The Fourth Period

Welcome, everyone, to WFHR's Playmeggers.

November 27th, 2023.

Have your host, James J. We've got a Seth Habhagger pitch hit in today.

I am here, yes indeed.

We appreciate you being here, Seth.

Thanks a lot for the time.

I send a shout out to our partner in crime around here, Randy Paul, out there working hard

for us.

But Randy's still going to be present because he sent us the cranberry classic scores.

Yes, that's right.

Some information on that, I know that you were covering the games from here.

We'll get into that.

We'll also get into a little bit of Badgers talk.

I want to talk Wisconsin Badgers football.

We'll talk about that a little bit.

We'll talk about whatever you want to talk about, 715-424-2600.

Call up and join the conversation.

We'd love to hear from you.

Call up and get us anything.

Wherever you want to take the conversation, we'll go in that direction because the direction

I want to start in Seth.

I don't know.

Do you have anywhere you want?

I know you haven't really.

Not really.

I don't know if you've got a chance to pay attention to sports as a little busy person.

But I want to talk a little bit about the coaching carousel that he's going on.

This is actually going back to a conversation you and I had around 6 this morning.

That's true.

As the news broke earlier on that Carolina Panthers have fired had coach Frank Wright.

Not even completing his first season in Carolina.

They just hired him earlier.

Wow.

Yeah.

It does feel like it was yesterday they hired him.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And in college football, I want to extend this to college football as well because that is

a true madness carousel where Texas A&M looked like during the weekend that they were

going to be without a dance partner because one of the worst things to happen to a coach

or a university or a team is I want this guy and that guy don't want me.

No, thank you.

And they got that twice this weekend.

It's really bad.

It's rough.

So the job has gone to Mike Elko, Duke defensive coordinator, currently would do, going to

be with Texas A&M.

He is a former Aggie so they'll bring in a university guy.

But is it how do you feel being Mike Elko where everybody knows you're the third guy.

You're the third choice.

You're not the number one choice.

I'm curious why you guys would handle that out there.

715-424-2600.

I know.

For me, I've always been a believer of I got a job.

Thanks to affirmative action.

And I found it out after about a month on the job.

And there was a part of me that was so angry about that.

And then I realized, oh, I got my foot in the door, now I'm going to make sure that they

can't get rid of me.

There you go.

I'm going to make myself so valuable that they see that they should have hired me regardless.

But I can see a little frustration in the idea of getting a job that you don't necessarily

whether you earned it or you kind of were the last man standing or however you want

to look at it.

There's only so many jobs.

College football is a little different, there's 116 of them.

But at the same time, at Texas A&M and at the SEC, that's a coveted gig.

Yeah, it is.

And you know they're going to pay you.

I was saying to say, although it would be curious to know if they've publicized how much

he's getting paid after the huge buyout from before.

So I don't know.

I think part of the reason everybody had an urban buyer type going into this gig.

I never saw that coming because of the money they already owe.

They got Texas money.

Don't get me wrong.

Right.

But again, everybody ends up falling to that at some point.

I don't care if you're Nike or Amazon or whoever.

Your bottom line, your shareholders, they're going to start to feel that.

And they're going to start that they're going to say something.

Texas A&M, college football, no different, no different than any of these businesses that

are being run out there.

If you think any differently, you're full.

I'm sorry.

But at this point in 2023, if you think college football is anything other than a sports

business, it is.

Yeah.

Don't don't delude yourselves anymore people and please don't.

The highest paid person in every state is the head football coach of that state.

Yes.

Yes.

Public public.

Yeah.

Highest paid public official.

I can't get that out.

But that's still so many states.

I mean, come on.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know.

It's the truth.

The truth in Wisconsin.

Yeah.

It is all around us, too.

And so I'm kind of curious of what you guys would handle that and what you think of the

coaching carousel that goes on.

Yeah.

It's a little different than when we were kids, Seth.

We were talking about this with the NFL.

It used to be in the NFL.

This happened every once in a blue moon, maybe Al Davis, but it didn't happen that

often.

Now, these they recruiting in the NFL isn't that different than college football now.

No.

It's a different.

There's layers to it that are different.

Yeah.

It's a different way of doing it.

Anyway, there's a lot of similarities that don't seem on the surface.

Yeah.

But nobody wants to go play for a franchise that doesn't look like they don't have their

stuff together.

Yeah.

And so you look like you have your stuff together more if you get rid of Frank Reich

or some of these other coaches earlier.

Right.

We'll take you.

Let's find out what's on your mind out there.

Good afternoon.

It's cold.

That's what's on my mind.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It is.

I would have liked it.

It's dang cold.

I got I mean, I got a little insight on what's my connections with that to say, and

um, their standards for, I mean, Wisconsin's got standards for players.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

That's just that that's a thing.

And all those schools have standard for coaches.

Yeah.

And if you don't meet those standards, that's what I mean, there were, I mean, there

were a lot of people at alumni that weren't happy at the end with them, even hiring

jump jump.

Yeah.

I remember that.

Um, but, you know, you like you're staying at the high school coaches, um, for an high school

college coaches, the high school coaches, then in Texas, you know, Detroit, or high school

football coaches in Texas get paid a lot of money.

Yeah.

That's true.

Oh, yeah.

I saw a stat the other day when this first went down with Jimbo Fisher.

No Texas A and except for like one scenario, no Texas A and M coach has ever, uh, has

ever not been fired.

They've all been fired like 10, 15, like in the history of Texas A and M football, they've

all been fired.

Wow.

It's insane.

Like to take a gig like that, but it's, that's the game.

These guys are insane.

Like you have to be do do this right.

Like Joe paterno, one of the, uh, everybody's grandpa, everybody loved Joe paterno, insane,

crazy man.

Yeah.

And they have to be, you have to be to do this gig.

Bobby Bowden, every single person, you know, think of, but all crazy, all these names

I'm mentioning outside, it may be a paterno or somebody, all fired, all fine, like even

the greats, we forget about the, you know, uh, what's his name, the famous story with Tom

Landry and such getting fired and Dallas and all that, uh, what he hates, what he hates

was fired.

Well, of course, he hit a player in the face.

Yeah.

But still he was fired.

I mean, the legend coach was still fired.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But the only one he don't see get fired is Barry Alvarez and he just stepped down.

That was about, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But that's, that's, but that's big cat.

I mean, he don't sell a lot of those coaches really don't get fired.

I mean, for a while, they're, they're talking about, um, they get fired because he can't

beat me.

I think that allow one of the funniest headlines I would ever see in my life is Ryan

Day fired at Ohio State.

Like, if that happens, even in the next year or two, even if he beats Michigan once,

we're all going to know why he was fired.

Like, the guy's like 80, 80,000 in the three, but those three losses, oh, oh, those three

losses.

Yeah.

So I mean, that's the way things are in college football, even I don't, it's just they

want to win now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Have that.

They don't want to have to wait two years.

You know, the amount of talent that was at the end of the year, they shouldn't be in

the position they are at, you know, I get that to a degree, certainly.

If you're, and you're spending that kind of money, you know, you want to return on your

investment, of course.

Uh, but I wonder, I feel like as fans, we're always going to be fans, uh, coaches always

going to coach, always going to find jobs.

I feel like the players are the ones that get hurt the most by this because they don't

have the consistency, even now you could say you make it the argument consistency with

bad coaching, ain't going to help anybody.

Right.

Um, so you got to make a call at a certain point, but no different than none of us would

say, oh, we know, we're, we've been saying this about Jordan love for the last three

years.

We don't know him yet.

We got it.

We got to have some evidence.

We got to have some data.

There's no way we can know Bryce young yet.

Uh, there's no way we can know any of these guys yet.

How could we say that we can, how could we say that about a coach, uh, about Frank Reich

or somebody like this who just got the job and, and these are, there's different scenarios

in all of these, those two and the major difference to me with the college and the pro

game, certainly among many of them, um, in Carolina, you've got what's looking like to

be one of the worst owners in football.

Oh my gosh.

Uh, I don't know if anybody caught the Frank Wright press conferences, what would turn

out to be his last one, but he mentioned how the owner over there, he has to have weekly

meetings with this guy and sometimes they're daily and the guy will give him his notes

on football.

Frank Reich.

Frank, you're giving Frank Wright notes on football.

I understand he's not a Hall of Famer or anything, but I think Frank writes resume speaks

for itself as a player and as a coach, right?

And you're, you're, you're, you've missed a bit, uh, billionaire and everything is going

to give you notes on football.

You're the next Jerry Jones apparently.

Well, and really, I mean, it's, it's come down to, it's come down to this, you know,

we're firing you, Frank Reich, because we didn't draft CJ Stroud, right?

That was it.

That's what it comes down to.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And as we had on draft day, we found out that it was the owner's decision and everything

to go with him and such.

So yeah, to your point.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, you know, it's kind of funny thing is, though, it was kind of talking, I was listening

to some of the talking, had this morning, and you know, they're talking about, uh, there's

a Trevor Lawrence down at Jacksonville.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And how, I mean, they, I can't remember who was coaching when he first came into the

league.

Urban and higher.

Yes.

You're right.

And so then, uh, now with having, uh, uh, Peterson there, look what he's, look what

he's done.

Maybe that's what they, maybe that's what they need for bright sound.

And maybe they need to coach that Mike of Peterson bring in.

They're using the current things they're on.

They're using the Trevor Lawrence, uh, as an, uh, the Trevor Lawrence situation as

an example.

And I think it's a good one to fair one.

I think Doug Peterson is a great coach, Super Bowl coach.

I don't form a pack or all that.

I like Doug Peterson and everything.

I don't want this to take anything away from him as a coach, because as we're seeing,

coaching is, uh, there aren't that many great coaches.

And I think he's one of them.

And we're, I love that we're using Trevor Lawrence as the example.

One of the greatest NFL prospects in human history.

A kid who came out the gate looking like an NFL quarterback at like 15, like,

and that's the guy we're going to use an example, because he had one bad year

under one of the worst coaching, coaching jobs in NFL history.

Of course he looked horrible.

And of course he's going to look good coming out of that because he's Trevor Lawrence.

The kid is an adonis.

I mean, look at that kid.

He looks like he was born to do this because he was.

It's, it's not a bad example.

I don't want to take anything from that, but I do think it's kind of funny that we

are just like a couple of years removed of the greatest quarterback prospect.

One of the greatest quarterback prospects ever is Trevor Lawrence.

You know, and now we're going to use him as an example of, wow, look it up.

Look at how coaching brought this out of him.

Isn't that why they hired Frank Reich?

Yeah, because he's supposed to be a good quarterback coach.

Yeah, and then this is what we get.

I mean, yeah, it's just, it's nuts.

I, yeah, Caroline has got issues.

I mean, a lot of times I'll talk to it.

It's something, I mean, you blame it on a coach, but I mean,

I guess I was in a real bright young fan in the first place.

And no, I mean, you got to have it between the years.

Yeah, yeah, and that, I mean, that's where he's C.J.

He's troubled is he's got it between the years.

And I mean, that's just all these having a phenomenal year.

But yeah, all these kids are drafted on potential.

And I get that, but you've got to have something to go along with that.

Yeah, and I couldn't agree with you more.

I will take a kid who's got it between the years over the Trump

or Lawrence's that not that he doesn't have it between the years.

Right.

The prospect that looks perphysically gifted.

Yeah, we've seen if there's one example of seeing a bust, it's that.

It's, it's the, it's the just Marcus Russell.

It's the, the kids got everything you want in a quarterback or an athlete.

He's got all the attachments, all that stuff and everything.

But yeah, he just doesn't have between the ears.

And so many coaches and owners look at a Baker Mayfield.

There's somebody like that.

And Baker's a great example of bouncing back from those.

And now Johnny Menzel.

I'm sorry, I meant Johnny Menzel, not Baker Mayfield.

Johnny Menzel, Johnny Menzel.

Marcus Russell, some of these guys, it's the consistent theme that you're, the,

the thing that you're unsure of, these NFL owners are, are that, that, that woman

or that man that think, oh, I can change him or her.

I can change them.

Yeah, there are other relationships didn't work out, but it's going to change

with me because I can change this person.

Right.

And I know this because I've been that guy, the women thick, they can change many

times.

Well, you know, you can look back when, when Vince Young was drafted.

He was a good college to be the great court coach, but that you just never

amounted into my chin and, and I fell.

I mean, but I tell you truth, I would rather take the, I mean, even say Tom Brady.

Look, Holly, he was drafted.

Yeah, yeah, rock, pretty.

Mm hmm.

Look, Holly, he was, I would almost, if I was a court, you know, a team, I mean,

that's why the Packers have done so well the last, I mean, granted, I mean,

all Rogers was a nubble and draft or as a first round draft pick along with love,

but it seemed like there were valuation of certain players, even though the

third rowing draft picks of the Packers aren't very good.

They do a pretty good job in the late rowings.

And he's got, you know, and you get, they get starters out of those late rounds.

I've talked with coach Peckman about this with River King's players and scouts and

stuff and I remember talking with coach quarters about this.

They have a very similarity between the two of them.

They, they've had prospects and they've had kids that might play here that are

talented beyond belief, but they got some off the ice stuff that you don't want in

this town and they don't even look at them.

They don't even look at them.

Like, okay, that's great.

I'll send your name to somebody else, but you're not going to, it's not going to work

out with us.

So much comes back to that to between the ears.

What's in the kids between, and there's no test for that.

There's no.

And heck, a lot of owners have gotten in scouts, have gotten in trouble for asking

certain questions that might get you inside of a player's head.

So you've really, it's one of those things you roll the dice on, but you also have

data. You have some data to go off of.

I think that some of these, some of these things they, they tell you in college,

oftentimes, you know, what kind of person, what kind of player they might be.

Yeah.

And so it's always interesting to me to see how that play that develops.

Well, the way that they have all this information that AI know and all the

technology they have, I mean, I would like to know if, you know, from the, from

the top, I would say probably what four rounds compared to the rest of the league,

to the rest of the draft, who's got, you know, who's, you know, who's got

better qualities.

I mean, as a, those top, you know, that, that top group, or is it that bottom

half, you know, and it just seems like you, some of the guys that end up being

stars in the NFL or NBA, or even in baseball that are drafted late,

are the ones that actually make it bigger in the league.

There's not a ton of examples of number one picks, you know, in any sport,

almost, a baseball is probably the worst, the biggest example, I think, right,

of number one picks, just not working out because of the gap between the majors

and the amateur, because just the, the play is so much better.

Yeah, I think that is something that's always good to talk to you, man.

All right, you guys have a good night and I'm actually for the Bears in

H.

Hey, all right.

Mark that down, man.

I appreciate it.

Oh, well, always good to talk to you, sir.

All right, guys, have a great night.

I was going to say, I just realized that the Vikings and the Bears are playing

tonight.

So we're supposed to be, you know, like, you know, throwing, you know, we should

be throwing, you know, saying, you know, taking each other down, who's trash

talking, maybe, but, you know, it's, it, it, well, you can tell the,

the win lost record of our teams and what we're expecting of this year.

It's, it's one of those things where you're getting to a point in the season.

Do I want my team to lose to have a higher draft position?

Yeah, right.

Yeah, when you start to wonder that as a fan, you go from Super Bowl expectations to

that, man, like he's done such a weird year.

That's so strange.

Anyway, we're going to take this.

Another 10 minutes, when we come back, head coach and GM, if your Wisconsin

Rapids River, King of Coach Paul Peckman, going to join us looking forward to

that. That's always a good conversation.

We'll talk with coach about the weekend games and that, but we've been talking

a little bit of college football and college sports and NFL.

I want to continue talking a little college football.

Okay.

And I'm sorry, I talking, oh, yeah, we'll talk college football.

We'll wrap up talking to cranberry classic.

Okay.

So the last segment of the show will get to that.

All right.

Let's continue with the badgers and Minnesota game that went on this weekend.

The battle for Paul Bunions acts of the, the acts is back here in Wisconsin.

It is big game for the, for the coach fickle and his staff.

Two big wins back to back there beating Nebraska becoming bull eligible in this.

One of the things that I think that actually is funny to be about sports that

doesn't really happen very often in life is this idea that we get so big picture.

And then as soon as we're in the middle of the game in the season or something,

it becomes immediately, you know, quick results and that's what matters.

You come into this and it's all, well, hey, Wisconsin, you know, what are they going to do?

Are they going to be competitive for maybe a college football playoff, et cetera,

et cetera, the winning the big 10, that kind of thing.

And at certain point in the season, it becomes, let's just get to a bowl game, right?

And that's something that every football fan, every college fan can relate to at some point

or another, maybe unless you're an Alabama or Georgia fan.

So I think that, yeah, we could talk about the expectations coming in the

season, blah, blah, blah, blah, all of that.

I want to deal with right now and going forward and what you have right now is

momentum on your side, regardless of what happens in the bowl game.

I don't got bowl predictions.

Most the the higher ups and the people that have brains about this stuff are saying

that Auburn and the badgers are probably going to face off in one of the many

bowl games that could be the music city bowl is the one that's being predicted.

The most natural, right?

So we'll see how that plays out.

But regardless, you play in Alabama and you get blown out.

Okay.

Well, chances are Braille and Ellen's probably not going to play in that game.

It's probably going to commit to playing in the NFL and he would not be in that

game.

There's going to be reasons for them maybe not producing in that game.

So I'm not worried about the bowl game.

That's just icing on the cake.

Your season wrapped up just this past weekend and it wrapped up with you winning

the biggest rivalry you have.

Exactly.

Forget about giving me in the Minnesota win loss record and the relate the insanity

that is PJ Fleck and all that stuff and everything.

You won the game.

Yeah.

Had they lost the game, that's all anybody be talking about.

Yeah.

So you can't reverse that on me.

You can't not give them credit for winning the game and winning it convincingly

and seeing a very well, probably the best we've seen of Braille and Ellen all season.

Yeah.

You got that moment.

I'm going in and in the college football, you know, portal, you have an opportunity

here as DM Sanders continues to lose commitments.

You can gain commitments.

Yeah.

And I like where you're sitting if you're a Wisconsin Badger fan right now.

Yeah.

And and I hope I hope this, you know, because I know during the middle of the season

when they hit that, you know, lost those couple of games, rough games,

they probably should have won.

I mean, people were like, you said they were like, what's going on?

What's happening?

Ah, we're freaking out here.

And and it's, it's like you do.

You got to have a little patience.

I think this is the year.

This is the adjustment year for the Badgers.

And I think the last two games that you've seen, you've seen then what they're

building towards.

Yes.

And I think next year is going to be a whole lot better.

I'm not going to say they're going to jump out next year and be able to, you

know, you know, you run with Ohio State or Michigan or anything like that.

But I'm just going to say, I think they're going to be a lot better next year.

And if, if, if Luke, Luke Fickle is as good as we, as advertised,

I think you're going to start seeing more better results next year.

We know the man can recruit.

We know that he, he can bring these kids in.

And by, if you look at the, the draft picks out of the university of Cincinnati

over the last six, seven years with a sauce gardener and guys like that.

It's really, it's a talent, man.

Yeah.

You know, he can't just find talent.

He can help grow that talent, develop it.

Um, we, we, we have, we've just finished his first year.

You know, so again, all of this, if you noticed, I was going somewhere with this

whole conversation going back with the caller and everything else that patients

with these coaches and the idea of letting them breathe a little, you know,

the expectations in Wisconsin and Texas A&M and college station are two gigantic

differences to the caller's point earlier about the way that they football is in

Texas.

Yeah.

Um, I, I, I looking like I do manage to survive in middle of Texas because I knew

I could talk football, um, the great equalizer, right?

Yes, it really was.

It really was.

I got some funny looks until I started talking about the local high school

teams.

Yeah.

All of a sudden it was like, well, let me get you a beer.

Let me.

Yeah.

Great.

Um, date.

I understand that with that being said, I think that that, to me, you care that much

about something.

It shouldn't be about, okay, win or nothing.

It should be about, well, how do we get to winning?

Um, obviously what we've been doing isn't been working, right?

Getting a coach, giving them a couple of years, firing them, get a coach,

couple of years, fire them.

Yeah.

Like that obviously is not a good system.

It is just the definition of insanity.

Yeah.

Looking at a Wisconsin looking at some of these universities where they love football, love

it.

Just ate the most important thing in the world, um, maybe having that, that is what you

need as a Texas fan, as a fan of, if you really do love the sport, you can have perspective.

We do this with family members all the time.

Our families are not perfect.

I am so sorry to tell everybody that what I know it's shocking.

I found out this weekend.

I just found out at the age of 46, my family's not perfect, um, but, but we love them anyway.

We get in time, we get impatient, we get in love, we get all those things.

You have to treat this game a little bit like that, I think if you were a, and I don't

think they're ever going to, I, that shit sailed a long time ago.

But I think that you look at big 10 teams that love their football and, and I think probably

second two in SEC, you know, you know, I think that's, you know, like, yeah, it's pretty

the talent.

Yeah, pretty fair.

You know, if we had a gauge of who loves football the most, nobody's arguing with Texas

in the South Loving Football.

I think the Midwest here is right there at number two, and we, but we're not insane about

it.

We just don't lose our minds, maybe over it and everything.

Um, I don't know.

I've lived in Wisconsin long enough to see some mind losing occasionally as I was saying

all of that.

All that was flashing in my brain are crazy football fans from all over this whole Midwest

of ours.

Yes.

I was going to throw that right back in some of these, grab that throw it right back in

my face.

How long have you lived here?

Yeah.

Um, before we go to break, I did want to, uh, touch on a couple of quick notes.

One, uh, this is from a Twitter.

We got this big 10 championship game appearances by school as the big 10 championship is

set between Michigan and Iowa and Iowa.

Good.

Okay.

Good luck, Iowa.

Uh, after that game, that next playmakers, I want to know how many of you watched that

game.

I want to know who watched that because I, you ain't going to paint.

No.

No, sorry.

Um, but I, I want to see what happens more Iowa bringing Michigan down to their level or

Michigan just running over Iowa and that, that often, um, so big 10 championships since

they've been doing this six for Ohio State and Wisconsin.

Yeah.

The two most big 10 championship appearances are by those two universities.

Pretty cool.

Yeah.

That's not bad at all.

Three appearances from Michigan, Iowa and Michigan state, not bad at all on a big credit

to Iowa who does this with no recruiting helper and I L or anything I want.

Yeah.

I mean, they, they can't get out of their own way offensively.

They, they only, they think I gave a Clark, maybe she didn't get help.

You right?

Yeah.

Get, get her on that offensive coaching.

Steve for the football team.

Yeah.

With that, maybe she'd catch some passes.

I don't know.

I love the edges.

You've seen Kagan Clark out there.

Northwestern has two Northwestern two big 10 championships.

I think they get lost in a big credit to Northwestern's intern coach and that team, um,

a lot better year than anyone thought.

I'm talking about those players and that coaching staff, not the university and how they

have handled things obviously horribly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's nice to see that we have really, we really overrate for coach Fitzgerald for

a very long time.

Yeah.

We overrated him by millions of standards.

Yeah.

Um, Penn State, Nebraska and Purdue with one appearance, Penn State with one appearance in

the big 10 championship.

That's a little surprising in it.

It is.

It is.

Coming in with zero Minnesota.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the long Minnesota is not alone though.

The Stouten Youth Flag Football Club that Wisconsin Alzheimer Institute, the Amazing Grace

Chorus Group, all have not also finished in the big 10 championship.

Hey, they're still Maryland.

They're still Maryland that has it either.

Yeah.

Rutgers.

Yeah.

Hey, we're not alone.

Not alone.

Not alone.

Um, and Indiana, uh, as we wrap up big 10 college football talk a little bit here.

I'm gonna let go of their coach, Tom Allen, over the weekend, 20.8 million dollar buy

out again.

What the what, man?

To coach it Indiana.

To coach it Indiana.

Who's paying you that?

Who, okay?

That.

Who, okay?

That.

How, how's whitewater doing?

I got it.

Check out.

Let me go to vision three.

Yeah.

I'm telling you.

Yeah.

So that's going to check out that during the break.

When we come back GM and head coach, you were Wisconsin Rapids, River, K coach, Paul

Peckman.

Go to join us.

Look forward to talking to coach and just a few right here on playmakers, which we are

proud that is brought to you by our friends at Quality Plus printing, getting your words

out here and Rapids.

Welcome back everyone to WFHRs, playmakers.

Probably brought to you by Quality Plus printing, getting your words out here in Wisconsin

Rapids.

A big shout out to fill in the gang over there, Quality Plus.

We are joined Seth and I now by GM and head coach of your Wisconsin Rapids River Kings

Coach Paul Peckman.

Coach.

Thanks for seeing me.

Thanks for being here.

I want to get into the upcoming games you got coming up here to kick off December.

I want to talk about the team and how that's going, but you were and I appreciate this.

You were listening to the show coming in today and thank you very much for doing that.

We're talking a little bit about scouting a little bit about gauging these athletes,

these players, these kids really, you know.

You touched on something coming in here.

I don't mind if you don't mind.

Let's pick up right there.

Well, I think the biggest thing when you're recruiting, you want to see the compete level.

You want to see their heart, you know, it's, you can see talent in five seconds, right?

Yeah.

But you want to know what's inside what makes this kid tick and because when you're going

at our level and higher, right, it's, the difference is so minute, but it's all, right,

in your right between the ears, right, but it's, it's in the heart, you know, what kind

is this kid?

What is he willing to do to separate himself from everybody else, right, that commitment,

that effort?

I feel like in all sports, you get examples of that, you know, over the weekend in football,

we saw a Steelers receiver not run after, go after a loose fumble.

We've all seen in baseball a guy not run out of pop fly or or things like this.

In hockey, what are some examples of that for you?

For me, the first thing I think of is a defense or anybody, a wing in defenseman, anybody,

even in front of a puck in front of the goalie, taking shots to the face and things like

that.

Like, is that some of the, that's just what I'm thinking of as a kid watching hockey.

No, no question.

It's a guys and we talk, we call it eating pucks, just gotta eat it and, and that's, that's

the sacrifice.

That's the commitment level, right, and you got guys that, the body language speaks volumes

to me and, you know, all the slip service, I'm not a big guy on that, actions speak a lot

of the words.

Guys that don't backcheck, guys that aren't forechecking, guys that are just kind of standing

around, you know, well, you know, what was me and nothing's going my way, you know, that's

the stuff that you look for.

I don't think a body language ever really when it comes to sports, but yet it's something

that I pick up on and I'm always looking in and I'm always present up, the quarterback

that just threw an interception and watching him and reading him and playing dime store

psychologist and everything like that, but I don't think about it.

That's such an interesting thing to note in such, I imagine as, as, I mean, having

this, where so many hats in the organization, you've got to think about those things a lot

more often than any of us would, huh, that's interesting.

Yeah, it's, it all comes into play, you know, and it's off the ice just as much as on

the ice.

You know, listen, if you get scratched, how are you going to react?

All right, you're still a teammate.

Yeah.

You know, you still got to support you guys because when you're in a lineup, somebody

else is sitting out, all right, you want their support, so you got to do the same.

If you're not willing to do that, probably not going to be around very long, right?

At this level, you know, we were, we were talking earlier about the pro game and the coaching

carousel and a lot of that goes on, if we talked baseball, we'd be talking about the carousel

of the players.

That's kind of what the off field stuff or admit, now it is mid season stuff that you

talk about and everything at this level of hockey.

Do you think that there is, that one of the benefits is the patience that most of these

organizations have with a coaching staff or a team?

Or is that true?

Is there no, is it the same with, at this level, where you got to produce now, you've

got to kind of get this done?

It just depends on ownership.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, I've been with a couple of different organizations in my career and some

had patients, some didn't.

And you know, listen, you guys get fired and do a great job, you know, so it's just, especially

in hockey.

It's just, you know, it's just one thing or another, so it does a lot of different

variables.

I can't, I can't remember his name and I apologize, but remember being, I think a teenager

or something in the Buffalo Sabers had coach, Lindy Rob?

Yeah, yeah.

He goes to the Stanley Cup and gets fired like the next day, like the day the cup ended

and everything and I couldn't believe it.

It's not the one of the biggest examples, but this happens in hockey all the time coaches

get fired.

But in part because so much of it is produced now, especially when you look at like some

of our Canadian teams and Maple Leafs and Canadians and stuff like that where you've really

got, they've been waiting a long time to see, you know, some production and everything.

So that is an interesting, it is interesting to see the different layers to that.

In juniors, it's, it's a lot of it has to do with personalities, you know, and usually

the owners don't have the concept of what this, at our level is what it's all about, you

know.

So they might be win now, win now, that kind of stuff, but they're not willing to give

you the tools that you need to get to put together a team like that.

Right.

Right.

And then all, you know, I wasn't, I won an organization, won almost a hundred games and

then we just kind of butt heads and it's done.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

It makes, that's crazy to me.

But it also, it's not far, like it's something that we've all as sports fans heard examples

of.

It just never makes sense to me, you know.

And so as much as we get insane and love sports and eat and sleep and breathe it and everything,

it always comes back to being a business no matter what level it is.

Exactly.

And you would, you think that people good, but I've been in examples of that, not even

in the sports world that where it didn't work out and I couldn't finish a gig or something

like that.

I think we've all got examples of that in our work with life too.

Just as weird when you think about it sometimes like, wow, they couldn't make that Jerry

Jones and Jimmy Johnson example where they could have probably won two more Super Bowl

s at least and couldn't, couldn't get their egos out of the way.

We got the River Kings in second place in the division right now.

Congratulations to them on that, like seeing that and love seeing that at this point in

the season, especially.

We've got on Friday, a couple of games kicking off over this weekend and you're back home

for a nice stretch here.

These first two games I want to touch on coach, you're taking on Steel County Blades.

What do you, what are your preview of this game?

What are you looking, what are you looking at for out of your team for these games?

I'm looking for us to play a hell of a lot better than we did the last time we played

them.

Yeah.

So I think the guys are more prepared now, playing at home obviously is going to be a big

factor for us.

I think we've matured a lot as a team.

We've got a couple of pieces coming in now with S.J. with Comp and this new guy coming

in.

I think the pieces are starting to fall in the place in here so I like, we're very

deep.

Yeah.

We have a gap roster.

We can throw it at anybody and do well.

Now it's just about producing.

You know what I mean?

And against this team, Steel County has got a gold ton.

It's very, very good.

He's one of the best in the league and he carries them.

And if we can't find a way to break that, we're in trouble.

And we split with him last time but it's not enough.

We need to, in order to keep pace with the squash and the Hudson.

We've got to win the games that we should win and I think these are two that we've got

to win.

Yeah, Steel County is sitting at sixth place in the division.

So certainly there's a gap between you two, the two teams but you mentioned the goalie

play and that evens everything out.

When it comes to a hot goalie, are you leaning on your wings, your center?

Are you winging on just pepper in the net?

And I don't want to give away anything, you know, any insight or anything.

I want to give that to Steel County, but as a broad example of what you would do, even

what you would do as a fan watching an angel team or something, you know, and you're screaming

at your TV pepper the net.

That kind of thing.

Exactly, right?

Let's say it's not rocket science we're doing.

Right.

But you got to get the puck down in that, right?

And you got to crash in that, you got to be in front of the goal, you got to take away

his eyesight, you got to, you got to throw as many pucks as you can.

It's a numbers game, right?

The ratio is for every ten shots, you should get one, right?

Right.

So if you look at any scoreboard, if they're in the 40 shot range, they're in a course

again, they usually have four goals and one.

Right.

So we have to do a better job of that, which we did in the showcase.

I thought we'd play very well.

I'm proud of what we accomplished.

We did exactly what I hope we would do.

And the way that we rebounded after losing two tough ones and then come back and beat Toledo,

which is in first place in their division, they're a good team and we played them very

well.

You know, beat them handily.

Before the showcase, the things that you were looking for coming out of the showcase,

yeah, I would say that you hit the check, check, check.

It looked pretty, and it also seemed like the team really enjoyed itself, the real growing

experience for them, real bonding experience for them.

It definitely is.

And these are the times, you know, because there's a lot of college, you know, in the stage,

right?

So we had a lot of colleges talk to our guys.

Everybody seemed to really talk about us a lot and they liked our team and they liked

the way we play.

So I'm happy about that.

It gives, you know, I want everybody to be proud of the River Kings and how we conduct

ourselves on and off the ice.

And I think we did a good job.

We spent the majority of the first half of the season on the road.

It's all the, I bring that up because we get six games in a row here on the, in the

Southville County Rec Center, encourage everybody to get your tickets, show them what home

ice advantage is.

So let's make sure to fill that arena at that rank.

What are you excited about with this stretch here and what do you, what do you, what do you

expectations at the end of this when we're talking at the end of this run?

Well, yeah.

I mean, these six games are critical.

They're very important because everything that we accomplish up to this point doesn't

mean anything.

If you lose four, five, six of them, right?

Right.

You got it.

You got to keep the momentum going, which is what we just got off the ice talking about

momentum, right?

Yes.

It's good to have a break, but it can also screw with you a little bit because it breaks

that momentum a little bit.

So I think that's for us.

It's just a key building on that momentum here.

We need, we need minimum four four out of six, anything above that to bonus.

You got, you know, I mean, you got the moose and you got the squash, right?

You have to still county, right?

So there's no give me here.

We're going to have to come ready to go and I think we will.

Right on.

Coach, I always appreciate when you join us, we're looking forward to hanging out again

real soon.

Thanks a lot for the time and being here in the fourth period.

You got it.

Thank you, Coach.

Get your tickets and support your Kings as they build hockey up and down the river.

Go to riverkingshockey.com bookmark that page.

If you haven't done so already, riverkingshockey.com, we'll be talking about the Kings all week long

as we build up to this game.

And of course, you can catch these games right over on our sister station, WIRI, Seth.

You make sure that these games get played, right?

I do.

I pull some knobs and switches and I make sure that the sound comes out.

So that's what that's what I do.

I did one.

That's a good seat, though.

I can tell this is the game.

That's good.

Yeah.

You do have one of the best seats in the house.

That is awesome.

We appreciate that and appreciate having the riverkingshockey on WIRI, 105.5.

We'll be talking more about that throughout the week here and we'll be back with more

playmakers right here on WFHR.

Welcome back, everyone, to WFHR's playmakers.

We hit all the breaks that time.

All three of the times we play the intro.

I hit it in the 12.

I feel it good about that.

We're looking forward to talking with Coach again, but a big thank you to GM and head coach

of your Wisconsin Ravits, the riverkings, Coach Paul Peckman.

The problem with talking to Coach is what you guys don't know is we never stop talking.

Like, soon as he gets in here, we're talking.

I'm trying to do the intro.

We're talking.

And during the commercial break there, we didn't want to let the guy leave.

It just keeps going.

This keeps going.

Riverkingshockey.com, get on over there, be sure to bookmark that and keep it up to date

on all your Riverkings action.

Of course, you can catch Riverkings action right on our sister station, West Country 105,

WIRI starting this Friday, 659, our pregame kicks off.

Wisconsin Ravits Riverkings hosting the Steel County Blades.

Yes.

Mark going to be running that one for Seth going to care of the board.

Yeah, Mark, as for those you don't know, Mark Lockner is basically the color guy.

They don't have always the same play by play.

It was Matt last time.

I don't know if Matt's will be coming back or not, but either way, it'll be fun.

So tune it in.

It's good hockey.

They do a really good job with it.

Looking real forward to that.

Wanted to get to a little bit of other coverage and we wanted to get to the cranberry

classic.

Yeah.

So let's go ahead and do that.

Let's get that taken care of.

And of course, cranberry classic you heard right here at WFH or WIRI, great weekend of

high school basketball.

Yeah, it was.

Love the cranberry classic.

You actually touched on this during our morning show earlier today and being a part of a,

you know, tradition around here.

It's something that I came at one of the first things I found out about moving to rapids

are not moving here, but being in high school here, getting around here and stuff.

And it is the, it's one of our favorite times of years, this classic, the way this goes.

I want to send a shout out to assumption, assumption's own Randy Paul, reached out to

Randy.

He got us the information of the classic.

Yep.

So that's the result.

On the girls side on Friday, assumption defeat in the kusa 82 to six.

That's not a typo.

It's not a typo.

Oh, that's not a typo.

I've never seen a score like that basketball.

I have friends and people I love and care about in the kusa area.

I don't want this to sound better.

There's a parallel universe.

I would have went to high school in the kusa, yeah.

So I'm not talking trash.

I just never seen that before.

I generally haven't.

I was dumbfounded by that and I had to triple check because I thought Randy just forgot

to add a zero.

I had to triple check that one.

Yeah.

That's an insane score.

Yes.

And the other game, why a week of free month, clipped the Columbus Catholic Don's 51 to 50.

That was probably the most, I mean, we didn't broadcast it, but according to Mike who was

there, that was probably one of the most exciting games of the whole weekend because Columbus

had the lead for almost the entire game.

But then in the end, why a way came up and got the shot in the end to do kind of was

a little bit of an upset because I think that's why a week is free months.

First time here, if I remember correctly, I will stand on this and hockey is a close second,

but no sport is better in the last minute or 30 seconds than basketball.

It's, yeah, it's something.

There's nothing like it.

There's nothing like it.

A team could be down 20 points in the last two minutes.

They come back.

Yep.

And it's like this on every level for grade school to tomorrow's, I love that about

basketball.

Saturday, assumption whipped, why we got free months, 74 to 28.

So yeah, assumption is still, they're still a pretty good team.

Pretty good team.

Let's put it that way.

He's pretty fair to say.

Columbus Catholic knocked off Nekusa 59-31.

On the boy's side, Friday, Port Edward's top assumption, 52 to 41.

Columbus Catholic got by Nekusa 87-50.

And on Saturday, assumption, Nekusa 69-67, Columbus stopped Port Edward's 58-34.

Yeah, the third place game was probably, again, according to Mike, which we didn't broadcast

was probably one of the, between one of the other exciting games.

It was the close one, again, for the boys, for the third, the assumption one for the

third place game.

I want to do a big shout out to two Port Edwards, who had a very good Friday night game against

assumption.

And then they had a tough time on Saturday against Columbus.

But it was fun to something, you know, a team that we don't get to broadcast very much

in Port Edwards.

It was fun to hear them on the airwaves.

Assumption scored 225 points.

Gave up 28.

Man, that's domination.

That is really, that really was nice weekend of college, high school basketball.

Congratulations to all four teams, and all five teams, I should say, because they had

an extra team in there this year.

And a great job by everybody involved, with all the concession people, the brick houses,

everybody involved in that one.

Sounded like that, a very nice attendance for pretty much both days, so yeah, excellent.

Really happy.

I'm really proud of that, looking forward to next year's already.

And a great job by our staff too, Mark, you, Seth, nice work by everybody.

Good one.

Good weekend of high school basketball.