about something that made him better or something he thinks made him better. And when I put those two things next to each other,

and I asked you questions like I did last week about how many people listening to sports radio or sports entertainment want their athletes to have a boss who isn't the boss, they themselves would want to have, because who isn't the boss they themselves would want to have because who wants an abusive boss Who wins because he's leadership guy who's disciplined, but that feels abusive to you When's that stuff going to start? Not in silly lawsuits that people will dismiss and is not a trend because

Boo, who your coach was tough on you? I don't think that's a lawsuit that you can win in public perception right now. But I'm thinking, you have a better chance now than ever. Now I'm just thinking that this is all coming to sports eventually. The players aren't gonna get power and then be more abused.

The coaches are going to lose power here from how it is they've always done it. It's what you've brought with giving players power. There's only so much they're going to accept. So guys, save and left the pros because Jason Taylor wouldn't tie his shoes during the walk through. And what are you going to do? We makes more than you. Like, what are you going to do? Tough guy coach, you're going to go to college where you can still not have a salary, can't and have all the power. And the players are totally powerless. What are you going to do? Transfer? Well, yeah, now I am. I am going to transfer. And there's

going to be a line of savings here to take the sport from Sabin. Yes. Because I can play like this is what you've brought. And it's change that ends up being for the better, but is going to make the people in power really uncomfortable. Dan, it's for the bet. Yes, they're uncomfortable already, but yes, it's for the better, because really when you talk about recruiting regardless of the sport,

you have 17 and 18 year old kids making decisions that are really, really difficult to make. And you have no idea if you're gonna like your teammates, you have no idea what the coach is like because the coach is selling you something that's different than when you actually get there. If James Harden is- But now you have rec idea what the coach is like because the coach is selling you something that's different than when you actually get things. James Harden is now you have recourse, Dan. You can leave.

If James Harden is doing it at 30, what do you think your talented 18 year old is doing? Like this is how you get the sea change revolution. But again, I go back to what do you do with Tony Parker saying borderline abuse when saying he's crying in the shower. Does that fly today? Does Greg Popovich treating today's Tony Parker? When man Yama that way? Well, do you think pop has changed?

Do you think when Yama Yama is going to be treated that way? I'm asking you what it takes to change this workplace when accepted part of this workplace is all of this goes under the umbrella of that guy's leading. He's making me tougher. He's making me disciplined. He knows how to win. When I'm saying 80 year old guy might not have a lot in common generationally or what he thinks a workplace should be with 20 year old guy. Now I raised 20 year old guy on all the power that when man Yama has and he's learning. Pass me down from Duncan

and Parker and Chernobyl. This is the way the spurs do it. Borderline abuse is the way the spurs do it indoors. Tony Parker wasn't even criticizing pop. He was saying that it made him better in Tony Parker's opinion. And Tony Parker really know if it made him better or not. No, but it probably did make him better, but I'm asking you what somebody 30 years younger than Tony Parker would say when it comes to lawsuit time or workplace being governed like all the other

workplaces because I do believe in sports. You can treat you can treat someone like a piece of shit more than you can in any other workplace where that kind of money is involved. There are plenty of places where the labor have no power because you're not paying them and they need the job. That's what keeps them constricted. I can govern with a tight fist against people who have no real power. But when you've got employees who have legitimate power, I don't know when I'm sitting here

in front of you, when or how this is going to change, but clearly if the last generation of these kinds of coaches, Bellicè, Sabin, pop of it, or leaving, something's going to have to change. If you want to be the one who can reach the TikTok generation, if you now rely on the, it's not so much anymore, Stu got just do you have more money than everyone else, although that's part of it. It's, is it fun to play for you? Do I think your discipline is nice and kind and feels like family and is actual leadership?

Or do I have to abide something that's abusive? But it's different, right? Like even today, it's different for different people. Some people are gonna find that productive and winning is fun, and they don't care how they get to it just as long as they're winning. Some people are going to find it like, no, you're not going to talk to me like that. You're not going to treat me like that.

Even while winning, you're not going to talk to me like that. I just want to treat me like that. I really just wonder though, if the power keeps trickling down on the money, this all started in college football with the uprising at the start of the pandemic where the pack used to be pack whatever. It stands up and says players need to be paid. It all the revolution of this all started there. You know, after the those guys are grandfathered in by LeBron James and player

empowerment and you see how it distorts the nets because you can only give them so much power organizationally. You have to have some structure here. You have to have some discipline. It can't be the parents run your recruiting outfit on a major program or the boosters run your entire school. But the inmates running the asylum then, but it's, it's what's happening right now. But if you keep giving the players power, at some point, right,

you're gonna make the coaches power less, right? Davo, if you can't keep up, who wants to play for you? You're gonna make the coaches who are doing it the right way by today's kids' standards, who can relate to the kids, who can relate to the TikTok community. You're gonna make those coaches better. You're gonna make those coaches the bigger stars.

The coaches that can adapt. Greg Popovich is not gonna last very long if he's not gonna change i think he's not well he'll last till however long he wants to last and he will be the last of it but the coach has to parkers said it in the moment then hey this feels like abuse do you think pop is fine probably probably because of the time if when but yana comes out and says it i can't even pronounce his name but if he comes out and says it in a year, you think pop is going to survive that? So, God's, if Kauai Leonard talked, he would have said it. Right.

He would have said it. If Kauai Leonard said anything publicly, he would have already been tearing down whatever would have been of that organizationally because he left over it and didn't actually tell us why. I don't mean this to be a defense of pop, but if you remember, he failed. Like he wanted to be a D3 coach and he had to settle for being an NBA coach. So there's frustrations that come with that and he takes it out on players. At the end of the day, the people who make the decisions on whether you, you, these coaches

stay or go align with the older generation that don't view these things as abuse. Like I look specifically at Northwestern. They knew what was going on in that football program and the only like time they did anything is when it became public and there was public outrage. But well, they care, yeah, they care about financial liability. So like I, and I just don't see how a player accusing Lane Kiffin of verbal and emotional abuse is going to one day render coaches powerless because they can't abuse their players anymore. Like it is such an unequal structure that like this is probably just the tip of

the iceberg of the way that coaches talk to players and their programs and like I don't know. You're right. like you get away with a lot in sports. And I don't think that that's right. I don't think that should be inherent to sports that you have to get abused. My point is though that the younger people who are now coming into power, whether they're suing the university or not,

they're not going to abide this quietly and this is the second part of it. They're not going to do it privately and this is the second part of it. They're not going to do it privately They're going to do it publicly where you see again and again and you're going to get some of the same stuff to gots where The victim is then going to be shredded this defensive tackle for going against the program for being soft Gordon quotes soft your mental frailties couldn't handle coach for being soft, Gordon quotes soft, your mental frailties couldn't handle coach is going to become more of a victim. How dare you go against the program?

How dare you accuse us? How dare you go against a power structure that you find abusive? Abusive is what helps us win. And they're not going to be quiet about it. This is where the power is going to you realize that they're as in other scandals throughout America, when the abused comes out and say it says something, he or she risks more abuse. Go against this culture in small towns and winning programs that get their identity from football. I'm not even sure it's worth the $10 million. what will now fall on your head and this is what

because it's not it's defensive tackle tough guy what are you talking about mental frailty for ho are you why are you so soft that you can't handle coach coaching and he's saying no man my mental health matters why are you treating the white people or the women as if they deserve their mental health deserves more respect than mine i mean the coaches could just stop being jackasses not that's not one of the options it's got to be

forced upon them it has to be forced upon them and it's not going to be because i think most people listening to this would say yeah that environment needs to be not woke. That environment they need to be tougher. They're kids. What do they know? They need to be taught. They're muscle.

They're fast twitch muscle. What do they know about winning and learning? Harball show them. They need to be led. They're kids. Tick tock generation. Soft. All Miss made headlines over the summer because they were the first

college football program to bring in like a mental health like certification for players. So I'm sure that's probably in the wake of this. They're going to have the psychologist yell at them. I'm sorry.