The Ryen Russillo Podcast - College Recruiting Stories With Matt Ryan, Antonio Daniels, Andrew Bogut, Stephon Marbury, James Jones, and Gary Payton Sr.

Episode Date: August 16, 2022

Russillo talks with Matt Ryan (0:24), Antonio Daniels (3:08), Andrew Bogut (6:03), Stephon Marbury (11:42), James Jones (16:10), and Gary Payton Sr. (24:41) about their best college recruiting stories. Then Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (24:41). Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Matt Ryan, Antonio Daniels, Andrew Bogut, Stephon Marbury, James Jones, and Gary Payton Sr. Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

we're back to the recruiting stories you got matt ryan antonio daniels andrew bogut stephon marbury james jones and gary payton to st john's so enjoy those we've got life advice for you the ryan russo podcast this episode is brought to you by uber eats winter is here so be prepared We've got life advice for you. The Ryan Rusillo Podcast. topping? Total yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Plenty of time. Cannot take a sack here. Ryan will fire. Oh my goodness. Oh! Open for a touchdown is Callender. And Lane Stadium goes silent with the 11 seconds to play that was matt ryan the colts new quarterback in his boston college days going into virginia tech

and coming out with a big win back in 2007 shout out out to Chris Fowler there on the ESPN call. Okay, so let's go to high school. You're in PA. Everyone's after you. You end up at Boston College. How did you end up there and how close were you to going somewhere else? Well, I think you threw everyone's after you around pretty loosely. It was more like a few people were after me.

What star were you? What was your rank? Do you know all that stuff? Do you still remember it? I think I was a three-star. Three-star. But in their defense, I ran the triple option in high school. And to get three stars running the triple option with my athleticism, that was generous from them.

So I was between Iowa and Boston College. And I love both. There's no doubt about it. But I did love Iowa. I like how different it was from where I grew up. People were great. Kirk Ferentz was the coach. He was awesome. Just really enjoyed my time there. But as it got down to the wire, I couldn't go that far away from home, you know, and, uh, Boston was like four and a half hours, five hour drive from, from where I was in Iowa. Iowa city was, you know, a difficult place to get to from Philadelphia. And so, uh, at the end of the day, I made, made the decision on, on going a little closer to home, worked out well, um, and don't regret any of it, but, uh, I was, I was really close to going to Iowa.

Penn state, no interest. None. It was a, it was a strange time at Penn state at the time they were down. And, uh, it was that point where, you know, it was before all of the bad stuff came out, but it was that, it was that point where you didn't know if it was going to be Joe Paterno's last year, like every year for the four years leading up to it. And then the five years I was in school. So, um, yeah, just, it wasn't, it was never for me. I didn't grow up a Penn State fan either. I, you know, what was your team? What was your team growing up? Man, I liked Florida. I was a spurry or fun, fun and gun, just like let it rip, you know? A non-homer for sure. And they didn't send any letters.

They did not send any in-home visits. I didn't get any University of Florida letterhead. No, no. There was nothing that came my way. Three on two. Pueblo! Oh my goodness!

They are on their feet in the Rose Garden. Blazers back in front. Antonioio daniels with a monster effort antonio daniels with a huge dunk during his time with the blazers back in 2003 okay uh antonio you're the fourth pick in the 1997 draft, too, but I want to go back even further to your high school days in Ohio. How did you end up at Bowling Green? That's a different story.

That's a wild story because my junior year in high school, I was being recruited by big-time schools, right? Big- time schools. Last game of my junior year in high school, I broke my leg. And the summer between your junior and senior year is the most important summer as far as getting eyes on you is concerned. So I broke my leg the last game of my junior and senior year, broke my tibia and fibula. And I didn't participate in any summer camps, nothing like

that. So all of those big schools that were looking at me backed off. And there was one school that stayed. Wait, so which big school were you most likely going to go to? It wasn't even, it wasn't like what big school I was going to go to. It was just the fact of, of I was being recruited by them. You know what I mean? Did you have somewhere you liked the most, though, where you're telling your buddies, you're talking to your family, going like, look. Where I would have loved to have gone

would have been Ohio State. I love Ohio. You know what I mean? And it's amazing. Randy Ayers was the head coach at Ohio State at the time. He's now here in Phoenix, and he was my assistant coach in Washington. So I still joke with him about that to this day.

I used to ride my bike to Ohio State's campus, right? That's how close I live to Ohio State. 10, 15 minutes from Ohio State. I wanted to go to Ohio State. The moment I broke my leg and I can no longer participate in summer activities as far as camps and clinics and all that stuff was concerned, a lot of schools backed off. Bowling Green State University, Coach Larenagum, who's now at the University of Miami, they never backed off. They stayed the entire time. So then at the start of my senior year, when I was back healthy again, and I started to play well again, a lot of the bigger schools started to come back. But by that time, my loyalty was to Bowling Green because they had been loyal to me.

Did anybody come back in late then in the picture once you were healthy again, the bigger schools? That I wanted to go to? Yeah. No. At that time, it didn't matter. At that time, it didn't matter. You start getting letters and all that kind of stuff. But at that time, I'm like, no, I'm good. You know what I mean? When I went to Bowling Green, that was my first visit that I scheduled. So I scheduled to go to Bowling Green. I go to Bowling Green and I tell Coach Larenaga right then in the student union, this is where I'm going to college. And I didn't even take another visit. With the first pick in the 2005 NBA draft, the Milwaukee Bucks select Andrew Bogut from Australia and the University of Utah. Late NBA Commissioner David Stern announcing Australian center Andrew Bogut

as the top pick in the 2005 draft after a couple seasons in Utah. So let's go back to it, Andrew. The best recruiting story that put you in the state of Utah as a college basketball player. So if I can't remember the story, Brian Gorgian, who coached the national team,

he was coaching the Victoria Titans at the time, which was a now defunct NBL team. So I used to go down there and work out in the school holidays with the pro team. They let a lot of the young up-and-coming kids from the state would go there. And if they had open gyms, we'd play fire on fire. They actually let me be involved with their training sessions

on the third grey squad. So I'd run the other team sets and whatever. It was just training, right? And there's a man named Ken Shields there from Canada. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Ken Shields, but he was involved in Steve Nash's journey as a young fellow at some point as well. Canadian basketball coaching legend.

Everyone knows who he is. He was a guest of brian gorgens for a couple of weeks of training camp so he saw me and he's like what are you doing i said i'm going to the is for a couple of years and he's like okay you're going to college i said yeah i'm looking i'm just looking at offers now at that point i was getting like poo offers i was getting like small schools like um nothing nothing not even mid-major like small like you know the caltech cal poly all that kind of stuff no disrespect to those schools but small schools right um he was good friends with rick mageris and he called rick mageris and said there's a kid down here seven foot you gotta come see him send someone out they sent us they sent

one of their assistants out straight away and they were the first big school to buy into, you know, talking to me. And then I had a coach, a trainer at the time, who was really strict disciplinarian, and he loved that Rick Majerus connection of, this guy's going to kick your ass every day. It's what you need. It's what you want. I knew Utah from what I'd read and what we'd known online

or just known from around the traps was that it's not a party school. It's, you know, Utah's a very, you know, conservative state as far as family orientated. It's not a party, big party, drug, alcohol scene, all that kind of stuff. So my whole thing was I don't want to go somewhere where I'm distracted with things. Not that I was a huge partier, but I just didn't want to have

even that temptation. And it worked because, you know, when I was bored in Utah, I'd get the keys to the gym and go work out. And that's kind of how that all worked out. So Rick and Josh recruited me, played for him for about half a season until he bailed on us and just got on a plane and quit halfway through the season, which was for health reasons, quote unquote, which we found out later it wasn't.

And then, yeah, then kind of similar to the Mark Jackson, Steve Kerr story was that, you know, after Majerus was a tough coach to play for, like really, really tough, like really hurt my confidence at times, his whole thing was he'd like to break you down and build you back up. And then by the time you were a senior, you're great. And he's like, look what I did. That was kind of his mentality with a lot of players

that I noticed, in my opinion. But then the next season we got Ray Giacoletti and he was just like, here's the keys to the team. Do your thing. And, you know, I basically swept every college award imaginable that year and took a team that our roster was solid, but we weren't a deep, fantastic team that probably should have been in the Sweet 16 and we ended up making the Sweet 16 and having a chance to go to the lead

eight but lost to a tough Kentucky team that had three seven-footers beating the shit out of me for 40 minutes. Was there ever, this will be the last thing, was there ever a last-minute big school program just going, all right, we're going to grab this guy. Utah's on him. Were you almost, they almost flipped you at the end. Yeah. So what happened was I was supposed to go over mid 2000 and was it 2002?

I was meant to go over, sorry, halfway through the school year I was supposed to go over around Christmas time and red shirt and then be ready for the following season in 2003. Right. And something happened with my transcripts, the NCAA, God bless them. Christmas time and red shirt and then be ready for the following season in 2003, right? And something happened with my transcripts. The NCAA, God bless them. They're all about their rules. I did a class called Sports Studies, which was a half physical, half social science credit.

NCAA said, it's either one or the other. You can't have half and half. And I'm just like, what do you mean? Australian schooling is different to you guys. It's legit, blah legit blah blah blah like you can't count one or the other so then what that meant was i was short of credit in either side like physical or social science so then i'm like so then my um i can't go over majerus is losing his shoes about to file the assistant that's recruiting me blaming him so then i have to stay in australia for another six months and all i did at school was like i did five science classes just to make sure just in case that's recruiting me blaming him so then i have to stay in australia for another six months and

all i did at school was like i did five science classes just to make sure just in case i did bad one i had backups what happened in that process was my letter of intent expired so yes i then had all these other schools oregon gonzaga a few other schools i just got on a usa tour um and played some of these schools with the AIS, like a 16, 17-year-old kind of touring team and played really well against college kids. And they'd try to recruit me, but I was kind of a man of my word and a man of principle.

And I just kind of stared at them in the face and said, like, where the fuck were you guys at 18 months ago? So I just stayed loyal to Utah and got over there and it worked out perfectly. So I just stayed loyal to Utah and got over there, and it worked out perfectly. One and done, Stefan Marbury, during his season at Georgia Tech in a game that matched him up against the future number one pick, Allen Iverson. Stefan, you are one of the biggest names in high school hoops coming out.

I imagine everybody wanted you. What's your best recruiting story? Maybe one you haven't shared before. Okay, I'll give you two. wanted you. What's your best recruiting story? Maybe one you haven't shared before. Okay, I'll give you two. The first one is Bobby Kremins came to pick me up from practice. He picked me up in a black Continental. This is when there wasn't no Ubers and all of that. It was just straight like Lincoln's. Black Lincoln blacked out, picked me up in front of Abraham Lincoln High School, took me to Teterboro,

and we jumped on a private plane and we drove. This was when I was a senior in high school. This is how they recruited me. And so when I see these kids on planes now, and I'll be laughing like, oh, so you was on a private jet? Oh, great. That was cool. That was nice. You jet set it all right, bro. So, um, I, we, we get

to the plane. I'm like, oh, so we really getting on a plane going to Atlanta. I was like, okay. So this is what it is. We land. He brings me straight to the Omni. Remember the Omni? Yeah. The Atlanta play. Played during the time like 95 1995 and he sits me right

two rows behind the floor and he's like, is this where you want to be at? I said, this is exactly where I want to be at. We went from the play straight to the game. I was like, okay. I said, so, all right. So basically, where am I signing at?

Okay, so that's the story first. So how I got to Georgia Tech. I was going to Syracuse. I wanted to go to Syracuse. I wanted to go to Syracuse. If you ask anyone about if you ask anyone about what school was Stephon Marbury

going to a deadlock for about the school that he likes and they'll tell you Syracuse. So Jim Behar he comes to my house on my college visit in the projects in Coney Island.

He comes up, he sits down, five minutes he's talking about school. My brothers, they're sitting down, my mom and my dad. And he's talking about Syracuse and blah, blah, blah, blah. And then five minutes into that, he goes, I just want to let you know that I'm not going to start you. Both of my brothers, they got up and they walked out the house. I said, what the? I said, what, like, what just happened? And my mother and my father looking at each other like, okay.

So he said, well, you know, I know Bobby Primus is coming here on your next visit. And, you know, we know Georgia Tech is a good school, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but we're not going to, you know. And my mother was like, well, we really don't got nothing to talk about. And it was over with in less than 15, 20 minutes. They left. The next day, Bobby Crimmins came. He sat down. The first thing he said was,

I just want to let you know right now, I'm going to give you the ball and let you do what you want to do. I set up my, my mother said, now that's what we talking about. Did Kenny Anderson, was he part of that? Like,

Hey, that's where you want to go. No, no, no. I mean, I mean, I love, I loved Kenny Anderson at Georgia Tech, but I mean, when I went on my visit and then when that happened,

I was gone. I was on my way to Georgia Tech. Rodgers, good protection now out to his right. To the end zone, caught for the touchdown, James Jones. What a throw, what a catch. Secures it going to the ground. That will stand as a huge touchdown for the Green Bay Packers. James Jones, the touchdown catch from Aaron Rodgers and a big win over the Vikings in 2015.

Joe Buck on the call for Fox. James, I want to go back to the days at Gunderson. You're a high school kid trying to figure it out. You end up at San Jose State. What's your best recruiting story from those days? Man, best recruiting story? I don't really have a good recruiting story man because i was coming out of high school man and nobody wanted me you know what i mean i nobody wanted me man

my junior year you know i tore it up at gunnarsson that you know playing receiver my senior year the uh the coach got fired and his son was a quarterback, a really good quarterback at that. And he transferred his son to the rival high school, the Oak Grove High School. So the new coach came in, Coach Jody Carrasco, and he was like, J.J., man, I need you to be an athlete. You can throw it. I need you to play quarterback.

And I'm like, man, I'm trying to get a scholarship, man. I'm not no quarterback, man. I need to be catching these balls. But I'm like man i'm trying to get a scholarship man i'm not i'm not no quarterback man i need to be catching these balls but i'm like all right man you know she need me for the team you know i help my dogs out so i went out there my senior year played quarterback and i actually balled out you know what i mean and you know a couple teams came knocking on the door man a couple at the time was back to a couple pack 10 schools came came uh knocking on the door, man. A couple back at the time, it was Pac-10, a couple Pac-10 schools came knocking on the door. But once I went to San Jose State, man, and met Keith Williams,

I know you hear me, Devontae and Tyreek Hill and those guys always talk about Coach Dub, Keith Williams, man. He was my receiver coach at San Jose State. He's an absolute character.

He's a dude that I, you know, is a father figure to me that I felt like I'm not going to get this. Even if Ohio State was knocking down my door, you know, Tennessee was knocking down my door. He was that special. I felt like he was going to turn me into that player. You know, even though it's hard to come out of San Jose State.

But when I met him, man, he changed my life, man. So it was a no brainer for me to sign with San Jose State, man. So that's what I did. And, you know, the rest is history. You know, my kids are like, you know, Daddy, I'm going to San Jose State. And I'm like, man, that's crazy that y'all yelling San Jose State, man. I wasn't yelling San Jose State when I was coming out. I was more, you know, UCLA and USC and San Jose State.

But I said, we'll see, man. I said, y'all better than that, you know, since, you know, it might be some more people knocking down you. So was there anyone, though, that was coming to offer you as a quarterback after that senior year? I just, I had a bunch of, like, D2s,

Division I, AA, like the Sac States and all that type stuff, you know, coming to offer me to play quarterback. My only D1 offers, man, you know, I had the Arizonas, you know, the Arizona States and all that offered me to play receiver. But, you know, I wasn't a quarterback. I knew that.

I knew that. And I believe I could throw. Every time I throw a ball, I tell people I need to go back to the league and switch my position to play quarterback. But I know I ain't a quarterback. I was a receiver always. The Glove, back in his Oregon State days in Corvallis. Gary, you were actually going to go to St. John's,

play with Walter Berry, Willie Glass. What happened? Well, we had Weddington. They had Weddington. They had Mark Jackson, a lot of these – I mean, you know, the Shelton Jones. They had a lot of players, man. We were going to be okay.

And I was a big Walter Berry fan. And Walter Berry was my best – one of my favorite college basketball players, right? And I were playing and then we were playing against the New York guys in Phoenix, Arizona, and I was having great games against them. You know, we did it for a year or so, and Coach Rutledge was

the assistant coach at the time at St. John's, and he started recruiting me, and it was amazing for me because I wanted to play with Walter Barrett. I just wanted to play with him and I committed to St. John's. And right there,

when we do our high school thing, when we get in our gym and we make our decisions, Greg Foster played with me in high school and he was about to announce he's going to UCLA. I was going to go to St. John's and right before we got on the podium,

Louie got a second call and said he wants to take me. He don't want to sign me because he don't want to mess up his recruitment in the East Coast with the New York guys because he took a West Coast kid for the first time and messed me up. You know what I mean? All of a sudden, I let my mom pick my school. She picked Oregon State. That was my second choice anyway.

But it was good, you know, because my coaches were there. They had recruited me since I was in ninth grade. I did Liberty League. And then actually, you know how that worked out. You know, I became who I was. You know what I'm saying? I did Oregon State, and I'm saying? At Oregon State. And I think my mom did a great job.

And I thank Conor Senko for not taking me. Because I think, you know, my life panned out very, very well. Yeah, that's a real thing. Especially when St. John's was running New York the way they were. Because they also had this huge advantage because they didn't have housing housing that they were able to take care of you with some side. I probably wanted to go there anyway. We didn't have no dormitory. We would live off campus. New York was going to be a little different. It was a city like my city in Oakland. I was like, hey, let me go out here and get it going. So, you know, it just changed.

You know, it was just meant to be for me to stay in the West Coast. Because I remember getting to know Jamal Mashburn a little bit because I was like, well, what happened with you? And he goes, my mother told me I am not staying in the city. Like back then, she's like, you are getting out of here. And he wanted to go to St. John's, bad. But the Walter Berry thing, I mean, for younger listeners, they're not going to know. I mean, he's the original truth. He was the first guy that was nicknamed the truth.

And he was as nice as it gets, man. But was he going to stay another year if you had shown up? That was because he ended up leaving. So Walter Berry was going to stay another year at St. John's if you showed up. Yeah, I think we met him at a talk and we went on a recruiting trip. And I don't know if he would stay, but he knew I was coming. And he was like, I'd seen a kid like, you know, I heard about you. And his brother said he's nice.

But I think by that time, Walter had decided that he wanted to go get some money. And it would have been messed up if I would have came and then he left, you know what I'm saying? So, you know, Chris stayed, you know, Mark stayed, Whittington stayed. All of them were there. Willie Glass was still there. So it would have been, it's still good when Walter left. So, you know, I would have hoped he didn't if Walter came,

but, you know, I never got the chance to figure that out. Yeah, Mark was still going to be there. So maybe that's part because you're right. Like Karnaseka, that stuff back then, if you took a West Coast guy, then then you're screwing up your own recruiting stuff. So I'm sure Karnaseka, like it wasn't nasty. He was just straight with you about it, I assume. He was just straight.

I mean, it was good. Like I said, it was good. You know, he went and took the kid, Joe Rodnex, and that was fine for me. You know, I was like, okay, that's good. Let me stay over here on this West Coast.

Next thing you know, you know, everything took off from there. He's a Hall of Famer. He's one of the top 75 players in the history of the game. He's Gary Payton. Thanks a lot.

Really appreciate it. Thank you, guys. I appreciate it. Anytime. Let me know. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari. 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork.

I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So, now you know what's possible. Let me tell you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life advice. The email address is lifeadvicerr at gmail. Okay.

6'4", 200, turning 30 next month, but can still get you 23 and 3 in just about any men's basketball league. That's the mellow. I like that. Oh. He said he met me, but he wanted to leave that out. I'll leave it in. I like to leave it in. Is there any other details? It's funny.

No, he said he didn't know who I was and he had no idea. But he said leave it out. So that's me leaving it out. I thought there was going to be a funny story in there and it is kind of funny but it's it's not like uh that's okay i don't i don't usually expect people to be sitting at the table that don't know me being like this is so cool like maybe he'll do it and then he started listening to the pod he's like i have no idea who this guy

is but he hosts a podcast i'll listen to it all right that's the part that's kind of funny is that then he now listens to it but at the time he had no idea who i was but uh i don't somebody i'd need more information to remember this but again he said leave it out we've spent two minutes on so uh my girlfriend's been hitting that she wants to get engaged uh and getting way less subtle about it recently which leads us to having a couple conversations about rings personally i'm a believer that expensive rings are a huge waste of money i was shocked when i heard the guy a few weeks ago say he felt bad that he wasn't spending enough. My girlfriend of course disagrees with me and this led to an argument about whether or not I would buy

her a nice expensive ring if we get engaged. Alright, so in my view, spending five figures on a ring makes no sense. You get nothing out of it except other people seeing that you have it. Hey bro, like who the fuck are you talking to? Like every, all of us understand this. All of us understand but it's kind of that's the way it

works no i mean i know but he's right some guys like you know they kind of like get off on the fact that they're the guy in the group whose wife has the biggest ring and you know i'm that would be yeah i would be like that now yeah you yeah yeah yeah i mean you know it's also i also do find kind of find a weird or find it kind of weird when the girl the girl is like why i will i only want a ring that's 10k or up and you're like okay but like what if i can't afford that right now you know like i think it's really weird when they get pushy about it so anyway i'm sure there's some people out there that can be like you're an idiot so you just like do what she says but i don't know i didn't spend that much i spent a good amount but i didn't spend that much. I spent a good amount, but I didn't spend that much.

No, but I do think that there's some really... If we wanted to do this and like, I don't know what kind of window we're in right now where certain things you're just not allowed to talk about like openly and being pragmatic about it. But if there was a thing that was the other way around where men, it was understood we were just going to demand something that isn't super like it's not a great

investment it's just no you have to do this because that's the way the world works doesn't make you love someone anymore yeah right like my love will only be unconditional if you do something for me that i can wear and it's impressive like that's a pretty fucked up dynamic. And if that were reversed, good luck. Good luck with that one. All right. He doesn't want to spend the money when we're in our early 30s. I think there are other way more important things we could do with this money. Would a fake diamond that looks expensive in pictures

for her friends not do the trick? I was worried. I didn't know where this email was going, but now I'm so happy. I kind of want him to do it and then check back in with us a year later. A little cubic zirconium action. Yeah.

Does spending a certain amount of money really equate to me liking something more or liking someone more? Am I losing my mind? Do I have a legitimate argument here? And if so, do I get her to agree with me or am I just fighting a losing battle? If it's already been brought up

that she's expecting you to spend 10K or more, the fake, really good fake-looking one, dude, I mean, come on. You don't even need to email us this. You can't do it, one, and if you want to just fight for a week, go ahead. Bring it up. Ask her if she won't mind a fake one, dude,

and then all hell is going to go, all hell is going to break loose, I guess it's to say. And look, look, you could say, you can't tell her all this different stuff. I didn't think I could tell my sister who's a jeweler. Yeah. My sister who's a jeweler, she just said straight up,

whenever you look at something that's diamond and if it, like when you look at diamonds, you know they're diamonds. And if there's ever a moment you're like, that's not, it may be as brilliant or as I would think, then it's like, it's always the fake. Somebody's going to figure it out.

It might be her. It's going to be way worse if it's one of her friends or one of the relatives. This is something you probably can't recover from. Even though I agree with you on the finance part of it, you can't do this and you definitely can't bring it up as an option. She's going to freak out. Yeah. I mean, she's going to know the amount of times that I've looked at stuff and been like,

that looks like a diamond. And my wife's like, are you an idiot an idiot no it's not every almost every they know they all know and all of her friends are gonna know it's it's gonna be an absolute freaking disaster not worth going i do have a small solution to this problem what you can do is and and there this is something you will never know is you can buy a man-made diamond that are slightly cheaper than real diamonds so like it's gonna it could save you if she's looking for a 10k ring it might save you a couple grand um because you know obviously natural diamonds are more rare and they're a little bit more expensive so you could probably save like something like 10 50 if you do buy a man-made diamond and she will never

know just don't bring her obviously to the appointment uh because that was an option i my wife has a has a um a man-made diamond and it looks awesome. It's great. They were basically, I was basically, why would you buy a real diamond? Well, my wife also really didn't want to buy.

She was like kind of scared of the blood diamond thing and how, you know, how basically diamonds are, are mine and how terrible and kind of shitty it is. So she wanted to see the movies. Yeah. She saw the Leo movie and was just like, I don't want to be a part of this.

So you don't have to tell your wife this or your future wife, this, your girlfriend, this. So that's at least a tell your wife this or your future wife this, your girlfriend this. So that's at least a way to probably save like 15, 20%. There you go. We offered us some kind of solution here, but I'm just telling you,

based on the tone of describing your girlfriend in this, if she's already arguing with about this kind of stuff, I actually, for the sake of entertainment, will you please ask her if you can get a really nice fake one and then just email us back? I wish I could remember what this was because now I want to check with somebody else, but the age thing makes me think it might

have been like a... I don't know. I'm trying to piece it together on why I would know who this was. I don't want to... Listen, I'm not trying to rock the boat or anything here. I just find it really uncomfortable when I'm sorry. Like if there's any girls listening to the pot, I just find it really uncomfortable when you're that pushy about how much a

ring should cost. You know, like I guess if, if you know how much your partner makes and you, and you understand that it's like, there's like a range in which that you'd like to be at. Sure. But if you're like minimum 10 K doesn't marry that,

like I'm not getting married unless this is the thing to me,'s kind of that's kind of a red flag i don't know because it is a red flag but it's an accepted one no but it's socially accepted yeah unless you have no business marrying yeah like you actually have to pay a tax on just being so above the rim that you're like the above the rim tax kicks in but like imagine if it again if it was the other way around and my girlfriend was like i'm gonna get you a cartier as my engagement watch to you and i'm like really cartier like they're nice but you know not a rolex yeah do you really love me like how how the fuck would that be consumed by the population not great not great yeah right okay all right here we go another one i want to break up with my girlfriend in six years can't't afford to move out. My girlfriend and I have been together for six years. I'm 34. She's 30.

Met in Europe, both living there at the time. After a year of dating, we moved in together. The adjustment was a struggle. We bickered about little things and nuances. 13 months later, we broke up. She moved back to California while I stayed in Europe for six more months. I moved back to Philadelphia in the winter of that year. We decided we want to try to give our relationship another shot. She came out and visited a few times. Things went great. She met my family and even flew out to my sister's wedding. Fast forward nine months, I moved out to California for her. In the beginning, there were more challenges. For the first

two, three months, we had to stay at her verbally abusive alcoholic mother's house until we found a place and myself a new job. Her mother drunkenly took my car while I was asleep, ran it over the neighbor's lawn and destroyed their shrubs and garden. To say she put a

strain on our relationship is putting it mildly. Yeah, the mom-in-law, not mom-in-law stealing your car hammered. That could present a conversation or two, I would think. I had to keep most of my opinions to myself since my girlfriend and mother were trying to mend their fractured relationship. The mother is always

quick to feel offended and react. This plays a part later in the email. My girlfriend's sister got married in mid-July. The mother called the sister a fucking bitch on her wedding day because she did not participate in helping with the flower arrangements. That seems reasonable. Back to the past, her father passed away

two months after I arrived. I drove her and the siblings on two occasions. I'm not going to give the locations here because it's a little whatever. To see him in the hospital that upcoming year wasn't the best for her, but we made it through. I'm thankful I was able to meet him before he passed. Now we've been living together for three years and things have been great. Last year we moved to San Diego. She has a strong support system. This is a lot of details, man. I earned my master's as well as found a job teaching. She's always encouraged

me when I worked odd jobs through a temp agency. Along the way, I realized I had to make many changes myself to make this work and appreciate her more. I cook every night, clean, help with the laundry, keep my mouth shut more, and even built the furniture in our apartment. We go out a lot, enjoy ourselves, and our

life in the city. We have a good life. We're talking about marriage, but something has changed. Her attitude and move have become very defensive. She takes offense to almost everything and snaps back with a derogatory remark. For example, I built a bookcase for our play. She wanted to help out. She agreed to stain the shelves and measure out where the corner braces need to be placed. While staining, I remarked that she could go a bit lighter with the wood stain.

I was met with a barrage of insults. Man. Soundss. Man. Sounds awesome. Bob Vila asking Norm, you sure that dormer's going to be sealed? Although Norm, I think, knew way more than Bob Vila did to go back and watch the shows, but that's

controversial take. This has been going on for quite some time over the littlest of things. A month ago, I had my car in the shop for minor repair and i gave her a few days notice that i would need to pick up the car the following saturday she had no problem at all but saturday rolled around and on the way to repair shop i was repeatedly called a fucking idiot okay at least we know why you're at least you're getting out of a terrible relationship so congrats on that why are you a fucking idiot for just having the car in the repair shop another example after getting home late for work i was cleaning the bathroom because we had company coming the following day i asked if she could water the plants in the porch

i was the piece of shit uh that should do it i guess that's what he was told i've repeatedly tried to ask what's wrong and why she resorts to such hot uh hostility i meant with silence or she blames you for something else to cause this reaction i want out but i cannot afford to move out my mind is made up that i cannot keep going along with this i find her extremely unattractive wow maybe he left a lot of details in here so that somebody be like hey do you know that guy from san diego that does a lot of stuff around the house and his wife's a bad stainer girlfriend she sucks she doesn't go light enough with the staining. I do not want to fix anything. I cannot move back east to sort my life out for when my parents moved from Philly. I can't live there. I don't

want to ask to sleep on their couch or to help financially. I cannot stay with my brother because he and his wife live in a log cabin with two kids. I don't have any close friends out here who can help me out. Do I just try to enjoy the good times and ride out the low ones? I cannot put a deposit on the first month's rent down. I have a car payment, phone payment, rent, groceries, and pay for gas. Do I simply cut back on unnecessary things until I finally save up to leave? Yes. Yes. I mean, look, you're 34 and you can't afford a first month's rent somewhere else you know i mean i know it's tough for a lot of people but uh anyway uh i've but it is those necessary things that get me away from her saving enough money could be a year from

now i'm starting to become miserable look i't. I'd be homeless before I live with somebody I didn't want to be with. So I would, you know, you have to be single-minded here. You have to be completely focused on, you know, what you're doing. Think about how much you're spending on food. You talked about how you go out and enjoy the city a lot. Start cutting that shit out. This should be operation first and last in security deposit. That's what this operation should be called. Operation first, last security deposit. You should be doing everything

you can do to as quickly as you possibly can get out and get your own apartment. All right. People move out, people get apartments, people will live in apartments they don't necessarily love just to get out of a different one. And that's what you clearly need to do. I mean, if you're getting yelled at here all the time, I mean, some of it doesn't even make any sense. Just because you put the car in the shop and it was going to take a couple of days, you're going to need to get picked up. Then we're going to give you a loaner.

So I don't know. Are you doing things? You know, it doesn't, I mean, is there something that you're doing that you're leaving out of the email that's leading to all this stuff? I mean, it sounds like she's been through a lot of stuff. Loses the father.

You mentioned the mother's issues and all that kind of stuff. So I guess if there was a way to try to mend the fences here you could be more sympathetic to everything that she's gone through here and tell her that and tell her those things and be like are you do you have all this pent-up frustration with me because of me or is it because of all these other things and if that's the case can we please talk about this and give it one more chance it doesn't sound like you want to do any of those things it sounds like you want to move out so that was sort of a last-ditch effort um But at least maybe in the time that you

could try to do that while you're saving to move out to make these next few months, however, it's going to take you to get the money together. But I don't know how anyone, this happens all the time. I remember one time I was even dating somebody who was living with her ex-fiance. And she was like, well, this is just sort of, I was like, so what happens? Like you both bring people home and it's cool. After at one point you had said yes to wanting to spend the rest of your life with them. And she was like, yeah, you know,

it's like, we're just so over it. Except for six months later, she's like, hey, I don't really want to see you anymore. I got together. We started sleeping together again. I was like, oh, no shit, no way. Because you used to sleep together and you used to live in the same house

and you started sleeping together again. Holy. Has anyone ever done that before? That's amazing. What a, what a, and also I was, I wasn't, uh, I don't know. I'm trying to think of different phases, which was the worst to date me in. And that would have been one of them.

Uh, yeah. I don't know what else to say here, sir. I mean, I think you hit all the nails on the head on like how to like actually get out of the situation. But I would say in the meantime, because clearly it's not going to happen that soon, why are you even engaging with her? Why are you relying on her for anything? Treat it like you live alone.

You clean all the shit. It doesn't matter. Don't even deal, don't even put her in a position where she's going to berate you or yell at you about something that's going to make you mad or sad or whatever. You're going to do all the cleaning. You're going to likely do all the shopping. You've got to go pick up your car. Then don't ask her for help.

She's dead to you. You live with her, but you're not interacting with her. You're in your room. You don't share common spaces. That's how you just cut her out of your life. And I know you live in the same place. And you're going to have to occasionally walk past each other. But don't rely on her or ask her or engage her in any sort of conversation.

And that'll at least make the interim a little bit better. And as you said, Ryan, you just eat some ramen for a while, do whatever you take. You got any valuables, sell that stuff and just make as much money as you can and get the first month's deposit and get the hell out of there as soon as you can. But in the meantime, I wouldn't even... She's dead to me. I wouldn't even talk to her. Yeah.

There was a guy recently that I knew about something was going on and he was walking around with a $50,000 Rolex and he couldn't pay rent anywhere. And I remember just being like, here's an idea. Yeah. Rent on your wrist, bro. What are we doing? Yeah. Like you don't deserve that watch if you can't do all the other things, you know, if you, if you're, if you don't have money, you know,'t have money, you can't be like, oh, this watch means something to me. I'm just like, well, it should mean advancing the rest of the timeline for you instead of having a sick watch that people don't realize that you shouldn't even have. Yeah.

There you go. That's life advice. The Ryan Russillo Podcast. Thanks to Steve, as always, Ringer Spotify. Please subscribe. you