WIAA to NIL – nil…

Welcome everyone to WFHRs Playmakers.

Welcome to the show everyone.

Got your host James J behind the mic, 304 on the clock.

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Have a lot of fun with the team over there.

Good afternoon everybody, hope you're having a good one out there.

You may have noticed a little bit of a different intro.

We're going to try that out for a little while, use that as intro music and have some fun

with it.

We're here to take your phone calls.

715-424-2600.

I'll be joined by our pitch hitter, the best pitch hitter in the league.

Seth Habhagger is going to be joining us a little bit later and we'll be joined by Tyler

Miller, assistant general manager of your Wisconsin Rapids and Raptors.

We got some exciting news to tell you about from our Raptors coming up.

Want to talk NIL here in Wisconsin and with our high schoolers?

We'll get into that one with you guys as well.

Got a bunch of other news and notes.

The draft happened.

Please let me talk about the draft.

Ask questions about the draft.

Give me feedback about the draft draft draft draft.

Want to talk about that?

All that coming up.

And of course we got other things to get into.

We're here for you.

What do you want to talk about?

715-424-2600.

While I would love nothing more than to talk about the draft for 59 minutes.

If you guys want to talk about water polo, we'll do that.

I will have to do some quick searching on the top water polo players in the universe.

I don't know.

But we'll do it.

We'll do it.

We'll talk about what you want to talk about.

424-2600.

That is a phone number.

Call up and join the conversation.

715-424-2600.

Looking forward to talk with all of you.

And of course we got Tyler Miller coming in any moment now.

We're looking forward to joining us.

They're going to have a good conversation there.

Well, I got some exciting things going on with our rafters.

And matter of fact, yeah, I'm just going to win.

I'm going to call them up.

Call them up.

Yep.

All right.

All right.

Look, our pitcher, our lead pitcher here.

He's been pitching a good game.

We've had a great game, but we need to really fit her in.

We need to really fit her up.

Call them in.

Call them in.

We got Tyler Miller.

Assisted general manager of your Wisconsin Rapids rafters.

Joining us right now.

Thanks for playing along, man.

How you doing?

I'm doing well.

How are you, James?

Doing good, doing good.

I just happen to catch eyes with you.

I'm like, you know what?

Let's just do it.

Let's just get this going.

Get things rolling here.

We have exciting news you want to get to.

But first off, how are things over at the Raft House?

Well, it's kind of flooded right now.

But we're fine.

So bring your rafts.

And we're having a water ball game.

I'm thankful the game's starting May and not April 30th.

And they're thankful for that.

But no, things are going really well.

It's starting to feel so real.

That's why I say excited.

I sent out the email this morning.

If you're a ticket package holder and you haven't checked your email, go ahead and check your email.

Ticket packages are now ready for pickup, which means I spent all weekend ticket printing.

Yeah.

Which makes it so real.

We have the ticket stock in last week.

I'm handing out tickets.

I'm getting phone calls.

People buy in tickets.

So again, it just feels so real now that we're 30 days away from opening day.

At this point, we've got our roster set.

We have the guys getting together a bit here and there and everything.

And kind of going over stuff with a coach and in those.

Are the players getting settled in pretty well?

Yeah, I mean, I think I'll be completely honest with you.

I think we're, and honestly, we try to do it like this is we don't really want them to think about us yet.

I mean, we want them to focus on their college.

So I sent out actually Friday.

I sent out like my welcome email, the general manager and I put together a letter.

I put together information about host families and all this kind of the report date and some of that stuff.

So we're starting.

But I'd say, yeah, no, the majority of it.

It's like, hey, let's leave them alone.

And let's let's have again, I want them to focus on their college season and finish strong.

So I can, you know, talk about their numbers and who we're having here.

So I'll be honest.

Yeah, I know it's coming together.

I'm slowly starting to reach out to some of them and get their information and do some of that.

But we really, we really do have them focused on their college season up until we play.

I'm going to be honest.

I know a little bit of that answer.

And it's something that I like to highlight about the rafters.

And it's, you know, I should say the Northwoods League in general really does a great job at this.

You're getting these kids.

Hey, go ahead and take it.

You know, your day job.

Take care of that.

You know, what we're going to be here.

And I think that's a big reason why so many young athletes that are so talented come to the Northwoods League.

You're going to go for years in Chicago.

We couldn't figure out how Kentucky always got all of our great picks and everything.

And then you all you got to do is wait for the NBA draft and see that, you know, it doesn't really matter how Kentucky did.

Those kids always went as lottery picks.

Players want to go where they're going to be able to be highlighted, where they have an opportunity to get into the league.

And this is part of the reason why you and I like to highlight rafters and follow rafters that go on to the MLB and have nice successful careers and everything is.

It highlights Northwood leagues highlights what we do around here, but also shows the loyalty and the love that we have for this area for baseball for the Northwoods League in general.

And one of the things one of the other great ways to we show that I think Tyler and I want to really commend you and the rafters for doing this because I love history.

I'm a big history guy and I think baseball, if you're a sports fan and you like history, how can you not love baseball?

It is so much of our history of sports fans is baseball history.

And there are a billion great stories, just a thousands and thousands of them.

And there's ones that we don't always get a chance to hear about and cover.

And I think there's a lot of names out there that really deserve their moment in the sun.

And we're going to be able to do that with rafters this year.

It sounds like.

Yeah, we are.

We're super excited.

It was so hard for me not to say anything bad.

I've really tried to just give it to you.

No, no.

You always do such a good job of leading into it.

But no, guys, I mean, again, I've been here for four years now.

This is now my home.

And I say that proudly.

And when I do that, it starts with the history.

So I'd say I know my history of this area and I know what Winterfield history is.

I can tell you that.

I definitely would ace that round on the trivia rounds.

But we are super excited because we actually got.

I got approached by a gentleman who is writing an article for like a baseball history,

kind of magazine biography, whatever you want to call it, kind of a historical piece.

And he reached out to us because he is in contact with the legendary Mohill.

And Mohill has been back to Winterfield a couple of times since the rafters have been here.

But we got reached out to because he's writing this kind of article on him.

And Mohill expressed interest in returning to rapids to really kind of be able to get interviewed on the field,

kind of walk the same streets he used to walk when he was here.

So he could kind of give that honest answer of some of these questions that this writer is going to ask.

So this writer reached out to us and let us know that he's writing this article.

And gladly gave me his phone number and said, you should give him a call.

So I gave him a call and long story short, his flight is booked.

And Mohill would be coming back to Wisconsin Rapids on July 12th for a Friday night game.

He will be thrown out the first pitch.

He will be gladly signing autographs.

That's the first thing he told us was he wants to connect with the people.

He knows this area.

He knows the fans that he used to have when he was here.

So he wants to be able to talk to him.

So Friday night market calendars, we're going to have Mohill back to Wisconsin Rapids twins legend.

His number is retired at Winterfield.

We don't wear number 24.

So just a very special guy.

And again, from somebody who doesn't know him personally, I haven't met him yet.

The phone call I had with him, he seems like the most genuine guy I've ever talked to in my life.

You wouldn't know that he's the type of guy he is.

And again, I mean, he's a lot.

He's a lot.

I mean, he is.

He said to be one of the best minor league players ever by far the best Midwest league player ever they say.

So if you're not going to take the time to look up Mr. Hill's career, let me tell you just one thing.

First guy to hit for the triple crown in Midwest history.

And just, I mean, just a glance at his resume.

You get that.

You get one of the greatest, I would say one of the greatest single A batters or minor league batters ever, ever in baseball history.

This guy's stats stand up.

His war stands up.

All these things.

Incredible athlete with an incredible story.

And I think that the question, the first question that most people have is, you know, while I didn't see him in the majors and all this.

And that's something that Mo himself addresses.

And all kinds of interviews and conversations.

And is the thing that I think stands out to me about him so much.

Yes, his stats, baseball wise.

It's his personality.

It's his character.

It's the way he has carried himself all these years.

I don't know how I would be in that situation.

I don't know if I'd be bitter.

I don't know if I'd want to come back to this area.

I don't know about those things.

He could not be the more opposite end of it.

He is so much the kind of person that I think a lot of us wish we would be, you know.

I fully agree.

Again, after just the 10 minute conversation I had with him, it was like, yeah, this guy doesn't owe me any.

I mean, he doesn't owe us anything by any means or afters.

We had nothing to do with him necessarily.

And the fact that he was like, no, right away, he was like, tell me what, let me check my schedule.

I've got a little league tournament that I'm doing.

I'm going out to LA for something.

But he's like, I'm going to make a weekend where I come here.

No, it's just super exciting.

I'm really honored to have him back here.

And I know he's excited to come back.

He was back in 2017.

He came when we did his bobblehead to, I can't remember what anniversary it was for the football ground.

But that was the last time he was back.

He was here in 2010.

He was here on our opening day for the rafters in 2010 when we started the season.

So be a third time back since the rafters have been here.

And I'm pretty excited to have him here.

Tyler Miller joining assistant GM with your Wisconsin Rapids rafters here at WFHR.

Of course, the home of your Wisconsin rapids rafters.

And when we're getting excited about the season before wrap up with you, Tyler,

and I mentioned how everybody can get single game tickets and season tickets and some of that.

Any other headlines for you that stand out so far going into this next week.

And as we're getting ready for the opening day.

Yeah, also just want to plug again, being the more of a sports show.

I know we have some big wrestling fans around here.

We are having a ACW wrestling pregame matches at our stadium.

Nice.

It's something that the Appleton Timberattlers do.

And we kind of were like, hey, how do you guys do this?

And so we got into contact.

Hornswaggle, Wisconsin native WWE legend.

He owns the company ACW in Oshkosh.

And so he is doing a summer tour and we booked him.

So he won't be having about 45 minutes to an hour of pregame matches.

And then he'll be signing some autographs.

So that's another cool moment that I've been able to help put together.

Griffin are our marketing and sales managers, a huge wrestling fan.

And this was something that he wanted to take on.

So he's kind of been taking the lead on it and been reaching out and getting it booked.

But again, just really cool that we're going to have pregame matches

over in our picnic area for about 45 an hour.

And then Hornswaggle will kind of be able to sign autographs and talk to fans afterwards.

From the old Verne Gagnier days to even modern times,

wrestling's always been big in this area.

That's a really nice get.

That's a nice move for the team and for the fans.

You don't get very often where you go in and get in two shows for the price of one kind of thing.

Exactly. That's really cool.

That's a very cool combination.

And it promotes both organizations very well.

And that's always fun to do.

Yeah, no, it isn't.

Again, a smaller business.

I mean, ACW out of Oshkosh, smaller local.

We really care about that sort of thing as well.

Can not wait for Raft or baseball.

Can not wait to talking in with you, Tyler.

Thank you so much for the time today.

People have followed questions one of the more,

maybe how they can be a part of things with the Rafters or single game tickets.

Any of this information, we send them to northwoodsleek.com.

I encourage you to go to northwoodsleek.com and bookmark that page.

Any other information as far as how to reach you, we want to get out there.

Yeah, no, of course.

Feel free to, again, I'm there all the time.

I'm there, especially now.

How long is there?

I'm working seven days a week, long hours.

So I'm always there.

So we love, again, today was actually, I sent that email out at 9 AM.

At 9.05, I had our first ticket package holder.

So it's like, I think they may have known that I was coming today,

but again, it's always nice to just talk to fans to be able to see their face again.

It seems like not that people forget about us,

but everybody kind of hibernates away for the winter.

I do the same thing.

So it's just always nice when spring hits and kind of people start to come out

and talk to us and see that.

So again, feel free to get ahold of us.

Call our office.

Stop by the office.

We're there.

We want to talk to our fans and we want to see you at Winterfield this year.

And we will meet you there, Tyler.

Thanks again for the time.

We'll talk again real soon.

Thanks, James.

We'll be back with more Playmakers coming up on WFHR.

Playmakers probably brought to you by quality plus printing,

getting your words out here in Wisconsin Rapids.

Welcome back, everybody.

Playmakers here at WFHR.

Good afternoon.

We're here to take your phone call 715-424-2600.

Feel free to call up and join the conversation.

Seth, thanks for pitching in.

No problem.

Appreciate you being here.

Want to send a big shout out to Tyler Miller, assistant GM of your Wisconsin Rapids rafters.

Coming here, breaking some news, giving us some great information.

Seth, we are going to have Mo Hill come to town.

I was listening to that and that's very, very exciting.

That's very cool.

Yeah.

Wisconsin Rapids slugger, Midwest league's first triple crown winner.

I mean, legendary story.

I don't care what league you're in.

If you're getting the triple crown, man.

Yes.

That's something.

If you hit for the triple crown in T-Ball, I don't care.

That's amazing.

That's amazing.

That's awesome.

Well, you guys are awesome.

Let's go ahead and take one of your phone calls.

Good afternoon.

What's on your mind?

Yeah, I'm an Aaron Judd slide into second base.

That was totally illegal.

And the umpire set after the game, that should have been called, but wasn't.

But that changed the whole complex of the whole game.

What's the point of Vincent replay?

Like, why do we have it if we're not going to do it in the moment?

I'm so tired of leagues, whether it's baseball or basketball or even football.

You know, week a week later telling you, you know what?

We messed up.

We know you did.

We could see the same thing.

You guys, right?

Right.

Now, for one thing, Aaron Judd being 6'7 and getting the play baseball might already be a bit of a problem.

But for me forever, yeah.

Yeah, I don't.

I look.

I don't blame.

Basketball.

Yeah.

Basketball.

It's a little kids' game.

It's a good game.

Big guys, big guys in there.

Yeah.

What I do think about the Judd situation, and I don't blame him or Boone or any of those guys for saying that, that's what you do.

You try to win the game and all that.

Right.

It's on the umpires.

Exactly.

It's so on the umpires.

It's so obvious.

I watched it.

I only watched it a couple of times.

I didn't get to see it in real time.

I had the privilege of watching it and replay over and over.

And I don't know how you, even in real time, you can't say that that wasn't interference.

Yeah.

Like it just looked pretty darn obvious to me.

Other than that, it's way too long.

It's about four or five inches over the path of a top of a speaker.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, they got to do something with that.

I mean, they got to make them a little bit more like a glove that you were emitting that you were wearing for spying in the sled.

There are some like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Smaller.

But that one he got was at least four inches over the top of his fingertips.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I appreciate it.

I did want to get to that today.

Thanks so much for bringing it up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hopefully, we'll see the burgers in the wind column tonight.

Thanks so much for the call.

You have a good day.

I will see you then.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I really didn't want to get to that today.

And I didn't know how to shoehorn it in.

Thank you very much to our listeners, best listeners and radio.

You know, for the most part, I've heard a lot mostly good stuff about replaying baseball.

This is the first year I was starting to hear more grumbling about it.

Are we getting spoiled?

Is that it?

Yeah.

Part because we're getting spoiled with we want perfection as viewers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's only going to get worse with because in the next couple of years, we're going to get

the ABTs or whatever it is to sit at the balls and strikes.

Yeah.

Challenging is probably going to be the challenge system where you get a certain number of challenges.

You know, you can say, no, that was a ball, that kind of thing.

And I know it's worked.

It's done all right in the minors.

That's better than automatic balls and strikes calling because that would, I think, would be awful.

That would be awful.

Yeah.

You know, people for hitters too, I don't think they realize how bad that would be.

For our whole lives, they've joked about robot umpires.

I'm waiting for robot managers.

Yeah.

I'm curious to when that's going to happen.

Yeah.

When x234 is going to be leading the Chicago white socks, you know, the stuff like that.

Oh, I can't do any worse.

No, I can't.

No, I can't.

I literally, a calculator just sitting on the, on the, in the dugout would do better than the

manager we have right now.

Bryce Wilson on the mound for your brewers as they take on the Tampa Bay race tonight at 740,

I'll throw that out there.

Let's go ahead and take a phone call.

Good afternoon.

You're on the air.

Yeah.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

You know, I, I don't want to, I don't want to pile on the, the white side.

It's bad enough right now.

Oh, I don't want to pile on.

I really don't.

I, I, I, I pay attention to like, I'm just watching old stats and old games of theirs.

Anytime I have, I need a white socks fix.

How's that Harold Baines doing, you know?

Tim Rock rains, baby.

Let me tell you, man.

Nobody read the basis like Rock Rains.

Oh, better days.

Yes.

What's on your mind today, brother?

Well, I got all kinds of stuff.

I mean, you want to talk drafted.

These umpires are, it's starting to become major league umpires show.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it's, it's like they're trying to do their own thing so that they can be noticed.

I mean, you know, you want to stick with the Yankees.

What happened?

Aaron Boone last week was getting tossed out like what some pictures into the game because the

umpire was listening.

He heard someone from the stand yell and he kicked Aaron Boone out of the game.

I've never empathized with a major league manager more in my life.

Growing up, I needed being blamed for things.

I didn't do it.

It happened all the time.

He's earned it though.

Yeah.

Aaron Boone has earned it a little bit.

That's the thing.

Yeah.

Because of his history.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But what?

Yeah.

And I agree with that.

I mean, they just, they, they, they, they block about everything, you know, about everything.

But as umpires, I mean, I used to do it when, when I was, you know, when I had free time,

umpire baseball and did basketball games and you just, you, you, you have to know the voices.

You have to know who's chirping at you and who's not chirping at you.

Yeah.

And it's, you know, between that and then the call yesterday with the global Aaron, Aaron, Aaron,

that graph I gave you?

Yeah, Joe.

Yeah.

Alright.

And, uh, and, Um, it's just I think one of these guys doing it in the manufacturer net.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I, you know, all the major sports can do a lot better with, um, how much do they pay these guys,

and the time that they get the resources that they put into it.

Um, there should be as much as we pay athletes, uh, I'm not saying we pay, uh, man, you know,

um, piers and referees the same thing or anything, but there's plenty of money to go around.

There, there's plenty of money to be putting into these, into a resource or into a school

or something like that along the lines of, hey, we're going to have the bet, you know,

and, and if anything, if I was football, if I was baseball as basketball, any of these leaks,

I would look at this as a golden opportunity.

We have the best, uh, you know, uh, manage a refereeing in the game.

No, we never mess up a call.

We always have it right.

Those kind of things like imagine a league that could, that could bulk that, that could talk about that.

Instead, all of them are guilty for this.

Yeah.

We could take our time going through every major sport and how badly they mess this up year and a year out.

It's, it's because, you know, it's, it's, there's like different schools where you go learn how to be an empire.

Interestingly enough, Hunter Wendelstad, who was the umpire that threw out Aaron Boone the other day.

His father, Harry Wendelstad was one of the great umpires of all time.

And there's the Harry Wendelstad umpire school.

It's like the top umpire schools.

And it's, but the problem is, these are all like private former umpires that make these schools, you know,

to, to make some money after they retire or whatever thing like that.

They should just have like a university.

Yes.

Like MLB, all the major sports should have like, this is our official school.

You know, if you want to become an umpire, we all go through the same thing.

You know, you do all the same classes.

You do all the work.

We place you in the minor leagues, you know, to start out and then you work your way up.

That's what they should do.

We've got the perfect model for this.

We have the perfect blueprint for this.

It's sports.

It's what we're already doing with athletes.

We just do the same thing with the umpires, referees and all that.

And the fact that these sports don't, especially football, football is the most guilty of this to me.

Um, in, in part because they have the most money.

They have them, they have the biggest game in town.

They have the least amount of games.

They are the ones that they're make there.

They make the rules so difficult to figure out in such a quick amount of time in sec.

Half seconds so much and all this.

Um, if, if you were, if your league means anything, you would be doing this.

You would be investing in this.

Yeah, absolutely.

The, uh, the, the quick worrying about putting a team in London.

And how about make the game better here in the States first.

And then we can maybe worry about those kind of things, um, growing the game.

Kevin, I appreciate the time from you as always.

Uh, I wanted to make sure that we did take a moment to talk about the WIA, uh, and, and the, the ruling on that the other last week.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm glad they are going to take your time on this whole thing.

I mean, I mean, I think DNC eight did not do enough diligence on this and take your time doing it.

I mean, yeah, they're probably, you know, there's a lot of inside stuff going on with this.

And, and I truly believe at the college level, the kids should get paid.

If they're not going to get a full scholarship, they should get, be able to get paid for their name, imagine likeness.

Because these universities are making millions, millions on these kids.

And some of these kids came before to go to make the allowance and have a burger because my mom and dad really don't make that much money.

But they're on scholarship and they can't take a job because maybe that person's a booster.

And it's just these kids need, you know, a little bit of, a little bit of help now in the high school level.

That's a different story.

And then you're just going to, I think if they did it to high school level, I know we talked about this a little bit last week.

You're just going to open a Pandora's box.

You're going to have these bigger schools that you're not supposed to use their school uniform school name.

And then it's according to what they had set up.

But they're going to have people lined up out the door to try to get these premier athletes to come to their schools.

And they're going to have these people outside that can get these kids names out there.

And then you're going to start seeing bigger issues.

And I don't think the WIA has a tough time managing what they have now.

Just imagine what's going to happen if they bring this in.

The amendment to the WIA Constitution failed 170 to 219.

Just catch everybody up on that if you didn't hear the exact numbers.

I was a little surprised about the 170, how high that was.

But I guess it's not too surprising.

I do think that there's two notes that really stood out to me.

And I thought about over the week chewing on this and then get out of the way and let you talk.

One of the things that stood out to me one is that as much as I thought this might happen one day,

I didn't realize it would happen so quickly.

And by that I mean like in the next couple of years, next five years or whatever it is.

That's even sooner than I thought it would happen to the high school level within IEL.

It's coming.

It's just a matter of time.

We're just trying to hold it off and get this right before we end up actually allowing this to happen.

We're learning from other states hopefully and how they have done the right and what they haven't done right.

That's right.

And the other note of this was we constantly hear stories about the death of the NCAA that it is on life support.

It is dying.

If you were the NCAA, what better way to put a jolt in your organization to give a reason for your organization

as you continue to give awards back to Reggie Bush and these kind of things

and just look more and more ridiculous as the hours go on.

How about putting some focus on the high school level where we could actually use some rules and some regulations

and some help nation wide.

Interesting.

Why not flip there like I'm not saying they're not going to do this.

They're not smart enough for this.

And there are two caught up in their own heads and everything to actually think outside the box or any of that stuff.

But to Kevin's point earlier to what you were saying that how badly the NCAA has messed up NIL and how bad they are at it,

they could be actually giving high schools and the athletic programs and organizations some heads up and some insight and some help on this level.

Instead, it's just hey everybody take care of everybody, fend for themselves.

And the two, which brings us back to the whole why do we have an NCAA?

What is the like literally what is the point of the NCAA anymore?

Anybody can call up and read to me what they do and I can counter it with yeah, we got that covered.

Yeah, we got that covered.

Yep, got that covered too.

So it makes no sense to have them around.

And if they can't get NIL right, why are we even like thinking about it in this state?

I understand I'm not talking about other states and what they're doing here in Wisconsin.

There's no reason for this until we can get it right.

What's it going to say?

You're going to pull this at you a little bit too because it's just kind of popped in my head.

It's just going to say if maybe someone like an Alabama or a Florida or Tennessee or some of those schools like a kid in Wisconsin

and somehow talk to somebody in their booster end of it and say hey, let's try to persuade this kid to come and offer him money while he's in school.

Actually, he's a sophomore of junior and they really like this kid and they really want this kid to come to Tennessee.

What's it going to say?

It's go some money at that kid.

They have one of the boosters, you know, they cover everything it's covered up.

They cover up somehow.

Yeah, if it's not already happening, the days of a kid in Ashland being recruited in high school, the go do is junior or senior year in Northern Alabama, that's coming.

That's going to happen.

Yeah.

This is where it comes down to parents being parents and saying no, you're going to school.

No, you're staying here.

This is where your family and friends are and everything.

You'll have opportunities.

It goes right back to the same conversation we've had before about boy, my kid is 13 and he throws a 95 mile an hour fastball.

I got to put him in this program, in this program, in this program, or you could just let him be a 13 year old.

It's parents.

We have to let parents do some, you know, take some responsibility and do some things here too.

Right.

I agree with that, but what's the whole thing on this, James?

It's money.

Oh, yeah.

You start throwing up money at people.

They're going to sit there safe.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's the ultimate bottom line, right?

Especially if that's a family that doesn't have a lot of money.

Yeah.

They're definitely going to be tempted.

Very attractive.

Yeah.

Which is why we shouldn't even have any of this.

Really, really.

It comes down to, there's a real quick solution to this.

Just don't do it.

Yeah, right.

I mean, college level, again, we've already discussed that.

That's to another side.

But on the high school level, I don't see any purpose for any of this.

I am going to continue to bang my drum.

I don't care what anyone says.

College sports should not, at least the ones that, like the big ones, like basketball, football, they should not be,

that what they are now is not what they were created to be.

Yeah.

They should be divorced from the universities.

They should be their own separate business, entity, whatever you want to call it.

They could still have, like, a partnership with the school, whatever.

But they're not, no, I'm sorry.

Let's focus on, like, one do what it's supposed to do, teaching, you know, learning, kids learning.

And the other one to do sports, the ones that have a shot,

and actually going to the pros, because then they can focus on that.

Yeah.

You know, that's the way I look at it.

It's the minor levels.

So they are training to play to the top level.

Exactly.

It's no different than a kid going to law school and studying law.

It's the same type of a model.

I get that.

Right.

The only thing I will piggyback on that is all the leagues that have professional leagues, all the sports that have professional leagues,

hockey, basketball, football, baseball, all of them should be, to your point, to what you're saying, put aside.

Yeah.

If you have a professional sports league, you know, then you should be put aside.

Exactly.

It becomes a professional lacrosse league or something like that, then talk about that.

But if you're in an Olympic sport, like track and field or something like that,

there is a, quote unquote, professional level to it that is not the same as others.

So I don't know.

That's a whole different thing.

But yes, the four major sports aside.

At least in North America, yeah.

At least here, yeah, should be put to the side.

I don't know.

Any other notes before we let you go, bud?

Well, I have to agree with what Seth said, but it's coming.

I really think the football and basketball and even baseball is going to probably end up being a separate,

maybe even softball and ball, but it could be a separate thing in college sports,

can separate things a little bit there too.

So I can see that happening as far as, you know, I know you want to,

I mean, it might segue into this for you, James.

I know you want to talk a little draft.

I appreciate that.

I would have to say that the bears have put themselves into the mix a little bit in the NFC North.

At least maybe two years on, two years from now.

Next year, they're going to be, I think they're going to be very competitive.

But once you get, get these guys go up.

We're going to have really think the bears.

I mean, I think the bears could be there.

I mean, I'm not, I'm not, I'm a dire packer.

And it hurts.

I'm like, oh, he's in there.

I like the caveat on there.

Yeah, I appreciate the honesty.

The, the, the genuine.

I have your voice.

Honestly, you know what?

I'm going to put the kiss of death on the bears.

I'm sorry, James, but I don't remember seeing a, a rookie quarterback set up in a situation

as good as he's coming into.

Yeah, yeah.

With weapons, with what he has got to you.

Man, I mean, the bear, I suppose they have the ones that could mess it up.

But oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

It is still the bears.

But it, I mean, he's got, he's got everything, not everything.

But he's got so much to see that it'll help him succeed.

And that's, that, that's to me, just because of that.

That's exciting, even though, yeah, it's the bears.

But still, I mean, wow, it's pretty, it's pretty remarkable.

Ryan Poles comes from the Kansas City tree.

And he brings that kind of model with him.

And he's brought on assistance and some people in there.

So really, the front office has become Kansas City, Jr. in a lot of ways.

And they're, they're using a lot of the model the Kansas City has.

They've even done that on the front of the stadium and trying to propose a new stadium

and some of those things and everything.

It's, it's a new, it's a different, it's a whole different organization

when it comes to that.

But people sign in the checks.

I'm still the McCaskys.

And I don't know if anyone can mess with him.

If, if one, if one day the bears do win another Super Bowl until that happens,

I'm not, I appreciate everybody's good positive vibes and everything like that.

And I'm, I choose to be hopeful.

But it's until the first snap.

And we don't know.

I mean, we don't know how he's going to respond.

But I don't think anybody, and every talking head has, has mentioned how the supporting cast that this young man has.

And so how rare that is for a young quarterback.

And, and I, I think that that's exciting, interesting.

It's a cool to see a lot of what they have put around him and everything.

The thing that, that stands out to me and I talked about this with my clements a little bit.

And I do want to take a moment to shout out my clements, we're thinking of you.

The thoughts are with you.

And I look forward to talking again soon, real soon, sir.

So I was talking about what this mic off air a little bit.

And the unique situation that is going to be happening in the NFC North.

And not just this year, but upcoming.

Now, Jared Goff is, here's our stat of the show too.

Jared Goff is 29 years old.

I would think most people consider that young.

He is the old man in our division right now.

Because you have, the Vikings are going to be eventually starting JJ McCarthy,

who was born in 2003.

Caleb Williams in 2001.

And Jordan Love in 1998.

So the young quarterbacks, the idea of young gunslingers in this division.

And Jared Goff has a backup, Hayden and Hooker, who, if you remember,

was like all over college football for a couple of years there, Tennessee.

So they've got a nice young quarterback there too that might develop and turn into something.

Nobody's going to know for a good three or four years if any of these kids are going to be great.

Even Jordan Love still has to prove himself this season.

It's only been half a season where he's been really good.

Yeah.

But let's, I mean, what other time are you going to be hopeful as a football fan than now?

Mm hmm.

Be hopeful.

Give into the good.

Like, what?

You're going to have plenty of time to be next to be sad, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Trust me.

Only one team can win every year.

So you're going to be sad at some point.

I don't want to brag or anything, but I know something about being sad about your sports team.

I got that down.

It might not be hopeful right now and be excited about so many of these things.

So basically out of all these quarterbacks and there was a record amount of quarterbacks taken

in the NFL draft this year, you know, a couple of them are going to work, a couple of them

aren't.

None of us have any idea who that is.

Who isn't?

So let's just sit back and enjoy.

Let's just watch and have fun.

Mm hmm.

It should be an exciting thing.

Unless you're a Falcons fan.

Yes.

Then, then, then, yeah, good luck.

Man, that, then, anytime you feel bad about your organization, your franchise, just think about that.

Think about the Falcons.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Atlanta.

Appreciate the call, man.

No, he's gone.

Yeah, I thought so.

I thought so.

I just wanted to make sure.

Too much about the Bears.

He had to go.

And I can't blame him.

And we need to get to break.

We will do that.

We'll come back and have some more conversation.

We got plenty of other things to talk about here.

And we'll talk about whatever you want to.

I'm Playmakers, brought to you by Quality Plus Printing here at WFHR.

Welcome back, everybody, to WFHR's Playmakers here at WFHR.

I'd allow myself to introduce my...

So, so.

Seth and James here with you, a big shout out to our friends at Quality Plus Printing,

getting your words out here in Wisconsin Rabbits.

Thanks for them to sponsor in the hour here.

We got a good, almost 20 minutes left of show.

I want to talk about what you want to talk about, everybody.

424-2600.

Seth and I do have to touch on the draft just a little bit in the Atlanta Falcons situation

of the drafting of Michael Pennex.

I got to watch a bit of the draft and everything was really happy to be able to do that.

And as that pick was made, I'm sitting there thinking,

oh, well, you know, I'm so disoriented by the pick,

that for a good 30 seconds, I'm like, well, that's a really smart move.

I mean, Desmond Ritter didn't really prove himself.

And of course, they, wait a minute, they have a Kirkusson.

They decide Kirkusson's to like a huge contract.

I know that by now, everybody has come out with their takes on this,

whether they're Ford or against it, and why it was a smart move or a bad move or anything.

But I mean, a genuine real answer would be nice,

because it doesn't make any sense.

Whatever scenario you're hoping for,

you're hoping one of the decisions you made doesn't work out.

So wait, wait a waste, $100 million.

I'm telling you, man, who again still have Desmond Ritter

that they moved up in the first round to get on the roster

that nobody's even talking about.

Everybody's focused on Kirkussons.

What about that, young kid there to sit there?

Who had some movies?

Maybe he's happy, actually.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, as you're last year, maybe he's like, oh, yeah.

Let's find him.

Yeah, just to go over here.

Yeah, exactly.

Let's take a call.

Good afternoon. You're on the air.

Good afternoon, fellas.

Hey, hey, you're talking the draft.

I think the Minnesota Vikings shaped up pretty good this year, guys.

Not bad.

It was pretty good.

Not bad.

You had McCarthy fall to you.

So you didn't have to move up for him.

That was nice.

That was a nice move.

And I liked the, when you did move up, I liked what you did there.

I do, I do feel like it's been easy to pick on Minnesota this in recent years

or just in general for some things, I think.

Just because of things that happened that are completely out of their control in some ways

and then things that just happened in life.

Right.

But I've seen Kuiper and some people saying, well, they got, they, they managed to mortgage some future

to get that other first rounder to hopefully move up for McCarthy.

So when that doesn't happen, there's some people that think that that is a failure.

I don't see how you know and adapt and just immediately move to, well, okay,

that didn't work out because you didn't need it to.

Yeah, right.

You didn't have to.

So now you've got that, it's already been done.

So just go ahead and moving on.

I've seen a lot of people crediting Ryan Pace in the, the Bears front office.

And that's really cool.

And I appreciate that.

I will also remind you we spent a second round pick on Chase Claypool.

You know, I mean, so it's not like they don't make every organization.

Yeah.

Look at what San Francisco San Francisco, most people will tell you one of the best.

If not top three run organizations in football is the San Francisco 49ers.

I think we can all agree on that.

Yep.

Tray Lance.

You know, I mean, they moved up to get him and it didn't work out to everything.

Yeah.

Even when these teams do things that, you know, everybody has some good and bad about their

organization and things that they can lean on, if you're a Minnesota Viking fan, I think

you got to be pretty excited about some of that young talent that they are bringing in.

I thought they'd be pretty good.

They got what they needed and they still have a first round pick next year, too.

Exactly.

That's nice.

I think McCarthy is a fine quarterback.

I think that he's going to do some, he can do some good things for you.

And then you put him with JJ and Addison.

You know, and I mean, ask Caleb Williams how much he missed Jordan Addison last year at USC.

You know, I mean, that is a, the only reason Jordan Addison doesn't stand out more is because of JJ.

It's because I don't think he is.

Everybody's talking about the Caleb Williams in this situation he's walking into.

And I think that's a, you know, noteworthy.

And it's a great situation.

He's a number one pick.

Of course you're going to talk about it.

But I'm telling you, I'm looking at what McCarthy's walking into and it ain't so bad.

No.

You got two number one wide receivers.

You got an amazing tight end, solid offensive line.

Aaron Jones coming in at running back along with another, they got another good back over there too.

Thank you.

Chandler.

Chandler.

I don't know.

It's not a bad looking team.

They may be.

Yeah.

Seth, I got a question.

Maybe you can answer saying we were just talking to Minnesota stuff.

And I don't know if you've heard, but what is up with the Minnesota twins in their home run sausage?

Oh, yeah.

I heard about that.

That I don't know.

That I know nothing about that.

No idea.

I understand much of that.

I mean, the brewers are right here.

That's not even original.

What do they think?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think the whole celebration thing is kind of petered out, you know, the home runs thing.

And I'm glad I kind of, it was getting a little much.

Yeah.

A little silly there.

Okay.

So, yeah.

Well, I got, I got a couple more things.

I'm going to try and tie it up real quick here.

All right.

Going from Minnesota sausage to the brewers racing sausage.

The brewers organization.

I think once employed and I'll feel they're named Tony Gwynn Jr., am I correct?

Yes.

Yes.

Well, his dad was Tony Gwynn Sr., right?

Everyone knows him.

Well, he batted 338 for his career.

Some of the most notable places that by average, the cities that he had better than average,

better than his average, was he had 355 in the state of Texas.

356 against the meth alone.

Wow.

395 against the Oakland Athletics.

And the number one city for Tony Gwynn's batting average was Milwaukee,

where he hit 472 for his career.

Wow.

Awesome stats, man.

Wow.

472.

Wow.

Yeah.

That was awesome.

That was Milwaukee over the years.

That's the highest batting average against any one team with it.

Tony Gwynn.

Wow.

That is incredible.

That's one of the cooler stats I think I've heard a long time, man.

That was awesome.

Nicely done, sir.

Nicely done.

You have a good way too, man.

You have a good one.

That was great.

Best callers and radio.

I just saw wild.

I do want to take one second to a shout out Minnesota.

Now, they moved up in the draft to grab Dallas Turner.

I think the most complete linebacker in college football.

Ooh.

Like that kid.

Like there's some great running linebackers coming out and they're going to be stellar this year and everything.

Dallas Turner is going to hurt some people.

He's going to hurt some people, man.

That is just a complete linebacker.

That kid was, it looks like he was made in a lab just to play linebacker.

He is the size of Dallas.

Like he is.

That's how it goes, name, you know.

Heck of an athlete.

Heck of an athlete.

Under, under, under, toe story.

There's one more thing I do want to mention about the draft.

And now, am I correct?

Is it Brock Bowers?

Is that what it is?

Yes, yes.

Brock Bowers.

Possibly the saddest.

Yeah.

Drafted person.

Yes.

I think he looks so sad to go to the Raiders.

I was so excited for him.

Like if the Bears, I wanted the Bears to grab Rome.

Or if he was off the, I thought he would be off the board though.

So that was the guy that I wanted.

Bears to grab is Brock Bowers.

I think that kid is a prototype tight end.

He seems amazing.

If you watched any Georgia football this year, whether it was blocking or running the perfect route,

that kid looked like a wide receiver in a tight end's body.