The Herd with Colin Cowherd - All Ball - Celtics Blowup No Big Deal; LeBron MVP Over Giannis; Guests: Tim Livingston on In-Depth Tim Donaghy Investigation, Marvin Menzies Talks

Episode Date: September 19, 2020

In this episode, Doug explains why the Celtics reported locker room shouting match between Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart isn't a big deal, and why LeBron should be the MVP over Giannis. 'Whistleblower' podcast host Tim Livingston on his pod's in-depth investigation into disgraced former ref Tim Donaghy's game fixing scandal and if it ran deeper than the league admits. Also, former New Mexico State and UNLV head coach 'Marvelous' Marvin Menzies discusses his L.A. roots and unexpected path into coaching DI hoops, and coaching under Steve Fisher, Lon Kruger, and Rick Pitino. Make sure you download, rate and subscribe here to get the latest All Ball Podcasts! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

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Make sure you follow me on Twitter at Gottlieb Show. If you're watching on Instagram, on IG Live, at Gottlieb show as well. And, of course, you can follow my Facebook page. We'll put this out as well. We got two great guests on the podcast. Tim Livingston, who did a podcast which they had Tim Donaggy on. We'll have Tim Donagy on eventually. But we talked about Donagie, some of the allegations that he made about the NBA.

And I think you'll find it fascinating, the connection between that era of the league and the current era of the league. And one official who, ironically, used to have a bunch of phone calls with Tim Donagie, still officiating at a very high level in the NBA. Any cause for concern? And he will get down. down to it. Also, Marvin Menzzi, who of course been the head coach in New Mexico State. It's actually coach of the century in the whack. We'll join us. Wait to hear his stories. Hey, do you know he owned a bakery? I didn't. Did you know that he ran a nightclub? I did know that one. There's a bunch of other

hijinks. I think you'll love. Marvelous Marvin Menzie. If you're West Coast guy, an L.A. guy, Santa Monica City College, San Diego State, Sack State, forgot about them. UNLV, USC, Louisville, New Mexico State, then back to UNLV now at Grand Canyon. So a lot of lot to get to with him. Let me quickly give you one thought on the Boston Celtics. Then I'll give you one thought on why LeBron James should have been the NBA's MVP. First on the Celtics. I understand it sounds like infighting. And Marcus Smart cursing at his dudes and stuff being thrown around the locker room. But guess what? I own a dog. Do you own a dog? If you own a dog, you know the dogs occasionally will grow out on each other and one another. And sometimes they'll

snap at one another. It doesn't mean that they're going to go full-on dog fight or that you need to gather around and put some money down on old Buffy who's a sheepa-doodle, right? No, no, no. Dogs will bite, growl, snap as they kind of, in the pecking order

of any pack animal, one has to take the lead. And if not, there'll be some snapping, there'll be some barking, they'll be some biting. That's what you have with the Celtics. Look, any team that's any good that's ever been on, you lose, you're pissed, especially when you have a lead light in the game.

Now, for me, I do think this is a big challenge for Brad Stevens, who's seen as a basketball genius, and I agree with that. It's a marvelous coach. But can you take a hold of these massive personalities? And maybe more importantly, can all that great offense, can you run it late, especially when they go to a zone, as you saw the Miami Heat did? Big challenge for the Celtics.

So anyway, in summation with the Boston Celtics, look, is it problematic that they couldn't score against the zone, that they had a lead late, and they took some bad shots, and they couldn't get, yes. But little dudes getting after it in the locker room, getting pissed that you lose, I do consider the alternative, which is, what if guys aren't upset and throwing things

when they lose a game, they feel like they should rightfully win? Obviously, you got to win game three. If you win game three, we got ourselves a series because anything is possible. They very easily could have won game one in game two. Think about, though, the Celtics have not bounced back from trauma well. They were up three games to none,

and that series was about to be over in their previous series, if not for a Miracle 3 by the Toronto Raptors. And they would have been up one game to none, if not for Bam out of bio's amazing block. And of course, then they turn around and lose game too. I think it's a series. I think it probably goes seven, but they got to win three if we even want to have four be a question.

Now, Janus is the MVP. And I understand it, and I respect it. And he's a great player. And he didn't play that many minutes. And they won more games than anybody. And stats are great. But then this is not taking the playoffs to the bubble. I'm just telling you this.

Value to a team is not just assist. It's not just stats. It's if I told you this story, LeBron James, who I do play some of the responsibility for the dysfunction within the Lakers on him last year. But from last year, the end of the season, we have forgotten what a mess they were. He came back and they lost to teams that were tanking.

then Magic Johnson quit before the last game. No exit interviews. They fire Luke Walden. Well, first they didn't fire him, then they did fire him. Then they were going to hire Ty Lou, but Tyloo balked it only a three-year deal. They hire Frank Vogel, and it was like, eh, eh, right?

Hire Frank Vogel. And then they hire Jason Kidd as assistant. People were like, well, Jason Kidd's going to take the job. The best defensive team in the West, LeBron's not their best defender, but his leadership is why. He led the league and assist in order to get Anthony Davis going. And look, you can tell me that the roster's good. I will tell you that Danny Green is washed up.

Kyle Kuzman's had a bad year. Rondo is really over the hill and he's been banged up much of the year. They didn't get Darren Collison. I mean, go through that roster outside of Anthony Davis who's playing out of his mind because LeBron is getting in the ball and talking him up. They became the best defensive team in the West. They had the best record in the West. At the end of the regular part of the regular season before it got shut down,

they beat the bucks, they beat the Clippers. They were the best team. The cohesion of that team is because of their leadership. Your leadership is your best player. The best player is LeBron James. He should be the MVP. That's just me. All right, let's get you.

It's a really interesting podcast out there, investigating Tim Donaggie, the claims he made. Some were validated. Some were not. Let's check in with Tim Livingston. Justin, of course, hosts the Whistleblower podcast. He joins us on the All Ball podcast. Tim, what was the impetus? Why create this podcast?

The impetus, I'm going to give you a shout-out real quick because I'm a Jewish point guard from Southern California. Nice. You're our idol. You're what we all aspired to be, and most of us lack of the athleticism to become that. But I think the impetus was I grew up playing basketball, and I love basketball.

I love the sports. scandal happened and all this came out, it hurt me in such a deep level. It really rocked me to my core. And this investigation, which has taken place over eight years, was, it was kind of a healing process. It was, I wanted to understand everything that happened, the darkest thing that's ever happened in the NBA in basketball, in my opinion. And that's where this Odyssey really kind of kicked off from. Okay, so when you when you approach Tim Donagie,

like were you friend of court? Like, because that's, that's actually what I struggle with is like what I think he did regardless of why he did it or how, what he exposed by doing it. I mean, it strikes at the very heart

or the core of what sports is about, you know, on the opposite of what sports is, you know, supposed to be about. And I mean, it's like, It's like one of those, he's not a murderer, right? I don't want to think he killed anybody, but outside of doing physical harm to another human being, it's pretty bad what he did. How do you, you know, how do you approach even the discussion with him? It's really good question.

So, Donnie and I originally connected in 2012, and we connect, he reached out to me. I wrote an article that said, yeah, this guy is kind of a schmuck, but I kind of believe some of the things that he's saying about the system. I watch a lot of basketballs. I'm sure you do and I'm sure a lot of your audience does. And there were games during that year of the NBA, late 90s, early 2000s, where something didn't feel right. And so that's where our relationship started from. And over the course of this investigation in our first three episodes of the podcast,

Tim Donnie, he's not happy with me right now because I exposed, he's been lying about a lot of stuff for a lot of years. we exposed a lot of that, right? We exposed that the money that he claims that he brought in during the course of scheme, he claims that he made $30,000 in the primary season that this took place. He was fixing games for the course of four years. We kind of dispel that pretty soundly. We also, I mean, Donnie's also claimed that he didn't quote, fix games.

And we have a lot of evidence now that he did, and we present that accordingly. So Donahey's not an empathetic character by any means, but what's interesting about Donahe and the reason that this is title whistleblower is the idea that he was blowing the proverbial whistle about something about a larger problem within officiating in basketball. And this is focused on the NBA, but we found evidence which we're not even going to get into this podcast that are permeated deeper than that, that it went into college basketball and then went into baseball, football, tennis, it's really, just looking at all sports, this is an investigation into corruption at every level through the lens of, you know, we're trusting officials, we're trusting referees to be, to police our sports. And in this instance, with Donahy, he is obviously not a trustworthy policeman. But with a lot of other, with a lot of other officials, in my opinion, and after listening to this podcast,

where we break down Michael Franzis, former mobster, says he had two NBA referees on his payroll in the early 90s. There's a lot of evidence tying Scott Foster to Tindanahi, and their friendship and their relationship was extremely suspicious, and nobody's ever looked into that. And Scott Foster is a top-ranked official in the NBA. So we wanted to just dive into this investigation and really start to unravel a lot of this,

and I think what we found is pretty fascinating. Okay, so what did you find? So with Scott Foster, Scott Foster and Tim Donahey exchanged 134 phone calls from October 2006 to March 2007, or excuse me, April 2007 during the height of the scheme. Scott Foster and Tim Donahey always talked immediately after Tim talked to his bookie, or excuse me, not always, but almost every time they talked was right after Tim talked to his bookie. The duration of their phone calls was two minutes long. the NBA in its Petowus report, which it published right after this scandal,

they claimed that Foster Foster says they talked to kill time. Doug, I mean, first off, I haven't talked to another human being 134 times over the course of six months. That's not my wife ever. But if I'm calling you to kill time, I don't think we're talking for two minutes.

Scott Foster, so Donahey's co-conspirator, Tommy Martino, who he shared everything with, whenever Scott Foster called to him, he stepped outside to take those phone calls. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence around Scott Foster that nobody's ever investigated. And I don't understand why. And I don't think, personally, I just don't think until he sits down and answers some of these questions

about his relationship with Tim Donahey, that he should be reffing the NBA's most important games. Another quick detail, every call that Donahey had several phones. He was calling Foster from the phone that he was. he used for gambling. This was the phone that he was calling his bookie from and only people related to the betting scheme. Now was the phone he's calling Scott Foster from. There's just a lot of, a lot of questions, you know, regarding the guy who now is

the most controversial referee today, 2020 in the NBA, that nobody's ever answered. I just don't understand why. I, I, it's, it's, that's fascinating. Where else in basketball is this? You know, Scott Foster, obviously. sees a big name. Is there anybody else who's currently involved in the sport that is at at least mildly suspicious? In my opinion, not really.

I think the NBA has done a really good job 13 years later. I think when you think back to that era, I can name, and again, I'm probably not the best example because I've spent so much my life researching this. But I feel like as basketball fans, there's guys from that era, Dick Pavetta, Joey Crawford, Danny Crawford, just referees that we're just reffing every game that were, part of the show that we really knew. If you look at the NBA today, most of the referees are anonymous,

which they should be. That's part of the vocation, is that you should only exist in the shadows. We're tuning in to watch LeBron James and watch James Hardin and watch the stars. And I think a big problem with that era was that a lot of these referees made themselves a part of the show

in a really suspicious way. So I think the NBA today is in a great place. I think the game's in a great place. I think in 2006, 2007, you have to look at a lot of these games. And a lot of the free-throw discrepancies in the playoff games that Donahue referenced. I mean, we've had games. There's obviously the 2002 Western Conference Files, which is probably the most controversial game in NBA history

where the Lakers shot 27 free throws in the fourth quarter. But there's, since we've started this podcast, so many other playoff games that year have been putting our radar as highly suspicious where people thought, you know, the games were amiss. So we interviewed George Carl, and Carl referenced the 1993 Western Conference Finals game seven. The Suns shot 64 free throws in that game. Carl said it took everything in his power and all of his assistant coaches not to get kicked out in the first quarter. And there's all these games where it seems like somebody wanted a certain team to win.

And that's what the second part of our investigation is about just is there any truth there? Is it just referees had a bad game or is there something more suspicious at play? And that's what we dive into in the second half of the podcast. But to answer your question, I think the NBA isn't a good place now. And for those of us who love basketball, it's nice to see, but there's still a long way to go. Yeah, no, I mean, like, look, it's interesting. You're like, on one hand, the NBA isn't good a place. The other hand, tonight we have a game seven.

And Scott Foster, I think is going to be one of the reps, right? And you're... I think so. Yes. So it's a, it's a bizarre kind of place. place to be. I guess here's the here's the most important question. If it's on the up and up now,

do you believe it was on the up and up then in terms of the ultimate outcome of the most important NBA games? That's a good question. After this investigation, so we release episode four on Thursday,

so I can't say as much as I can say in six weeks, but after this investigation, and after devoting eight years of my life to answering that question, the answer is no. I don't think that those games were played with the integrity that we expect in the NBA and in a thing that we care a lot about. I don't think those games, I think all those games, there's a lot of games that here. It's not every game.

It's not every championship. There's not an asterisk by every championship. But if you look at certain games, which we're going to examine the podcast, and you look at the system, I think we as basketball fans have a lot of questions that need to be answered by the NBA. Last thing, the question you mentioned, you grew up as a Jewish basketball player in Southern California. Are you a Jordan guy or a LeBron guy? Oh, God, that is tough. I'm actually a LeBron guy.

And that's probably, you know, I'm 34. So Jordan's peak, I was young. I don't remember his greatness. Watching the Last Dance was, for me, I'm like the exact target audience because Jordan Peeked right before I could really understand how incredible he was. So maybe I'm going back. Maybe I'm a Jordan guy. Maybe that's why this question is so hard.

But I've been, you know, as that debate has raged on, I've been a LeBron guy, just because I don't know, I've watched his greatness in person. And it's so extraordinary. But don't, I hope your audience doesn't like not listen to the whistleblower podcast because of that. It's such a divisive argument. Is the whistleblower podcast only, only examining basketball? Yes. Franzis, you know, I mentioned earlier, like we interviewed Franzis for those that don't know,

former Colombo Capo and the Colombo crime family was featured Netflix's Fear City. He's probably, you know, one of the most open and. outspoken mobsters who just, he was brilliant. He was called the Yuppie Don. He was concocting schemes for the mob that were making tens of millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars a week. He's probably, you know, in my research, the mob, which is not as thorough as it is in the NBA refereeing, he might be the most brilliant mobster of all time. And so Franziz says he has two NBA referees on his payroll that weren't Tim Donahey. He also says that his game fixing operation spread to football, college basketball, baseball, and tennis.

Tennis is the easiest sport to fix. That's a different conversation for a different day. You just need one guy. There's a lot of ways to fix a tennis match. But in basketball, he had referees in his payroll, and he just describes it as easy. You know, the point spread is five. It's not, you know, you're not like fixing a basketball game in relation to the spread or the over-rounder, it was easy.

They just called a lot of fouls, right? One way or the other. So, yeah, I think it's definitely something we have to examine in all sports. I think basketball and tennis are the easiest sports to fix. But over the years, there's definitely been game fixing in pretty much every sport at varying levels. I can't imagine any sport that hasn't been fixed in some capacity in the past 30 years. were there any players that were involved in any of these schemes

for basketball? Yeah, so Franzis says he did have players and NBA personnel. I pressed him on that. He didn't really, you know, he wasn't going to give names, but he said you have players and personnel, but that referees were his preferred mechanism for game fixing because they had so much control. You know, if a player, you know, is bombing,

the coach can take him out, right? So he says he did have players, basketball players, in that era in the 80s and 90s, who he was working with. And again, I don't know, you know, he didn't name names, but he was a New York-based guy, and a lot of his operation took place in that region. That doesn't mean anything. It could have been so many for the San Antonio Spurs or Clippers or whoever. But he says he did have players.

For the most part, though, that's all we have on the players front is that allegation from Branzis. I don't have really any other, you know, obviously this is the Boston College scandal and a handful of others. Northwestern, yeah, I was a kid. Yeah. Yeah. But. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged.

It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined.

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What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam Jek. And I'm Alex English. episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack all day, but just so y'all know.

I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah.

For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking, Tripp Fontaine, Ryan, Ryan, Kornain. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough.

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Join me, Kear Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hardway. Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Learn the Hardway, and listen now. Arizona State. Yep, and so I think it's on the college level,

you know, if it was Hofstra versus Northeastern, and, you know, I think those are probably, those games for, if you can get a player, Hofstra's star player, you're probably in good shape. But for the most part, his scheme revolved around referees. Can't wait to hear it. Listen, in the meantime, great work. Thanks for joining us.

And we'll promote it. And I appreciate to be my guest, and the shoutout was really nice. Thanks so much. Awesome. Thanks so much, Doug. All right, thanks, Tim. That was really interesting. From Tim Livingston, a very colorful former head coach in college basketball is

dear friend of my brother who you've heard on this podcast. and a close friend of mine. He's Marvin Menzie, marvelous to anybody in the West Coast or anybody who's ever been alongside him. It just has a great way about him. Wait to hear his personal story as he joined me to tell us what life was like, how he became a coach after being just some regular student at UCLA. Reclaim your Saturdays.

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not enough people know about and we're here to change that. I'm April Dinwiddie host of the new podcast, Navigating Adoption, presented by Adopt U.S. kids. Each episode brings you compelling real-life adoption stories told by the families that live them with commentary from experts. Visit adoptuskids.org slash podcast or subscribe to navigating adoption presented by Adopt U.S. Kids. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families and the Ad Council. So, marvelous, let's start. You go to college where?

You went to where to graduate. You graduated UCLA, didn't you? Yeah, graduated UCLA. not to Hamilton High School, L.A. Guy, L.A. guy. I'm aware you're an L.A. guy. So what did you, were you, were you a manager at UCLA? What was your UCLA student life like? My, I was a coach, and I coach Special Olympics at UCLA.

That was my first experience in coaching. That's awesome. I had no athletic ability at all. Unlike you and your brother, I didn't have a chance to play college ball. I loved it. I played Midnight League, but I just couldn't manage the big time like you guys. But, no, I didn't UCLA was awesome. Enjoyed the whole journey there was, you know, joined a fraternity, five-beda-sign fraternity,

and got fully acclimated into a bunch of the stuff that a lot of times, you know, typical student athletes don't get a chance to enjoy it. I got the most out of that. Yeah, no question. Okay, so you get done with school. What's your plan? All right, good question. I come out of there and you've got to think back now.

I've got to think back further than you. So I'm 58 now, so I'm thinking back. Let's see. All right, I want to own my own business. I want to make a bunch of money like most people coming out of college but didn't have a specific plan other than I knew I wanted to do my own thing. I worked in a completion bond company in Beverly Hills for a fireman insurance fund. And I did that for about four months and realized that. wanted to sit behind the desk for the rest of my life.

So I just started dabbling in different things. Owned a bakery. I don't know if you knew that. I had a, the mobulous Fudge and Brownie Company in South Central, L.A. We had that for about four years before we sold it. So we did that. We actually started out in Westwood right down the street from UCLA, but wasn't able to. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

You owned a bit. How do you come to own a bakery? Well, I worked at Famous Amos when I was in high school. Okay. Remember the one on Sunset, like the original famous thing? I can nod and pretend like I know what you're talking about, but I'm a white kid from Orange County. Like, we used to come and play basketball games in South Central

at Challenger's Boys Club on the weekend, okay? And then everything moved to like Dominguez High School in Compton College and Victoria Park was where we played slamming jam. But that's like Carson. That's not even in L.A. So I can nod and say, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know famous, yeah, yeah, but I have no idea what you're talking about. Still, how do you...

I thought for sure you were. We're a little famous Amos cookies. I know what? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. There's a difference now. Do I know what famous Amos is? Of course, I know what Famous Amos cookies is. Do I know the famous Amos on sunset?

You know the famous Amos on Sunset? Oh, yeah, I know that place. That's the spot. I have no idea what you're talking about there. Okay, good point. Point taken. All right. Okay.

So you nailed it. Okay. So here's a deal. Okay. Go ahead. There'll give you a little more background. Yes. So I'm hustling to make a buck, you know,

and so I'm in high school. I'm catching the number seven bus to sunset and just off of sunset Libreya. And I'm working over there like, we're just grinding in the back in the bakery, burning up. And I'm seeing all this money come through this little tiny cookie shop, the famous Amos owned. And so I said, you know, man, this guy's killing it. And it was, we had a blast.

It was a great family atmosphere. So I graduated from UCLA. I'm saying, well, what do I know? What am I good at? Well, I know how to make cookies. I hit up a bunch of my family, members, and friends put a business plan together, went out and raised a pretty good amount of money, and actually almost got it open in West L.A., in Westwood, actually, right off of Wayburn there.

Almost got it open for commercial, but then we got slammed on the last certification, wherever it was. So I moved it into wholesale, moved into South Central, and had a blast doing it for several years. I was coaching. This whole time, I'm kind of, that was my way of giving back, you know. I didn't have a lot of money for tithing at the church, so I decided to be a service guy. And that was kind of my beginning of my coaching career was just kind of giving back to my old high school

and coaches Special Olympics at UCLA in the summer. Okay, so how did you start coaching, like at Santa Monica City? Was that your first coaching gig? What was your first coaching gig out of college? It was actually at Hamilton. we, the former, my former, I did play, you know, football and ran track and field and so forth, across country, stuff like that. But so my former coach, who was also my junior high school teacher, moved up from Lewis Pasture

Junior High, which is now Laces. And he asked me to come help him out because they just didn't have enough coaches, volunteer coaches. So I said, sure, yeah, I'll, I'll coach some basketball. I love it, you know. So I started studying a little bit of doing some A-U stuff. I said, you know what, it's pretty fun. And it kind of trickled into an opportunity with John McMullen, as you referenced at Santa Monica College.

He saw me bringing over the guys every year to Summer League from Hamilton to Santa Monica and said, hey, you know, this guy would be a good assistant. I can get you a few bucks, probably more than what you're making, which was absolutely true because I was making nothing. And then the Santa Monica journey started, which was awesome. We went like eight years there, had great time. I found out that was my passion over making cookies and running nightclubs. I don't know if ever told you my nightclub story.

I was getting to that. That one I knew. We'll get to that in a second, but keep going. Okay. Well, so then I go from Santa Monica College. I get an opportunity that I'll just give you the quick resume bounce from there. I go to Santa Monica to Sacramento State for a year with Don Newman. I go back to Santa Monica for a year, and then I go to – it's just incredible fortune of working with Coach Fisher and his inaugural year at San Diego State.

We do that for four years. I go to ASC with Henry Bivie. Then I go to Laudecruger at UNLV. Then I go to Rick Petino at Louisville, Louisville, to New Mexico State, New Mexico State back to UNLV. Okay, wait. You're coaching in junior college as an assistant and you ran a nightclub? Yes. That's just like it sounds, too.

It's pretty entertaining. So I'm at this time, I think we're in like early 90s and I'm just, again, trying to figure out a way to make a buck. I'm making a little bit of Santa Monica, but not enough to, you know, to live where I want to live and so on and so forth. So I ended up joining some friends. One of my frat brothers asked me to help him out because he knew I knew everybody. And we started the organization called the Highland Jazz Society. And it was a great concept. We had comedy and jazz from like 8 to 11.

And then we would just go into dancing. We'd actually literally move the chairs and tables out of the way and dance right there where people were eating earlier. It was an old school like dinner. dinner show and dance. I mean, we had it rolling, Doug. I mean, we had big-time celebrities coming through.

We had big-time entertainment. We made a really good run. I think we did it for maybe 10, 11 years. I mean, Wesley Snye. I turned away Tupac at the door. Tupac comes to the door. He's got some of his boys with him, but we had a strict dress coach, you know?

So I said, man, I know who you are. I said, but he was just kind of up and coming, obviously, so I said. but I can't let you in with your guys dressed like that. I said, if you, you guys want to come back, you know, dressed appropriately, I'll let everybody in free. And he did. They came back. They had a great time.

But Jack, Kobe, Lakers, Rams, Eric Diggerson, all those guys used to frequent the spot. So I wish I would have utilized connections. I knew that I knew about relationships and connections and networking back then. But I was just trying to get that $20 at the door. That was it. That was my goal. I had to pay rent. Okay, so during this time, you know, you're making a good amount of money, a little bit of money.

You're coaching San Monica. You had, but you had players like stay with you, right? Like, that's the California Junior College thing is you've got to find an assistant coach or somebody that'll take in some of these kids because you don't have dorms. You don't have apartments, you don't have money. You had like what? Oh, yeah. You'd have Kenny Bruner stayed with you, didn't he? Yeah, Kenny Bruner, Gumby, James Gray, another, you know, L.A. legend.

I had Sidney Faison I play with Sidney Faison He played with our team like Six through maybe eighth or ninth grade Right went on to play in the NFL Yeah Yeah yeah yeah Sidney we had

All those guys live with me I had a two-bedroom apartment And I had the one room And they had a We made the living room And we made the other bedroom We put two beds in there And so I always kept four guys

That were the The ones that might need me the most on the team, they would always have that option to stay with. Now, you are a sneaky, amazing chef. Where does that come from? I have no idea. I guess my parents, you know, my mom and dad, more than my dad probably, you know,

both of my parents are from West Indies from Guyana. And so I used to watch my dad cook all the time, crab curry and lobster tacos and all this, you know, exotic, crazy, really tasty, cool meals. And I just kind of got into it, you know, watching him. And we ate very, very, very well growing up. And so I just adopted that passion he had for cooking. What's the best meal you made?

I'm a gumbo. My wife, Tammy, you know, is from her family. Her roots are from New Orleans. And I just loved the meals. I just really wanted to figure out how to make it. really, really well. And so I'd practice and screwed up a bunch of pots, but I finally figured it out.

Entered a cooking contest. And when I was living in Palms, working at Santa Marco. I took third behind two New Orleans grandma, so I wasn't too third for taking third. But I got a $50 gift certificate, so that was cool. When you were at Santa Monica City, in addition to Sidney Faison,

played in the NFL, and Kenny Bruner and Gumby and all these dudes coming through, the football team, I'm close with T.J. Hushman Zata. Hoosh was there, and Chad Johnson was there too, right? Yeah, Chad tried out for the – he wanted to keep – he asked me both years and he begging me to get on the team, and I was like, Chad, you're going to play in the NFL.

Like Coach Taylor would kill me if I let you play on the basketball team. He's a great personality. He's just like he was in the NFL as who he was in college. He just had the big smile and great confidence, and he's a really, really good dude. I enjoy being around him in the junior college days. Okay, so when you interviewed with Steve Fisher, what did you do to stand out? You know, there was a, it was going to be tough, right? Even my current boss at the time, John McMullen said, you know, I don't want to bust your bubble,

but it's, I mean, it's Steve Fisher, it's a national championship, you know, coach, and you don't know them at all. and he's, and he don't have a lot of connections to him, it's going to be tough for you to get that gig. So Coach kind of motivated me to be different. So it's funny to ask that because I said, all right, what am I going to do creatively to get him to look at me a little bit more? Because I know I could do a good job for him. It was just a matter of convincing him.

So I remember one time I knew he was coming down to school. He was recruiting Marcus Mason at the time. I ended up going to Xavier. but Marcus was, he was coming to see Marcus. I went over to a restaurant across the street on Pico. I forget the name of it now. And I said, listen, I'm going to, hopefully I'm going to bring this guy, Coach Fisher in it, and the bartender was like, oh, my gosh, Steve Fisher, man, yeah, bring him through,

bring it through. And I'm like, all right, well, here's the deal. I don't, I need you guys to, I gave my credit card. And I said, I need you guys to not charge me. You could charge it on the card later. I said, but I want to. want you to pretend like I am your guy, you know, I'm just doing this great job over Santa Monica at the college cross-stitcher.

And these guys are all actors at these restaurants anyway, right? So he told the staff and so forth. So Coach Fisher comes over and he's about to get on the road. I said, hey, coach, you know, it's traffic's horrible right now back on that 405. I said, you want to stop and get a bite to eat and on the chance that he was going to say, yes, I already had it all laid out, Doug. So he, we go across the street. It's like clockwork.

We walk in. They're like, it's cheers, you know. Hey, Mark! Yeah. And so we go. We sit. We have this great meal. They come over to, I say, can I get the check?

They, oh, coach, you know, your money's no good here. Oh, that's the best. It was awesome, man. It just, it just, so Coach Fish is looking like, who is this? You know, and that was one of the things that did. There are several little other tricky things, you know, how people normally send FedEx's and top 10 reasons to hire this guy and so forth. I have cartooners draw up my stuff, professional artists, the buddies of mine.

So I just tried to really stand out from the other candidates he was looking at. So you get the job there. I would say, you know, the biggest name player you signed was Evan Burns. Okay. But Evan was what committed to go into UCLA. But that was it during the time when UCLA you had to pass calculus in high school. Is that how you guys got? Right.

And so then he was decommitted and then you guys got, like, how did that, how did that work that you landed Evan? Well, we, I was recruiting him like crazy and everybody was like, I was, you know, I'm a first year or second year, division one coach just fresh out of junior college. And everybody's like, Marvin, you're not getting a McDonald's All-American. You're not getting Evan Burns to go to San Diego State. So kind of like, you know, slow your role. And I didn't care. I was just like, well, that would be great if I could get that kid. So I just was a pit bull, man, and I'd worked, you know, the dynamics of his family.

I knew his uncles. They had went to Hamilton, and I had just developed a great relationship with his mom and his stepdad Bob and mom, and his mom, Shelley, who's passed by now, got at rest of his soul. But we had, we just developed a great friendship and relationship. So he actually went to UCLA and was enrolled in summer school there, where he was about to start in summer school. He was on campus when he got the word that he wasn't accepted. Well, all right, plan B, we got to move fast, right?

Well, who's next up that I'm most comfortable with? Martin Menzies in San Diego State. And then the rest was history. He came over, got him in the summer, he ended up having a great freshman year. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care which I'm saying.

Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball. basketball to college football or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment,

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Now, you're back at USC, right? So you're back at USC. Henry Bibby was there. You guys had dudes, but what was that like for it? You mentioned L.A. guy. You'd come up through the junior college ranks. You guys started killing it at San Diego State because I played against that first team that was dog shit. I mean, we're...

Right, right. I don't know if you, I don't know if my brother told you that story, but we're playing you guys in Oklahoma City, and we're up 40 to 14th to half, and coach, like, playing his day, like, right in front of the team at halftime, he turns to me, he goes, you tell your brother, he's got to get some players, they're going to get your ass fired, right? Like, it was, and, you know, four years later, you got the best team in the league. You got some transfers, some dudes from L.A. that people missed on.

You got Evan Burns coming. Okay, so then you go to USC. What was that like for you to be back in L.A.? It was great. I was actually living in Azusa because I couldn't afford to live in L.A. Don't they do interest-free loans at S.C.? Yeah, not in my tenure. No.

But it was good. I mean, it was home, you know, so I could just bop over to my mom's house any time. It was all my brothers are still there. So it was good to have family around coming to games and so forth. but the, I mean, Henry Bibby is, I mean, he's a really good dude. He's kind of got a reputation of being a little standoffice or not standoffice, but just kind of an NBA, you know, guy where you don't really, you can reach out to him and he'll say all the right things,

but he's not going to ingratiate you at all. And it's not true. The dude is such a good dude, man. Like he was really supportive of all the coaches. if he had a really late practice, he would, he'd say, hey, you guys, I'll cover it. And you say, you guys, you know, can be with your families. And he was really, really good. Of all the guys I worked for, he was, he might have been one of the best at in-game management.

Like, during the course of the game, just being able to identify something and tweak it. I mean, he would put a play in that we never even worked on. I don't know if that was for good or for bad, but it was, it was very ingenuitive, and we would get good looks. We just didn't have guys that could make shots outside of maybe Desmond Farmer. That was about it. But it was a great experience of working for him because I really got to know him, and he was a good dude.

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Brought to you by the United States Forest Service and the Ad Council. Okay, so what led you to go and work for Lon Kruger at UNLV? Honestly, USC was on the chopping block, and it looked like they weren't going to survive, and I got a call of interest to go to UNLV, but I didn't want to just leave Henry because he gave me an opportunity, so I'd go into his office as a coach.

If I can just get one more year on my contract, that's guaranteed. So if they do let you go, at least I know I'll be good, but they weren't willing to do that. So I just did what was best in my family and took the job with Coach Kruger over at UNLB. That was his first year as well.

We got him. some guys. Actually, I was only there for a year, but when we left, they went to the Sweet 16 with the guys that we recruited. Wink? I felt good about. Was Wink your guy? Who got him Wink? No, Wink was Lou, Lill. Loo Hill. Lou Hill got winked. We obviously, team recruited him, but he was the point, he was the point on Wink. He had the biggest. Well, hold on. So they went to the tournament. His son came over from Arizona State, his grad transfer. Wink was there? Those are the...

So who got Lou Almondson? Is that you? Yeah, well, he would No, Louie. No, no, so look, Wendy White's a good player, but all the, I just named the three best dudes. You didn't get them, Marr? No, no, no, no, no.

What about Joelle? Oh, Joel Anthony? Remember Joel Anthony? Yeah, he played a little bit in the NBA He wasn't, he wasn't bad. He's got an NBA championship. He wasn't bad. Do you remember the big,

they had a big kid from Africa, and I'm drawing. I'm playing on his name. They won the championship at a, at a, Compton College for Damon Powell. Holy smokes, I might forget his name. It'll come to me.

But he started for him, too. So I had three started. And Joe Darger, I recruited there as well. And Joe Darger, I spoke with yesterday. He actually lived here in Phoenix. We're supposed to get together next week. He does flooring and stuff now. So he's going to do my floor for me.

So now, Joe, that's a perfect example of why I got into coaching. I never even coached Joe. I recruited him there, and we're still friends. day because at the end of the day, man, that's why I got into this whole thing was to kind of give back and teach and give life lessons and kind of, that was it. And I just thought about that, as you said, that I didn't even coach Joe, but he helped them win. But it wasn't, it's not even about that.

It was about the relationships, man, and, and listen, here's my 100-year theory, okay? Okay. And 100 years were all dead. What did you do? What was your, were you a drop in the ocean or were you a type of? tidal wave or a ripple because of all the people that you touch, and then they went in touch because of what you taught them. So I'm trying to be a tidal wave in 100 years.

That's my theory. That's my theory. I'm sticking to it. Okay, wait. So you go, you did a home visit with Joe Darger, right? Here you are. Marvelous Marvin Zee from Los Angeles, right? Right.

Who had a nightclub, a bakery, coached Juko, you know, taking anybody. Joe Darger, I believe, if I remember, like, seven siblings, there's like eight kids, right? Great memory. Exactly, right. From Utah. So I'm getting, like, Mormon. So what, what do you remember? What was that home visit like? All right. So we were talking about this ironically just a few days ago when I was talking to Joe. So we're going to the house, there's, I'm not kidding you. We're at a dinner table. It's like 12 people sitting at this dinner table. Okay, because the coach from you and LB's there. So we go in and I'll tell us stories and they're laughing and we're having a blast.

And he's got a nephew that he said, hey, coach, you got to see this. I said, see what? So his nephew's like maybe five, four or five years old. And I went to the picture like an arc in a house that's just like a walkway, you know, and there's an arc there, right? So the kid, I can't forget it. I can't remember his name. but he grabs the wall and starts to climb up,

like he's strongest little kid I've ever met in my life. He climbs up the wall through the top of the ceiling, and he's like 10 feet up in the air, upside down, continues to climb and goes up and comes down on the other side. I'd never say anything like it. It was like a Cirque Day Soleil show in the middle of dinner. And so Joe says actually he lives here now. He lives in Phoenix.

I can't wait to see him again. He's probably probably doesn't look anything like to be a dinner. but he's right still as strong. So home visits, top five all time, just as far as connection and chemistry. And I was just myself, and they were just a great family. And it was just a good fit for him to go. And he had a good career there. Yeah, and that's the, you know, outside of Utah, Vegas is like the second most populated area with Mormons.

It's crazy. Yeah, no doubt. Okay, so then you go work for Rick Petino. Now, Long Kruger, by all estimations, is like all-time great. greatest guys, super classy, loves to play golf, but, you know, just a, just a complete gentleman. Now, that's not to take any shot at Rick Petino, but Patino is a, again, this is based upon reputation, especially then a very, very demanding boss to work for. He made you work out, you had to work out with the team or with a trainer?

What was the workout schedule? We had, he told me, he told me when I got hired, okay, you're going to, because I needed to lose some weight. So he said, all right, well, you're going to lose the weight. You're going to work out with this in the mornings early. If you don't make weight on Fridays, then you don't. You can't go out and recruit. And he said it very calm and just, and I'm thinking to myself, okay, what do you mean make weight? Well, we'll have an established weight that you have to have every week.

And if you don't make it, then you can't go out on the road. And we'll help you continue to work because you'll just have to get up early and you start working out with the strength and conditioning coach. and we'll be a little bit more hands-on with it. And I'm going, I'm kind of chuckling in the interview, and I'm going, is he serious? He wasn't playing. I lost 50 pounds when I was with him.

I got down to 18. I think it was 185. Damn. Yeah, it was no joke. I didn't think I could lose 50 pounds. But, hey, he's a great motivator. Let's put him like that. Intent, intense, detail-oriented, graded skill development,

one of the best I've ever worked for. I learned a lot from him, obviously. He takes a lot of pride in mentoring his coach. It's probably the most loyal guy you want to meet in the business when it comes to looking after his family, his guys. I mean, if I was involved with any job, you know, Coach P. didn't hesitate to want to call. And even get me in ball with a job.

Most guys are kind of like, well, you know, if you get in, you know, I'll call. You know, they don't want to – some guys are like that. You know, he wasn't. He was like, you know, we talk all the time still, and he was just, he was amazing. No, I have said he is the greatest modern day basketball mind. I mean, what people forget is when he was with the Celtics, they tanked before it was popular tank. They had two lottery picks. They just missed on Tim Duncan. When he was with the Knicks, that was the first NBA team really embraced the three-point shot.

And he obviously used that when he was at province, they went to the Final Four. his mixture of pressure and into zones, and then he changed and morphed his offense when he's in Kentucky, and then at Louisville. He's just amazing basketball mind and basketball coach, and it really is a shame because of how it ended at Louisville, I think, cast the shadow over what was really a remarkable run to a national championship,

and what really happened, what that program was really like when you were there. Oh, it, you know, so when I got calls on this from all kind of media when everything was jumping off. I was at UNLV when he was going under that firestorm there. And I just should tell everyone the same thing, which was, I wouldn't have it while we were there. I just cannot see, like, he is so different. I shouldn't say he so different. Yeah, no, he is.

He is. He is detailed. I'll give you an example. But it's not the same, though, now. Like, I had a coach, I'll leave his name out of it, who told me in his next, before this stuff went down, he was like, hey, something really weird happened. We played Louisville. What do you mean weird? He's like, we played them at their place.

We, when I showered and we went out to our bus, his car was already gone. Whereas in the past, it'd be like he, and I had heard, like, at the end, and this is one of the reasons it went bad, was at the end, he spent so much time in Miami and so much time in New York. and he had just kind of grown past the everyday thing and allowed others to take care of the little things, and that's where it went astray. That's what I was told that a guy who is. Okay. I'll address that, because I can tell you this. I stayed close to the program after I was gone,

and I knew a bunch of the assistants, and was close with them, obviously, and not obviously, but was close with them. Help coach and assessing who to hire in a couple of those spots, Kevin Keith, you know, and I were buddies from when he was a prep school coach and so forth. But in an Andre played for him, obviously. So here's a deal. I think coach, and I don't know, you say his car may have begun, okay, what was he doing?

Who did he have an appointment? Who knows? You know, I mean, can't judge anything off his car not being there. I mean, the bottom line was the man cared about his players. He cared about his staff. He was definitely in touch with the accountability portion. How it happened and how it unfolded, I wasn't there. I can't tell you, obviously, but I can't for a minute believe that he knew what was going on.

And now, is that his fault? Okay, well, he's already said that, yes, okay, I should have done a better job in maybe this monitoring the assistance or something like that. but I cannot believe for a minute that he knew. It just, it just is, it's the man I worked for would have, I mean, he would have fired me in a New York minute had he known that I was putting on, you know, having strippers over at the, at Minority Hall, which is his guy's place.

I mean, there's no way. I just, I feel to this day, I'm kind of like, yeah, not coach, yeah, yeah. That's not to say that things don't happen, and, you know, he could have maybe done some things differently. He'll probably admit that. But I just don't believe he knew about it. How did you get the New Mexico State job? Coach, Coach Petino. Basically, Reggie was there.

Reggie worked for coach and took over a minute New Mexico State, did a really good job, and was there for, I think, a couple years, and they went to the NCAA tournament. lost to Texas, and Reggie had the promotion with the Maloose. He knew those guys from the NBA. He got a chance to go work with Sacramento Kings, opened up in New Mexico State, and obviously he did a good job. McKinley Boston was the athletic director there and had a great relationship with Coach Petino.

So it was just a natural. It was like, all right, give me another one of your guys. Who's next? He had that kind of juice, you know. He did. So you get there. Pascal Seacom, what was his recruitment like? You know, it's interesting.

I have extensive relationships internationally, both Europe, Africa, some of the Caribbean. And I went over and saw this kid in African and had some guys that told me about him and so forth. And when he came to the U.S., he just, he wasn't, he was underneath the radar because he was very, very raw. college coaches go out, they see African kids in high school if they're juniors or seniors and they're not polished, then they usually move on because they stereotype. They think they're, you know, well, you can't catch. They got bad hands or they got this or they got that. Well, the thing about Pascal, as I noticed his progression, he just kept getting better.

Like every time I go see him, every time on the system goes to him, his improvement was remarkable. and then it just catapulted when he was actually with us, and we recruited him there, and he came, and then when his father passed, his motivation moved to a whole other level. And it was already in an upper echelon, but I've never seen a – I mean, we used to have to try to kick him out at the gym so he could get rest. It was – you don't come across guys like that often, and that's why he is where he is today.

But the recruitment process itself was pretty straightforward in the sense that just guys didn't, who I think he could have played at a much higher level, but he developed underneath this too, and he got playing time, and he continued to get better and better and better because he was on the floor. Had he gone too high of a level? Might not have worked out. So it was a perfect fit, perfect timing, and really, really happy for him. What were those big guys you had?

You had this gigantic, gigantic dudes. The Boulard brothers, baby. Bula, Bula, brothers, 7-5 and 7-3 from India. Originally, their heritage is in India, the parents were from India, and they were born in Canada, I believe. But Sim and Tanvir. And, you know, we recruited guys like that by design because our conference, the whack, was very, didn't have size.

You know, but the big boys had size, right? Anybody you've got to a playoff situation or tournament, You were going to go against somebody that had a footer, 6-11 athletic dude. And so we really concentrated on doing a good job developing and recruiting big players. So we had Chalisi, Nepali, and we had Sim and Tamvir. Poscow was only 6-9, but we had a bunch of 6-10 and 6-11 dudes in my tenure that, you know, helped us have a lot of success there. Yeah, it was interesting.

You know, you have these guys from all over the world. What's that like to coach? What's that like to coach? You know, I enjoy it because it adds another dynamic to the locker room where the U.S. kids are – I'm getting myself on a sling here, but U.S. kids are wired and raised in a culture that's much different than other cultures. They're selfish. They're entitled. No, no, no, listen.

Hey, I'm taking the year off. I can tell the truth. Okay, yeah. They're just, it's, it's, everything's changed. You remember when, and maybe you remember this. You remember when there was the only thing on TV for sports was ABC Wild World of Sports, and the guy was crashing off on Sunday night, crashing off the hill skiing. That was the beginning of the show.

You might have missed that. Yeah, no, no, I remember the agony of defeat, right? Yeah, no question. That was it. But that was it. Think about it, Doug. There were no podcast. There were no ESPN.

There was no Fox Sports and all of that stuff. That was it. We had one show for sports on Sunday night. Tracking Field was huge, and Olympic sports were huge. And it was a different time, you know, and team and unity and national pride were awesome. And then the Internet came. And then, you know, all of these media outlets and self-promotional-type deals. I mean, even now, today in the NBA, they said, LeBron versus this guy, or, you know, they don't, they don't say, like the good old days of Boston Lakers is, you know, maybe it'll come back one day, but it's gone.

Those days are not in existence. And it trickled down to the youth. The youth were, you know, becoming my minutes, my exposure, my opportunity to play at the highest level, you know, and just everything that comes with the scouting and the, the, the, you know, the, what do you call it, the AAU programs, and, you know, kids bouncing around from the AAU program and AAU program because of playing time. And it's just a really selfish me generation. And so to get back to the original question, there's a lot of kids that didn't grow up in that environment that were humble, hardworking, appreciative, that brought a different

dynamic to the locker room. And I thought that that was one of the reasons that I could get, if I can get these guys in the same pot, this big melting pot together, that the gumbo would come out taste of sweet. And we had some great relationships that were developed, a great teammates there were developing, and a lot of life lessons were learned as a result of me having a variety of cultures to educate. You had a ton of success there, and then UNOV had hired Chris Beard, and he changed his mind. He goes to Texas Tech.

You know, like, look, it's one of those jobs that I know how you're thinking at the time. Like, it's UNLV. Like, I can. Got to take this. Yeah, you got to take it. Right. But I also, I also know a lot about what was going on behind the scenes, you know, should you have turned it down? Like what, in hindsight, take me through your thoughts on UNOV?

Well, in hindsight, if I could go back in anything, I'd probably be a multi-billionaire right now, right? But you have to everybody has to learn from the success and learn for the mistakes. So to say, like, I don't think in hindsight, like I feel like people who say that that's bullshit, it doesn't mean that you have to live in the past, but you do have to learn from the past. Absolutely. And I learned a great deal there. I have no regrets for taking that job. I'm 100% a rebel fan.

I hope that T.J. does a great job. It continues to win. You probably have three of my kids starting probably next year. I think Bryce will probably start. Marvin's got a chance to start. And Backe Jong probably has got a chance to start. So I'll be watching those guys and pulling for them every step of the way. You know, it was, yes, it was challenging.

challenging situation and I got a little bit of an ego. I thought I could get in there and it didn't matter who was the president or who was ADI. You know, they were going to, they were going to keep me around because I was doing so well. We just didn't win enough for their, for their liking. And I don't hold that against Desiree at all. I think she's, you know, a great up-common athletic director who has to make, you know, had to make a tough decision. I think we had a great relationship and we're still, you know, we still text everyone. once in a blue moon. And, you know, it just, it was a journey, man.

It was a chapter. And I tried to get the most out of it going forward. Like you said, you try to learn from the past. And I don't think I'd do much differently, to be honest with you. There was a different philosophical, different philosophical approach when I, my first year, in terms of we wanted consistency, we want to grow the program. And then that AD gets let go. Right.

the president decides to leave. So now I've got a new regime who's like, we need to win. And so I'm like, oh, okay, wait, hold off. But, you know, at the end of the day, I understood and I, you know, I appreciate the opportunity. Yeah, that ain't that, come on, dude, you didn't get no, I mean, who gets that, that little time? Well, you know what? I got, I got, yeah, I mean, technically it was three, but it was really two because of the first situation, I mean, the first year. but it is what it is.

I mean, what are you going to do? I mean, you should have got a longer contract, more guaranteed at the back end. I don't know. So, okay. There should also be more black head coaches and there should also be this and there should also be. But those are all things that you got to work through, like you said, you know, and you got to learn from you got to try to grow from. Okay, so let's discuss, we got about like five minutes of it.

Let's discuss the black head coach thing, okay? Because it's interesting. Like, I view the PAC 12 as, you mean, like, look, those schools are as open to hiring whomever as any. They have no black head coaches. On the other hand, if I was being fair, I would say Henry Bibby and George Ravelling have been the head coach at USC. You know, Don Newman was the interim coach, and then they've had a couple black head coaches at Arizona State, right? Right. UCLA had Larry Farmer, Walt Hazard.

It's not like they have it. Cal's two previous head coach to Mark Fox were both, Conzo Martin and, who was the other one, who only lasted like two years. They're both, he was young guy. Louisville guy, what's his name? Shoot. That was at Cal.

No, at Cal. Who was the head coach before? Oh, Wiking. Wiking Jones, right? Another L.A. guy, but also a Louisville guy. You know, Romar was the head coach at Udub forever, before he got fired. The last coach at Oregon and Washington.

Washington State was the same guy, Ernie Kent, again, African-American coach. Okay, so, but why do you believe the overall number of black head coaches is so low right now when it's a sport that has given black head coaches opportunities in the past? Why are the numbers down instead of up? Well, first of all, I don't think you can look at any, you have to look at every coach on his own there and see what he could bring to the table. I don't think enough black coaches are getting a legitimate. legitimate look. So it comes back down to how many are really being considered in the interview

process as compared to, well, we better interview a black coach, you know, for perception, token, token interviews, so to speak. But I think that's changing. I think the social injustice is opening eyes across the country to say, hey, wait a minute, you know, maybe we need to operate a little bit differently and give elite. And the opportunity, I'm not saying they should hire a coach because he's black, right? I'm saying they should hire a guy that they think is capable of doing the job, and if he happens to be black, that would be great, but they're not going to know if they're not legitimately getting looked at.

I mean, you've got guys that, I mean, man, I mean, there are so many really good coaches that are out there even now that have great career-winning percentages, you know, that aren't really getting legitimately concerned, because of, I mean, how many times as a, here's the other thing, Doug, and we only got five minutes. I'll probably have to call you another time to get into this deeper because I don't want to, I don't want to just touch it and not really, you know, get my message across the right way with examples and stuff like that. But I will just tell you this. I think that it is, it is more guys got to be considered, more African-American coaches need to be considered.

Black coaches, wherever you want to call them. It need to be considered for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, those types of jobs, and I just don't think that has happened. Okay, so give me your best Santa Monica City story. Santa Monica City Story. Let me see. Oh, God, man, there's several. I probably, Jamie Fox. I'm running the nightclub. I'm at at Santa Monica Cubs, but I'm running the nightclub. I go over, and my buddy tells me,

hey man, you got to see this guy. He's going to be amazing. So a couple of my older players come with me, and we go and we watch Jamie Fox for about two hours, perform on the piano, do comedy, sing, invitations. And we were in tears for like an amaze for like an hour and 45 or so. And I'm going, who is this dude? And then, you know, history takes off after that.

But I remember sitting there with my guys going, this is amazing. It's not a basketball story, but it was like, wow. Like, this is, I am watching the next Richard Pryor. I'm watching the next, you know, whoever, like right now. And I knew it, I knew it, but he wasn't popular. He paid 10 bucks to get in. Last thing.

You're 58. You got a beautiful wife, kids, family, house and Phoenix. You're collecting a crazy check from Grand Canyon, right? You think things are good for Marvelous. You've done a lot of things. Life is good. Will you be a head coach again? You know, that's a great question.

I would go to the right situation at 58, but I wouldn't, I'm not chasing it to just get back in. I have a desire to, I still have a lot left to give, obviously, a lot left to share and teach, but I have to be somewhere where, you know, I would be wanted and pursued a little bit, probably. And it's a good alignment. And, you know, they've got a chance to win their conference. They've got a stable president, athletic director, and so on and so forth. I mean, there's a lot of dynamics to go on whether I would get back in. I will say this.

Brian Bueller, who's the president at Grand Canyon University, has been awesome to me and has given me great opportunities to dabble in some other things right now that are very intriguing to me that I'm doing internationally. And I'm in a position of his assistant and kind of a special assistant to him working with some projects that I have experienced. relationships with. And that's really fun. So I'm enjoying the COVID year off, but only God knows where the marvelous one will be in a year from now. All right, we're going to call you back. We're going to have a conversation. We'll have a couple other guests on with us, and we'll discuss the posity of

Blackhead coaches, individual and basketball. In the meantime, marvelous, thanks for sharing your story. Great catching up with you, and we'll talk soon. You got it, brother. Take care, man. All right, thanks, Marvin. I listen, if you like you like, interviews like this, check out the Doug Gottlieb show. Daily 3 to 6 Eastern Time, 12 to 3 Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, the IHeart Radio app, or wherever you download podcast, you can download the hourly or daily

version of the show. In the meantime, next week we'll get more on the NBA, more in the Western Eastern Conference Finals, and the college basketball bubbles which are starting to form. We'll make sure they don't pop. In the meantime, thank you so much for downloading. Don't forget to subscribe and to rate. I'm Doug Gottlieb,

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