The Ryen Russillo Podcast - The Lack of Parity in CFB, Realignment With Barry Alvarez, Plus NFL Agent Don Yee on His Career and Repping Tom Brady

Episode Date: September 1, 2022

Russillo shares his thoughts on the historical lack of parity in college football (0:29), before talking with former Wisconsin football head coach and current athletic director Barry Alvarez about conference realignment, the inception of the Big Ten Network, the state of NIL after a year, being an athletic director vs. being a coach, and more (12:10). Then Ryen talks with sports agent Don Yee of Yee & Dubin about his unique path to representing athletes, signing Tom Brady out of Michigan, the case for dissolving the draft in sports leagues, Jimmy Garoppolo's future, creating Tom Brady's deal with Fox Sports, and more (29:42). Finally Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:09:03). Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Barry Alvarez and Don Yee Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

packed show for you uh a lack of parody in the history behind it in college football we're gonna talk with don yee tom brady jimmy g's agent long time guy i'm gonna throw a bunch of stuff at him and barry alvarez on the big 10's future and all the stuff that's going on in college football and a big life advice. Enjoy. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Winter is here, so be prepared and get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. What do I mean by almost anything?

Well, you can't get a ski slope, but dish soap, definitely doable. Sunshine, that's no. A bottle of wine, yeah. And a snow day, again, no. But blueberry muffins with the delicious crumb topping? Total yes. Get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol in select markets.

Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. We're getting ready for the college football season. I want to talk about the lack of parity because I think at times it can be thrown out there, but it's a problem right now. It's a real problem. And I don't know if that's the main factor or the main reasoning for a playoff expansion push or it could just be people think that four teams being in is stupid and that we

should have all the power five conferences and then one group of group of five, which, you know, actually kind of against that. So if it's not six, there's seemed to be more of a push for 12 this off season, which, you know, again, doesn't make any sense to me because it's like, why don't we just play for four months? And the team lost three games. Now they're going to be like the 12th team in. We're going to be arguing about whose three losses are better loss in the other team. And they have a chance to play. And I understand there'd be different versions of it.

There could be buys where it should be a little bit harder. I know people say, hey, that's what the NFL does. I actually don't like that a nine and seven team has a chance of winning a Super Bowl. I don't. Or in this case, it could a chance of winning a Super Bowl. I don't. Or in this case, it could be 9-8 with the extra game from last year. I don't think the NBA should have as many playoff teams as they do. Hell, when the NHL, before they'd expanded to the last round years ago,

it felt like everybody made the playoffs. And baseball is going in the wrong direction with this, too. There shouldn't be this many wildcard teams. I mean, the fact that the Dodgers won 106 games last year and then had to play another game against the Cardinals. You play 162, you win 106 of them.

It's like, yeah, before you're in the real playoffs, can you play just one more game? That's ridiculous to me. But I also know that more people would disagree with me. So I'm not super passionate about this. This is how I feel. I'm sharing it with you. And when we talk about college football playoff expansion, I wonder if it's more selfishly

motivated and that I don't like that my team doesn't have as good of a chance, which is totally fine. I felt that way about things too in the past. Or if it's just, wait a minute, why, how can we keep having the same teams over and over again? So a little bit of a history lesson here. I'm going to run through the playoff teams. We've had eight years of the college football playoff. That's 32 spots.

13 teams. I was actually a little surprised that it was as high as 13 teams. You've got Bama seven. Bama's been in seven of eight. Oregon's had one. Florida State. Ohio State's been in four. Clemson's been in six of eight playoffs. Michigan State. Remember that win against Iowa. Oklahoma's got four. Washington one, which has been now a five-year drought for the Pac-12 since that Washington appearance. Georgia twice.

Notre Dame twice. LSU once. Michigan once. And Cincinnati this past season is the first non-power five. So that's 13 teams of the 32 spots. I guess that's bad. I guess that's kind of bad. The SEC's had only three teams in the playoffs.

Big Ten's had three, ACC two, Pac-12 two. Again, that five-year drought. Big 12 won. It's only been Oklahoma. Then Notre Dame and Cincinnati is sort of that others group. Now, the Saban part of this, and to a lesser extent, Clemson here too. As I've said numerous times, if it wasn't for Saban, we'd be looking at Davos 20 and Clemson as the gold standard for what you want your college football program to be. But instead, we've just simply had to run up against the single greatest run in the history of the sports.

Not debatable. Won't debate it with anyone. Sorry to Mad Dog and Air Procedure. So when I look at how this has all come together here with Saban, the other part of this, as we talk about the lack of parity, is this gets brought up a lot, right? We'll say like college football is just better when Texas is good. College football is just better when USC is good. And both those programs feel like, especially SC with Lincoln Riley there, feeling like you're headed in the right direction.

Lincoln Riley is probably about as good as you could possibly get where Sark is a peg below that because of his own history. But he's at Texas, and I'm rooting for Sark. Always happen. So whenever anybody says that, I'm like, all right, is college football actually better if Texas is better? Is it better? Because it happens a lot in the NBA or it happens in any of the sports, right? Like the Knicks. The NBA is just better when the Knicks are better. I've had a pretty good time with the Knicks not being good. I don't care. I don't root for.

I don't root against. I don't have really much passion either way. You could bring up the Boston-New York shit. I'm just telling you, I don't care. The NBA's done well. If it was just about the money, then everybody has a money argument that it hasn't mattered in college football that SC and Texas haven't been that competitive. Or in the case of the NBA, yeah, I'm sure there's some rating stuff there with the Knicks that would help.

But the overall TV, like the NBA is not hurting for money because the Knicks are, for the most part, a struggling franchise. And I know they had that nice little run a couple years ago. All right. So the money argument is always the one where I could just argue, well, wait a minute, it hasn't really mattered. But for parity's sake, maybe that Texas-USC argument is right.

Maybe it is better because it means that some more of the California kids are staying in California. Hell, look, plenty of Texas kids are staying in Texas. We know what the recruiting ranks have said about Texas the entire time. They've gotten, like Herman was the guy. LSU wanted him, thought they had him,

and then he ends up in Texas, and you're like, man, what a home run, and then it doesn't work out for whatever reasons. This stuff doesn't work out. There's coaches that you didn't want to work out. There's coaches that you were obsessed with. You get them, and then it doesn't work out. Ask Nebraska about that.

But when I think about the Texas SC part of like, wait, would it just be better because we'd have more talented teams geographically? There'd be a challenge to Oklahoma, the Big 12 finally. SC would get the Pac-12 back into this whole thing. Well, we should probably have our answer pretty quickly. Another history lesson. I went back through every national champion from 2000 on. lesson. I went back through every national champion from 2000 on. There is a stretch here, again, pre-Sabe and just dominating the second decade of this century, where you knew if your head coach was going to deliver the goods very early on. 13 coaches have won titles in the last 22 seasons. Going back to 2000, guess when they did it? I'm not going to make you guess, but I'll provide the answers for you.

Stoops did it in his second year at Oklahoma. Larry Coker did it in his first year. Yeah, that's sort of like a weird inheriting the awesome roster and everything, but whatever. I mean, you know, for the exercise that we're going through here, how quickly did a coach at his new place win a national title? Trestle won at Ohio State in his second year. Saban, that slacker, it took him to his fourth year at LSU,

that split championship where Carroll got it with SC in his third year. Then Carroll repeated in 04. Mack Brown, outlier, eighth season at Texas. Urban, second year at Florida. Les Miles, third year at LSU. Urban repeats. Saban's third year at Alabama.

Chizik, second year. Nobody even thought he was any good, and clearly the people in charge were like, we'd rather just have the other guy Chizik one, one with Auburn in his second year. Then it's Bama Bama Jimbo in his fourth year, urban in his third year at Ohio state wins a title in 2014. I've granted his first year there.

They were 12 and oh, but there were sanctions. I don't know that that team was great, but whatever Bama again, Davos ninth year. So sort of in that Mack Brown category. Bama, Clemson, Ed Ogeron, third full year. Yes, he did take over, but in his third full year, won a title.

Bama, then Kirby Smart in his sixth year. So that's, of this group, eight coaches won a title within their first three years. Saban was in his fourth at LSU. We talked about Mack, Jimbo's fourth, Dabo's ninth. Dabo, remember, too, they didn't even really they weren't even sure, like, oh, wait, Dabo's going to be the head coach, that guy? And he's been awesome. Kirby's

sixth year, although he was in a title game that I'm sure plenty of Georgia fans feel like should have been their first title with Kirby, and that was only in his second year. The point of this exercise is Saban's kind of screwed up the math on how many years in because he's just dominated this entire run. But if you go like the first 10 or 11 years through this deal, you knew pretty quickly. Like if your new guy didn't win within three years of showing up on campus, you probably didn't have the right guy. It feels a lot like NFL quarterbacks, right?

Like I was reading a bunch of different NFL previews. And by the way, I'm just going to ask everyone involved in NFL preview business. I'm going to keep reading them. I'm going to keep buying them. Thanks for all the hard work you do. But the best case, worst case scenario stuff, it too often is, hey, will the Giants be good?

Best case, Daniel Jones takes a step in the right direction. Worst case, Daniel Jones still isn't good. That's not what I'm paying $10 for, for a magazine. I can figure that one out. It feels a little bit like NFL quarterbacks, though, because if you're not good after two years in the NFL, you're probably not going to be good. We can blame a bunch of different outside factors.

Oh, the OC, this system, or they didn't do this, or whatever. All right, yeah. Maybe there's a bunch of forgotten quarterbacks that should have been given more of a chance, and they would have been great with a different structure and foundation and coaching and all that stuff. All right, fine. We make a million excuses for it. But for the reality of retaining your starting position,

if you don't have it figured out after two years, there's usually not a lot of guys that's like, oh, there's that third-year jump. He stunk for two years, and now he's awesome lot of guys. It's like, oh, there's that third year jump. He stunk for two years and now he's awesome in his third year. Could you come up with examples? Sure. So could I. But for most of the time, it doesn't work out that way.

And that's why if you're at SC, you're a fan of Los Angeles or you're down in Austin and you're fired up about your Longhorn. Sark's in his second year. Lincoln's in his first year. Everything would tell us, especially the Lincoln part of it, you got the right guy, but if it doesn't happen right away, and yes, there are outliers, but if it doesn't happen right away, you might not actually have that guy. College football is back, and FanDuel is putting you in the middle of the action, because

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Tennessee Red Line, 1-800-889-9789. Tennessee, 1-800-522-4700. Wyoming, or visit 1-800-GAMBLER.NET in West Virginia. When I think about Wisconsin football, I think the guy I think of first is Barry Alvarez. I've been lucky enough to go out to Madison a few times, had him on the show in the past, legendary coach, AD, now Big Ten special advisor.

So thanks for joining us today. How are you? I'm good, Rod. Good to be with you. So it's been talked about here on the pod quite a bit. Huge college football fan. I kind of hate the expansion stuff. I know it's not new.

I know it's 41 Power 5 teams that have changed since 1992. So in a way, it's like, what am I really mad about? I guess there was a line that was crossed, but I get it. Look, I get it. How do you, when I think, you know, when I think Wisconsin, I think Madison on a Saturday, that camera angle, that low camera angle on coach Alvarez, when you were coaching, you know, this is the things I think about. How do you feel about the necessity of keeping up with everybody else and making sure the Big Ten is positioned? Also thinking about, you know, probably a historic perspective that you appreciate as long as you've been attached to this part of the country.

Yeah, you know, the one thing I've never been afraid of is change. And things are going to change. And it's not always going to be the college football that we always remember we're accustomed to uh conferences have changed you know i'm a nebraska grad alumni and uh that was the old big eight you have don't have that conference anymore and uh so with change um you know you just have to adapt to it i think it's good i think you know eventually you may see um

super leagues so to speak breaking away from uh and running their own uh running their own league and having their own commissioner or whatever you want to call them with their own rules and managing those rules. And so I just think that there's a process going on, and I think it'll be better in the long run when it's completed. How did you feel? You'd been, I think, at Wisconsin better in the long run when it's completed. How did you feel? You'd been, I think, at Wisconsin a few years already.

I think, what, 90, your first year? When Penn State, because I remember just being a college kid, being like, wait, Penn State's going to join the Big Ten? You know, and now it just seems so ridiculous that it'd be anything that was resisted. How did you feel about that, which was a huge get for the conference and something a lot of people thought would never happen? Yeah, well, Penn State, then Nebraska, and Rutgers, and along with expansion,

when you're able to add brand names like Penn State or Nebraska, I was excited for our league, that they would be a part of our league. And we had played them beforehand when, when, before they joined the league, but in growing up in Pennsylvania, I was, I was aware of them, but they're, they're very similar. The model that their university is very similar to ours. Their profile is similar to a big 10 profile and it made sense. Do you think the big 10 profile is something, because, you know,

in the past, it was a public school, private school, academic standards, all that stuff. Is that stuff really as important as it used to be? Yeah, I think it is. I think it is. I think, you know, I can remember Jim Delaney talking to me about Nebraska when he was thinking of, they were trying to get into the league and talking to me about them, And he talked about academic standards.

He talked about their philosophy, how they recruit, the type of school they are, et cetera, et cetera. And I think that that all goes into play as their considerations for other schools in expansion. I've heard some amazing Jim Delaney stories over the years. Uh, the big 10 network, I think really set off a lot of this stuff. And, and the story goes that,

you know, ESPN was pretty stubborn about the rights fees. Jim Delaney said to them, Hey, you're undervaluing our rights fees. And the person negotiating said, you're right. Where are you going to go?

And then boom is the big 10 network. What was it like working with Jim where he just, he deserves a lot of credit for the strength of this conference and everybody trying to catch up to what you've done as far as a television product?

Yeah, there's no question. You know, that was Jim's vision. You know, he, Larry Jones with Fox put it together. I just saw a story about it the other day, you know, on a beach in Naples, Florida, on the napkin, putting the plan together and moving forward with it.

But I was, you know, I was in both jobs at the time, athletic director and football coach, and I can remember him bringing it to us. And then the fight we had with a number of the cable companies in carriage and whether it would be on basic cable or not. And we were one of the states, our cable providers didn't want to put it on basic cable. I think Ohio was the other one. And our people were going crazy in the state. We were in front of the legislature. I mean, Jim fought it. And one thing Jim always did was attain consensus with the athletic directors

and the coaches. And so he had everybody on the same page, and we understood what we were fighting for. But it was a battle for a while. But the minute the plug was put in and TV sets were turned on and Big Ten Network came on, I think we had 40 million viewers. Yeah. I remember the first time we'd be studying the dispersal of funds, the schools post Big Ten Network. I was just in the media. I couldn't imagine being a university president at one of the other conferences being like, wait a minute, what are they doing?

How did this work out? And really, that's a very definitive line in the timeline of where this is all gone. When people look at kind of, it feels like things are changing as they've never changed before. It's kind of funny because I was talking to my other guests about this now, and specifically college football. And whenever some stuff starts happening, they'll be like, hey, there needs to be a commissioner.

Would anyone listen to a college football commissioner? Is that maybe the most pointless title you could have in sports? Well, I think whoever names him commissioner and who is ever under him has to give him the authority to make decisions and hold people accountable. And if you have rules and regulations, somebody has got to enforce them. And that's what we're not getting right now. And that's the issue with the NIL as I see it. We have rules in place, yet it's obvious when you read about it, it's common knowledge that some schools have used it

as inducement in recruiting. And it was not to be included in recruiting, but that's not the case. But somebody has to enforce those, enforce that rule. And if it's not being enforced, if you have a commissioner and everybody agrees to go along with it, then they go ahead and put their foot down and keep things in order. What do you think of the NIL now, your plus in? You know what? Quite frankly, I think it's good. I think once we get our arms around it, you know, I've always been in favor of anything we can do for our student athletes. I don't like to use it in recruiting.

I don't like what I see as far as some of the things going on. But if a young person's value, his appearance on a commercial, et cetera, et cetera, is valuable. If they have, regardless of what sport it is, if you have been smart enough to manage your social media where you have quite a few followers, and that's valuable in advertising, I think they should be able to capitalize on it. So I think it's good, but I just think it should be monitored and make sure that things stay within the guardrails.

But I can live with it. Would you – I guess let's put it this way. How would you feel about the transfer restrictions being limited as a coach? Now, you don't have to deal with it as much now, but when you see what's happening, how do you feel about it today and how you would handle it as a head coach? Let me tell you what I told our coaches. So you recruit these athletes.

You've been in their house. You've met their parents. You see how they've been raised. You see if they have helicopter parents, have they been pampered. You sign them. You bring them in. you sign him, you bring him in. If you can't build a relationship with that student athlete that he doesn't want to play for you and he doesn't want to let you down

and he wants to transfer, then he should be able to transfer. I put it on the coaches. I know a lot of people may disagree with that, but having been a coach, that's the way I would look at it. If me or my staff couldn't build a relationship with that player that they didn't want to stay, I don't know if I'd want them in a program. I'd have no problem with them leaving. And go anywhere now, too, because that's the other thing.

Why would you restrict where they go? At one time, you couldn't transfer within our league. Right. League school to league school. But I have no problem. When you look at, you know, you touched on this just a second ago, like, hey, the Super League thing. Like, what are those conversations like that? Like,

what should we be preparing ourselves for then if we're college football fans? I haven't been in any of those conversations. Okay. I don't know what they're like. I don't know if there have been any, I'm sure that our commissioners have broached that when they meet, but I don't think, I don't know how far along that's gone.

Cause I think the thing that you know what i've always loved about the sport was that i knew when i was watching big 10 football it it looked a certain way smelled a certain way you know what i mean like there was there was something identifiable about the culture like when you go to madison i try to tell people that haven't been there when you go there you feel like you're stepping back in time in the best way possible. It's this unbelievable experience. Not saying any of that stuff goes away, but I felt like, and even with the Texas-Oklahoma thing, I liked the way they looked. I liked the way they looked in their conference, and I don't want to see them play in the Southeast. Now that it's UCLA and USC, I understand every single monetary argument for it.

I understand every moment of survival. It just feels like this is the point for me just as a fan where I go, this doesn't look right and maybe I'll get over it, but right now I don't want to get over it. How do you feel about all that? Well, I think you're going to have to get over it

because it's going to happen. No, I know that. I realize that. I love college football. I really do. I owe college football a lot. You know, and as I said, I'm not afraid of change. I think it'll be good. I really do. I think we'll adjust to it. We'll manage it. I think we'll keep our previous'll keep our, our previous rivals.

We'll build new rivalries. Those things will, will, will happen as you move forward. But I think you have to open your mind a little bit and have a little broader perspective of, of what's going on and, and, and embrace it. I know it's been 30 years, but are you the go-to guy for Notre Dame conversations? No. I didn't think so.

I also wanted to ask you this. If you were to ask anybody that grew up playing sports or whatever, it's always, oh, I wish I could play for this team or my favorite team and all that kind of stuff. And then I think college college football maybe college basketball to a certain extent it can mean a little bit more in a community because that community doesn't have the other things like pro pro city has and that's why like i'm kind of protective of it i love it

but to another level is i would think one of the greatest accomplishments you could ever have is to be somebody who's like a pillar of the community and a lot like what you did in Madison. Do you allow yourself these moments to feel like, man, what I did meant so much in an amazing place to live, a great place, like not the ego part of it of like, man, everybody knows it's me and I'm walking around town, but to feel that sense of community in a profession where usually you get like two or three years and they're paying to pack you up and move you out of town. What is that? Do you allow yourself moments to understand how special that life has been for you? Absolutely. I just had this discussion with,

with someone visiting with my wife and I the other day, you know, when he talked about, and they asked, you know, about us being here. I've been here since 1990. And my wife said that's, you know, we didn't want to be coaching vagabonds. And as you can imagine, I had a number of opportunities to leave here. But we wanted to plant roots someplace and identify with someplace. We were fortunate enough that, you know, we took a program and we built it up and we sustained it. And that was one of my goals. I really admired my college coach, Bob Devaney in Nebraska,

and that's exactly what he did there. And so that was my goal was to take a program, build it, sustain it, take over as athletic director someday and keep it going and build the entire program. And we were able to do that. And this is our home. We raised our kids here. They graduated from the university. I have grandkids, two of them that played here and graduated and another one in school

right now. So this is what our vision was. And it does. It makes me very proud that we were able to do that and stay unlike most people in this business. Yeah, it's remarkable. I just think about you or I'll think about any, it's a very, very short list of people

that get to be that person and can stay and then to switch over to athletic director. Look, you don't need the ego boost for me today on a podcast, but it's just one of those things where you should, you should, you know, you should appreciate how rare it is and what you did. I think it's probably one, what is it that the coach does not understand about the athletic director and the role and their responsibilities? I don't think the coach has to worry about the athletic director. You know, the athletic director shouldn't worry about the coach and do everything in his power to allow a coach to coach. And I always felt, and I told other athletic directors,

I always felt that I had an advantage having coached as long as I did and knowing what a coach goes through when their complaints are legitimate, when they're bogus. I can call BS on some things because I've been there, you know, and they understand that. And I know when a person's doing a good job and when they've lost their team. And those are different ways that I could evaluate someone. But, no, I think a coach needs to worry about his team and doing what he's supposed to do to manage that team, make it as good as it can possibly be

and fit within the framework of the university. And the athletic director is supposed to do everything he can so the coach can just coach. Was there ever a moment where you felt like you were being challenged because of preconceived notion that, oh, football guy now takes over as AD. I coach a different sport. It's not as important to the university.

So now I'm dealing with a deficit. Did you have people that had already started to play a result that hadn't even happened yet? Well, I made it very clear that football paid the bills. Football brings in 80% of the money. So we better win in football and you all better root hard for football. So I was not going to neglect football regardless of what anybody thought. Yeah.

To prove some point and be like, I'm going to show all these guys how much I love swimming by directing some funds. I tell you what, what we did when we're successful, which we were in football, we were able to sell the stadium out. We had success.

Then everyone else, the other 22 sports, their budgets are going to be such that they can compete at a high level. And they all understood that. Yeah. No, I think that's probably the most realistic way to go about it. Hey, thanks for the time today. Absolutely. I knew that, you know, minds weren't going to be changed too much here, but I'll see how I handle Nebraska hosting UCLA here shortly.

Won't that be fun in November? Thanks, Barry. All right, bro. See you. Don Yee, long-time sports agent, broadcasting agent as well, coaches. You know his probably most famous client is Tom Brady, and Don joins us now. Before we get to all the football stuff and everything, I have done the research. I know that you started in media. It's funny because I started in media and I wasn't really sure that I wanted to be on the air. And here I am 20 years later. You were smart enough, I guess, early on to go, you know what, I think I'll do something else in sports where I can make more money. No, well, first of all, Ryan, I want to let you know I'm really honored and privileged to be with you.

And, you know, Pod's very popular and just appreciate being here. Well, thanks. Thanks so much for doing this. We're excited. But, yeah, in the beginning, you know, I know you'd worked in L.A. You know, I know you've also, you know, you've been connected to people in sports as you were, you know, at a younger age as all of us are trying to figure out like, man, I have some goals for myself. I want to do something special, but I'm just not quite sure what that is. How did you navigate some of those early years of really discovering what you wanted to be? You know,

I actually, I know this may sound really, really odd, but I actually knew, you know, really odd, but I actually knew, you know, I had a very strong inkling from about the fifth grade on that I kind of would end up, you know, in sports and possibly in law. And this was back when, you know, Perry Mason was a very popular television show. And, you know, NBC's Game of the Week was a popular baseball broadcast. And, and frankly, you know, I'll share this with you, Ryan, you know, the year I was born in the United States here, you know, I'm Chinese American, and the year I was born in the United States here, less than one half of 1% of the total population of the United States was Asian. And so I grew up in a time in the United States where, you know, when you're a young boy and you're looking for role models and you're trying to

really figure out what to do, you know, everywhere I looked really, I didn't see anyone that looked like myself. You know, so I kind of really, I don't know what it was, but, you know, from a young age, I just said, I just have to have a big imagination and try to, you know, if it's bordering on delusional, you know, that's what I've got to do. I've got to have a big imagination. So from a young age, I kind of really just had a strong pull toward the sports world. a strong pull toward the sports world. And then when I was a young teenager, I'd read that my hometown, which is Sacramento, California, which I think the total population at that time was barely over 100,000. And we had no professional sports in town, but I had read that a minor league

baseball team would be coming to town and relocating. And Sacramento has a rich baseball history and had had minor league baseball before. And so I just said to myself, well, you know, they're going to need some staff and they're particularly going to need, you know, a bat boy or maybe a clubhouse attendant or something like that. And so I just decided to write a letter to team management, you know, just on a lark. And I remember very distinctly at the time, my older brother, who's a number of years older than myself, he just kind of smirked and said, oh, there's no way you're, would they hire you? You know, and, you know, that, that position is going to go to the, you know, nephew or son of the club owner, or, you know, something like that, you know, but it was, it was interesting because it was kind of

a first brush with, you know, getting some negativity, a no, you know, and I said, well, let's see what happens. And so essentially, make long story short, you know, and I said, well, let's see what happens. And so essentially, make a long story short, you know, they replied and they said, you know, why don't you come for an interview? And, you know, I'm literally, I think I was 12 going on 13. And I'm like, interview? I've never had an interview. What is that? And they said, okay, well, you know, you got to show up to this hotel at such and such

time and we're going to interview you. And it was during the school week. And so I basically cut class, lied to my parents, took a public bus to a hotel for an interview. And I'm actually still in touch with the person who interviewed me and gave me the job. And so, you know, it really started from there. And I got to work for AAA minor league baseball team. And it was the first two years we were affiliated with the Milwaukee Brewers. And it was the group of players that eventually made up Harvey's Wallbangers for the Milwaukee Brewers.

A lot of the stars came from that squad. Harvey's Wallbangers for the Milwaukee Brewers. A lot of the stars came from that squad. And Bob Lemon, future Yankees manager, was the manager of that club and kindly took me under his wing. And that's kind of how it all started from there. And then, you know, once the club left after three years, you know, I was actually pretty sad about that. I was in high school, and then when I got to college, just before I got to college,

I started interning at a local radio station and became a sports talk radio producer and met more people there. And then when I knew I was going to UCLA for college, I actually asked the station director, hey, would you mind if I use some station letterhead and write a letter to the Lakers and see if I can get a press credential? And, you know, back then he just said, sure, why not? So I took some letterhead, wrote a letter to the Lakers. They actually responded. So, yeah, sure. Here's a press credential. And it was Magic Johnson's rookie year with the Lakers.

I had a seat about maybe no more than 15 feet from Chick Hearn, the legendary broadcaster for the Lakers. And I probably went to about eight to 10 games of Magic's rookie season and got to hang out in the forum club after the games. I wasn't even 21 years old yet. So it's very clear, like there's this energy that you're drawn to, you know, and I love the writing of the letter story. I mean, it's the same way I got started 20 years ago. One, well, 200, but one letter that was responded to, to a minor league baseball team and started the whole thing for me. But what was the shift towards wanting to be an agent? You know, okay, it's going to be sports. There's an attraction to all of it. You've got this background. Clearly you're motivated a little bit differently. You're

thinking about things a little bit differently at a younger age, especially, but when you go, all right, you know what? I actually want to put my legal background behind this and I want to start representing athletes. Well, it actually started really thinking about players. Um, you know, again, you know, from the time I was really young, 10, 11, 12 years old, uh, thinking about players and, um, just thinking about them as human beings and how they make decisions. Um, and you know, how they went about the rest of their life. And so two things happened for me, you know, when I was young, one was Willie Mays getting traded from the San Francisco giants to the New

York Mets. And, you know, I was like, wow, Holy cow. You know, he was a boyhood idol. I'm like, we spent all these years with this club. And then they just went ahead and unceremoniously trade him to this team that was not too long ago, an expansion team. You know, wow. And he really had no control over that. The next thing that happened was when I started in minor league baseball, it was on the cusp of the free agency movement and fight in major league baseball. And that, you know, and, you know, at the AAA level, which is where I worked at, you know, I got to see players go up and down. Okay, which was really, really interesting. And then there was all this

chatter about free agency. And so, you know, I really got to hear, you know, from the inside. And, and many times, you know, I, during games, I had a uniform on. So oftentimes I'd hang out in the bullpen and, you know, you get to hear what the athletes are talking about what they were concerned with and so it's pretty clear to me from a young age that they didn't really have a lot of guidance that that was what kind of stuck with me and so it i just made up my mind okay you know what i'm going to continue with my education um wherever that goes it was just kind of in the back of my mind that, you know what, at some point in time, I might fall back into this as an adult

and work with athletes. How many clients did you have when you signed Brady out of Michigan? Okay, well, I had already been in the business there about 13 years. And I would say at that time, my practice had about, oh, I want to say maybe 18 to 20 players, maybe another dozen coaches. Now, I think because

there's so much interest because over time, it felt like it was more streamlined. And I've gone back and I've read everything. I know Brady's a different guy as well as far as just the way he sees his own future, a future that nobody else saw for him. I think there's some parallels too with your story in a way. What was it about your pitch? What was your pitch when he's coming out of Michigan

that locked it up? You know what? For me,, you know, for me, and in my industry, I would say some of my peers would tell you that I've just had a very simple formula that actually just for me, you know, the industry, everybody operates very differently. But for me, I always felt that I didn't want to work with a lot of players. I wanted to work with

players that I personally liked, not necessarily just as people, but just from how they played the game. And so, you know, and then I wanted to do it my own way. I wanted somebody, you know, to work with people, you know, where I knew there would be mutual respect. You know, my staff will tell you, you know, I always let them know that, you know, look, we're not a concierge service. You know, we're here often to be a sounding board for athletes and coaches when there are things that they just don't want to hear as well. You know, but the pitch, you know, to Tom, it was actually quite, the process was quite vanilla in that at that time, you know, we, you know, for a long time, we never spoke to any players actually until after their college season.

We never spoke to any players, actually, until after their college season. We met with Tom's dad once during the year, and that just happened to be a coincidence where we were all in the San Francisco International Airport in the red carpet lounge. You know, it was quite a coincidence, and we just happened to cross paths there. And so we just had a brief meeting there, And then it was not until after the Orange Bowl, his senior year, that we actually physically meet with him. And the discussion really was very straightforward about philosophically how I approach my work. And I'll share this with you. I say this to lots of prospective clients. I say, look, I just met you.

So you're not hiring a best friend. You're not hiring a best friend. I said, frankly, the relationship is more like maybe perhaps with your dentist. Over the years, you might develop a friendship with your dentist, maybe, maybe, but you know, the objective for your dentist is to give you a healthy, clean, functioning set of teeth that can last you a lifetime. So, so that's, it's kind of clinical. I'm considered, you know, to some degree, a little clinical. Okay, this is interesting because I kind of put the pieces together, though,

because at this young age, you have this exposure to the minor league guys that get screwed over all the time. I mean, they're still getting screwed over, okay? And then this is all happening around the Curt Flood time where things are being challenged in ways that are not being challenged before. And now you fast forward to Brady, and I know that I'd read, you know, on the evaluation, maybe you would watch him and being like, what's the like, what's what's the problem here? Why is it that like, granted, we can all play the results, but it seems very clear based on things that I've

gone back and looked at that you were shocked that he was not considered a higher prospect, not just as his agent, but as somebody that watched a lot of football and had already been working in it for 10 plus years. Yeah. I mean, to one degree, I was shocked, but to another, I wasn't. That year, I remember very, very well. I watched every single game.

It was, at least to me, quite clear he was going to be an excellent player. But on the other hand, after being in the industry for quite some time and understanding the draft process and what's valued in the draft process, I understood at the time that, okay, certain boxes aren't going to be checked for these evaluators. And you have to understand, Ryan, the draft process is not actually the game of football. Those are two incredibly different things. different business systems as it relates to the personal careers of the evaluators doing the drafting. I want to stay on this because I know you believe there should be no draft, correct? Right. I actually wrote a piece or collaborated on a piece.

This was in the early 90s for Pro Football Weekly, which used to kind of be the Bible for the industry, that, yeah, they should just get rid of the draft. There should be no draft. I mean, you know, in my view, just like every other American that comes through college or community college or high school and you get out in the working world,

you can negotiate with anybody you want and pursue any path you want. You could speak to three potential employers at the same time if you want. Right. And I've always felt that that should be the process here for players playing college football. They should be able to, once they're done with their eligibility, talk to anybody that they want. And let's let, you know,

we've got 32 NFL teams owned by some of the best business people in America. Let's see what their business acumen is like with no draft. And let's see what the, you know, how good the evaluators really are with no draft. Because this happens actually, Ryan, this is not a speculative. It happens with college recruiting every year. Players come out of high school. There's no draft there.

They get to talk to multiple universities or colleges at one time. And the college recruiters have to compete. So I know when I'm younger, right? And I'm simply looking at sports simply as a fan. I liked the franchise tag because I was selfish because I was like, cool. My team gets this mechanism where my guy gets to stick around because he's good. And now my team is better, right? Perfect fan logic. Perfect fan logic. But then once I started, I love the CBAs. I'll read an MLS CBA, okay? Just because I want to see the different mechanisms that ownership can get away with. And I'll be like, oh, wow,

that's a pretty fascinating one. Because the early mls stuff is like that when you look at some of the stuff that they got away with i'm like this is ridiculous so uh when i would start to realize the franchise tag like this is awful it's it's a suppressant it doesn't allow you to get to true free agency we're finally starting to see now over the last few years what would actually happen if quarterbacks got to true free agency every dollar would be guaranteed the salaries would go far beyond where you know they kind of stayed along this this league average thing uh and there'd be competition which would open up all these kinds of salaries so i could always tell when somebody in the media would be like oh the franchise tag isn't that big of a deal it's like there's only this many people that have actually played through the franchise tag you're like like, that's not the point. That it exists is the point, okay?

That it is a weapon, essentially, to be there to threaten you, to keep you away from the true free agency stuff. So as I evolved into realizing like the franchise tag is awful, it shouldn't exist, I've become more open-minded to like, what would it be like if there were no draft? Now, the first argument as a fan, I would say, i would say wait that means the bad teams will always be bad but the counter is like yeah the bad teams are always bad and why do we gift them the top quarterback in five or ten years to screw him up too when they can't figure out because of bad ownership and on and on now i think there's a counter to that where you could say at least cyclically if you do have that chance of that one quarterback who changes

your franchise that that allows it to balance out but i've become more open-minded about the concept of no draft at all because it might not actually be that different than people would realize especially if you still have a cap yeah i mean you know there are some ways it would be different but i i agree with you in many ways it wouldn't be different but I agree with you. In many ways, it wouldn't be different. What is intellectually interesting to me is that the current draft process, you have the so-called draft gurus and experts, and these are people inside the industry and outside the industry. But if there were no draft, then we're going to really see

what's the timing of it going to be. When are they going to make their approaches? How are they going to make their pitches, et cetera? And it would really test the skill sets of not only the evaluators, but the business people within their organization. And as a fan, you're going to really see how good are the people running this place you see yeah yeah yeah no you know and it's still like like we were kind of alluded to before it it doesn't guarantee like the draft doesn't guarantee these franchises turn around so why do we use that as the argument for keeping it in place yeah well yeah i mean you know i've never

been a thinker just you know to share with you I've, I've never been a thinker just, you know, share with you, I've never been a thinker to accept something just because that's the way it's always been done. But that, yeah, that's just, you know, my, my old law school professors would probably tell you that it was pretty annoying in class. Cause I'd always say, like, they'd say, well, this is how it's always been done. I'd say, so what? So, you know, I mean, you know, there's, there's just, I'm just kind of trying to be an open-minded thinker about what the other possibilities are. And if actually, if you look at the history of sports, Ryan, particularly in this country and in any sport, any of the major sports, okay, even in our short lifetimes,

right? You know, how much change has there been? There is no tradition, right? There's no tradition. I mean, maybe for you, Massachusetts and Boston, there's that green wall, okay? You got that. But there's really not a lot of tradition in sports. Things are changing all the time.

No, you're absolutely. And they've never changed as much as they have in just a very short amount of years. And like the things that now, like I've already done kind of an open on this, but the amount of change that we've seen in sports in a very short amount of time is unprecedented. Whether it's the college stuff that's happened you know i think with the new tv rights deals you're just seeing more and more stuff happen with ownership going for it uh you know what i always wanted to ask an nfl agent though is did you all collectively years ago make a pact where it was like hey when your client signs a deal make sure when you give give the media member the tip on this so they can break the story, don't tell them the guaranteed money versus the full amount.

Just make sure the headline is always the most it could ever possibly be so we can watch everyone in the media screw up the total value of the contract for like three days until the rest of the details come out. Because that's always been one of my biggest pet peeves about NFL contracts. You're quite an astute observer of NFL agents, Ryan. Yeah, I think that's kind of a thing. It never really used to be a thing. Frankly, you have to remember, I started in the business when the fax machine was barely coming out on the scene. So when I started, there were no cell phones, there was no internet, there were no laptops,

none of that, you know, it was just a very different place. But now, you know, in the industry, yes, there's kind of been this pattern and, um, it's not really something, you know, that, you know, I, I participate in, you know, um, but, um, but like I said, the industry is changing. Lots of younger practitioners coming in with a different style. And that's okay. That's okay. As long as there are astute observers like yourself, you can kind of read between the lines.

Yeah, I remember being on a TV show. There was a wide receiver who'd made all of his money in the first two years of the deal between the bonus. there was a wide receiver who'd made all of his money in the first two years of the deal between the bonus. And then it was basically for the third year to protect the cap hit his, his actual take home was like less than a million bucks. And he was an awesome receiver. And so then we were on TV and we put up the graphic and listed like 17 receivers that were making more money than him that year, but they were only using the third year and they completely wiped out the whole idea of the average annual salary. I remember being on the desk being like, year and they completely wiped out the whole idea of the average annual salary.

I remember being on the desk being like, are we idiots? I'm like, he already pocketed 22 million. Like his agents clearly just putting this number out there because it looks so bad. But anybody with two seconds and a calculator can figure out that's not actually what the deal. And everybody looks at me like, what are you, what's wrong with him? Anyway, there's a couple other things. So I want to keep going here. The Brady and garoppolo dynamic it was funny to watch it you know from afar and you know we have no relationship and you'd go is this an advantage is this a disadvantage

your colleagues would probably be quick to want to criticize right because it's competition um and others would say why not like he's plugged in on both sides of the story here trying to figure out where this is going. What was your experience like representing two players that were on the same team? And it felt like maybe at one point there was a push for the backup to take over for the legend. Well, you know, for me, obviously, you know,

it's a real honor, you know, to work with two players and and men men like this you know just terrific uh people um you know and that and that dynamic you know was to me actually wasn't unusual at all you know what because my clients know you know, we're an outcome business. And for the average athlete, the two outcomes you want, you obviously want to reach financial security at some point in your life. That's for not just athletes, but for all of us. But the other is winning, getting good enough to win and um and so i would say that um you know that dynamic was unbelievably good in that let's just look at the outcome what was the outcome from those years for both of them i think I would say the outcome largely has been really, really good.

They both, you know, they both have done very, very well. And it's, you know, competition makes things great. And frankly, in that dynamic, you know, I'm the person with the least amount of control. You know, we know you've got an unbelievably, you know, you have the best head coach ever, in my view, there in New England, an unbelievable owner, you know, and they've got a great control over that franchise and they have a great vision for that franchise. And so in that entire dynamic, I always felt like, you know, I'm along for a pretty good ride here. entire dynamic. I always felt like, you know, I'm along for a pretty good ride here. Yeah, the Garoppolo deal alone was worth for him. Was there ever a time where you thought that outcome might have been different between the two quarterbacks in New England?

That's a good question. You know, was there ever a time? I mean, okay, because that kind of gets into my thinking and I really don't share too much of that, but I know I'm trying. I will share this. You know, look gets into my thinking, and I really don't share too much of that. I don't. I'm trying. I will share this. You know, look, you're thinking, obviously, in order to properly process and analyze any situation, you've got to really entertain, actually, a wide range of thoughts and possibilities. So for you to ask me a question, was there any point in time? Yeah, I guess there could have been, yes. But again, the thinking is quite fluid, particularly when you recognize that you're looking at all the key people in the dynamic, okay? Owner, head coach,

general manager, players. And then you're looking at yourself and you have to understand you know that you know as for me i'm like okay i'm the person that's furthest from the steering wheel to some degree here right sure so you know you have to factor that in as well and and but you know answer your question was there any point in time i guess there had to be yeah because i was thinking a lot of different things. So Jimmy goes off, and I want to ask you about Jimmy, maybe I'll just do it here. You know, the deal has been reworked. It's clear when a team puts

in the resources to draft somebody that they're going to have to see how it goes. And the Garoppolo discussion is a challenging one, because man, you could be sitting on one side of the bar and have all sorts of facts that back up that Jimmy's been awesome for this franchise. Look at the win-loss. Look at all the injuries.

Look at what he's done. NFC title game, Super Bowl appearance. What's the problem? And then the team decides, no, we actually want to move on. So how do you see that one shaking out with Jimmy now? I mean, it's not exactly what you want to be as a young quarterback, the most talented backup in the league, but that's what he is right now. So what do you think happens?

Oh, I think the future is incredibly bright, Ryan. Number one, he's healthy. You know, I think people kind of, you know, it's not that I'm any smarter than anybody else when looking at these situations. I just happen to have more information. That's all. You know, if you had the same information as I had, you know, the way you analyze it might be a little different given the greater amount of information. But, you know, let me share this with you. You know, look, we know the Niners went deep in the playoffs last

year. And, you know, Jimmy had a great year. And, but, you know, going deep in the playoffs last year. And, you know, Jimmy had a great year. But, you know, going deep in the playoffs and at the end of that, and he's a right-handed quarterback, you know, the right side of his body was hurt. He had a significant thumb injury and he had a shoulder injury. And, you know know when you're right-handed quarterback and the tire right side of your body is hurting you know the number one thing is to get healthy and and so you know I'm really

happy that he's healthy that's the number one thing second he's still very young just 30 years old very very, very young. Third, he's got tremendous experience, tremendous experience in the biggest moments. And so when I look at the future, I think the future is going to be unbelievably bright. The business side of the game sometimes doesn't always perfectly align. The business windows and things like sometimes doesn't always perfectly align the business windows and things like that don't always perfectly align with what you need to have happen with health and think those kinds of things and that's what sometimes you get results that seem a little odd to the to the average fan you know but from where he sits right now, he's obviously on a great team and he's a great

teammate and his contract situation going into the future will be wide open and so I feel really, really positive for him and his future. Because I already know, so I'm already going to try to disarm, uh, the question knowing there's only so much you're going to tell. And it's funny because when we originally booked to reach out, like three or four things have happened since, um, what can you tell us about what happened with Brady in new England and the Miami thing from,

from years ago? Like what, what is this story? This is crazy. You know, my thing is, you know, it's like, it's like when I was in, uh, I think I was in fifth or sixth grade and a teacher, um, was starting to expose us to news events. Okay. And the first lesson from, uh, my teacher, there was a, you're introducing the concept of critical thinking and reading. And I remember thinking to myself, what the heck does that mean?

What does this mean? I said, well, you know, you've got to really read carefully and you always have to consider the source and don't always want to believe every single thing you read. Again, don't always want to believe every single thing you read. Sometimes there's a lot of facts and information that's actually not on the page that you don't know about. Yeah, where I'm going with this is, you know, again, you know, in the business, Ryan, it's like, you know, it's important to think about, have an open mind and think about all the possibilities. And, you know, when you do that and you're just thinking of ideas, sometimes things can get dramatized, you know, to an extent that is far beyond reality. Far beyond reality. And look, on the media side of the business now,

as you know, more than anybody, on the media side of the business, the entire media industry now is click-based algorithms. You've got computer learning that understands how to word headlines okay they have computer algorithms telling writers now okay essentially how to create paragraphs that can get readers more interested and engaged and sticky to the content okay and so that's kind of butting up against things in the sports world. And so, again, getting to what I can share with you is there's a lot of creativity and possibilities and just kind of thinking sometimes that happens. Okay.

Everything you said, I get. But I think specific to this story, and I'm going to say this. I think I know Tom Brady without knowing Tom Brady. The reason I know that is just because he's been in football with people I'm friends with now for a really long time. I've heard about the legendary workouts. I heard this story the other day. Is it true that when Ty Law was selling his condo before Tom had made the team, he called you to be like, hey, I think I'm going to buy Ty Law's condo? And you were like, why don't we make the team first? And he was like, what are you talking about? I'm going to lock in this interest rate and it's a good price because Ty Law's moving. Is this true? I can never share exactly what I say because that's attorney client.

Okay. All right. But let's say that when you're a young player, one step at a time, generally is a good concept. Okay. And that's good counsel. All right. So we'll move on from that. But the reason I've always thought like, and this is just me theorizing based on access to information that I don't expect, you know, again, I'm removed from the parties here. But if I'm Brady and I've done what he's done in New England and knowing a little bit how he's wired and you're like, wait, you're actually thinking about moving on from me? Are you kidding me? There's no other NFL franchise where Brady is playing for a different team. There's no other. The other 31 with his resume, he's still playing for that team. New England's the only place where it could possibly happen. We always kind of knew this because I remember being on local radio in Boston. We were like, what is the one version of events where we would be anti-Belichick? And we're like, if he ever messes with Brady.

And Bill does things his way and it's worked out for him. I'd agree with you, the greatest coach of his era, maybe of all time with this. But I guess I still can't believe that he's not a patriot. And so for him to flirt somewhere else, if he's not getting the love that he would have gotten everywhere else, it would not have shocked me for him to start thinking about other options down the line. So I don't know if you think that's fair, inaccurate,

whatever, do what you want. Well, I mean, look, it's, you know, I mean,

without speaking specifically to Tyler, his situation, you know, I think not just for him, but every athlete and every coach, you know, Ryan, and this is just on my own experience, I'm going to year 35 in the NFL. And so coaches, athletes, and even the owners, they're always thinking about the future. They're always thinking about different options. They're always thinking about the future. They're always thinking about different options. They're always thinking about, is this situation that I'm in now dialed in to where I can win and enjoy my experience? That's just how it is.

And, you know, the NFL, to me, you know, it's an incredibly Darwinian, highly competitive environment. The very best that I've been around, these players and coaches and owners, the very best, Ryan, are incredibly aggressive thinkers. Super aggressive thinkers, super aggressive thinkers. There's a reason why certain organizations may stay mediocre for long periods of time. Outside looking in, I would say, well, how aggressive is our thinking? Are we asking ourselves that question? Because I can assure you that I've been around Bill Walsh, been around Bill Parcells.

We're talking the greatest. These people are incredibly competitive, even more competitive than you might imagine from the outside. And it's been a real honor for me to be around these people, to kind of try to get a glimpse into their thinking. But the competitive nature of their thinking is off the charts. Last thought here. Sure. And that was a good answer. Maybe if I got you year five in the business, I might have gotten a little bit more.

Wow. All right. Last thing here. The Fox deal for Brady is incredible. And you also represent people in the media side of things. How different was that? Or was it different at all from doing, you know, the player contracts you've been doing for decades?

It was different. It was different in that, as you know, you know, media executives, you know, the psychological orientation is different than football. It's different because their, you know, their W on screen or on the air is composed of variables that are really, really, you know, very people oriented at that point. Right. Very, very people-oriented at that point, right? Very, very people-oriented. And so it was a really fun experience. We're really happy to be with Fox.

And, you know, it was really, you know, I think the people that were involved in that with me will tell you that it was exhilarating, but also difficult at the same time. But it was very different. Yes, it was a very different experience for me. Well, how was it different then? It was different in that, particularly at that level, trying to get an understanding of what was important to them. What were their objectives as a network? What was their vision for the coverage of NFL football going forward?

How were they going to continue to innovate? For example, right? Because how we experience football today, even five years from now, probably is going to be somewhat different. And so it was really interesting for me to get some insight into that kind of thinking. You don't need any assistance from me, but I can tell you from my years in television and dealing with the decision makers is if you have a client, Don, who has any cachet and he's thinking about retiring, tell him to not take any time off because new is the best thing that you can be.

retiring, tell him to not take any time off because new is the best thing that you can be. And when you are new and you've just retired, or in this case with Brady, hasn't even stopped playing yet. Um, when you have some kind of name recognition, that's when you're most valuable. And like the guys that I'm friends with, or, you know, casual acquaintance or whatever, and they'll start talking about what's up, what's next after playing. And I'll be like, don't go to Montana and disappear for three years. Like do what you're going to do as soon as you're done playing, because that's when you're going to have the most value. It's crazy. But I believe that.

I will. I will take that under submission. Don's going to be like, yeah, that guy's all right. He started trying to tell me how to do my job at the end of it. This was a lot of fun and a lot of really good insight there. So a legendary Don,

thanks for your time today. Right. I did really, really a pleasure to be with you. Thank you for inviting me. You want details? Bye. 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 what's

required. Today's Life Advice is presented by Modelo. Modelo knows it takes spike to be a full-time fan. There will be good days and bad ones, but when you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. Modelo celebrates those who treat being a fan like it's their full-time job. That's why it's the official beer

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at gmail.com. Okay, let's get right to it. Although, maybe let's not get right to it. Because, man, this Bortles saga. Yeah. Here, I had the emails ready to go, and then I'm like, wait.

So, the guy, the intern followed up. He's pissed. Oh, man. Yeah. We might put a bow on this one after this other people have suggested this should be an entirely new segment you know what i don't think i want to do is have people blindly accusing other people of stuff that's just constantly reading emails of people being accused of shit because the rarity of that was that we did it that day with big cat and then i was like oh Bortles one because he's friends with Bortles.

And then we got Bortles on the phone. And then we got him on a Zoom later on. There's not a lot of famous people that we're going to have access to that can join us twice in the same day. Seven hours of separation. That's fair. So shout out to Blake

for his easy schedule. I also don't think we're trying to like narc on people left and right. Yeah, I don't want to do that. I don't think we don't want this to turn into like punked like got you edition we're like hey all of a sudden solo show calls you up and it's like asking you about stuff that happened five or ten years ago

right did you punch a guy in a Publix one time that's right maybe not and some of their claims will be false okay so here's the follow-up from the intern. It was 100% Blake. I'd go on the stand tomorrow.

Forgive me for confusing the color of his Raptor from seven years ago. Here's the problem. I mean, if this were a movie with a courtroom scene and you said the Raptor was white and he had pictures and a registration and a VIN number of a black Raptor that was never white,

the jury just would never believe anything else you said. All right? It's just TV shows? My cousin Vinny? No way that would hold up. That's exactly what I thought. I think you need some thicker glasses, dear. Right.

Okay. So I'm going to read it with some tone because, again again that sentence is forgive me for confusing the color of his raptor from seven years ago it was this huge tire that hit the back of the car so there's a small chance it didn't register with him that he'd hit me but that doesn't explain why he would stop for five seconds and look down at me again blake's position was that there was so much tin on the windows, 530, sun isn't up yet. There would be no, I don't know. I don't know about that. I think there's certain lighting

straight at somebody through the windshield where you can actually make eye contact. I was a nervous intern. I didn't want to rat anyone out, exclamation point. What if I told on him and I got back to Blake and the intern ratted on him for a hit and run? How would that have played out for me? It's very dismissive to say I should have told on him and everything would have been sunshine. I 100% agree with the emailer on that one. I think maybe my position got lost in all the back and forth with all the different voices that we had going on. And then Blake suggesting that no one was going to say anything to you. You should have just told on me. I think that's all bullshit. You're an intern. It's Blake's

going into his second year as a top pick all right at that point you're like man this blake's remember 2016 this blake show like you know you thought you maybe had something uh so i agree with the intern on this one anyway uh final spot here i got a lot of love for blake but he's not owning his side of the street i'd like an apology and maybe a white raptor or maybe a a black one. He's a funny guy. I thought, I mean, as mean as Big Cat's been to me in the last two days, I thought he actually had a good

point when he was like, you could just be like, at the end of the day, you didn't have to run up and be like, hey, somebody just hit the car. You could just be like, hey, listen, one of the players hit the car. I just want to let you guys know. Then you could also kind of not give him up. And then, I don't know, maybe that would have been fine but I mean it wasn't like you had to just be like Blake Bortles

hit the Raptor right now or hit this car with his Raptor right now I think there was a way where you could sort of maintain some honor by not giving it up and just be like hey I know we got an inventory here to keep track of one of the players ding this thing on the way out I think there was a way to do that I don't think it was either

tattle or lie I think if we're picking sides here like i love blake but i don't know why the emailer would lie about this you know i i think it's very easy for blake to just not remember because it wasn't a major event in his life like this emailer yes like he remembers this vividly it's trajectory change this is a core life memory for him like I don't think he's lying about this. So this isn't an anti-Blake thing. I also think if you put Blake on the stand, he'd probably be like, yeah, it could have been me. I don't know. I don't really care.

And it just isn't a big deal to him. For the emailer, he's been telling the story probably since it happened. Yeah, I mean, it sucks because then we get another guy emailing and saying, Chad Henney hit the car. I've had some experiences with him many years ago, and that sounds right on par. So, you know, again, we don't need this. We don't need this for the public figures out there. We got to just start firing in because he's like, Chad Henney bumped into a guy late at night in his 20s. Like, yeah, who is this guy?

Who's the other emailer? Did he give any information on himself? No, that's it. Why would he know? He's the third emailer what did he give any other information on himself no that's it why would he know he's the third emailer just another guy that ran into chad henny one time has got a bone to pick yeah he's like no it's henny henny sucks definitely anything we were at it we were at an in and out 3 a.m and he was he was a dick and so you know again no

it's not in the email but yeah back to real quick you mentioned it kyle big cat just leaning into you this week what what's up with that what can you do i mean you win some you lose some i just really didn't think i was like there's no way he's bringing this up and then i mean within like the first 30 seconds of his life i was fuck he's gonna do this i just thought i i just thought uh i thought we'd all move on but uh nope we decided to do this right here on this segment of life advice well let's move on then yeah i don't want my i don't want my guy kyle uh to be bummed out here okay uh this is this may not be that interesting but it's efficient 58140 college. My sophomore year starts in a few weeks.

I'm planning on joining a frat. Dude, don't call it frat. I think it's a great way to have a lot of fun and meet people while building valuable connections, experiences that will help down the road. My grades are good and my classes are easy, allowing for some flexibility time-wise. However, I plan on working in the sports world post-school

and have commitments writing sports for the school paper and my website. Look at you, man. This guy's a real go-getter. I would hate to see those commitments go down the drain due to the pledging process. How hard is it to balance all of this and how do I manage time better? Any advice would be appreciated. All right, look, if I could do it all over again, there'd be one simple fix that I would do to my time management and that would be before i go back to the dorms do stuff that's never that important but i was the worst because i was finally out of the house you know i was a little i was i was fairly sheltered you know growing up on martha's vineyard like so just being even in a place like burlington vermont like

the first month or so i was like i made a made a huge mistake. This place is way too big. Like me, think about me and my, I actually at 18 was like, I can't handle it. There's way too many people. This is, this is too much. And then after like another month, I was like, I can't believe I actually felt that way. Like this place is awesome and whatever. But like, I couldn't believe people delivered you food late at night. Again, back where I was from in the early nins, vineyard winter, like, you know, if Cumberland Farms was closed, you didn't have food at the house. Like, that was pretty much it, dude. Yeah. So, you know, there was just a lot of stuff. I was very, you know, you grow up in Martha's Vineyard again, you're just going to be a little different. And I was definitely different

in the beginning. So, if somebody was like, hey, we're headed back to the dorms to throw a ball at stuff, I'd be like, wait, you guys are going to go back and throw stuff. I'm in, you know, uh, I'd be kind of like an aunt. Yeah. Like if I had on again,

off again, girlfriend, and then you'd be sitting there like watching some show on VHS. Cause you didn't have cable in the dorms, you know? And then I'd be like, what's going on outside? Like,

Oh, dudes are doing that. What are they doing? They're just doing dude stuff. They're talking to each other. We're like, Hey, I gotta go.

I gotta go. There's guys outside doing stuff um obviously sega hockey took up a big part of that roommate broke his controller when he lost to the rangers parents immediately sent him a new one must be nice um i wanted to hang out with dudes doing nothing more than anyone you've ever fucking met. All right. It didn't matter. I'm like, what are you doing? Nothing and sitting and staring at each other.

And so on top of that, I was pledging and I had this stupid fucking. You want to talk about one of the dumbest things I ever thought was relevant? I was like, if I do a really good job during pledging, Hell Week will that much easier here's the mystery uh behind that one hell week just sucks i mean for most return i don't know how it is now but back then it was it sucked fucking sucked and i remember too not realizing that hell week was only like really four nights and not seven and i think after two nights i was like how the fuck am i gonna make this another five nights and then another pledge who had added like an older brother was like you you idiot. It's only four nights. Like nobody would make this for seven nights. And I was like, oh my God, it's great news. But it didn't matter. Like nobody was like, hey man, you were super into pledging and you did a great job. And you didn't, you know, you answer the phone every time

you came down, you got all your signatures, you did everything the right way. Let's make sure Rosillo has a just breezy hell week. No, it's going to be five in the morning. You'll be listening to the Apocalypse Now soundtrack. You're going to be on your knees for hours and hours and hours you're basically fainting you know it's fucking like our thing you know our thing wasn't like the roughest we would hear shit about like the south and the old school guys you're like that just sounds like why would you even want to do that but then you just do it again not i'm not asking for anyone to be impressed by any of it it's just what it was but the But the problem was that I cared about that because I was like trying to avoid this awful thing at the end of pledging more than anything else.

Like I was just like, and here's the problem. Like I had a guy who was my roommate who stole another brother's car and did donuts on another fraternity's fucking lawn. And they found out about it. And like, it wasn't like, Hey,

don't beat on Rosillo. Beat on, no, we're just in the basement. It's just on. It's just what's going to happen. So I don't know what pledging is like now. I don't know what that house would be like now. Hopefully for you,

you'll be able to avoid some of those things. But if I could do any of it over on the time management thing, despite trying to be robo guy and not fucking paying any dividends whatsoever and granted knowing me if you know me like saruti does be like oh you got competitive about it was

like i want to be better than everybody else at this whole thing like that checks a lot of boxes and it was a massive waste of fucking time as i've tried to emphasize that new over and over again before you go back to all the distractions while you're still on campus after that last class if i could do anything over again and i tell anybody that i know that's younger that's going away to school stay on campus for another hour or two it doesn't mean anything you know depending on how your schedule is if you're early or if you're a late guy if you're an early guy you could be done with classes at noon or one and if you just stayed and went to the library and made yourself do shit to

stay on top of all the stuff that you have to do, all the pages you have to read, all the, you know, granted labs are a little bit different, but if I could have just convinced myself, Hey, before you go back to all the fun shit and the distractions and throwing a ball and looking at dudes that are looking at other dudes, just stay at the library. And instead of getting back to the dorms or your apartment at one, you get back at two or you get back at three and nobody's going to listen to this because I wouldn't have listened to it either. But it just would have been so simple because I would have just been putting in little bits of work. And now I do it all the time. Like when I'm doing my college and NFL stuff, I'll be like, hey, I'll bang out a division tonight.

I don't do eight fucking divisions the night before week one? Now, I would have back then, but if you can make sure on the work, the actual course load stuff, right, staying on top of your classes, if you can prevent yourself, maybe you have no friends and none of this matters, so good for you, but stay on campus before you walk back to where you live because once you walk back to where you live there's a million things going on and for me everything was better than reading at that time so there you go yeah i wasn't in a fraternity i did quit that latino one but like i only did a couple that was a gang more than anything wasn't it whoa whoa you got to be careful with that no i think i think retract that yeah a beep um no it was just regular life even in college when i junior year it was like i would i would come back and i would call those like burned hours like i was always early

i liked working outside too so even like in the summertime when i had my job i was out by like three o'clock two o'clock nobody else was around like the work day was over but even in school too like everyone always had like a three o'clock class or something but i always got my shit my classes done early and then i'd be like you know i would just kind of burn two or three hours so yeah i would 100 agree with you that towards my junior year near the end of senior year i would just spend those burned hours in the in the library or whatever and that that really helped me manage everything and i left with three five in major, which is all I'm going to discuss. Wow. Heyo. Yeah, that's it. I mean, just the library, all this stuff, it's right there.

The problem with finals week, too, is like, you know, the two or three weeks leading up to finals, the library became the best place to hang out. I know. I didn't want to get anything done. It was like awesome. Like, hey, I was excited to be like, I'm going to bomb this test. But I met this girl from Willis.

I'm like, oh, cool. I remember my freshman and sophomore year people would be like I'm going to law now like I was a communications major I'm not trying to knock on communications major but it's not terribly difficult I have like a ton of work to do it wasn't like nursing or business or whatever like I feel like you know I kind of knew where I was at but people be like I'm going to library for that I can't do anything I'm like that's so lame like what do you mean you can't just like you you have to go to the library to get stuff done i just like fully didn't understand the concept until like my junior year when i was like wait it's actually kind of dope here like i could it's

quiet i can get stuff done i could read like it's a it's like you're in a zen moment because i would i'm i'm the kind of guy i have to be in the in the moment when i need to get shit done if i'm not in the right headspace like if i've got other shit going on i'm just going to be too too preoccupied with other stuff so um i like was late to the library game and how amazing it was and then i honestly became a way better student in the second half of my college career than i was in my first half because i think the first half freshman year i think i had like a 2-2 and i got a d in spanish because like i took this i ended up taking an extra elective in high school that bumped me up into like the elite level spanish class i didn't

speak any spanish and first day the the professor comes in and doesn't speak any english i didn't have my book yet oh no so it was like a hard away yeah so i didn't have a piece of paper guy yeah you got a pen yeah hey do you have just one now the pen is the one single sheet of paper on the first day of class, guys. Like, legend. You couldn't fucking buy a mead with 100 pages in it. You have zero pages. You own zero clear pages as of right now, your first day on campus. By the way, the Spanish thing.

I did the same thing in French. I was like, I've been taking this five years. I'm good. There was like, I've been taking this five years. I'm good. There was like seven levels of French. And I was like, I'm just going to bang out this language requirement for my major. And I took the seventh level French of like, no problem. They weren't just speaking fluently. They were writing short stories.

And it wasn't just being graded on grammar. There was actually like, how much depth was there in your story? And she was like, after a month, she's like, what the like what the fuck you have no chance she's like you might as well not even show up you're getting an app like it's just not gonna happen so i dug a massive hole to start my career on course selection on top of everything else so uh all right let's keep it moving here another one let's not let's be efficient with our time. There you go. Another lesson. This one's a little bit longer, but I think it's good. 50 years old, 6'1", 232, 485-pound squat. You're squatting 485 at 50 years old?

Jesus. 400-pound bench, 500-pound deadlift. Been a fan of the show for a long time. Great stats, man. That might just be the end of the email. I don't want to know anything else about you. Been divorced now for around eight months 15 year marriage the ex and i simply grew apart fell out of love in the last four to five years of the marriage our main priority remains the child

that we have together we have a great relationship still focusing on raising him together the divorce process where we live required everyone to take a parenting class before the divorce can be finalized. Wow. You guys heard about this? I've never heard about that. No. That's almost weird. That's almost like getting the car and then getting your driver's license. There's an argument to be made.

Some people should be taking this class before they have the kid. All right. So that's interesting. So anyway, this was online about 30 people with breakout sessions with parents that had kids of similar ages. I can't tell if that's the best or the worst.

I know which way I'm leaning. It lasted an hour and a half for each class, four straight weeks. By the end of the last class, one of the women that had been in my breakout class each week sent me her phone number. And we went on a date soon after that. Ew. class each week, sent me her phone number, and we went on a date soon after that. Ew. She wasn't physically what I would normally see

as attractive. Short, sub-five feet. I've dated a couple of really, really short girls. Gymnast? There may have been some movement studies in their background. Short hair, very average appearing body.

This guy's being pretty straightforward, man. Well, look, this guy's throwing around, what are we talking here, 1,300, 1,400 pounds on a day? So I don't know what he's used to. All right. But we seem to have a bit of connection in the class uh she has a cute smile so we figured why not the first date that first date in over 15 years was super anxiety filled but at least i'd avoided having to venture down the online dating road or trying to hit on someone

at the gym or the grocery store or something but the first date went really well and started things down a really fun road. We both had a lack of physicality in our marriages. Hear that one. We were very much enjoying making up for that lost opportunity every chance we could get. We're talking about banging. Congrats. Yeah.

Yeah. She is also very active and got me back into hiking more. She also plays competitive tennis. So I started playing tennis for really the first time, which for a gym meathead like myself has been a great experience. I fucking love tennis. I think every other week now I'm thinking about getting lessons. It's been going on for a while. Top three sport to play.

Top three sport to play. Give us your other two real quick. I can't watch it, but I love playing it. It's been going on for a while. Top three sport to play. Top three sport to play. Give us your other two real quick. I can't watch it, but I love playing it. Pickup hoops is in there. And? I don't know. Maybe golf, I guess, if you like golf.

I think it goes racquetball, beer pong, tennis. I think that's the way it goes. Beer pong. All right. Well, I don't know. Loose sport definition. Racquetball clear number one. Racquetball is a good call. Yeah.

Or pick a ball, whatever you like. Kind of those things. No, no. Racquetball is a good call. Or pick a ball, whatever you like. I played racquetball against a completely out of shape guy and he knew every single angle. I was in my 20s and I was like, I'm going to smoke this guy. He destroyed me. You've had this stance for a while now but I think it's just a bad stance by you. I'm not saying that I'm

right about not liking racquetball. I'm just saying that the one time I played it, I thought this guy wasn't even close to being the athlete I was in my 20s, and I was just humiliated by him. And he was kind of getting off on it a little bit. I was like, all right, I think we're done here. I just didn't know how to play. Anyway.

All right. So this guy picked up tennis pretty quickly, and he's become pretty decent in a short amount of time, and it's been a great outlet for his competitive nature, playing against her and some other guys I've met at the racquet club somewhere along the line in the first few months caught up in the whole emotion of being wanted and

desired and having that physical connection that had been completely absent for the past couple past number of years I think there's probably a lot of people I could totally understand how you would land on that I made the mistake of using the love word to which she reciprocated oh man alright so now a couple months later I can tell she continues to be requesting Made the mistake of using the love word to which she reciprocated. Oh, man.

All right. So now a couple months later, I can tell she continues to be progressing further into our relationship. Well, I'm starting to have that initial euphoria of the whole experience. We're off the hiking, tennis, and yes, the sex. Still a lot of fun. When she told me she loved me while we were spending our first weekend out of town together last weekend, it felt like I was being stabbed in the spine. Not the reaction you want to have internally when somebody tells you that they love you. I was boxing her corner, say nothing and deal with the inevitable aftermath and super uncomfortable conversation that would have ensued or just lie like I did to buy myself some time to figure out how to approach things. We did recently have, you know,

you're doing a weekend together, you're away. That would throw a slight detour in the activities if you're like, you know what, I'm kind of not in love with you. Despite what I said earlier, just to be straight, just want to keep it 100. Do you want to get apps?

Not great, but I get how that happened. We did recently have a pretty uncomfortable conversation after she suggested we finally get her kids together with mine and I told her that was completely off the table and I was nowhere near ready to do that, even after having vaguely

previously discussed the idea in the past. So she may have some inkling that things have changed that even after having vaguely previously discussed the idea in the past so she may have some inkling that things have changed a bit for me but rescinding the love comment would I'm sure have felt very out of the blue yeah not there's I mean that's legend status

if you could be like you know what I'm not actually in love with you remember when I said that yeah yeah just having a weird day can we just rewind fuck so my question is how can i or maybe maybe even can i pump the brakes on things i definitely enjoy hanging out and grabbing a dinner out the hiking the tennis we just signed up for a mixed doubles tennis league which starts in a week or so that i'm looking forward to the sex remains pretty great although the cuddling business is becoming less enjoyable all the time our man hates to cuddle it's probably because he's at 232 in those

numbers he's probably not as flexible so he probably his muscles cramp i get it uh but i say that knowing i can't continue simply leaving things on cruise control and not running things in somehow. This just seems unfair to her. Do I straight up tell her that the initial love comments came at a time of initial post-divorce delirium and that I'm just not sure how I'm feeling now? Do I need to man up and simply break things off, keep things going,

but slowly pull back on being available at her every moment? I'm not with my son like I have been. Use the kid as an excuse. Part of why this relationship has been great is it simply avoided having to get back out there into the dating scene right to get back out there phase while i consider myself fairly attractive and have lots going on for me who good job decent shape and physically attractive and generally have my shit together i'm not exactly a player and don't enjoy the thought of picking up chicks

so there's perhaps some hesitancy to mess this up for that simple fact uh so curious if there's any middle ground for some recession but still maintain the fun stuff and i'd be okay with giving up the sex portion as well or if this seems like an all or nothing deal any advice and wisdom the three of you guys can pass along. It would be greatly appreciated. All right. A lot going on there. First of all, I have a lot of respect for the fact that the worst thing you can do after a breakup, and in this case, far more serious, talking 15 years, marriage, divorce, and all that shit. One of my buddies who had been married a long time will ask me about divorce. And they'll, not that they want to be, but I'm just saying like the concept. and they'll not that they want to be but i'm just saying like the concept and then it will kind of evolve and like i can't fathom going out to a bar and having to like talk to somebody

to wonder if it's going to go anywhere all right so it sounds like um you know i think that's really important for anybody that goes through something traumatic and you know it doesn't even have to be a divorce it's like you know sit around and mope around because I've done both. I've done both. And I can tell you one's way worse than the other one. So now this kind of comes down to like what's fair because you read this out loud and most people listen to this and be like, hey, man, you're going to be wasting her time. So it's cool. You got your post-divorce relationship phase out of the way.

It feels like you're using her a bit for that. But man, we, you know, we all kind of do stuff that is, you know, in this case, you did what you needed to do and she did what she needed to do.

Right. She was going through her divorce and you were there and maybe, I don't know, maybe, maybe she wants to make this work and all those things, but like, you can't just be wasting your fucking time either. If you said, hey, how about we just play tennis and not have sex?

That would be part of the recession plan. Because anyone with an IQ of two would be able to figure out like, oh, okay. This guy just wants to hang and then he isn't in love. I don't know how you're going to handle a loved one, man. That one's pretty tough. Uh, so I could say a bunch of different things. You know, I could say, Hey, you have to tell her immediately. You have to come straight out. You have to explain to her, uh, don't use your kid as excuse. I could, I could come up with a list of all the altruistic things that anybody listening to this right now could also come up with. But I think there's one thing that always gets lost in all of this is that the ego

of the email, not specific to this emailer, but the ego of the person who's like, oh, I don't want to ruin this person's world. There's a lot of times where we only see this from our side, but then we turn it into thinking we really care for the other person. It's kind of like this ego play where it's like, well, what if I do this? She'll be ruined. And what if I do this? Oh, she'll be ruined and all this stuff. Yeah, maybe she just wants the truth.

You know, maybe that's way better, even though it's going to be disappointing. It's like, wait, so you were coming up with all these other scenarios and different ways to play it because of my fucking feelings. Like, you're that important. Like, you're in charge of my day to day like that. And you know, I know that I've, I've had moments where I'd be like, well,

what if I do, if I do this, then I'll have to do this and then I'll have to do this. And then I'm like six down the list. It's like, Hey, how about you fucking relax? And maybe she's not that into you.

You know, maybe, maybe you're her post divorce, like slump buster with this whole thing. I think she would totally get, I think if you were straightforward and you said, hey, this is fuck for me, you're my first date in 15 years,

I'm feeling all these emotions, but then I'm sort of wondering, and then it's all these different things. She might feel the exact same way, man. She might. Now, she might freak out and say you're a total asshole. That's also on the table here too. But one of the other lessons in all the breakups and all the stuff over the years is that, this is just going to sound a little more direct, but whenever anybody's broken up with

me, they don't really give a shit about how I felt. Right? So why am I going to spend so much time worrying about the other person and keeping them in a relationship that like really the unfair thing to do is to stay in something that you don't care about. And, you know, I think, you know, all this stuff already. Um, but I would, uh, you got to get it to a point where you can't be wasting somebody else's time. Cause if you, you, you're just slowly phasing it and it makes everything you said makes a ton of sense i think all of us even those of us that haven't been married like i can get how you've come to all these these parts i mean look this isn't that

much different than somebody being like hey that first the first rebound you know girlfriend or whatever like there's just different challenges with it and your emotions are all over the place especially if you really really cared about what you had in the past um so a bunch of different ways to play it. But I still think you land on the same conclusion. It's that, you know, don't waste another person's time. Yeah, I've never been divorced, but I was trying to think of what I would do if I was this guy. You think you will be?

You know, statistics are great. Childhood divorce, you know, we'll just fingers crossed. What are the child of divorce rates versus non-divorce rates? That's something I think maybe we should save for Tuesday. Monday, actually. Hey, by the way, I mean, I don't want to get divorced, so I won't even get married. So there you go. Great. So I'm making fun of me here. Great. Feeling great with the June wedding coming up. That's awesome. But what I was going to say, if I was this guy and all of the excuses that you could use, I thought totally damaged goods is the best way to go here because you're already sort of preparing like well

well you're already like well should i just cut and run or should i like fall back either way like that's always going to be a possibility i think if you're just like listen i'm like you basically said it right it's like you're my first date in 15 years i don't know what the fuck i'm saying anymore i've been saying i love you on autopilot forever. I was having a great time. And and like I just it slipped out. It's what I'm used to saying. I'm so sorry. So you're saying admit the love bomb was not accurate. But you but through the lens of like, I'm damaged goods. It's not that I don't want to be around you. I just feel like I feel like I'm already I'm all jumbled up here. And I'd like to continue going. But you could just the disclaimers out there. And then I think you should see where she how she responds to the disclaimer of of i've damaged goods and then and then you could see

you'll have a much better idea of what to do once you're just like hey just so you know i've been all jumbled up here but love pan tennis and all right but whatever the kids aren't together but that's like the soft opening of wanting to break up because nobody actually says like, hello, how are you? Yeah. I need to tell you something. I like you less and less all the time. I was never in love. I just sort of was caught up in the moment. I want to be direct. Like you sound like you're weaning off of the thing. And you know, that could get a little delicate too there. It's like, hey, maybe we just tone it down a little bit.

Because what this guy needs to answer, honestly, is do you want to spend any time with this person long-term? The answer seems like no. So to do the Stephen A's not going to replace you on the Ryan Russillo show approach of a two-year slow bleed,

that just pisses off everybody way more than just, hey, this is what's going to happen. So if this guy can answer that honestly, what do you actually want from this other person? And it sounds like nothing other than maybe some occasional tennis, which I'm going to guess isn't going to happen when you blow up the rest of this, then you need to just rip that bandaid off. You know, you need to figure, like, you don't have to be so direct. Like, hello, I would like to no longer date you.

Sorry about saying I loved you. Good luck with the tennis tournament. You know, that's not, nobody talks to anybody that way, but. I just think people with kids are a little bit more reserved in dating anyway. Aren't they usually just like, you know, he said he hasn't even met them.

Like the kids haven't even met each other. You know, they only have a certain amount of time. No, that's a boundary. No, that's a boundary. No, that's a boundary that he's putting up. That's understandable, but it's really about his boundary of not wanting things to develop a little bit.

I just think his excuse could fit into that nicely. That's what I mean. I think if he really liked her, it wouldn't be a problem. Yeah. Now that's, that's him having a good excuse of why he doesn't want things to progress because it's like,

Oh, I don't want the kids, you know, part of that. I don't want that messing with them. I think the kid thing is based on the people. The assumption that people with kids are less likely to want, I don't know. I've seen it both ways where sometimes it's shielding them from the relationship part

of it. And other people just don't like, hey, you know, hanging out with this person, they get a kid, try not to fight in the back. My question would be how many times has you have to figure out what your long term thing is? You said at the end there, Ryan, which is exactly what I was going to say, which is, do you feel like this really is just a momentary hesitation? Or is this a sign of you really aren't interested in her long term? Because, you know, how many people have said, hey, actually, like, I take that back. I went too fast.

I don't actually love you. Like, let's just see how it goes. Like, how many of those people actually end up being together long term? None of them. Like, I would say none of them. I mean, listen, sure, like email and life advice. If you're one of those people, I'd like to hear the story. But it just doesn't seem very likely.

So this is a bad sign from relationships to begin with. And I'm not even going to sit here and blame you. Like, companionship is an important thing. And you went from obviously being married for 15 years to now like you still want the companionship and you get excited about this new thing and you know she's showing you things that you like and but you're you still deep down know that this isn't the person for you or the person that's going to be the the next long-term deal in your life and i i think you just got to be honest with her i think you have to just say hey i got way too ahead of my skis and i'm sorry um you know if you really don't know the long-term question i guess you could string along but to kyle's point and what he was talking about earlier

like i kind of feel like you just got to rip the band-aid off like you can't slow play that because it's just going to be shitty for both of you and you're going to waste both of your time so you you just have to answer what is it long term and i kind of feel like we know the answer to that question yeah i mean unless this guy's so fucking screwed up right now from all this stuff and it doesn't sound like he is but it could be something where you're like oh wait i actually did freak and then i freaked again i wanted to break the whole thing off and then six months from now i kind of miss you know hanging out but it also could be because um you know i don't know you know a lot of this a lot of a lot of how you feel about the person you're with or that you miss has a lot to do with like how are things going

for you right now oh i haven't talked to anybody you know i haven't met anybody in a long time hey you know who i kind of liked is that really short girl that i wasn't super attracted to but liked sleeping with playing tennis with you know uh but i don't think that's what this is i think playing tennis with. But I don't think that's what this is. I think it's really hard, man. I can't imagine. I mean, I guess I could on the older part of it,

but I have sympathy for people, husband, wife, going through the divorce and then trying to kind of figure out what the next steps are. If ESPN Radio just told Ryan that they didn't love him like two years before the end,

it could have solved a lot of problems you know that's what I got out of this yeah I actually would have preferred being the short tennis player on this one with ESPN Radio hey we don't like you okay cool thank you way better saved everyone a bunch of headaches for a few years

I'd say start scoping out happy hours pal maybe a patio also that upscale start smoking again for a few years. I start scoping out happy hours, pal. Maybe a patio. Also that. Upscale. Start smoking again. You'd be surprised how many paths you cross by smoking cigarettes.

What can you do? I tell kids to smoke all the time. All right, so that's Life Advice. Life Advice RR at gmail.com. Today's Life Advice

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Chicago, Illinois. That was a long one for you. Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks to Kyle and Steve, the Ryan Rusillo Podcast. Bring your Spotify. you