The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - UVA Leadership Claims Greed Behind Kent's Ousting; Without Report, Public Left In Dark About Charges

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

The I Love CVille Show headlines: UVA Leadership Claims Greed Behind Kent’s Ousting Without Report, Public Left In Dark About Charges City Has No Power Over Dewberry Hotel Owner VA Has New Mega Millions Lottery Coming April 5 Hatton Ferry Ends 155 Years Of Service In Scottsville 2025 Dogwood Parade Is Officially Cancelled? UVA Faculty Senate Will Not Drop DEI Ranked Choice Voting Coming, Changes The Math Read Viewer & Listener Comments Live On Air The I Love CVille Show airs live Monday – Friday from 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The I Love CVille Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible, Rumble and iLoveCVille.com.

Good Monday afternoon, guys. I'm Jerry Miller, and thank you kindly for joining us on the Isle of Seville show. It's a pleasure to connect with you guys on the last day of March, the last day of the first quarter of 2025. The first 90 days have flown by, and boy has it been an embattled 90 days for UVA health. The story continues to dominate the news cycle. Now we have three former UVA rectors papering the trail with their commentary, their opinion and a handwritten and authored letter.

These guys are, I don't understand, I get that you wanna back Craig Kent, but good Lord, leave the story alone. It just continues to sully and tarnish the reputation of UVA Health and its team members. A lot we're gonna cover on the show. Judah Wickhauer, yours truly, Jerry Miller. We're going to talk the Dewberry Hotel.

I mean, Lloyd Snowe straight up said to local media, look, we can't do anything with this hotel. This dude's dropping $100,000 a year in taxes. At worst, we can do with this new law that Yonkin has empowered us with is fine him $500 a month. And frankly speaking, we're pretty sure he has electricity and running water at the Dewberry Hotel. So really we have no leverage over the extorting emperor of empty lots.

So we just continue what looks like for another calendar year, deal with hideous skeleton on the Charlottesville Downtown Mall. We'll talk about that today. We in past shows have talked about the diminishment of communal spirit in chutzpah and community identity. We're seeing that yet again, ladies and gentlemen, and unfortunately we're seeing this with the Dogwood Parade.

I mean, right down Market Street, do we put a fork in it officially? Is the Dogwood Parade of the same disappearance that the 4th of July parade was on McIntyre Park? Since the pandemic, Charlottesville's brand identity and sense of communal spirit is vastly diminished. And you see that everywhere you look, you see that with the McIntyre Fourth of July parade, the Dogwood parade, with volunteerism being down, you see that with First Night Virginia. I mean, if you had to break up the three biggest community events in the greater Charlottesville

area, would those three biggest community events in the greater Charlottesville area, not Ladies and Gentlemen B, the Dogwood Parade, Judah, of April, the Fourth of July Parade and McIntyre Park, and First Night Virginia? No doubt. The three events that do a great job of magnetizing Charlottesville-ians and Amarillo County-ians and Central Virginians are no more. I wanna talk about that, guys, on today's talk show.

I wanna talk about, on today's show, rank choice voting. Judah's very eager to talk about that. Hat and Ferry ending its 155 years of service in Scottsville, that's a sad story. And maybe an Isaac McNeely tidbit or two. Let's weave Judah Wickhauer in on a studio camera then a two shot and then we'll give some love to Charlottesville Sanitary Supply.

Judah, the headline you find most intriguing, and I want you to give us the who, what, when, where, why of UVA Health in a matter of, Judah, the headline you find most intriguing, and I want you to give us the who, what, when, where, why of UVA Health in a matter of moments, but the headline you find most intriguing and why? The headline that I find most intriguing is the continuing story with Kent and the university health system and the fact that they just can't get out of the limelight.

They just can't stop. I think this is a problem overall with UVA. They grasp so tightly to their secrets that they leave so much doubt in people's minds and create, I think, more problems for themselves than they really need to. If you have yet to read the Daily Progress story, I thought it was a great one. We read it today. Physicians who ousted UVA Health CEO motivated by greed, UVA officials say. We legitimately have three of the most powerful men over the last couple generations of UVA

history. These are rectors, Judah. And you set the table to who, what, when, where, why. Their names, their titles, and their agenda. But they've authored a letter. They've signed the letter. Interestingly, the letter they authored has a number of grammatical errors. They indicate in this letter that they author that Craig Kent not only was a positive force

for UVA health, but he was trying to essentially dispose of or eradicate the UVA physicians group, UPG. There's multiple entities that pay the top level physicians at UVA Health. One of them a lot of folks don't realize is the University Physicians Group. That's why we get some bills from UPG. It's a very odd billing system.

These three former rectors have said that Craig Kent went into the lion's den, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. That's Daniel. I set you up for that one. Like Daniel into the lion's den and tried to go toe to toe with the most powerful doctors at the University of Virginia and he seems to have lost this heavyweight fight and now weeks seems to have given up the heavyweight well did he give up the heavyweight fight because there was

some level of incriminating evidence that would led to a catastrophic demise and he chose to get out of Dodge before that incriminating evidence materialized we don't know sadly we'll. Sadly, we'll never know. Sadly, we will never know. This article is so salacious. This article is so escriptic. It is wrought with agendas and intentions backed by greed and cronyism.

And now we have three very powerful men that are sending letters to the media, a letter to the media, saying it's the doctors at UVA that were wrong here. And the whole reason they wanted Craig Kent ousted as CEO of UVA Health, because Craig Kent was trying to make them work harder and potentially earn less money. Because he wanted to get rid of UPG.

He wanted all the pay to be under one umbrella as opposed to two umbrellas, UVA Health and the University Physicians Group. Saying that it would cost the university a lot less if they were dealing with half the paperwork. And Craig Kent says, if we dispose of University Physicians Group, then we will have more accountability with our physicians.

We will have more billing efficiency with our infrastructure. We could improve patient morale. And he highlights that patient morale was at a low point. If you thought patient morale was at a low point before this Craig Kent fiasco, where do you think patient morale and patient trust is now? Where do we think the University of Virginia health brand is now? Is the UVA health brand at the all time low it's ever been?

Is it synonymous with where the health brand was, where it confused newborn babies decades ago, much to the disappointment of mothers in delivery rooms? One delivery, one newborn baby given to a mother, another newborn baby given to a mother another newborn baby given to another mother and a confusion the actual babies and mothers mismatched I mean Set the table Judah and I can't wait to offer even more compelling commentary on what's going on And then we'll give some props to Charlottesville sanitary supply. This is a banana story. There's continues to be a banana story

there's also a very good write-up that takes that takes a different view of the whole thing on Bacon's Rebellion. And he makes some interesting points. We're staying succinct and focused. First with the Daily Progress story and then we'll go to Bacon's Rebellion. I am excited to highlight the Bacon's Rebellion piece. First the Daily Progress story. I mean it's a long story.

What do you want me to talk about? The who, mean, it's a long story. What do you want me to talk about? The who, what, when, where, why. Okay, well, the three rectors are Frank, Rusty, Connor III, Jim Murray Jr. Big time guy, Jim Murray. Heavy hitter, Jim Murray. And Whit Clement III. Go ahead.

They and others are saying that all the physicians who wrote the initial anonymous letter are basically just angry that with UPG apparently going or with Dr. Craig Kent trying to get rid of UPG, what they're paid is going to get smaller. They think that he was hiring people that passed them up. Some of them feel like they should have gotten roles in the hospital that were given to other people. Sadly, all we know is what has been sent to the newspaper, whether it's anonymous letters or responses to anonymous letters, and we have so little coming from President Ryan or from anyone else in a position of authority there that were essentially left to parse through all of this back and forth, this countering letters, were forced to basically make up our own minds, which is a horrible way to

leave us. You got men in positions of power, and these men that are in positions of power are at the pinnacle of power at the university. These are rectors, former rectors, and when three men come together and they choose to use an authored letter format, signed authored letter format, and then take that letter and send it to media, a letter that goes to bat for an embattled and already resigned CEO, it tells you there's way more to this story. This story could have gone six feet under, no longer in the news cycle,

with Craig Kent's resignation. The anonymous 128 appeared on paper to have won. Since Kent's resignation, three rectors and another member of a UVA board have authored letters in support of Kent. And these men and the pinnacle of power, claim that Kent was ousted by greedy doctors looking to protect their cush jobs. These men, at the pinnacle of power at UVA,

claim Kent tried to dismantle the university physicians group, a clandestine, somewhat discreet and secretive organization that compensates physicians at levels that are not known to the public. You work for UVA, you could search a database provided by the Cavalier Daily every year. And this database, which you can find online basically by searching, how much do people make at UVA? A Cavalier Daily link will show up at the top of your Google search.

You click the link and you get sent to a portal where you can find the salaries of everyone who works at UVA. You can search some of the highest paid physicians, most influential physicians, most influential administrators in C-suite at UVA. But a lot of people don't realize the physicians group also complimented the compensation

of what you found online. So these three men, rectors at the pinnacle of power at UVA claim members of the physicians group, an old boys club, use their power, their political connectedness to tar and feather a carpet bagger from Ohio State, to stigmatize him, to throw accusations of white collar racketeering, of up coding and medical chart changing, fraudulent billing practices, cronyism and bullying. All the nasty stuff that you don't want to see in any organization, let alone an organization

that makes its money by keeping people alive or helping them get healthy. The story won't go away. And University of Virginia is in this, has a conundrum on its hands. This is the conundrum, and I think Judah offers good insight on this. And then we'll go to Bakers Rebellion. The conundrum is

former rectors and former board members are writing letters to the media in support of a man who's got very little time in Charlottesville and very little time at the health system, Craig Kent, who had trouble at Ohio State University. This man has resigned, yet people continue to voice their support for him. On the other side of the fence, on the other side of the medical war, you have rank and file and upper management. But rank and file in this case are not employees who clock in,

employees who push mops or clean tables or scrub shelves or run cash registers. Rank and file in this scenario are physicians, people at the top of their medical profession. And these physicians are trying to maintain their Kush and Tony and prestigious and profitable and highly compensated jobs. And Kent was trying to dismantle this old boys and old girls club of UPG. And if you've lived in this community long enough, I've been here 25 years in August. We've all heard the tales and the stories, the rumor mill, the power, the political gamesmanship,

the influence yielded and wielded by the physicians group. We've all heard the tales and the stories and the rumor mill of how the physicians group in years past has gotten other CEOs shit-canned by tarring and feathering them, by stigmatizing them in the same capacity they did Kent. And here you have the University of Virginia kind of stuck in the middle. You got the physicians group and these 128 rank and file physicians on one side.

You got Craig Kent and Craig Kent's, I don't want to call them cronies because that's a disservice to the men that are in his support, in his corner. These men are the men that hired him. These are the men that Kent reported to. These are the men that Kent reported to. These are the men that understood that Kent's personality was a bit prickly. They even highlighted in this daily progress story that his leadership style was a bit aristocratic.

They highlight in this daily progress story. But these men have reason to go on the record in support of Ken. You know what that reason is? Because they look bad if they put a guy on at the top of the UVA. They hired him. And the poop, the dirt, the stink slides down the pipeline or at least vertically across the pipeline to them. So now they're trying to make an argument of why Kent was the right guy. Now let's go to the Bacon's Rebellion piece and then we'll open this up to viewers and

listeners comments here on the I Love Seville show. With quite a few physicians watching the program today, the last day of March in 2025, Chuda Wickhauer, what struck you from the Bacon's Rebellion piece? First of all, I should commend James A. Bacon. The guy has a way with words. Oh, I mean, that's 100%. Bacon's Rebellion.com. All right. You jump in here on the Bacon's Rebellion piece. I mean, it's not that he has all the information. It's that while the daily progress is good at covering all of this, I've got to give them props.

They're not doing a whole lot of guesswork or they're just laying out what's going on and Bacon has a way with words like you said. Bacon's rebellion. Let's go to Bacon's rebellion. It's a sink. And he says he lays it down for me the best right here where he says the public has no idea whether all the charges against Ken Kibbe, some of them or any at all were backed by facts. And he goes on to say the public has no way to know if the abuses alleged by the dissident doctors have been corrected or if the board has done its job cleaning

up the mess. And back to daily progress, they're now talking about the fact that Kent was implementing reforms, including enacting stringent patient care policies. All of these things that they were accusing Kent and the UVA health system of, if not fostering, then at least continuing. And now we're supposedly hearing that he was trying to stop all those things. Well, if that's the case, why wasn't something

said about that sooner? Right. Tell me why that. Can we answer that very question? Yeah. When President Ryan. There it is, right there. President Ryan, when President Ryan

responded to the anonymous 128 doctors, he monikered and billed them as just the bitter discontents in any organization representing a small 8 to 10% of angry employees that you see in any outfit. He basically labeled these malcontents as the guys and gals who did not get a date to the prom, so they are just angry and bitter about the event because they're either gonna be wallflowers the night of the dance, or they're gonna be left at home

watching Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien while their friends try to make some memories. The problem is maybe he was right, but if he was right, he did a terrible job. There it is. of getting that across. There it is. You don't attack the people that anonymously wrote the letter. You explain how they're wrong. And if you don't do that, you leave us all thinking that you're just trying to

create a smoke screen. Yeah. Judah Wickhauer is doing a great job today. Excellent work today from Judah Wickhauer. This is a lesson on optics and public relations. Jim Ryan's letter, monikering the anonymous 128 as bitter, malcontents, the small portion of any organization that's just angry, was the wrong approach. If anything, he fueled their fire. Instead, he should have utilized the position that these three rectors who signed a letter and sent it to the Daily Progress with their names and said, this is what Kent has done

well. This is why Kent got in trouble. And what Kent has done well is the following, fundraising, expanding the health system, mergers and acquisitions, making the infrastructure more robust. What Kent has not done well, it sounds like he's got a very prickly management style. We all do. Managing is hard.

There's very few people I've ever known that I would say have been good managers. I don't think I'm a good manager. The only good manager I have ever worked for is Jerry Radcliffe. And he pretty much left us at our own advice to do whatever we want. I mean, that's pretty much his management style. And

they say what got Kent in trouble, Judah, was his attempt to dismantle UPG. And they straight up told Kent, you are going directly, you are driving your Lexus directly into the eye of the storm. And he said, what? I know. This is an insane story. And this story is only gonna continue to dominate the news cycle until the University of Virginia responds in succinct, clear-cut fashion, maybe with the investigative report.

But they still continue to hide behind it. And as they continue to hide behind that investigative report, a report that was commissioned and paid for by commissioned and paid for and handled by a third party law firm, until we get that report, we're all going to wonder what if. We're all going to have distrust. And questions tied to what if and distrust are the worst kind when it's medicine and your life and your health. What are we missing? I think what we're missing is how James Bacon ends his article and he says, of course, it's

possible that the two things can both be true. Kent undertook a necessary restructuring of operations and committed or tolerated unpardonable abuses. Connor Murray and Clement make a strong case that the former is the case and as long as the Williams and Connelly report remains secret we may never know if the latter is as well. So we essentially have two groups of people. One side we've got the rectors, we've got the owner of Crutchfield, we've got people who have left boards, people who, you know, we have all these people who are defending Kent and on the other side we have all these people who are who are saying that Kent was in charge of of a big mess and we don't have anyone that's bridging that gap for

us. Pesci Nugent welcome to the broadcast. Bill McChesney thank you for watching. Let's go to Deep Throat here. Deep Throat's got some comments. He says it feels to me like the defenders of Kent are talking about past accusations. He says it feels to me like the defenders of Kent are talking past the accusations. If the accusation is profits are goosed by up coding and other abuses, and quality metrics are manipulated by chart fudging, then it is not rebuttal to those charges to say, once Kent came, we started making more profits, and we started showing up on the best hospital lists

that are based on the same quality metrics that doctors have been fudging. I understand that point. He also says, I would also say some of the most toxic managers are excellent at managing up and terrible at managing down. And it sort of feels that way here. Managing is not easy.

I am not good at being a manager. I'm not good at being a manager because I expect everyone in my managerial ecosystem to do things with the same efficiency and speed and tenacity as I do. And I know that's unrealistic but I still have those expectations. And my expectations as a manager are one to lead with a bulldogs mentality. Let's go. Let's just move, let's go forward, let's break it and figure it out, but let's get it done.

And that's gotten us to this point of 17 years. And it may work in a small business with employees and subcontractors, but it's gonna have a really difficult time working in an organization of billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars in revenue and thousands and thousands and thousands of employees. And frankly, some of the most difficult ways to make money possible, dealing with life and death.

It's one thing to make money in commercial real estate, in branding, in venture, in market share expansion. It's another thing to make money in telling somebody at their bedside that they have a couple months to live because they're dying of cancer. And then passing their next of kin a bill for $113,000. And tying their house to the bill.

dollars and tying their house to the bill. And until the University of Virginia has a legitimate, offers legitimate honesty and authenticity with what's going on, we're just going to have one side of the fence offering their beef and commentary and the other side of the fence offering their beef and commentary, and the other side of the fence offering their beef and commentary, and all it does is tarnish and stink the UVA Health brand. And I'll close with this.

2025 today is the least amount and the lowest level of brand equity and community goodwill I've seen attach with the UVA Health brand. You talk in the community about UVA Health and the doctors with UVA Health, the response from community members will very well could be one of disgust and one of a story tied to billing and shadiness.

And malpractice and poor bedside manner. I've been here 25 years. I've never seen the brand at this low level. Let's see what Jim Ryan does. We're at the 105 marker, and we have more headlines we wanna get to. I'd love to get to the Dogwood Parade headline. Ginny Hu says, my neighbor and I were talking about the demise of the Dogwood Parade. My eldest lives in a different college town, and that town regularly has parades, events, and other activities that college athletes

and clubs participate in support. They just had an awesome St. Patty's Day parade. I want you to think about Charlottesville, Virginia in 2025, okay? Let's do the calendar for me, okay, for Charlottesville, Virginia. We'll start with the 1st of January, New Year's Day. The clock has now struck 1201 a.m. Prior to COVID, we were ringing in the New Year on the downtown mall in a family-friendly first night Virginia event.

It's 1201 a.m. and thousands of people are in the downtown mall. Charlottesvillians, Elmora Countyians, Fluco's, Orange Countians, Green Countians, Gordon's Villians, Buckingham Countians, were all on the downtown mall at 1201 a.m. celebrating community and ringing in the New Year. Prior to COVID, we had St. Patty's Day activities all over Charlottesville, Judah, in the month of March. St. Patty's Day took over the downtown mall. St. Patty's Day took over pockets of Charlottesville, took over Gordon'sville. Prior to COVID, we had a dogwood parade that was the place to be on Market Street. Parents and grandparents would set up lawn chairs and fold out chairs.

People would ask if I would allow them in the Macklin building in our Market Street facing offices on the first floor and the second floor, allow them to open the balcony doors and to hang on the balcony where they would throw beads out to people. Candies to pass or buys. Prior to COVID, fireworks were shot from McIntyre Park. We waited for hours in lawn chairs on picnic blankets, drinking beer and wine and cocktails and water and sprite out of discreet solo cups or yeti cups.

Just to see fireworks sprinkle and tickle the skyline here in Charlottesville. Prior to COVID, Judah, we had Labor Day and Memorial Day festivities. We had Christmas festivities. We now have literally no community events in the Charlottesville area in this post-COVID era. More collateral damage from the pandemic. And the last hurrah that was clinging for life support, literally asking for the paddles on the operating room table as they were close to flatlining was the Dogwood Parade. And in 2025, the year after its 75th anniversary, in year 76, the Dogwood Parade has flatlined and is laying dead in front of us. And that's sad.

That's sad because I have two young boys, one seven, one two and a half. That's sad because I love spending time away from screens and out of the house and doing activities with my family. That's sad because we all love running into each other and we're finding less time to run into each other. The days of saying hello or running into each other and we're finding less time to run into each other. The days of saying hello or running into each other at the grocery store, those are dying. The days of running into each other at dinner, those are dying.

People are instacarting. They're having their groceries delivered. People are Uber eating or door dashing. In some cases, they're eat now now pay later with their uber eats in their door dash as they use a payment scam, a payment billing system to cover their steak and cheese sandwiches. The days of running into people at the coffee shop are dying, Judah. Munhouse closes in the city of Charlottesville. DeFarra sells Shenandoah Joes to a Darden student. Tony Jorge's Cafe Cubano is gone on the downtown mall.

Grid coffee moves off the mall because the houseless issue is so significant, they want to get off the mall to Water Street. Collateral damage from COVID, it's sad. so significant they want to get off the mall to Water Street. Collateral damage from COVID, it's sad. The Dogwood Parade, Flatline, and no more. And a 72nd, 76 year of operation.

Anything you'd like to add on that, Judah? I'm wondering if there's just no passing of the baton. It's almost like these events are just whoever was in charge has dropped a baton. Nobody asked to pick it up. Nobody tried to pick it up. And I know that the Dogwood Festival had trouble in the past because they lost access to, I believe it was McIntyre Park. So they couldn't host all the festival equipment there, the spinning rides and things like that.

But that wasn't the only thing that made the Dogwood Foundation. And I'm hopeful that somebody will begin picking up the pieces of these events in the coming years and months. I'm hopeful that First Night Virginia will be back at the end of this year. I don't have any definitive information on that. And you know, maybe missing out on the Dogwood Festival this year will light a fire under someone and we'll get a new group of people who we'll get a new group of people who want to bring it back to life. Multiple folks, by the way, are saying that you don't have us live on YouTube. At this point, I think you're probably just better off uploading the video later. And I concur with everything that you just said. At the 115 marker, there's a couple of other headlines

that I'd like to highlight. Give us a snapshot of what's on the rundown if you could please. We've got the city has no power over Dewberry Hotel owner. Let me give a little insight into that. Lloyd Snook, the counselor of Charlottesville speaks to local media and he highlights that John Dewberry is paying $100,000 a year in taxes. He's saying, we really have no power over this guy. And people are saying the governor Glenn Youngkin

has signed a new law that targets run down properties. Lloyd Snook says the worst that we can do is fine this guy $500 a month. That's $6,000 a year. He's already paying $100,000 in taxes. And Lloyd Snook goes on to say, I'm pretty sure that they have electricity and water there, so what leverage do we have? We literally have seen an out of town, Atlanta, Atlanta, Tintonian, a guy from Atlanta in the middle of the downtown mall, leave a hideous building for a decade or more.

And Charlottesville can do nothing about it. Yeah. And I get that people have property rights. That's what Neil Williamson would say. Yeah. property rights. That's what Neil Williamson would say. But this is maybe your worst-case scenario because of its location in the mall. Mm-hmm. A hundred grand this man is paying to leave it in that form. Yeah. But to him that's nothing. Right. I mean we've seen this in other areas as well where there's just nothing you can do.

That's why we have laws. Next headline, what do you got? We've got, BA has new Mega Millions lottery coming April 5th for everyone interested in wasting your money on lotto tickets? I'm glad you said this. I'm having this conversation with my oldest son right now. My oldest son is in first grade and he's gotten significantly into Pokemon. Pokemon is consuming his class and his friends. He also watches a lot of Pokemon content on YouTube. And the content kids watch on YouTube as it pertains to Pokemon, they're called pack breaks. Where

big influencers in the Pokemon space, they buy packs, expensive packs of cards, and they tear them open and they video and live stream them opening the packs and going through the cards to see if they got something valuable. Yeah. The kids absolutely love this. I'm using this as an opportunity to teach my son some economics, some basic business sense, some negotiation skill set. And basically, here's what's playing out. He initially got into Pokemon saying he wanted to buy as many packs as possible. These packs come in cards of 10. One pack, 10 cards. How much do you think these packs cost these days, Judah? I mean, I would guess three to five dollars. If you can find them, the craze is so real that you can't even find them. But if you can find them, the entry price point is $10 plus tax for a pack of 10 cards.

Is that how much it is? A pack of 10 cards is $9.99 plus tax, a pack of 10 cards, if you can find them. These packs go up to hundreds, if not thousands of dollars per pack, depending on the variant, the age, the perceived value of what's inside. Right. That's not the actual cost of the pack. The entry level pack is $10 for a pack of 10 cards. If you went to your local card store, your LCS, you're paying $10 for a pack of 10. Wow.

Okay. And I explained to him, as we're getting into Pokemon, you can buy these packs. We have limited money that we're going to buy. Dad's going to offer this limited money. Grandma for your birthday may offer this limited money. And you can use some of your allowance if you want to buy packs or you can buy singles, individual cards, individual cards that have established value in some cases have been graded by third party grading companies like PSA or CGC or Beckett and these third party grading companies determine the quality of the card and actually give it a grade one through 10. And initially he said I want to do the pack breaks.

And after 10 or 15 packs, we're talking $100, $150, maybe 20 packs, $200, he realized that he had gotten in 20 packs one, two, maybe three valuable cards. And the value of those cards, the most expensive one, because we use digital, a portfolio, to keep track of our portfolio of cards online, the most valuable card was like 30 bucks.

Then I said, son, why don't we consider, with the limited money that you have at your disposal, your allowance, whatever dad and mom are contributing, whatever grandma's contributing, why don't we consider buying singles? With singles we know the value, we know if they've been graded by PSA or Beckett or CGC, and we can take those singles and put them in our digital portfolio and there's less risk. You can buy five to six single cards for the cost of the 20 packs that you bought. So while

you have a lot less cards, the cards you will have are more valuable. And furthermore, your LCS, your local card store, is more apt to negotiate with you when selling singles, especially if you bundle them. So we go to our LCS and we say we like these three or four singles, we like to bundle them, what can you do with us on price or at this number? And here my seven year old son is having this conversation. He's highlighting the singles that he wants

from a showcase, he's using his portfolio, his app portfolio, it's called price charting, to keep track of his cards. He's seeing which cards he wants. He's seeing which cards are in the showcase that he wants to buy. He says, if I get these four, what will you do with me on price? I'm paying cash for these four. He's a seven-year-old kid.

I have a quick question. He's saying, I'm paying cash for these four. What can you do for me? And he's negotiating with grown ass men. And I'm watched over the course of this calendar year, a seven year old boy understand basic economics, basic supply and demand, understand risk management and hedging risk, bundling, negotiating, saving, gaining confidence

through speaking with adults in strange settings. It's been delightful and I'll close with this and I'll get to your question. Parents that are concerned about the Pokemon craze that's taking over your kid, ask yourself this question. When you buy toys for your kids, how many of those toys end up getting destroyed or getting lost or just absolutely losing all their value. Probably 99.9% of them. When you're buying valuable Pokemon, if you slab them and keep them in hard cases, these

are your kids' toys and they could potentially appreciate and value. It's been a pretty fantastic experience with the boy. What was your question? Do Trey or any of his friends actually like the game? Yeah, they play the game. They consume the content. Okay, they watch the YouTube they watch the movie. There's shows there's YouTube There's a movie. There's a video games of games Pokemon go There's a video games gold silver red ruby blue. I don't know. There's a boatload of games. I was just curious. I know today's today's

Elementary school aged kid is less apt less likely to play card or board games and more likely to play digital or video games and more likely to consume the brand in live stream capacity on YouTube. They consume their content now on YouTube. And watch other people play games. The young generation would rather watch other people play games than play the games themselves.

It's so odd. Anyway, that's my experience and how it pertains to the lottery, Judah's headline that he has on screen. Playing the lottery is a sucker's endeavor. It's a sucker's endeavor. Cracking packs and pack breaking is a sucker's endeavor. The wise man, the smart man, the intelligent man is buying individual cards. I would say the wise man is enjoying the game first and enjoying the kickback of added price second. Appreciation of cards is a big piece of it.

And as I mentioned, the game they're playing is a game that's on the phone or in video capacity. It's not the card game. Today's kid is not playing the card game. Why would you? Like go to your local card shop. It's not kids playing those games. It's kids collecting the cards, streaming the content online, and playing the video games, but not playing the card game. Another like, TCGs, the card games, right? Magic, The Gathering is another one.

CCGs, collectible card games. You can also call them TCGs, the card game. They are, I don't wanna say struggling, appealing to that elementary age generation, but how they're trying to appeal to them is through digital capacities now, and not real life tangible capacities, which is sad. I remember growing up playing like the card game Spit. Remember the card game spit or playing spades. I mean any card game playing monopoly 52 card deck. Yeah. Playing monopoly. Right. I played my I played a what was the one where you had a battleship battleship love playing battleship.

It was a great game. Right. They don't do that. They don't do that. It's just a reflection of 2025. It's so weird. All right. A couple of items out of the notebook, then we'll get out of here. I want to get some basketball news out there. I encourage you to tune into the Jerry and Jerry show tomorrow at 10, 15 a.m. with Virginia Sports Hall of Famer Jerry Ratcliffe. Isaac McNeely is now being courted by Tennessee. You got North Carolina, Louisville, West Virginia, UVA, and Tennessee looking for the sharpshooter. And frankly speaking, right now Ryan Odom doesn't have much talent on the roster. The only returning player is what? Eli Saunders.

You got Chance Mallory and Elijah Gertrude, but Gertrude's coming off a blown knee and an ACL injury. And Chance Mallory's about a month and change away, two months away from high school graduation. So the extent of his roster is a kid who transferred from San Diego State, who's got one year of experience in the ACC. Ladies and gentlemen, the Jerry and Jerry show tomorrow at 10, 15 a.m. is going to be fantastic.

Take care, everybody. Thank you kindly for joining us. So long..