The Herd with Colin Cowherd - All Ball - Pt. 1: Former Zags Superstar Dan Dickau Discusses Hoops Upbringing, Washington Commitment, Gonzaga Transfer Decision

Episode Date: December 17, 2020

In this episode, Doug is joined by former Gonzaga superstar and NBA player Dan Dickau to discuss his hoops upbringing in the Northwest, committing to Washington, and why he decided to transfer to an up and coming Gonzaga program. 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.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 IHard 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 I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show.

This is a place for raw, unfilled conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to the Clifford show on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok's podcast network on TikTok. On the Look Back at it podcast.

From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84's big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians,

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enchanted rose medley for $3999 or upgrade to 24 red roses for $10 more. Go to 1,800flowers.com slash tune in. That's 1,800 flowers.com slash tune in. Hey, welcome in to the all-ball podcast. Your boy, Doug Gottlieb here. And, man, we're going to have a two-part pod. And I'll talk a little bit about my recruitment during the pod. We'll talk a little bit about the, I've got to do an NBA preview.

Like, man, we just get these great interviews and have these. great talks. So I want to do all that. But first I want to catch up with Dan Dick out. Dan obviously was college basketball play of the year, play in the NBA. But in this pod, we're going to talk about him as a kid growing up in Portland and then in Vancouver, Washington, Vancouver just over. Well, I'll let you tell him where exactly it is.

What motivated him? Who did he idolize? How did he make himself in to the player he became? And why did he choose the University of Washington? I know there's actually a lot of people. that would probably listen to his podcast. He's like, no, Dan Dick Howe went to Gonzaga. No, he transferred to Gonzaga after playing a year and a half at Washington.

Like he did? Yes. But Washington and Gonzaga was not his dream schools. There's an interesting tie that binds the two of us that I will get to. I'll get to, including guys, I was recruited by his dream school. Nearly went there. It was like, eh, tell him I didn't. He'll tell me why he didn't go to that same school.

And then he went to what? Well, there's a bunch to get to. So you're really going to enjoy this. Without further ado, my guy, Dan Dickow. So it's fascinating to catch up with you on this level because, yeah, I would love to talk about current Zag hoops, right? And Zags Iowa this weekend. And we'll try and get to that. But like, I feel like you were Tebow before Tebow.

And I don't mean that from a religious background. I mean it in terms of like a cult-farm. following where like every white kid was like every white dad and he was like man you Dan dick out that's the dude like if he can be national player of the year you you can too you're you started playing basketball where you know that's uh that's a funny comment and and actually i appreciate that i've heard that from a number of coaches you know about five six years after i was down at Gonzaga that every kid they recruited or an AAU coach thought they had a kid to recruit, had the long floppy hair and my name was thrown out there. So it brings back some interesting

and unique and fun memories, that's for sure. But I started playing basketball. I was born in Portland. I moved to Vancouver when I was in second grade with my family. But I remember in Portland, I actually had three hoops at my house as a little kid. In our basement, I had a hoop that was probably, you know, like, it wasn't one of those plastic little tight hoops, but it was a, it was a hoop that went up on the wall, you know, probably no higher than six feet. And my parents used to say I would be down there for hours on end, even when I was four or five years old. And then we also had a hoop on our driveway that was 10 foot in Portland. And then in our backyard, we had a tree. And we had a backboard with a rim on the tree. So as a kid in Portland, I had three different

hoops to choose from. But I didn't play on a organized basketball team until we moved to Vancouver in the second grade. But back then, the YMCA only started teams in third grade. So third grade was the first time I was on an organized team. And I think that's something that's so important. I see AAU team starting at like fifth, sixth grade now. And they're traveling across the country. It's like, you don't even know how to jump stop. You don't know how to screen. You don't know how you don't know how to pass. It's, uh, it's become a completely different, uh, setup. But that's a, that's a whole other conversation for that that could take out. We can, honestly like, just, just so you know, so it's, it's fascinating because so I'm coaching my son in an AAU program.

And, and, you know, my dad did it, you know, for us. And he came when he got fired in college, he went up to Oregon State for a year. He came back. He was doing some scouting. He was coaching some minor league stuff and he started at a necessity for my brother and then he would coach like high level high school like back then was travel ball teams right yeah and anyway so when i moved back and my son was you know third grade i took him to a fourth and fifth grade workout and i had the exact same thought where i'm watching and i thought the workouts were good i just thought that way we we for you like skip things like hey they don't know how to jump stop hey you know they they don't actually know all the rules of basketball.

There's a lot of things they don't know that, and I don't know if it's because, you know, basketball camps back then were more teaching-oriented. I don't know if it's because we watched games more on TV. Like, do kids watch TV? Yes, but they watch a lot of YouTube and they watch a lot of,

you know, highlight reels on IG, right? And snap and these other things, where there are no jumpstop videos on YouTube that have a million downloads, right? But last I checked, you can't make all these plays if you travel every time you get the ball. So it's a fascinating experience.

And then what I've found is that the right parents that get it, they end up gravitating more, at least in the current moment, I may have another pod with you. They're like, wow, wait, you actually coach them? Yeah. You actually make them run an offense? Like, yeah.

We're not playing. We're not playing zone, dude. We're not doing that. We got to teach you how to guard your man and how to help and how to position your feet properly and all these things. And it might get us beat because you're not as athletic as another do. But that's okay. It's a marathon, not a sprint. I want to go to, okay, so Vancouver, Washington, right, is right on the border of Oregon.

Yeah. So you've flown into Portland many times, I'm sure, right, Doug? So the Columbia River is right there. The bridge that you see when you land at the airport, that takes you to Vancouver. So you go north from the airport, you're in Vancouver, Washington, you go south, you get into the heart of Portland. And so, you know, I grew up when we moved to Vancouver, we were 15 minutes away from the Rose Garden. They call it to Motor Center now. I never will call it that.

It's it's the Rose Garden. Sure. So, but it's fascinating because that's been like a little wellspring of especially Gonzaga players, but it's a good little bass spot. Was your dad a hooper? Like what was, you had three hoops up? Did he just love it? Or what was it? No, my dad was actually a golf teaching professional before he got into pharmaceutical sales right before I was born.

So there was some athleticism there. He had eye coordination. He liked basketball, but he didn't play at any high level. But, you know, I think as with any kid that ends up having some success in any sport or even any endeavor, whether it's, you know, another hobby, you got to, you have to, you have to, love it on your own and you have to be passionate enough and driven enough to just spend countless hours on your own doing it until you perfect different things. And that's something that I was always willing to do. I mean, I never had video games system growing up. I think the first time I actually

had a video game system was an Xbox when I was at college at the University of Washington. that it wasn't even mine. It was my roommates. And I thought it was the coolest thing because that was back when college players, they had the college game, but they couldn't use your name, but you had the number. And it looked exactly like you. And I thought that was the coolest thing that I was on the game.

Yeah, I was black, actually. Couldn't shoot, which was accurate, right? I was black, super fast, really pass. But I could, but I was, I was, they changed my race, which I'm actually, actually really kind of, good with, right? Like, that's that, that, that, that, I don't take that as a negative in, in any way. You know, it's fat. So, okay, I grew up shooting hoops at Garrett Phipps's house. So I grew up in, it's about six years old. We moved to Orange, California. And our driveway was slanted. And so back

then, you didn't have the portable goals, right? You couldn't, by the time I was in high school, we had one on the sidewalk that you could shoot in the street. But as a kid, they didn't have those. So I actually never had a hoop in my driveway ever. I had to go like six doors down and he, the kid Garrett was my brother's age. And he had a flat driveway. And so I'd go and I just asked his parents or my, somebody asked his parents when I was really little like he likes to come shoot.

And it's the exact same thing. And I used to play imaginary games just all afternoon. I would do, I would be the announcer and the player. I would announce the game as I play or I'd, I had introduced myself, and I'd do high fives with all the plants on the way down to Garrett's house, and I go and shoot. And then my brother, who of course has been an assistant coach for 25 years, he, that wasn't his thing. Like, he wasn't a self-motivated guy at that point in terms of hoop.

So they used to kind of camp out in Garrett's parents' garage because they had these Takade posters. And the Takade posters were basically topless women, the beer, or maybe skimpy bikinis or whatever. and they would make fun of me, and I'd be out there shooting. So it was always your driveway, or was there a local park that you went and you kind of honed your game? So when we moved to Vancouver, that was second grade. And luckily, a couple years after that, I was, my parents, we joined an athletic club called Club Green Meadows.

And it was about seven or eight minutes from where we lived. And my parents would take me there as often as they could get me there. I became old enough where they'd just drop me off for a few hours and I'd be able to shoot. But the unique thing about that place was, starting from a young age, they had three courts. And so there were six hoops. You could always find a hoop to shoot on regardless of the time. And the other cool thing was this was before NBA teams had practice facilities, where they would open it up for the other road team to come practice at the day of

before the game or a lot of colleges would host teams for practice. So Club Green Meadows was such a good facility that NBA teams would come to Green Meadows in Vancouver in practice the day before they played the Blazers. So as a young kid, I was able to watch NBA practices. I remember watching the Spurs. I remember watching it was the bullets at the time, the Hornets. I watched a number of different teams at the NBA level practice as a young kid. And I just sit there watching and start kind of picking and choosing different things to watch and different guys.

I remember I got to meet Wes Unsel. Years later, I'd met him again during the NBA draft process and stuff. But I remember meeting Wes Unsel because he was a coach at the time with the Bullets. I remember Liddell Eccles, if you remember that name. I played one-on-one as like a seventh or eighth grader against Joe Wolfe when he was with the Hornets. and so I was able to kind of really see the NBA game, pick and choose different things that different guys were doing in the practices, and then go out and work on that once they left.

And it was a really unique experience for a young kid because what kid gets to do that. So fast forward a few more years being at Club Green Meadows, every Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, they would have open runs. And it was with the old guys. And you know how it is, Doug, as a young guy. guy, you've got to kind of earn your stripes. You've got to earn the ability to be on the court. And so when you're an eighth grader or a ninth grader and you're playing against, you know,

whether it's a 25-year-old guy who was playing in college two years ago, which there were plenty of there, or there was a 45-year-old guy that's a city league legend. If you're the young guy wanting to get on the court, you got to figure out, okay, well, you win, you stay, you lose. You got to sit for 45 minutes. Nobody's going to do that. And if you are the young guy who screwed it up for everybody, you're not getting back on or you're not going to be invited in play. You're going to be told to go, hey, kid, go shoot over there. So I figured it out from a pretty early age, how to compete and what it would take to win in a team concept.

And then as my skills grew throughout high school, you know, I was the guy that all the old guys wanted on their team, whether they were fresh out of college or whether they were an old guy because they knew we were probably going to win because my skills kept getting better and better. So I credit Green Meadows for a lot of my basketball career. So I was two places, racquetball world. And what's fascinating, so my best friend in basketball, my best friends in life is Miles Simon.

Okay. I know you know well. Yeah. Miles and I started playing together in fourth grade. But what's interesting about Miles is he grew up in a town called Pocentia, which is really close to Fullerton. And he played at racquetball world. There's only two racquetball worlds, I believe.

in Fullerton, I grew up playing at rackball world in Santa Ana. Like we lived parallel lives where our dads would take us to rackball world. My dad was a racquetball player. And we would play like all day, but we didn't actually play with each other for the most part until like high school. We're like, you play a ragball world? And we were best friends. We'd occasionally go to each other's rackball world and we'd have sleepovers. But that was that was it?

Who was your idol growing up? Like was there a guy that you tried to emulate? Yeah, I had a couple of them. You know, every kid that was our age, Doug, and I would imagine you would say the same would be Michael Jordan. And that's the easy one. He was greatest player of all time. He was unbelievable to watch. But for me, growing up in Portland, I love Jerome Cursey and Clyde Drexler.

But bigger picture in the NBA, I love John Stockton. And oddly enough, all these years later, John and I are good friends. And I get to talk with him all the time. I mean, the craziest shit ever was. So I knew that, I mean, I had a feel like, first of all, Jerome Cursey was one of those guys. Why didn't he shave his head? He was like perpetually going bald. Like, why didn't he shave his head?

He used to watch him in the NBA finals. And then, you know, Clyde was like, you know, the Pacific Northwest Jordan. Like, well, we got, we get, right? But it is, I, obviously we can skip steps or whatever, but that is fascinating, right? You grew up idolized in the sky and all of a sudden, wait, now you're in his morning workouts. Yeah. And now you're playing at his school and in many ways surpassing everything he did at his school. And now years later, you're close friends, like you're a mentor to his son.

Like all of that stuff has to be just fascinating. Yeah, it blows my mind sometimes. You know, and it's because like I'll make a comment at home to my wife that, hey, Stocks has got open gym this day or whatever. He just, she'll just look at me, Stocks. Like, yeah, John Stockton, everybody up here that knows him. I'll just call them stocks. But, you know... 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, Clifford 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. 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,

and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Cliverts Show isn't just a podcast, it's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So if you've ever supported me, or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to the Clivert Show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs?

Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. 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 J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a 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 you 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 IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Keer 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 Clark. 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. Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth? Or are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different

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Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Learn the Hardway, and listen now. The reason why is I was a understized white kid from suburban Portland, Vancouver. And, you know, you tend to gravitate towards and look to dream about, hey, if that person did it, maybe I can do it if I work hard and things work out.

And so I kind of always looked at it as, hey, when I'm big, I'm probably going to be no bigger than John Stockton when I'm fully grown. He's good at this, this and this. Well, I need to try to be good at those same things. And you're right. I mean, it has come full circle when I get a chance to go down and play in his open gyms. It's a lot of fun. I mean, he still plays it.

I mean, shoot, I'm 42 now. He must be 55, 56. And he still plays. You know, he's got a mix of guys, whether they're high school kids. kids, fresh out of college kids, guys playing from overseas or some older guys. He's got a nice mix of guys that play in his open gyms. That's amazing. Get right to the romance and find the way to wow this valentines with 1-800flowers.com.

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And it's amazing because, like, there's a, I want to have a pot with my boy, Chris Johnson. I grew up as a UCLA fan. We moved out here, and my dad kind of befriended Sam Gilbert, who was like the legendary booster at UCLA. When Walt Hazard was the coach, his two sons, Jalil and Rashid, were teammates of mine. We had him on our travel teams, whatever.

I would stay at the house. I'd be ball boys sometimes. We had season tickets when Jim Herrick took over. He tried to help coach Herrick. And I was offered a scholarship there and did not go there. And all the kinds of myriad of reasons why. Was Udub like always your place? Like why Udub out of high school?

No, I actually wanted to go to university. Oregon. I went to one game at Mac Court. I believe it was my freshman year of high school. Jason K. would have been a freshman. So it would have been 94. Jason K. was a freshman. So the only year in college, I believe it was 94. And I was blown away by Matt Court. Like just the energy in the building, how cool it was on the outside, how amazing it was on the inside. And, you know, at that time, I wasn't being recruited by anybody. I was a freshman in high school. Yeah, I was playing varsity, but still at the time I was 5, 9, 140 pounds,

and nobody myself included knew what to expect in my career. And so fast forward a couple of years, and I'm good enough to now be recruited in the start of my junior year by pretty much everybody in the West Coast Conference, some in the Mountain West. I would say Washington, Washington State, USC, Stanford were recruiting me, but Oregon was the school that I wanted. I wanted to go to Oregon. And my high school coach, he called them probably monthly.

Hey, I got a point guard here. These other schools are recruiting them. It would have been, so 95, 96, somewhere in there. So Jerry Green? Jerry Green, yes. unbelievable staff by the way and you'll be amazed at how there's a

bigger connection than you think but the staff for people don't know Mark Turgeon right yep yeah he was there Darren Kalish I don't remember him okay so Darren was

he's from Southern California and he coached he was a coach with Team of Villa and Team ofia's claim to fame was among other people they had they had Keith Van Horn and Darren went from Oregon

to working for Adidas. Okay. And then I think he's, I think he manages people's money in the, in the NBA now, whatever. Darren's a great dude. And then Tad Boyle was the other assistant. When I,

I know because I visited there in 97, spring of 97. And I, and my background in MacCourt was my dad was an assistant for one year at Oregon State, A.C. Greens last. year okay I'll never forget and we stayed down here and I'll never forget that he called me he's like there's the most unbelievable atmosphere I've ever seen when we played at

Oregon their gym is like made of wood and so the whole thing shakes so we're at the retail line and they had to stop the game because the students kept making the the the goals sway and I was like yeah it's like your dad telling you like no yeah right yeah and sure enough I go and visit and in the spring of 97 they play Arizona who like a month later we win a national championship jerry greens the coach kenya wilkins was their point guard he was tremendous he was amazing he was an l.a guy i think dorsey high school and he was one of those guys just junkyard dog scoring one tough as hell right and it was the best atmosphere i'd ever seen in my entire life but here's the downside to it. Okay. And I want to hear why why they were so late in recruiting.

I go and I had just been to Oklahoma State and a visit where I played my freshman year at Notre Dame. I left. I sat at a junior college, blah, blah, blah. So they're like, you'll sit, you know, normally you sit in the section. They have like, you know, a girl who's a host or whatever, you know, you've been on visits, whatever. And they have people come and introduce themselves. Back then at Matt Court, um, the player sat on bleachers with, like, like little pads in the front row of the bleachers. And then as a recruit, my knees were literally right behind the bench. So I'm sitting behind these guys.

And Jerry Green came from, he was like a North Carolina guy, right? Where he, not in terms of where he was, but he was in that North Carolina basketball background where they were constantly subbing guys in and out. Point guard called the defenses, whatever, but they, he, it was like a turn style with a guy subbing and out. And you know what happens when you're, you take dudes out in college, they come out and all they did was motherfucking up and down. This dude, you don't know what he's doing.

Right. They won the game. They beat Arizona, who was a more talented, unbelievable team. But they come out of the game and every bitch and gripe about everything they're doing. And I was like, oh, oh, anyway. Okay. So why did they offer you? What happened?

No. So like I said, my high school coach called them probably once a month. And, hey, I got this kid. he's being recruited by such and such schools. His dream school was Oregon, and they showed no interest, none. I don't even think I got a single, you know, they send the questionnaire letters.

I don't even think I got one of those. So then after my junior year, I've got a, I have a good spring, and then in the summer I go to Nike All-American Camp, and I make one of those three All-Star games. And as soon as that camp was over, all they do,

they want you. want you. They want you. They want me. But, but a month prior to that, they're like, no, we've got the point guard of the future in the PAC 12, Mike McShane. And I had known Mike for years. And it was like, hmm, okay. That's, that's interesting. So, you know, I mean, you're a 17 year old kid making a decision. I might have been rash and kind of marking them off the list once they were interested. But at the same time, it's like, you know what? That was my dream school. You never even wanted me until I went and played at a high level. You didn't trust my eval of myself,

my high school coaches eval, my AAU coach. Because after Nike camp, before Nike camp, my main schools were Washington, Washington State, Portland, because it was so close to home, Pepperdine, because Lorenzo Romar, and Stanford. And those were pretty much stayed my final choices. But I did have a phone call or two with Kansas. I did kind of get interested in Penn State.

and there was a couple other schools in the Midwest, Tulsa, because they were just coming off a couple sweet 16s with Shea Seals. But really at the end of the day, I went to the Pack 10 and you dub, and you know this as well as anybody, all the good players at that time, especially if you were a guard,

you wanted to go to the Pack 12, Pac 10. It was guard crazy. Terrell Graham, Davis-Thadomar, Mike Bibi, Jason Terry, I mean, up and down- Dominic Gelson in Washington, Dominic Ellison in Washington State was a bad boy. Bad boy.

So many good players. Art Lee. Art Lee, who's also Team ofia, by the way, Art Lee. And you mentioned Brevin, then it was Art Lee. Then it was... Well, I'll tell you a quick story. So Stanford was one of my final schools as well. And anybody knows you go to Stanford.

If it doesn't work out on the basketball and you're going to have a pretty good degree and it's going to open quite a few doors for you. So they were recruiting Mike McDonald and myself. That was their final two points. Mike, Mike played for my dad, by the way. Okay. So Mike McDonald and myself were the final two guys that Mike Montgomery had pinpointed in that years because they needed a point guard.

So I had a home visit set for Mike Montgomery and one of the assistants, I think, on a Wednesday. And if everything went, well, I was going to go down the following weekend for a campus visit. Well, they called me on, I think it was a Monday night or a Tuesday morning. Hey, camp, our home visits off. Mike McDonald just committed. Committed. And that's how it is with recruiting. Unless you, you know, jump on it.

Here's my, here's my, here's my Stanford one, okay? Here's my Stanford one. So I'll never forget. I was my high school coach, the guy named Andy Ground, and he just retired from Saddleback as like the best junior college coach in California. And he had an office right next to the basketball gym, and I'd hang out there, you know, you get down with class, you go to practice, you hang out, we just hang out there all day.

And I got to, he got to call Mike Montgomery calls. called him. And he puts me on the phone. And he's like, you know, listen, we want to offer you a scholarship. You know, it's kind of the U and Art Lee thing. You know, they had me slotted head of art, whatever. Art was a tremendous player. We'd go at it in a U ball.

And he's like, look, here's the deal, you know, we'll sign you. You'll be Brevin Knight's backup for two years. You'll play some with him. And then in two years you'll be the starter. And I was like, coach, I'm just not really interested. interested in I want to go somewhere. I got a chance to start as a freshman, you know, and if not, definitely as a sophomore, like I ain't waiting two years.

I just know myself, I can't do it. Anyway, he was just kind of very, very matter of fact. And then they took art. And, you know, the one thing about Monty and my brother worked for Monty is he actually is a guy of his work. Like his problem was always, he's just too honest. Right. Whereas other coaches, I have one of those stories.

UCLA's whole thing was like, hey, five guys. Dougie, we play the best five guys. You were like, okay, but you, you took a commitment. from a junior and I'm a senior like, you know, um, okay, so you go to UW and to be fair like at the time. Okay,

so I knew like I'm, I'm with you. Arizona was all the guards. Arizona State was still kind of a little bit in the rogue. You know, they always had dudes that were like, like Eddie House, like no real position,

but just ballers. Right? Just ballers. Um, my problem with USC was, this is before they built the game. Island Center and they had really good players, but nobody cared. Like, nobody went to their games and the sports arena had such a bad rap that it was hard to get guys to go there.

UCLA won the national championship, my senior year in high school, right? Cal had Jason Kidd and then Randy Duck. Randy Duck was good. I played with him in the USBL. I got it was fucking good. But then they had Jolani Gardner the year before me. And they had a team that was over the salary cap, right? Stanford, Wazoo.

Udub. Now, you went to Udub with, was Donald Watts a freshman when your freshman? He was sophomore year. Donald would have been a junior my freshman year. No, sophomore. He was one year older than me. Yeah.

And so Donald, you could kind of see things building at University of Washington when Coach Benner took it over. Gradually getting better year by year, Donald Watts, Dionne Luton, who I think you played with at Oklahoma State was a year older than me. So, no, Donald was two years older.

He didn't. Deion was from Oklahoma City, but he didn't go to Oklahoma State. That's right. That's why you guys played us because you brought him home. That's what it was. Yeah. So Dionne Luton was a tremendous shooter. And then we had two really good seven-footers, Patrick Famerling from Germany. And then Todd McCulloch, who obviously played in the NBA for about six years. So you saw the kind of trajectory of what you thought the program could be. Granted, you never, you knew, at least I knew. we were never going to be UCLA or Arizona.

But, you know, as a kid, you always want to have a chance to, you know, play right off the bat, like you mentioned. And you want to go to an NCAA tournament. I thought both of those things were possible for me. And, you know, looking back, you know, the way recruitment went versus the way your first year on campus went really wasn't what I was expecting. And I think that's indicative of a lot of kids. you know, they get told something, they get their hopes and their thoughts in one ways, and it doesn't quite work out. And not that I was guaranteed to be a starter, but, you know, if you looked at the two seniors

that played ahead of me in the rotation, neither one were better than me. And you know me well enough. I'm not going to be talking bad about another player. But, I mean, it was pretty obvious to me that, you know, I was going to have to earn my minutes. And I earned them, you know, as a freshman, I still played 13, 14 minutes a game. and I had some big moments in some big games down the stretch of the season. But, you know, freshman year didn't pan out quite as well minutes-wise as I had thought or hoped. But we made this Sweet 16, which U-Dub hadn't done and who knows how long.

So they ended up being a really good freshman year. And then some different things happened, injury-wise, and then leading into my sophomore year that made me know that was not the place for me. Okay, so you skip some steps there. Okay, so. Always do. My mind's my mind. No, no, it's okay. It's okay. It's okay. I'm, my mind scatter as well. So here's what I remember. We played you your freshman year. Yep.

And I was hyped because I was, it was like you were like one of our first. We were, I go to Oklahoma State and the two years before I get there, they're 17 and 15. And they just, they kind of sold me on, hey, we need a point card. And, you know, it actually, it's kind of crazy. Oklahoma State was a place where everything they said actually kind of came to fruition, right? We're like, we're going to move these guys, their points to the two. and everybody's going to move down a position or whatever. We'll play a little small.

And it kind of worked out. But I remember coming in, all the guys, and this is, again, how A-U is a little different now than it was then. They all knew all the guys from that part of the country. So, like, they all knew Dionne Luton. I mean, yes, they're like, they kept to call them, keep on shooting Dionne Luton, right? They're like, and they were hype because Joe Atkins and Estelle Laster,

who were the two sophomore guards that were trying to be points that became twos, they were hyped about playing a guy who they grew up playing with or against or whatever. And, you know, we had a big guy, Brett Robish, who was a transfer from Illinois. He was fired up about playing Mount McCullough. And I was like, oh, we get to play against Dan Dickeau? Like I heard, but I was older. You know, I had sat out, but I had, like, I knew the AAU circuit, whatever. And so I was, and then we get ready for the game.

And he's playing these two. other guys and I remember like Sean Sutton tell me like playing the wrong guys playing the wrong like we're watching tape they're like they're playing the wrong guys because you have to it's one of the things that I actually really admire about Fran McCaffrey I know we're talking about Iowa Gonzaga is that he told me when I he signed me at Notre Dame he was the reason I went there and he told me he's like look you have to trust me on this when we get to real games like you're going to be the guy because I'm was terrible in practice, you know, you know, it is when you get to college.

Like, all these guys are grown men. You don't know what you're doing. And he had the vision of what it would look like eventually. 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.

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right, they were building something. Yeah. But at that point in time, the season, it didn't feel like he gave you the team. Well, you know, that's a really good point that you make in trusting the coach that recruited you, Fran McCaffrey. So the coach who did most of the recruiting for me when he was at University of Washington was Ray Jackaletti. He ended up being a head coach at Eastern Washington, Utah, and at Drake, and now he's

an assistant at St. Louis. But he was the main guy who recruited me. He's the guy who I ended up developing the relationship and trust in. and knew he was going to have my back on campus. The other two assistants, to be honest, take it or leave it. I didn't think they trusted me or they wanted me there like Coach Jack Letty did. And Coach Jack had Coach Bender's ear 100%. Well, Coach Jack Letty got his first head coaching opportunity in August of the summer

right before I was going to be a freshman at U-Dub. So imagine that. your assistant coach, the guy that's going to be in your corner, vouching for you, breaking down film with you, talking to you, he's no longer there because he left. And so I kind of navigating everything kind of blind as a freshman. And nobody, you don't know what to expect. You don't know who to lean on. Right away, I realized, well, one of the assistants, Byron Bruchro, he's not a fan of mine at all.

Okay, that's fine. Another Eric Hughes, take it or leave it, he's not really in my corner. Jason Hamilton who replaced, who was on the staff as well. He was in my corner, but he was a younger coach. And he was new. And he was new, so I don't think he necessarily had coach Bender's ear. And it's difficult, I'm sure, and I've never been out of position, but I'm sure it's difficult to take a freshman point guard and give him the ball over two seniors.

I mean, you might lose those two guys mentally, you know, just as, You know, what's this kid doing coming here? Because neither one of those guys, and I've always felt this, if neither of the guys that are ahead of you and are that much older, if they're not head and shoulders better, why not play the freshman, especially early in the season? Go through some ups and downs, bumps and bruises, and your team and that individual who's younger is going to be better off for it

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Like, I mean, I remember Paul Graham was an assistant coach. She became the head coach at Washington State. And he didn't really recruit me. So, like, he gave me one compliment in three years at Oklahoma State. And here was a compliment, okay? So Paul Graham was called the judge. He used to always do this. And like, get it out. Get it out.

Get it out. Judge, get it out. Anyway, we play I think it was my sophomore, maybe my junior year. We play Texas Tech on the road in their old place. It was a dump. I think it was my sophomore year. They had a good team. They were coming off of Sweet 16 as well.

And they had lost Bettee to the NBA, but they still had Corey Carr. They had a really good combo guard named Stan Bonowitz, point guard named Stan Bonowitz. Ray Young was their point guard. He was a scoring point guard that's Trey's dad. That's how crazy how old we're getting, right? We're guys who are sons are in the NBA. So they had a really good team. And Cliff owns their center.

He was like built like a Greek god. And we beat him. And I played really well down the stretch. And he like called me in and maybe as my junior. And he was like, hey man, play really good. You're not doing that stupid shit. Good job. Right.

That was it. Like literally never coached me. Like like, what was it like to play? for like, I don't know. He recruited all the time, right? And the guys that he recruited, those are the guys that he kind of gravitated towards. Yeah. Whereas like, Sean Sutton and Fran McCaffrey, like, I literally would talk to them on the phone or in person every single day of my existence.

So I totally get when you lose Ray Jackaletti and he goes, becomes a head coach. You're like, dude, who's my guy here, right? Yeah. You know, who's my guy? And as much as you want to be the head coach, the head coach is doing head coaching things. You know, you need, you need to, okay, so let's get to how, how, the transfer and why Gonzaga? Yeah, that's, so after my freshman year, I injured my foot in the summer. We thought it was broken and kind of did the whole, put it in a cast for a short bit,

go to a walking boot, do the rehab thing. Were you definitely coming back? Yes, I was definitely coming back. So I get to U-dub in the fall, and I'm back healthy again at that point, but we're doing conditioning. And my mental capacity or my mental approach has always been, if you're dinged up, go ahead, play through it. If you're hurt, okay, go talk to a trainer. Well, at the time, I still, I didn't know what the difference between the two. So I knew there was something wrong with my foot still, but I just kept gutting it out through conditioning,

through fall open gyms and workouts and then practice and, you know, start the season off and I'm starting. You know, I think I started the first 11 games of the year before I broke my foot. And we got an x-ray and an MRI and realized, hey, it's done. You need surgery. So in leading up to that, you know, it was kind of one of those things where I was playing, but I wasn't myself because I wasn't healthy. And I couldn't do the things on the court that I knew that I could do just because I couldn't do it. And so then we had a freshman San Q Carey at the time who was now an assistant coach at Long Beach State under Dan Monson.

And this will kind of be funny how it comes full circle. Well, San Q Carey is a freshman who starts playing really well. And I can't do the things that are making me or would give me the chance to be a good player. I can't change speeds. I can't change directions because I can't do that. I can't create space to make the right play in a pick and roll. I can't do those things, so I can't create space to get off my jump shot. I'm just, you know.

You're a shell of your normal stuff. I'm playing on one leg. My last game as a Husky, I'm playing in Arizona. I have to guard Jason Terry, the fastest player in the country at the time. I have to play them on one leg. I mean, give me a break. That's not fair. So the guy who committed to you dub, was going to you dub, and then midnight loot came in.

It's true. So I finally after that, Arizona game, talking with the trainers, like, look, we got to figure this out. I can't go through an hour of rehab before practice, after practice, and then it still hurts this way. So we get back to Seattle, we get an MRI, we got a cat scan. Yep, foot's broken. Go in to have surgery. I come out of the surgery and the doctor's like, well, we fixed it, but I don't think you broke your foot this summer. I think it was a misdiagnosis. Awesome. So I had a misdiagnosis leading into a bigger surgery than what we thought was going to be. Well, lo and behold,

During that time frame, Gonzaga starts making a run as far as, you know, I'm watching on them on TV and they're having a really good season in WCC. And guys on that team are friends of mine. Ritchie Fromm, who was a sixth grade teammate. We were high school rivals. Casey Calvary was an A.U team at mine. And I'm seeing these guys on TV getting better and watching the progression of the team throughout the course of the year. And then they give me a call on, you know, and like, hey, when are you transferring? I'm like, what are you talking about?

So kind of gradually, a couple of the guys keep passing through me like, hey, Gonzaga, Gonzaga ends up going to the Elite 8 that year. They get to the NCAA tournament, make their huge run. And before that happened, I knew in my mind before the NCAA tournament started, I was transferring. And I liked Gonzaga. I wanted to be there. And then that Gonzaga run to the Elite 8 just sold me as like, that's where I want to be.

Those are my buddies. They're getting better. They're playing in a system. that obviously is working there in the NCAA tournament and the elite eight they're winning they're having fun i want to be a part of that so i decided to transfer um jason hamilton did you visit anywhere else so no so i decided to transfer coach bender honestly couldn't care less if i was transferring or not it was really weird phone conversation um jason hamilton was you were at home you didn't go you didn't go and see him you were i went into the office at u dub jason hamilton

was there. He was the only assistant coach that tried to talk me out of transfer. He wanted me to stay. The other two weren't in the office, but they could care less. Bob Bender, I believe, was at the final four or hadn't gotten back yet from the final four. And we had a conversation, and it just, you know, I didn't get the sense that he was particularly wanting me to stay or not wanting me to stay. And I decided, you know, it's best for me to transfer. So I decided to, I sent my release to two places, Gonzaga and St. Louis. And St. Louis was because Lorenzo Romar was going to me at Pepperdine.

So I talked to both schools. Lorenzo at St. Louis said, look, Gonzaga is perfect for you. Perfect. Take your visit there. If you don't like it, and if it doesn't, if you don't commit, which I think you will do on your visit, call me on Monday and we'll set you up for a visit out at St. Louis. Well, lo and behold, I go to Gonzaga to visit. I realize within 10 hours that that's where I need to be.

And I committed to coach Dan Monson, who I mentioned came full circle, who is now the head coach who carries the assistant. Yeah, so I commit to Dan Monson. And then right before, actually about two months later, he takes the Minnesota job. But I knew that that was a possibility. And I knew in talking to the guys of the program that, you know, the program would be in good hands with Coach Few and Coach Greer being as assistant. And it wasn't going to miss a beat because of the guys that were there.

So that's kind of full circle how that transfer came about. And it was honestly, it was the best decision I had ever made basketball wise. It's amazing. I know you have to go. So we're going to just, you're, I'm getting you to commit to part two. For sure. Okay. I'm always down to talk basketball with you, Doug.

You know that. Okay. Okay, so, but, okay, so, but here's, here's what I need before we, we conclude part one. Give me your visit, because I was told by few that what, and now maybe it's just with specific guys, that when you get there, you go to dinner with everybody and they make you tell one funny story from your previous spot. Okay. So here's, like, I'll give you an example. And, uh, I, uh, so, uh, Jackson, what was his last name?

he actually transferred to Oregon from Utah, but he's from kind of your area. God, what is his name? Shoot. Oregon to Utah. He was at you. David Jackson. David Jackson. Uh, David Jackson.

Okay. So, grew up playing with him. Yep. Great guy. Okay. So, but he visited Glanzaga. Okay.

So, and maybe it was just because it was Majeris. But the story that I got was like, hey, what we do is when you come in, you got to tell a story about like your previous spot, right? And his story. about about Utah was about Rick Majeris, right? And every, no one, you weren't allowed to call Rick coach. You had to call him Rick. So he goes, we need it.

We need a Rick story. He's like, and then, I can't. No, we need a Rick story. We're not ordering any food until we get a Rick story. Like, all right, well, just the other day. Like, just the other day? Like, yeah. So here's how he told him he was transferring.

Rick lived in the penthouse of the Marriott in Salt Lake City. And anytime you go up, you go see him. But he was always like in a towel. He was almost always naked. I don't know. And so they had talked about him transferring. You know how it is like going into Christmas break. Everybody kind of, uh, my, do you want it?

He's staying. So they're getting coming at the end of Christmas break. And he like knocks on his door. And you know, you got to get to call your coach. Like I'm sure just a caller going to that. office and tell somebody you're leaving, I'm out. Like, that's a hard thing for a 19-year-old, right? Like, you invested in me, you believe to me on some level and I'm out.

That's a hard thing to do. So he's like, oh, come in, come in, David, come in, no, but I'm sorry, he's just getting out of the shower. You know, he's in a towel. And so, David tells the story, he's like looking down his feet, shovels to, you know, Rick, we talked about, like, I wasn't happy and I'm just not feeling it. I'm not getting the minutes. I don't know.

And he looks up and Majerus is out cold. Now you're like pouring out, you're like pouring out your heart. Like pouring out your heart to a guy. And he's, so he's like, do I leave? He's like nudges him. Nudges him again.

Oh, David. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry. He's like, oh, this medication that I'm on. It just knocks me out. and look what it does to my ball. He's got some like swollen testicle.

He shows David Jackson. So David goes like, Hey, Rick. He's out. Can I can I tell you? I want to transfer. I'm out. Can I sign the release?

And like literally walked out. Never talked to him ever again. So you did not. Your experience was not perfect, right? Where Bob Bender didn't. He wasn't that. We love you. We want you to stay.

You became the national player of the year, but it wasn't that. Your visit took Gonzaga. Did they? I went to Marquette. We did a case race. We just drank beers all weekend. We went to the Brewers game and Chris Crawford, Woody.

All we did was, I remember was drinking that weekend. Your visit to Gonzaga was what happened? It was, I think I committed on the first night of the visit at the restaurant, pulled Coach Monson aside and said, hey, you know what? This is where I want to be. And so they scrapped the rest of the weekend as far as having to go to, you know, your academic counselor meeting, meeting this professor or that professor. And I just, I went to the gym and hooped.

That's what I did. I mean, Richie Fromm was a childhood friend and AAU buddy and Casey Calvary. Richie Fromm were the same. So it was really just a hangout weekend once I knew I was going to be at Gonzaga. So there was nothing crazy or special to. to any of my recruiting trips. I was pretty boring. I wanted to be in the gym.

What did you do to improve during your redshirt yet? Never take a day off. I was lucky because Tommy Lloyd was a student assistant at the time. And we became, he's an associate head coach now, and we became best friends for that stretch of my life, my career. I mean, he was in the gym every time I wanted to be there, working on just random stuff like jab shots off-legged pivot foot jab shots jab goes jab jabs jab crossovers pick and roll reads where you know instead of uh you make a delivery with

one hand you're making it with both hands you're making it off a reverse pivot on hook pass you're throwing you know uh every different kind of scenario drill you could think of Tommy and I worked on that year and he was he was still young enough where we played a lot of one-on-one as well so team would go out on the road, we would be in the gym every day. Practices, I became the guy that was the focal point of the other team, whether it was a point guard who could pass it. Okay, well, today in practice, I got to just make every single read. I got to make place for others all practice long.

If it was a scoring point guard, you know, I had the freedom to pull up from 30 feet on the break. If I was a two, I was coming off pin downs, floppy actions, whatever it was. If I was a three in practice that day, you know, I was filling the lane in transition and I was trying to slash. I mean, it was a year where Coach Few challenged me in practice to bring it every day to help the guys get ready. But in turn, it helped me because I had to kind of fill all these different roles for what they would face as an opponent in the coming days. And it got me out of my comfort zone and really helped improve all these different little facets of the game while I learned how to be competitive in Coach Few's. system. We'll break there because you've got to go, but that was a great look into what

led you to becoming a Zag, and now you're a Zag legend, but it's just, it's, it's, it's pretty awesome. Dan, thanks so much for joining me. Absolutely, without a doubt, we will have to do it again sometime because, like I said, I always like catching up talking hoops with you, Doug. So just let me know when. All right, that's part one. And there's more.

Now we got, now he's at going Zaga. Hey, we still haven't gotten into the first meeting with John Stockton, right? Now he's telling us he's called him stocks, but the first meeting like, was it like to play for the Zags? What was that heartache like?

How much pride does he take in what they've done? His NBA journey. And oh yeah, by the way, for a guy that was known for the hair when he was in college, the floppy hair when he's a kid, now he owns barbershops too. And we'll talk about the Zag Thing

and how this could be the year. We're getting ready for the Iowa, Glenn Zag game. In the meantime, really appreciate you listening. My radio show is daily, 3 to 6 Eastern, 12 to 3 Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, Fox Sports Radio.com, the IHeartRadio network. In the meantime, download, subscribe,

write one of those reviews. I was told it helps me do it. You can write Doug Gottlieb is amazing. That's awesome. Doug Gottlieb is the greatest. That's also good. I love Doug Gottlieb. These are all good reviews to write, and I appreciate that.

Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Happy New Year. Thanks for downloading and listening. Wait to you hear part two. I'm Doug Gottlieb. This is All Ball. Get right to the romance and find the way to wow this valentines with 1-800 flowers.com.

From classic roses and bouquets to decadent chocolate-covered berries, gourmet treats, and more. Surprise your Valentine with 1-800flowers.com. Right now, get the 18th stem enchanted rose medley for $3999, or upgrade to 24 red roses for $10 more. Go to 1,800flowers.com slash tune in. That's 1,800flowers.com slash tune in. 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 Sond. Idle help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 which I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that.

excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfilled of conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to The Clifford Show on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok podcast network on TikTok. On the Look Back at it podcast.

For 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84's big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it, with our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild year. It was a wild year.

I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.