It's time for Make the Call, a weekly discussion on the top Wisconsin sports stories of the week.
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Now, it's time for Make the Call, a Civic Media sports production.
Indeed another Saturday morning here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Welcome in.
I'm Jimmy Kuska and it is our hour to talk sports here across all of these fine Civic Media stations.
So thank you for joining us here on this Saturday.
It's amazing.
We're sitting here in mid-April and things couldn't be busier in the wide world of Wisconsin sports and we're going to try to cover it all here in the next hour.
Coming up at the bottom of the hour, we are going to talk Badgers with Jake Kokorowski of BadgerObserver.com.
Jake has all the
the info we need.
All of the big changes happening at Wisconsin, including the search for a new athletic director and the potential for more volleyball from the Big Ten coming up.
later this year.
We'll talk to him about all the goings on there, about some of the recent comments made by Badger's football coach, Luke Fickle, and everything else happening in Badgerland.
So we'll have that coming up for you at the bottom of the hour.
Later in the show, Mike Clements will join us and talk about all things Wisconsin sports.
That's assuming, of course, that he has been able to wrap his way out of Miller Park from earlier this week with all the flooding and can find his way to the radio show here this morning as a number of people in Milwaukee impacted by Ford
six inches of rain on Wednesday, which closed the freeway for a while, flooding happening all over the state.
wish you could spend a little more time talking about the real-life impacts of that.
I believe our news coverage has that covered, but be safe out there if you're driving around.
I know we had a bunch of rain yesterday, especially in the western part of the state.
Be safe out there wherever you are.
This is a sports show.
I pretend to be a meteorologist only on weekends, so I'll get back to that in a minute.
But it is make the call.
And this week, this is a two-man team.
It is myself, Jimmy Koska, based here in the Driftless region of Wisconsin.
And then over
And Madison is Parker Olson.
Parker, welcome aboard.
Howdy, Jimmy.
It is a few and a little lonely today.
What the heck?
We need Gray.
I
know.
Gray is out for today.
Upper management had upper management things to do.
So Gray is off this weekend.
He's allowed a day off.
And as a manager, he can kind of just say, yeah, I've taken the day off, guys.
It's off to you guys.
You've got to deal with it.
You've got to
say, yes, boss.
I don't know how we got roped into this with him.
He's in charge of us and he's not even here.
I know it all started with the sports director leading the sports thing but now we got upper management and well gray's not here to defend that so We appreciate gray and he'll be back here real soon with us But this is make the call and this week We've got a lot of sports topics to get to and we start to show off as we do every week by talking about the top sports stories across the land And since it is 8 and 8 a.m.
We are gonna do the top eight
Sports or not sports stories at 8 a.m.
Here on a Saturday here in Wisconsin So let's start at number eight and our top eight at eight and this is sort of sports related also sort of weather related as I had set up earlier the show I like to be an amateur meteorologist even though mostly all I do is look at the radar look out the window and say looks like brain so venue natural disasters the brewers roof
Had some leaks in it.
After five inches of rain pounded, southeastern Wisconsin caused a lot of issues with flooding, closed roadways, et cetera.
Same thing happening around Green Bay.
Same thing happening along the Wisconsin River and Central and Southwestern Wisconsin.
It's a lot of rain.
Water's got to go somewhere.
But it got me to thinking there have been some really notable natural disasters that have happened involving sports venues in.
In you know anywhere but even here across the u.s And I thought what the brewers were flick which isn't really a natural disaster because that's what happens when you get half a foot of rain and Spana three hours I'm just wondering parker if there are any natural disaster arena venue related things that you've ever heard of or you can recall Just because it is sort of unusual for these
you know, billion dollar structures to have weather issues.
Yeah.
Honestly, I was shocked that there was that much water getting into American family field the other day.
That was really, really strange to see.
Just kind of all of a sudden you're looking at, I forget who was playing out field the other center field the other night for the brewers, but they had a shot of him.
And all of a sudden there was a puddle behind him on the warning track.
Like that's not.
That's not right.
There's a roof above his head, but okay.
Honestly, I cannot really think of any major natural disasters to affect stadiums other than, and I know that you've got a pretty good story with this, Jimmy, the metro dome collapsing when they had a bunch of snow up there in Minnesota, right?
17 inches of snow fell in the Metrodome, which was basically an inflated garbage bag covering a bunch of seating.
And I could say that with love because I have spent a lot of time in the Metrodome RIP.
But a bunch of snow came in the roof and there's a live video of it that was shown and you just see the snow just piling through, landing in the middle of the field.
And then they had to delay the NFL game to Tuesday.
We had a Tuesday night football game between the Vikings and the Eagles that week.
So I remember as a sports director for
Conversation that was a Vikings affiliate having to rearrange a high school basketball game and all this other stuff so we could run a Vikings game on a Tuesday And we had football I think pretty much every night that week because it was pole season too We had a football pretty much every night that week But I also think of you know, you think of like Buffalo it seems like every year there's a game where Buffalo gets
36 inches of snow and all of a sudden they got people out there for 10 bucks an hour with their little plastic shovels trying to dig snow out.
It happens to Green Bay once in a while, but I think a buffalo would get, you know, three feet of snow that falls to the stadium.
It's crazy.
I remember, oh, it was probably two or three years ago now.
There was one like that in Cleveland.
I think it was the Browns and the Steelers and it was an absolute winter wonderland.
And we've talked about this before.
I'm a sucker for a snow football game.
I just love it.
The best part of a snow-related football game are the warning messages that say, don't throw snowballs.
Well, you know what that's going to do?
It's going to fake people want to throw the snowballs more.
So that is poor public messaging for the part of teams when it snows.
Don't throw snow, guys.
Well, you know what?
There's a lot of knuckleheads in those crowds, me being one of them.
All right, let's move on to some sports stories.
Number seven at our top, eight and eight.
Christian Yellowch is gone until around Memorial Day.
How much of the Brewers actually missing Parker?
Man, I think that you're not getting so much going to miss his production necessarily.
I think you're more going to miss the fact that it's someone else who's going to need to take over for him.
I think that the Brewers have got, I don't know if I should call it an identity crisis at all, but it seems like the lineup is different every night.
And it's been kind of hard to figure out who's doing what.
DH has been kind of moving around a little bit now, especially obviously now, with Yellich being hurt.
I really, really hope that I believe it ended up being a groin injury after they had...
said, originally said, I think that they thought it was a hamstring.
Really, really hope that that can get reeled in quickly because the birds are already doing with a lot of injury bugs right now.
Churio and Vaughn are the two guys that come to mind right away, as guys that the birds would really like to get back right away, especially as the bats have kind of faltered a little bit after that first week or so, Jimmy.
Yeah, and we'll talk a little bit about the Brewers and some of the concerns we have with them coming up later here in our top eight and eight.
Let's move to number six.
Let's talk some Packers, number six in our top eight and eight.
So the Packers are down Romeo Dobbs and now Dottabee and Wicks, who was traded to the Eagles for a couple of draft picks.
So I'm just wondering, Parker, who's catching passes for the Packers next
year?
Well, I would have told you last year that Matthew Golden was going to be catching a lot of passes last year.
And he wasn't really doing that.
partially because that wide receiver room was so crowded, but also in part because he was rookie.
Let's just be honest.
You got to cut your teeth.
You got to earn your reps first, right?
Well, that room is a lot thinner now.
So there you go.
I think that Matthew Golden is going to make a pretty big step this year, getting a lot more targets and a lot more field time in general.
But two, I think that you might see a lot more Tucker Kraft and I believe Luke Musgrave, maybe.
Fingers crossed that he can stay healthy long enough to be able to actually be impactful for the whole year and become a good pass catcher again.
I
think it also puts a lot of pressure on what they do with Christian Watson because
he's
had some injury issues.
But all of a sudden, he goes a lot more important than that.
Whole Packers offense, but yeah having Tucker craft having some of the other guys that that can probably help balance it a bit But man, I'm telling you it is it is a little worrisome when you see your your most reliable like hands guy go and then you trade away some of your depth I'm sure the Packers know what they're doing.
That's why they're paid the big bucks for this But I keep seeing receivers and past catchers leave an edge.
We're stupid that matter But it's gonna lead me into a question I have on what the Packers doing the NFL direct later in our top eight at eight We're gonna move up to number five in our top eight at eight.
It is a big
big week with UW and we're gonna have Jay Kokorowski to explain all of this more to us, but we got to talk a little bit about it.
I want to do this from the Big Ten perspective though for this question.
Number five in the top eight and eight.
So the Big Ten is higher Chris McIntosh and an advisor slash consultant type role.
They also now
As of a couple days ago, I announced plans that they are adding a conference volleyball tournament.
Do you think these are good moves, Parker?
I have absolutely zero opinion on whether or not Macintosh is going to be helpful.
I have no idea how the administration of the conference works.
I will be totally upfront with you there, Jimmy.
As for the volleyball tournament, I think that this is a really good thing, especially because you're seeing such a good
So much progress for women's sports in general, especially in Wisconsin, I think.
But the Big Ten, I think, is going to try to really put more eyes on volleyball.
And volleyball has kind of been in the spotlight of that women's sports, I don't want to say revolution, but uprising maybe is kind of the best way to put it, because they have grown in so much popularity.
And if you follow the Big Ten at all, or if you follow volleyball at all, college volleyball, that is, you would know that the Big Ten is very, very, very good at volleyball.
So you could see some pretty high level matchups that generally you would probably not see until like Elite 8, Sweet 16 of the national tournament.
That could be happening in the Big Ten tournament.
That's going to be a lot of fun, I think.
I have two issues with this.
One, it's a cash grab.
They're just making money
on
this.
They're just printing money with this.
That's all they're doing.
That's fine.
college sports is now college sports is apparently a mint.
So that's, that's fine.
But my other big issue is competitively because now the big 10, which puts all these teams in the final four every year, now they got to play additional high level matches on top of having to play the NCAA tournament and the regular season against each other.
I know that for the fans, that's awesome.
You get more high level matches, but I just think competitively, Wisconsin and Nebraska might have to face each other four times a year.
Right?
I mean, that's great.
I mean, from a fan perspective, but can you imagine from a player?
coach perspective, or you got to go to war, you know, basically have your schedule.
You're just in a, you know, full on street ball.
I
I think that, you know, I think that the competitors will say, yeah, let's do it.
Let's just play the good teams all the time.
But boy, I don't know, man.
That's that's a lot.
That's a lot of high level competition at the back end of your schedule, especially if you're coming off November matches against the top dogs in the big 10 of the world and then having to go right into a conference tournament and then right into an NCAA tournament.
It just feels like that's months of pressure.
But you know what?
It's college sports and, you
know, I guess that
as the competitor, you're going to be all in.
We are up to number four in our top eight and eight.
Somehow we are just not making pace here today.
Parker, we have a lot to say, just the two of us.
We'll have a few on the other side of the commercial break, I think.
But I think we're gonna end the first segment with this.
Milwaukee Bucks, Doc Rivers is out.
There's a lot of questions, but there's really only one question to me.
Where do the Bucks go from here?
And the number one thing they got to resolve, Parker, I believe is...
what they're going to do with Yanis, if they're going to keep him or if they're going to trade
him.
Honestly, I think the first step before getting to that Yanis conversation is going to be the head coaching market.
They need to find a head coach because that is probably a really vital piece of whether or not they get to keep Yanis.
I don't really know.
If
they hire someone or the Yanis thing, that's the thing.
Because you're you're almost putting the car before the horse because then what if you do training on us?
Well now you've got a head coach who came in expecting to coach a superstar But now he's just got a bunch of spot-up shooters and
You know, a couple of guys off the waiver wire.
That is a very good point, but I honestly think if I'm the Bucks, I'm trying to hang on to Yanis for just one more try.
And if I can do anything in my power to try to keep him around for just that little bit longer, I think that's what I'm going to try to do.
And if you've got a coach that can kind of cater to Yanis a little bit here for the.
I'm going to say the first couple of months of the next NBA season, I think it's worth trying.
I'm just worried that in that case, the Bucks would get nothing for Giannis when he leaves.
They
try to
keep him for a year because getting him for half a season rental, I don't think you're getting a whole lot back in draft capital or anything like that.
But that being said, the Bucks have a big question to answer.
It is a Giannis question, I think before anything else.
Coaching obviously important, but I just, I feel like it just all starts and ends with Giannis, not just for the Bucks, but pretty much for the entire NBA.
Well, we still have three to go on the top eight today, Parker, so we better be quiet and get into our quick break here.
On the other side, we've got a few important questions to ask, but the Badgers, the Brewers, and the Packers are going to do that coming up right after this.
I'll make the call part of the Civic Media radio network.
Welcome back to Make the Call on Civic Media.
Welcome back Jimmy Cuskin, Parker Olsen back with you on Make the Call as we move on along in our top eight eighth.
We're at number three and number three in top eight eighth is should the Badgers hire somebody outside of that Wisconsin infrastructure for the AD role.
And I asked this because Barry Alvarez was promoted from head coach to AD.
They bring in Chris McIntosh, who's a former badger, businessman who came in, was the AD for five years.
Now the Badgers and University of Wisconsin are in a very interesting position in the wide world of NIL and everything happening in college sports.
Do they need to go outside of Wisconsin to bring somebody in to give them a direction forward in the NIL
era?
Usually I'm a really big fan of promoting from within.
I think that that is kind of the route that I...
default to, especially for coaching decisions.
I think that it's really important to have somebody at the head of your program, especially in a place like Wisconsin, which particularly for football has got.
pretty traditional ways of going about how they play the game.
I think that for football, they need to hire from within.
We're talking AD though.
You're right, Jimmy.
It is such a strange world of college sports now.
It has evolved so much.
And frankly, that
brand that Wisconsin Sports is broadly, I don't think Mesh is incredibly well with the NIL world that we live in now.
I kind of think that they need to hire somebody from outside.
They've got to find somebody who's going to be able to fundraise, frankly, be able to bring in NIL money, be able to work with alumni and start creating collectives, more collectives.
Rather, I think there already is a varsity collective that helps out a little bit.
But they do, I think, pretty clearly need to make enough
at finding the right person who has those outside experiences and really, really knows.
I hate to say it.
How to run a business.
I don't like that College Sports is a business, but it
is.
Well, the person that's interim at 80 right now is Marcus Sudbury.
He's a business guy.
He was a COO.
He managed a football program for a bit.
Now he's got a $203 million athletics budget to oversee.
And I know that the onus is on football and what they want to do with football specifically.
But he also has said he's not rocking the boat right now.
It's an interim role.
And they got to move things forward to all they do the national search.
I'm with you though.
I really do feel like they need to bring in someone who's more business than sports at this point You know, I'll I'm a commissioner for a professional sports league just because
In this era the Badgers a lot of the concern is can they compete in the NIL era?
I think having somebody who knows their way around business would probably help that Especially in driving in some revenue outside of the taxpayers now footing 15 million dollars for UW athletics Which that's a whole other discussion for another day probably more of a political topic on the sports topic But they do they did on his way up Mac does should secure some financial deals to help at least with him departing I give them a little bit of stability on the way out number
By the way, we'll talk more about the Badgers coming up with Jake Kokorowski here in about 10 minutes now We'll move up to number two in the top eight at eight the Brewers.
Well, they had a good start to the year They're eight and two but then all of a sudden earlier this week.
They were at 500 again They got you know, you know came back a little bit in the middle of the week with all the rain and everything But there's some concerns right now.
I think with the Brewers, right?
Ray Parker, I think there's some concerns right now going on with that.
Yeah, I think that's versus I think there's some concerns.
Yeah.
Do you feel concerned, Jimmy?
I feel concerned.
I don't know.
I know last year they started out so poorly and then they were just hot the rest of the year this year.
They had a good start and then all of a sudden there was a week where.
Nothing could go right for him.
And I was looking and I'm like, well, I said last week, and you guys, you know, you and Gray were kind of side eyeing me a little bit when I was like, well, you know, I don't know where they're going to get the pitching help from.
It was all the injuries.
The other guy goes down.
Where are they going to find the help from?
And well, you know, now they're getting hurt.
Maybe I'm feeling a little smarter about that.
But at the same time, I feel like.
You know, they usually have the answer to this and right now it's, I don't know, it's three weeks into the season,
but it
just feels like, you know, like what do they do?
I mean, we're, we're, you know, they were 500 again earlier this
week.
Largely, I think the pitching is okay.
Um, frankly, what's frustrated me most has been the bats.
Um, there have been a pretty good handful of games where they've not given up a whole lot of runs and you've kind of just looked down and gone.
How are we losing a game when we've given up two runs right now?
That should not be enough to beat you.
And frankly, it looks like until about the eighth inning a lot of the times, that's going to be enough to beat the Brewers right now.
It's really, I hate to say that, really frustrating, but it's just really frustrating to watch right now.
I hope that they can figure things out because I don't want to have a summer where I don't particularly want to watch baseball.
I want to watch this team.
And I'm hoping that they can get a little healthier here, both pitching staff and bats that we talked about earlier.
Vaughn and Churio, and now Yelich as well.
Hopefully we get those guys back.
We got to finish up our segment in the top 8-8.
Number one in the top 8-8.
The NFL draft is going to be here next week, and we'll have a chance to recap at least the first couple of picks for the Packers when we align here next Saturday.
But the Packers don't pick until the second round this year.
I'm curious, here in the last couple of minutes of the segment, is there any position
or any area that you want to see the Packers address to the draft?
We've talked about wide receiver already today.
I think that they're probably going to be okay, but they definitely could always benefit from another little bit of depth.
I could see them taking a wide receiver.
Knowing the Packers that will not happen in the first round, probably not in the second round either.
I actually don't come to think of what I'm not.
I'm not 100% sure that the Packers have a pick in the first round even, unless there's been some trade since.
No, there's
no first round pick.
No, they don't pick till the second.
But you know, it's interesting because you look at all the pre-draft process and who are the guys that are bringing in.
They're not bringing in receivers.
They're not bringing in cornerbacks.
They're bringing in.
defensive lineman guys the guys named truck and fridge and all this other stuff, you know,
I
just think of the key and feels kitchen fudge.
That's what that's the guy that they're bringing in fudge is the guy they're bringing in right now for the pre-process.
This feels meat and potatoes to me.
I said that last week and Gray seemed to agree with me and he knows the Packers pretty well.
It just feels like
They're going to be working up front on offensive and defensive line
here.
I mean, that's a very Packers approach, right?
I think I can sum up pretty much NFL draft with that statement right there among the Packers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you know what?
And I was going to say that you over under on trades, I feel like they'll probably make a trade or two.
They just picked up a fourth round pick in the week's trade.
So they've got that.
They've got another pick next year with that as well.
They have an extra seventh round pick, I think, this year.
So yeah, a little bit of draft capital if they need to move up a little bit.
But I don't see them making a move to the first round or anything, especially because they also don't have a first round pick next year because they're ready
to
provide the Parsons, you know.
So it'll be
interesting.
But I'm excited to hear whoever is announcing that fifth round
take the packers and just fudge fudge.
That's going to be the packers.
All right, we're going to type that segment.
We're not goofing around here on a Saturday morning.
Take Kukarowski is going to get to the business about the badgers and the big search for a V as well as maybe some notes on volleyball, spring football and more.
That's next year.
I'll make the call in the city media radio network.
Welcome back to Make The Call on Civic Media.
Welcome back to Make The Call here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
I am Jimmy Cuska.
And during that last break, discovered that I do not have the ability to build technology from where I'm at.
Windows Update has erased my ability somehow to record anything on my own computer.
So unfortunately, I'm not able to bring you the interview with Jake Kokorowski today.
We will try again with him next week.
But there was a bunch of big news this week in Badgerland.
whether it was men's hockey as the runner-up in the nation following the Denver National Championship, the women's basketball team getting a five-star recruit this week.
Badger's football in spring football mode with all their practices going on right now.
There's a lot happening in Madison.
It would be great to get all the thoughts from Jake Kokorowski right here, but you can get his thoughts at BadgerObserver.com.
BadgerObserver is where you can find his work.
Jake is a gracious guest and I actually just talked to him before this segment and said, man, I can't figure out how to make this happen.
The latest update somehow.
Messed up by my whole video or audio card with no ability to record remotely So I'm gonna figure that out for next week for this week instead of Jake I'm gonna bring you some audio in this segment gonna bring you some audio from right after the news broke this week when Chris McIntosh Decided that he was taking a job with the Big 10 and that he would be heading to Be a part of that as a consultant in a big advisory role a big spot for Chris McIntosh for sure so
for Wisconsin.
It means Marcus Setberry is the new AD for the moment while they conduct a national search.
And it means for the time being that the Badgers will be operating without the next AD already assigned.
But
For football, it is springtime.
It means that the roster is set.
It's time to get ready for the fall.
And spring practice is about to wrap up.
In fact, today, if you're listening on Saturday, is one of the last practices.
And it's one of the practices that is open to the high school coaches, the Wisconsin High School Football Coaches Association Clinic happening in Madison this weekend.
And you'll see a number of high school coaches making their way to that.
I was one of them.
I was there yesterday, in fact, taking in
all the sights and sounds and meeting with other coaches and both high school and college and trying to learn a little bit about how to coach this high school football thing.
But not the point of this segment.
Point of this segment is we're talking about the Badgers and specifically about what's going to happen now that the Badgers are going to be looking for a new athletic director.
And that was the question asked of Badgers football coach, Luke Fickle.
What was his reaction to finding out that Chris McIntosh would be leaving Wisconsin and going to the Big Ten?
Not easy to lose a friend.
right?
I mean we've all been through it in the past and so it's that's the difficult thing.
That's the guy that you could visit with and sit down with and not that I can't do that with Marcus and you know even some of the coaches on our staff but anytime that there's some things like that that are changes that people you know were in your corner it's always a little difficult.
So disappointing whatever you want to say but you know it's so is life.
Following one of the spring practices this week coach Fickle was asked about what is next now for the Badgers program with the new athletic director heading into the program?
Nothing right now man.
The biggest thing for us right now is obviously Marcus said Barry and what he has to be able to do in his role.
So there's some decisions to be honest with that we're just going to have to make moving forward as to what direction are we going to be able to go in that based on what they're going to do and what he's going to do.
So other than that, I think it's a
Selflessly speaking, it's a decent time for us that we're locked in through all the recruiting and portal stuff for this season.
Now, obviously, the following year, recruiting never stops.
But at least we're in a good place where, hey, it's a focus on Spring football.
It's a focus on all these new guys and the guys that have been here, developing this team and this camaraderie and how we can do things together.
And so some of the external things at this point in time.
It's kind of nice.
It doesn't have a great effect on us on a daily basis.
When you're talking about GM, does GM roll here potentially happen?
Do you think about bringing somebody else in?
Yeah, I mean, we just got to see what the whole timeline and what's going to happen.
But we got to be prepared.
That's the thing.
As we all know, when you're in athletics, things don't wait.
And every day there's an accelerated process in the athletic world that maybe doesn't.
and everybody else's world.
And so we have to have a plan.
We have to be prepared and we got to be ready to be able to move based on what happens and, you know, by probably by the end of the spring ball.
And Fickle was asked about what Badger's football specifically can do to help in the transition from Chris McIntosh to the interim AD Marcus Sudbury to whoever will be named the permanent AD.
And here's what Fickle had to say about that.
I think the easiest thing for us right now is to understand like.
You got to win.
We're not beating around the bush.
We're not changing anything.
And I think that was probably the, you know, as Mack and I sat and we talked about, like, I don't know.
I mean, I don't know.
It's a different, right?
Yes, the relationship.
Yes, having a guy if you know him really well and you could sit down and be friends with.
But we all understand this is a big boy ball and this is a big business.
And it comes down to doing your job and doing it really well.
And so there's many different ways of doing it.
You know, I can't say I've been a coach for 35, head coach for 35 years.
And in the spots where I've been, there's been different relationships with each AD.
And I think each one of them are unique.
And so however it goes and whatever it is, what helps the relationship best of all is having success on the field and having a good product.
And so I don't think that's going to change.
So that again, some of the sound from Luke Vickle earlier this week at Badger Spring Practice is talking about the loss of 80 Chris McIntosh to the Big 10.
Again, as I promised, we were going to have Jay Kukorowski in this segment, but being the non-technical guy I am with this computer on a short.
Notice here on a Saturday morning, can't figure out how to get it to record.
So I will have Jake come back next week when I've sorted this thing out and have more time to look at it.
But in the meantime, you can find all the coverage of spring ball as well as Badgers volleyball and what they're doing.
as well as, of course, the news on Chris McIntosh leaving as athletic director.
All of that can be found right now at BadgerObserver.com.
Again, Badger Observer, that's Jake Kokorowski doing all the work there.
Make sure you follow him too on social media at jakekoco, Jake Coco on Twitter.
Well, with that, since I don't have Jake to ask a bunch of questions too about the Badgers, I do want to bring you this.
This week also was the Packers tailgate tour.
They take the big bus
all around the state.
I remember when they brought them to where my mom works in Chippewa Falls a few years ago, and my mom got to meet some of the Green Bay Packers, including one of her all-time favorites, Gilbert Brown.
So it's a pretty cool thing they do.
They bring Packers alums around the state, some current Packers, some members of the front office go around Wisconsin and get to meet fans this year's tour, taking them to Southern Wisconsin, a bit of Eastern Iowa, and over to Eastern Wisconsin as well.
And our own Mike Clemens got to take part of the tour.
and he had a chance to talk to one of the alums of the bus, James Jones, former Packer.
And here is Mike Clements talking to James Jones during the Packers tailgate tour this past week.
With Packers wide receiver James Jones, you know, there was a time when they had this thing called fan fest in the atrium, like your first or second year.
And then they called you up into the atrium or the ballroom and you did a Q&A with the fans and they asked me to see it.
And one of the people, the fans stand up and ask you, JJ, who's got the better fastball?
Who throws the ball harder?
Brett or Aaron?
And you said Aaron Rodgers.
I said, I want to say I said it's not even close.
And it's Aaron Rogers
because you know for years Robert Ferguson those guys talked about their broken fingers, but
so I was able to play with both of them and Obviously, you know, I played with Brett in his later years catching a ball from him and Aaron
It's night and day, man.
You know, and I'm not saying Brett, obviously Brett is a Hall of Famer.
I love Brett too.
Brett's arm was live as well, but Aaron is on a different planet, man.
You know, I tell people all the time, man, I wish he would have got to more Super Bowls and won more Super Bowls because Aaron Rodgers is the greatest quarterback to ever throw a football.
You know what I'm saying?
And I don't care about seven Super Bowls, Tom Brady, the guy, the greatest person to ever throw a football.
My humble opinion is Aaron Rodgers, man.
the spin and the sting on it, the difference between him and Brett, you can feel it.
I think it was 07.
You're out there catching everything thrown at you during the mini camp, during training camp.
Brett got called away.
There was a death in the family, and he came back.
And the first thing he did is he went back to the film room late at night because he wanted to keep looking at your tape.
He couldn't believe the way that he was like, man, I got something here.
Do you remember that?
bond building early that
year?
I do man and it's crazy because I remember our bond building and a lot of times he threw me the ball I ran the wrong route but I still was making the play.
So he was like, oh shoot, like this young fella is making tough catches.
He can make the play even though he's running the wrong route.
Like I see the potential.
So then he just started like helping me with the playbook and how he wanted certain stuff ran and all that.
And we started building that chemistry, man.
And we ended up having a good year.
And we really clicked too, especially, you know, at the end of the year, we started clicking a whole lot more too.
But he's seen the ability that I had to go up and make the tough catch.
You know what I mean?
Kind of the same way Aaron Rodgers did when he took over the job.
He just was giving me some opportunities.
With James Jones, does a great job as an analyst on the Packers Radio Network and the pre-game show with Dennis Krause.
So let me ask you, you're Jordan Love and you go online and you see what?
Dobbs this one to the Patriots.
Well we traded wicks to the Eagles.
What do you think is going through his mind right now?
Well, I mean, I'm sure he had an idea that we weren't going to be able to keep both obviously, you know what I mean?
Even when the season ended.
So obviously, Romeo Dobb got a nice chunk of money from the Patriots.
I hate it to see Wicks go though, because Wicks was one of those guys that did all the dirty work in the run game, was a really good route runner.
You know what I mean?
I felt like we haven't seen his true potential yet.
So if I'm joining love, I'm...
I'm kind of, you know, sad.
I wouldn't say upset.
I'm kind of sad that we lost two really good playmakers.
But to be honest with you, man, when you look around at what we have offensively, you got Kraft coming back.
You're going to have Watson.
You're going to have Jaden Reed.
You obviously got the young Phenom receiver in golden that I think is going to be really good.
So you still have a lot of playmakers out there that you could depend on to make plays.
But I was a little sad when I seen it.
So I know them being his brothers, he had to be a little sad.
You know, I think of two James is
as long as I've been covering this team.
James Lofton, Sterling Sharp, they're not both in the Hall of Fame.
Robert Brooks, Donald Driver.
Jordy Nelson, James Jones.
Randall Cobb, who's here on the tailgate tour with you.
I mean...
This team has always done a great job of putting a great number one, number two receiver on the field and you're part of that
club.
Absolutely.
And then not only that though, Tudor, I think the quarterback matters a lot.
You know what I mean?
Like Aaron Rodgers and having Brett Farve, you know what I mean?
As a receiver, you're always open.
You know what I mean?
And yes, we have the ability, and I think I could go play with any quarterback.
I went and played with Derek Carr and had a lot of success not saying that.
But just playing with a good quarterback, man, they can bring the best out you too, man.
And I think you see that as we went on the years, we were really good players.
But when you combine really good players with really good quarterbacks, you know what I'm saying?
You're going to get some really good receiver player, and then you're not going to be able to keep all of them.
James, I have followed the tailgate tour a couple of times.
There will be some amazing stories you'll see this week with agencies that you guys, you know, Ed Policy is going to be handing out one of them big checks.
I mean, some of them you'll be saving for the week.
That's good work.
Besides that, and meeting fans, and you get to talk to guys that, you know, Edger and Cooper about...
being a packer right
yeah man it's good to just ride on the bus with some of them young fellas and you know we're sharing stories and you know just talking to them you know just about you know our past experiences and all that stuff and you know just trying to teach them and they picking our brain you know that's always good it's always good to be around the fans and be able to mingle with the fans because we know how much
you know, the Green Bay Packers and us as players mean to them.
So that's always good.
And especially if being for good calls, you know, it's phenomenal.
And that's what we all hear for.
But, you know, it's crazy.
I was sitting on the bus and I was talking to Coop and I'm just like, me and Randall were talking and we're like, dang man, we missed out on so many opportunities to get to the Super Bowl.
And we kept on saying, we're young, we have time.
And I said, you know what, man, I got a
I want to stop saying you have time, Coop, because you don't.
You know what I'm saying?
Because if you think you have time, you're already going in, you're three.
So if your year three is here that fast, you know how quick your year nine is going to be here?
You know what I mean?
So like, I don't want to tell you you got time.
Like the time is now to get it done because you're not always going to have good football teams the way you have.
You're going to have football teams that battle injuries that, you know, you may not be able to, you know, put a good product out there on the field.
So when you have a chance to go win it, man, you've got to go win it.
So it's just some good conversations with the young fellas.
We've got some Packer fans waiting for you.
James Jones, thanks for your time, pal.
No problem.
Anytime, man.
Thanks for having me.
So that again, James Jones with our own Mike Clemens at the Packers' Tailgate Tour.
We're going to hear more from Mike Clemens coming up in our next segment as he'll get us a rundown on all things sports.
And we'll do that coming up next.
This is Make the Call, part of the Civic Media Radio Network.
Welcome back to Make the Call on Civic Media.
We're back here on Make the Call part of the Civic Media Radio Network.
We are near the end of the show.
Mike Clements is standing by to give us an update on all things Wisconsin sports.
And this is the part where I get to ask Parker, Parker, anything on your mind in sports that we didn't cover today, what are your final thoughts on sports?
My final thoughts on sports.
You know, Jimmy, the sun is out finally after all that rain and the temperatures are sort of starting to move up.
I am thinking about going to the ballpark.
I got to go to a game on Sunday last week and it was very, very nice.
I love being in the ballpark.
Everything about being in a baseball stadium just makes me happy.
And I've got a lot of that ahead of me this summer, so I'm really looking forward to getting back out and working cameras for the Mallards this year.
By the way, releasing some pretty cool alternate identities.
Check that out if you can.
But I really just would love to be outside and doing stuff with baseball.
That's all I'm thinking about right now, Jimmy.
What do you got here, bud?
You said the temperatures are going up, bud, but I'm looking here at my football forecast for today.
Wind chills at 36 today
for
playing football.
No, no, no.
Not enjoying.
But I'm with you in the ballpark ampamp field now has that new splash zone earlier this week So, you know, you got you got that going for you My final sports thought I I'm such a geek about the NFL draft I love seeing where college guys go into the NFL But the luster has worn a little bit on the draft for me because a lot of the draft picks are coming from the same like four places Now the NIL are the colleges have really loaded up on the major college level So not not getting to see a guy from like slippery rock go in the fifth round
the NFL draft or UW whitewater or something like that.
That to me brings it down a little bit, but I still enjoy the process and that's happening this week with the Packers.
Inevitably between now and the time we're on the air again, draft a guy named Fudge to be their new starting club guard.
That's it for Make the Call this week.
Thank you, Parker.
We are going to turn it over to Mike Clemens now for a quick look at all things sports here in Wisconsin.
This has been Make the Call part of the Civic Media Radio Network.
Have a great weekend, everybody.
The crew slips past the Marlins.
Hi, I'm Mike Clemens with Sports Baseball.
The Brewers and the Marlins went into extra innings last night.
Milwaukee coming out on top seven to five.
Thanks in part to an RBI double from Garrett Mitchell in the top of the 10th.
Brewers TV Brian Anderson with the call.
Mitchell, fly ball left field, slicing it is down.
Into the corner it goes.
One run is in.
Two runs are in, Renifo stops at third.
Mitchell delivers big time.
And it was the major league debut for Brewers right-handed pitcher Coleman Crowe who had Tommy John surgery as a prospect two years ago.
Crowe did allow two runs on four hits, but he struck out four batters in five and a third innings.
Brewers manager Pat Murphy on how Crowe did against a Marlins team that's been tough for them to beat when they play in Miami.
And I thought Coleman went out and just he was tremendous in his first outing.
He didn't he didn't miss too many spots.
I want him to understand he can pitch here.
I mean he can he can
and pitching to big leagues.
You know, you come to this environment against that lineup as good as they're playing.
It's pretty good, you know, poise and he's not afraid to throw to the edges.
He's not afraid counts don't really matter to him.
He just makes pitches.
So after a six game losing streak, the Brewers have now won three in a row.
Game two of the three game series is at 3-10 this afternoon at Lone Depot Park in Miami.
The Marlins right hander, Sandia Calantara, against the Brewers, Brandon Woodruff, who earlier in the week was asked about his level of concern
of losing six games
in a row.
We've been a club that has won a lot of ball games over the last few years.
And it's still early.
I mean, it's so early.
And it's just one of those things.
You know, as a team and as a ball club, you'll go through these ups and downs and just couldn't hang on.
So that's part of the game.
You just have to clean up a few things and keep giving ourselves chances.
And that's the main thing.
NBA.
Last week, we told you after a frustrating season, Doc Rivers
would be stepping down as the head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks.
He's 64 years old, headed to the Basketball Hall of Fame ceremonies to be inducted this summer.
That'll be in August.
Doc Rivers says he met with the Bucks ownership in the beginning of March to talk about his future plans.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, we met about, you know, I want to say seven weeks ago and we had a me and ownership.
We had a great meeting.
They asked me what I wanted to do.
You know, one of the owners says, you know, one plan is if we do this.
you can hang in there for a year or two.
And I literally said, oh no.
No, I was a matter of fact, I told my coaches like I'm done.
I love coach loved it.
I had a lot of success at it.
I had some way more ups than downs.
But at the end of the day, I've given 40 years, 47 years or whatever, I don't even know what I am straight, like with no off time.
And
I just wanted a break.
River says it's hard for the Bucks to trade Yanis because they won a title together.
The Bucks runoff has done an amazing job overall, like to win a title and to get there.
They're good people.
And then you have Yanis, who I'm telling you is a good person.
And they're both over all the stuff.
And I don't think Yanis knows if he wants to stay or not.
And I don't know the organization knows one way or not either.
And it just it's too bad because I just hope that part is figured out.
When you want to tie it with someone, it's like a blood transfusion, and that transfusion shouldn't be broken.
And that part is the one that I wanted to figure out.
So it stopped.
A big change this week in Madison, Chris McIntosh, deciding to resign as the athletic director of the Wisconsin Badgers.
He's taking on a new job with the Big Ten Conference.
His assistant, Marcus Sedbury, has been named the interim AD.
The Badgers head football coach Luke Fickle says that McIntosh informed him of the decision about 10 days ago.
You know, as Mac and I sat and we talked about, like, yes, the relationship, yes, having a guy if you know him really well and you could sit down and be friends with.
But we all understand this is a big boy ball and this is a big business and it comes down to doing your job and doing it really well.
And so, you know, what helps the relationship best of all is having success on the field and having a good product.
NFL, the Packers getting ready for the draft this week.
coverage begins Thursday night.
The Packers wrapping up their week-long tailgate tour of Wisconsin, meeting fans and making donations to charities around the state.
I talked with former Packers wide receivers Randall Cobb and James Jones.
Jones says he and Cobb spoke to the current players that were on the tour, including safety Evan Williams and linebacker Edgeron Cooper.
You know, it's crazy.
I was sitting on the bus and I was talking to Coop and I'm just like me and Randall were talking and we're like, dang man, we missed out on so many opportunities to get
to the Super Bowl and we kept on saying, we're young, we have time.
And I said, you know what, man, I got to, I want to stop saying you have time, Coop, because you don't.
You're already going in year three.
That's former Packer James Jones with Sports on Mike Clemens.
