Good afternoon, Wisconsin. Welcome to WFHR's Play Make Hars.
Afternoon, everybody. Happy Monday to you. Your host, James here behind the mic. I'm joined by my partner in sports.
Mr. Randy Paul. Good afternoon, sir.
Good afternoon. We'll make sure to even happier as it's almost over.
It's almost almost always made through Monday.
Yes. And January. And January. You're right. That's a two for two for we've got the sun going down in front of us.
It is a beautiful sunset and you're absolutely right, man. We are wrapping things up.
We're going to have some fun today. We'll certainly talk Super Bowl. It is mandatory. We have to.
We will talk a little bit about that. I've got some new notes from the NFL that we'll touch on as well.
Got a couple of my own notes actually from the own weekend from the weekend that I want to talk about.
Including my next the next biopic. I want Randy. I want the next sports biopic. I have it. We have it.
We all have it and it's for the betterment of all of us.
Well, we'll get into some of that. But I went at about 520-ish.
Randy will give us his sports notes from the local sports. We'll go to our break.
When we come back, Laura is going to join us. She was at the powerlifting meet over the weekend.
She's going to cover some of that for us. So I'm looking forward to it.
Stick with the local coverage throughout the commercial break. Come back and do that. We'll get into our schedule.
And of course, most importantly, take your phone calls. 715-424-2600. We are wide open.
Hit us in the numbers. We would love to hear from every one of you.
Randy, over the weekend, I went down multiple rabbit holes looking at Bob Euker interviews.
Bob Euker, great calls. Some classics. Just beautiful.
And I will be honest with the audience. Part of the reason I was doing it was nostalgia and just wanted to relive a legend.
And also, I have spent my whole life learning from this man.
So are you inside or are you just a bit outside?
I was a little bit outside. A little bit.
Now, there are a billion clips I could play that I think would be great.
But I came across one in particular that just really stood out that I've watched three times now.
And I just can't get enough of it. It is just a minute long. It's actually a hair under a minute long.
And this is Bob Euker giving tips to Hank Aaron.
Oh, so just go ahead and take a listen to this, everybody.
Oh, here we go.
Hank and I had a great relationship and we still do. He's really one of my very, very good friends.
And I tried to, you know, little things that I did better than Hank.
I wasn't one of those guys, Janet would say, hey, I'm going to keep this a secret.
You know, I'd go up and tell people like Henry, Eddie Matthews, Warren Spawn.
I mean, you know, those types of people, I would give them tips. And it worked for Hank.
But, you know, he and I would often talk on the bus and he said, Hank, if you can lonely knew how to hit the curveball,
if you could just sit back and wait for the fastball.
He said, I could teach you all these things, but you won't listen to me.
And I'm glad that I didn't.
I can't think he could.
And, well, you know, the story with Hank. I mean, he's going on the bigger and better things.
My grandson was telling me about one video clip he saw where he was playing with the Cardinals, Bob Gibson, Spitching, and he's catching.
So he goes out towards the mountain and gives him, like, what are you doing?
And I'm going to talk to the centerfielder.
There's one of my earliest and most famous stories that I heard.
Because when I was a kid, I didn't know Bob Gibson that well.
I knew all I knew about Bob Gibson is my papa, my dad, talking about how intimidating this guy was.
Not necessarily how great he was or anything.
And that's the only image I had of Bob Gibson.
And I have, I've listened to a brewer, a cub game, I think, and Yooker is calling it.
And my papa is laughing and laughing and laughing at this story before Yooker's even finished.
Because it's him going up, like him, the manager, the manager was saying, I want this.
I want this. Yooker's sending it through, but Gibson's not doing it.
So they call it timeout. Everybody comes to the mound.
And the manager's looking at Yooker, like, what are you doing here?
I'm calling this this. And he's like, that's Bob Gibson.
You go ahead, you tell him. Yeah, you tell him what you want.
I'm not going to tell him what to do.
There's so many, and this clip, what is lost in the clip audio wise, is Yooker is telling this story about Hank Aaron.
And if this reporter doesn't know better, she's, she's eating all of this up because he's doing it as straight-laced as you can.
The thing I think we forget about Yooker is what are the greatest straight men of all?
Like Leslie Nielsen style, like, of just straight comedy, able to deliver these lines.
I teach this for a living, Randy, and I could never teach another, you'd be big to do what Bob Yooker was able to do.
Whenever you saw him on the tonight show with Johnny Carson, he sat like that too.
He just sat there so stoically and I'll never crack this.
Johnny's just roaring off the desk.
And I do use this as a tie-in to talk a little bit about the brewers.
For those that did not hurt, it does sound like they're going to have a patch on their jerseys throughout the year.
And I think it's going to be going forward.
I think this is going to be like, not just for this season, but it's going to stay on the uniform. I believe.
I'm not 100% on that. I don't even know if they are to be honest.
I'm not sure if they've thought past this year, but here's hoping they keep it on there.
Here's hoping that they're, in fact, here's knowing.
I feel confident saying that's an organization. I feel pretty comfortable saying they're going to do right by this guy's legacy.
Would you love to see if they could ask Yooker what he would like on that patch?
That would have been hilarious.
Just to hear the answers.
Just to hear the answers from what he would have to say.
He's getting average.
Rainy, we haven't gotten to hang out since the passing of Mr. Yooker and everything.
I talk about me learning from him and growing from him as somebody who wanted to do voice acting
as somebody who wanted to be an actor and entertainer, never dreamed of being in radio.
Little alone once I got in radio, he was one of the first voices I would listen to and I would try to learn from his pace especially.
But I can't admit, is it an answer? What he might have meant for you?
I think back to when he first started 71, I'm like 13 years old and we had transistor radios back then.
You take it to bed with you and you'd listen to Yooker call games.
The one thing that I would always get so frustrated, I would go tell my father the next morning,
and the brews are coming back and also there's a drive to left field and deep in on.
He's calling it back. It's got a chance to go.
Oh, they caught it at the wall and he's gone.
So disappointing, but he just had a great way of building those things up.
I remember one time I did a double header for assumption and Wisconsin Rapids.
And I think I was at Wooder Field for seven and a half hours.
So that was a long time to do two broadcasts after they had school.
Right.
I remember because some things were going slowly and so you've got to fill time if you're sitting there by yourself.
So of course you start thinking about Yooker and what would he do?
So I'm talking about last week here I was up on my roof and I'm cleaning out my gutters.
Here's the pitch.
Oh, it's a bit outside.
He gets past the catcher all the way to the wall.
So he goes back and he picks it up. He throws it back to...
Oh, it gets past the pitcher.
I'll pass the second baseman.
Centerfielder's got it. He throws it.
Oh, and so there I am on my ladder.
So you go back and forth between the stories just like, you know, because you learn that from Yooker, you know,
because if you got time to kill, you got to start telling stories.
I love that. Thank you for that.
You know, here's something I hadn't thought about until hearing you talk about this.
He opened the door for this.
He made this okay and announced it.
It's not like a lot of guys were doing what he was doing.
Now Vin Scully famously was the greatest ever be able to go from talking about a guy.
He could be talking about the president of the United States and you were still caught up on balls and strikes and all that.
There's never a better at it.
And I mean in that no disrespect to Bob Yooker or any other announcer for that matter.
Just in a sense that I personally...
I've never heard anybody say there's ever been any better than Vin Scully and from what I heard.
I've never heard anybody as good at it as so like it was...
I feel like if you had told me there was an editor in there editing Vin Scully live on the air.
I would believe that more than that man by himself was able to do that.
That's just incredible.
Vin Scully opened the door for a lot of these things.
Yooker made it personal.
Made it human sounding.
Vin Scully as much as I love him, as much as all of us will admit he is the goat and all that.
I think we'd all also admit that Vin Scully sounded a little not robotic but a little bit kind of like...
This is what a professional broadcaster should sound like and all those things.
And I say that with respect, I say that with adoration.
Yooker sounded like he was in the room with us while also doing all the things Scully did.
That's an art in itself.
There's no better or worse here.
It's just both of them were great at this in their own way.
They made it their own.
Yooker wasn't trying to put on airs.
Yooker wasn't trying to do anything.
He was being Bob.
That's who he was.
I'm sure Vin Scully was doing a very similar thing while also coming from a different era of...
This is how a broadcaster sounds.
I'm going to sound like that.
I feel like Yooker opened a door for so many other people that could do this for a living
that may have not thought of it otherwise and a whole different way of doing it where...
You know what?
This is baseball.
We play 162 of these.
It's serious.
Let's not take it too serious.
We're playing a kids game here.
We're playing a game that we all played when we were 8 years old.
And to think about how he would weave in stories that either happened in his career,
what he saw when he brought castor just from his life, right?
And what percentage would you say?
90, 90 for 5% of those stories that he would tell had humor to them?
Yeah.
Not a whole lot of them were really serious.
And then you think back over his long career since 71.
And you think I cannot...
I don't ever remember sitting there saying to myself, I heard that story before.
Yeah.
You know, it seemed like he had a different story all the time.
And I'm sure he had a repeat in all those years, a story or two, right?
But it was amazing that he could always just call upon his recollection of those different things.
I wonder though.
You know what?
If somebody told me he never repeated the story, I would believe him.
I would believe that stat.
I had a stat the other day that my stat of the show that you could call 2.8% of all baseball games,
like in history.
That's how long he'd been doing it.
Oh my goodness.
Just incredible.
And I would say to your point, Randy, it's something that I've incorporated actually
in our morning show.
Whether it was...
It started really from an early conversation with Carl when we first started doing the show.
But it really stems from a lot of Paul Harvey growing up on that.
The daily show with John Stewart in the moment of Zen and Bob Euker's stories.
No matter what was going on in the middle of that story and the heart of that story,
it wrapped up with a laugh.
It wrapped up with a joke.
And every morning show I've ever done, we end with a positive story or a good story.
No matter what's going on in the heart of the show or anything like that, we wrap up on a laugh.
We wrap up on a good joke or something like that.
Do it the same thing with our politicians, we'll interview them.
It's really...
That's not mine.
That's me stealing that between you and I, Randy.
From these guys that I grew up really idolizing, really being influenced by.
Not idolizing, but really being influenced by.
My father would want me to correct that.
But whenever I was a kid, I told my dad, I idolized Rob Williams.
Like, Jimmy, that means you want to be him.
There's already a Robin.
You want to be you.
There's a difference.
There's a difference.
There is no segue talking about missing a legend like that or anything.
But I do think he would appreciate and be alright with us shifting gears right away to go to something.
We don't get to talk about very often.
And American tennis.
And I just wanted to make sure that we get into the show a big shout out to Madison Keys.
Yeah.
We're winning the Australian Open and breaking through in her words to win the Australian Open.
It means the world to her, as she said.
And not just doing this, but defeating the number one player in the world.
One and two, I believe.
That's right.
That's right.
Thank you.
Yes. Great performance by her.
I hope this is a sign of things to come for her.
And really just American tennis.
I miss American tennis.
I miss us.
I'm not going to lie.
I miss us dominating these sports.
And not even just that.
I had no problem with the board corner years and those things and stuff.
And I like there to be competition.
I miss them being like six or seven great American tennis players.
And you just never knew which one of them were going to show up.
And who might have their day and who was better on this turf than another and everything.
I feel like I had no idea when I was a kid how spoiled I was with male American tennis players.
We've kept a female tennis for quite a while thanks to the Venus and Serena.
I think Serena may not just be the best tennis player ever saw.
She may be the best athlete I've ever seen.
Serena Williams in her prime.
I don't know if I've ever seen somebody that dominant at their sport.
Not Tiger Woods, not Michael Jordan.
I don't think I've ever seen a more dominant athlete than Serena Williams when she was dominating women's tennis.
The athlete that she was, the size that she was, let alone when she would go on that court.
And I didn't feel like anybody could beat her.
I didn't feel like there was, I didn't know if Monica Celis coming back could do it at the time and everything.
I think when you would watch them and their prime health, the thing that always stood out to me was how fast their serve was.
And now when you watch women's tennis, it's like, boy, those women are really serving at a high rate of speed as well.
And so I think some of the people in the tennis world, it's just improving as it ever goes here.
But it is fun.
And you know what reminds me of a little bit?
And I'm with you on that.
The Olympics.
It's like if you're watching a women's tennis match, you're like, come out and go for the USA, right?
Yeah, definitely.
Shout out to Madison Keys.
That was a fantastic open.
Got to see that too.
Got to see it.
It was great.
It was like three in the morning or something.
But it was great.
It was still cool to see.
I also wanted to certainly touch on not the Super Bowl yet.
No, no, we got two weeks before that.
We got plenty of time to talk Super Bowl.
And just in case anybody wonders what Randy and I are thinking about the Super Bowl,
what was it a couple of years ago and back when we used to be doing coffee and sports together,
we talked about the Super Bowl with the chiefs and the Eagles.
We're just going to replay that for you.
Since it's a rerun, we'll just go ahead and replay that.
It's a good thing we have it on tape.
Yeah, it's a great thing.
It's a great thing.
I got to call out the Cowboys.
I have to.
And I will wholeheartedly admit that I am feeding the machine of the Dallas Cowboys
by talking about the Dallas Cowboys.
When we're talking about a team that didn't even make the playoffs
and that hasn't really been relevant winning wise in two decades.
We're just feeding the machine.
But I have a couple of friends at our Cowboy fans.
And we have some listeners down in the Texas area and everything.
And I think that it's a note where they team to cover.
And also the regard of it's one of the few things where we as Packer and Bear Fan
and Viking Fan and Lion Fan, we can all agree.
We all dislike the Cowboys.
We all come together on this one.
I don't believe I've ever seen a more funny...
I don't know if I've ever seen this where a team, this high profile,
you can make the argument the most high profile American team is the Dallas Cowboys.
Especially with as big as the NFL is.
Doing a Friday news dump with their new head coach.
That's wild, man.
That's, they went from, hey, we're interviewing Dion.
Look what we might do with all this too.
Here we hired.
Wait, what was that?
Who did you hire as a new head coach?
We hired.
They're just hiding, like, they just wanted, hopefully,
everybody really paid attention to this or anything.
And they 2025 season starts and like, who's the Cowboys coach again?
That's wild.
Especially with the team that is so tailor-made to win.
Like, say what you want about the Dallas Cowboys.
They've done a lot of the things that we ask NFL teams to do.
They grew talent, they kept it, paid it,
and have some pretty reasonable talent when there comes to that.
I don't believe anybody would turn down having Mike and Parsons on their team.
Having CD Lamb on their team.
You know, when he was playing at a high clip,
Dak Prescott.
A lot of people would take him, right?
Yeah, yeah.
They built a decent team over there.
I'm not saying they could win a playoff game, let alone a Super Bowl,
but they built a decent team.
You know that that owner is willing, usually, willing to spend money.
But here's my, here's my thing, because I say that.
But I'm thinking of Old Jerry.
I'm thinking of Old Jerry.
If I'm a Dallas Cowboy fan, it has never been more evident to me.
That Jerry Jones is more interested in finishing in the black than winning a Super Bowl.
And I believe this has been the case for decades.
This isn't new.
It's decades.
I'm late to this.
I got on this last year.
When they didn't sign Derek Henry, it was clear to me.
And it has never been more clear than right now.
What is the cheaper thing?
I used to think it was about having a puppet.
But then I kept down like, well, wait a minute, he hired Bill Parsels.
Why would he do it?
Wait a minute.
Nope.
Nah.
It's about making sure that the Dallas Cowboys are the number one covered team in all of American sports.
And it is making sure that they finish in the black.
And how do you do that in business?
You hire family.
You hire people at a small clip.
At a small paycheck that haven't had experience before.
So they're not going to get demanding contract like a Bill Parsels would.
Or I mean, not a Bill Bella check or Pete Carroll or somebody like that.
That you have a ready-made team and you bring in a veteran coach.
That's what almost every other 32 teams would do.
Nah.
Jerry Jones could be on a lie detector.
And you ask him, hey, do you want to win a Superboy?
Do you want to finish in the black more?
And I wouldn't believe what it comes up.
There's nothing that man says I would believe.
And if you want proof of this, look up a clip of Jerry Jones guest spotting in the TV show Landman.
Good show.
I've only seen a little bit of a Billy Bob Thornton, John Hamm.
It's all about oil and Texas and everything.
Not a bad show.
I just haven't had time.
So I haven't had a chance to watch it.
Jerry Jones showed up to do a cameo on this.
And they had a script for him and he's like, nah, I got this.
And he just off the cuff talked.
And it's Emmy caliber stuff, man.
It's amazing acting.
It's amazing.
It's one of the better TV performances you're going to see.
One of the better cameos you'll ever see.
And it's complete evidence to any Dallas Cowboy fan that this man does not believe a thing he says.
And you cannot buy a word, he says.
Don't buy, don't believe Jerry Jones.
Whatever you do.
If you are in a life for death situation and Jerry Jones is there, God help you because either you cannot believe this man.
I can't imagine what it must be like to be a cowboy fan and have a franchise that is more interested in finishing in the blood.
Well, wait a minute.
I'm a bear fan.
That's right.
That's my team.
Just without the super bowls and the pop and circumstance and everything.
I guess I do, I do, I do relate.
I do know what it feels like.
Last year's NFL man of the year, Tom Grossi.
We sometimes watch his videos and listen to him because he's a big packer fan.
And he'll just, you know, do the games live in your listening to him because he's just a hoot.
And when they had the Cowboys signing of their new coach, he, you know, he'll put out videos and have all these different teams.
And all, it wasn't really, I don't think there were any words.
He was just called.
Yeah.
He's rolling back and laughing.
That's fantastic.
Randy's got to do some work tonight and everything.
So I want to get him out of here and save that voice a little bit.
Randy, you do, I do appreciate the coverage you have, though.
So I want to make some time for that.
What do you owe real quick?
Brian Schottenheimer, who's the Cowboys hired?
In case anybody was wondering.
What do you got for us, Randy?
Well, we have a whole bunch of air sports.
And I think Laura's going to bring us a little bit more after our break.
Let's start off with the River Kings.
As on Friday, they came up with a W over the Minnesota Mall.
It's 3 to 2 as the O'Chott Minnesota 45 to 18.
And then on Saturday, they blanked them six to zip.
Again, out shooting Minnesota 49 to 15.
Next Friday and Saturday, they're going to be at Minnesota.
This time it'll be at the Blue Ox.
You're going to come for the King.
You best not miss.
You got that right.
That's good.
Last Thursday at DC Everest, the Wisconsin Rapids wrestling team.
148 to 26.
I thought this was interesting, James.
Six out of the nine Raiders victories were all by fall.
Wow.
So dominant right there.
Yeah.
This Thursday, the host Marsfield and Marsfield and Rapids
are tied for first in the Valley at 5 and 0.
Can you believe this?
A week from Saturday already, January 8th, the Wisconsin Valley Conference Meet
at Wasa East at 10 a.m.
So you know what that means.
That means tournament time for all sports is just around the corner.
Let's see what else we've got here when it comes to some local activity.
Girls high school basketball, Wisconsin Rapids fell to 5 and 9 on the season.
Three and four in conference action as they lost at home to Marsfield's 70 to 61.
The Lady Raiders has traveled to New London tonight.
Third ranked assumption rolled to an easy road win at Edgar 65 to 19.
Sarah Shaw paved the way with 16 points and a school he scored 14.
Lady Son De Rosas had 13 and Riley Stubaski added 10.
The Reils will have a makeup game at Marathon tonight.
As a matter of fact, you could hear it on the WXEO app if you'd like to listen to that ball game.
And they will also host 10 and 6 Rhinelander tomorrow night.
Port Edwards lost at Wild Rose 83 to 22 and girls basketball.
Brianna Ingram led the back hocks with 10 points.
Port heads Northeast tonight to face the Hornets of Rochelle.
And the Crusals will come up short on the road 81 to 12 down in the delts.
Papermakers are home tomorrow evening as they will entertain Marathon.
That same squad that's playing assumption tight.
And the boys side of the ledger Wisconsin Rapids put up a good fight against Marsfield on Tuesday's Friday night.
But couldn't break into the win column as they fell 69 to 52.
Sean Reynas led the Raiders with 17 while Brody Gilbert's a knockdown 12.
Lincoln is at home tomorrow night against the whole digs of Rhinelander.
Assumption picked up a thrilling 2 point win over Prentice 61 to 59.
Owen Hagen with 18 points while JT Schlafer and Logan Neistram had 16 and 11 points respectively for the Reils.
Who will be at Edgar tomorrow?
Port Edwards with Wild Rose 78 to 54 Vinnie Stregel 28 points for the hawks.
Brendan Beckport in 23 and Josh Trannel had 13 for Port.
Who is going to entertain Northland Lutheran tonight.
Michael and I and Laura will have it for you.
Over an hour from now or so on our sister station 105-55WRI.
And the Kusa came up short at home against the delts 57 to 32.
Papermakers will head over to Pitsville to take on the Panthers tomorrow evening.
Last Thursday Wisconsin Rapids won up in Wasau at Marathon Park over the co-op of East and Mariel 7 to 3.
Rapids outshot East Mariel 61 to 24.
And then on Saturday the Raiders stop Sun Prairie 5 to 3 at the Rec Center.
Sun Prairie outshot Rapids 37 to 25 but Lincoln got the victory.
This week Rapids has a pair of home contests.
As they will take on Pachelli tomorrow and Thursday, Marshfield will pay a visit.
And in the conference standings real quickly for Valley Hockey Spashes 7 and 0.
Ever 6 and 2.
Wasau West 5 and 2.
Rapids 3 and 4.
East Mariel 7 and 1 and 7.
And then Marshfield 0 and 7.
So that's some of the sports that's been taking place right now.
And then after our breaklers and come in and talk a little bit more local sports for us with that power lifting as well.
Looking forward to that.
And really do appreciate the coverage, Randy.
When it comes to the game tonight and again, Randy and Mike and Laura are going to be covering over on 105, 55WRI at 650.
Port Edwards Boys hosting Northern, Northern Lutheran.
Anything to you, Randy, that stands out about this game that you're looking forward to seeing.
I think I saw in the box score that Max Michaels was back.
He was out a couple of games with illness.
So it's going to be interesting to see him back because he's won their top score.
So that just give him another threat looking forward to that.
And Northern Lutheran's got a young squad.
Both teams not real tall.
I think Northern Lutheran's got a kid like 6-2.
Port Edwards is maybe 6-1 is their tallest.
So it should be a good match up that way, size wise.
And I guess we'll see how that plays out.
It should be a fun ball game.
Looking forward to it.
Going to be listening in.
Thank you so much for hanging out with us, partner.
Always good to hang out with you, man.
Thanks a lot for having me.
Do want to also send a shout out to Michael in the coverage over the weekend of the River King.
Nice work by him and the team here running the board and everything.
We appreciate all the work by being done by everybody.
Seth and Laura and everybody working so hard on the scenes to make these games on the air for you.
We are looking forward to bringing you more action too.
And catch the game tonight.
Everybody just head on over to our sister station 105-5 WRI.
Port Edwards, boys, hosting Northern Lutheran.
Randy, Mike and Laura on the call for you.
And keep in mind as well.
W-X-C-O will be having a Sumption Girls basketball first marathon.
That'll be at seven o'clock.
You can listen to that on the app.
And that's a makeup game because that one was postponed.
So that's why they're playing tonight and tomorrow.
It's really real quick.
A Sumption Girls this season.
Number three in state.
And just that one lost, but jelly and overtime.
And you know, that one's going to be a good one the second time around as well.
And I think if I remember hearing correctly, those two teams could meet in the sectionals semi-finals.
So I tell you, even with, even with, you know, like the, when might the one like the bulls aren't any good,
or even if the box aren't doing that much or anything like that, when people talk about like,
oh, football's over.
What is there to talk about?
Assumption Girls continue to give us something to talk about throughout the whole winter.
We, you know, throughout this whole entire run.
It's always a lot of fun.
Yeah, I just think we got Rapids wrestling who's doing very well.
Yes.
And then we're going to have high school basketball playoffs are going to kick off.
And then once those wrap up, it's going to be time for NCAA.
Tournament.
And then we'll be springing.
We'll be talking about Raptors.
We got plenty of sports to talk.
We're going to miss football at all.
We'll be fine.
We will miss you, though, Randy.
We'll be hearing you a little bit later.
Thanks so much for joining us, man.
Yeah, thanks, Randy.
We'll be back with more playmakers coming up right here.
I brought to you probably by quality plus printing.
Getting your words out here in Wisconsin Rapids and WFHR.
Welcome back, everyone.
To WFHRs, playmakers.
Got your host, James here.
Laura's going to join us in a little bit.
Give us an update on the powerlifting tournament that took place this weekend.
Looking forward to getting that coverage for you.
As we're hanging out, let's go ahead and take some calls.
715-424-2600.
Feel free to call up and join the conversation.
Love to talk to all of you.
Got some news and notes we can get to in the meantime.
The Lions are working to hire the Broncos John Morton as their offensive coordinator.
Sources are saying just one of those news and notes that are coming out of the NFL team off season.
Certainly a nice hire for them.
And really, again, as we talked about on Friday's show and everything,
while the Lions are losing pieces here and there, I feel pretty confident if I was a Lions fan.
You got the piece that matters.
Dan Campbell is still there.
And the pieces that you bring in.
You got to think, of course, he's going to bring in pieces that, you know, adapt to that culture,
to the way they play the grit that they play with.
Also noteworthy, the New York Jets coach Aaron Glenn and new GM Moghi.
They're non-committal on Aaron Rodgers.
And if he's going to be playing for the Jets next season or not,
to the point as well, Aaron Rodgers has been pretty gray about if he's going to play as well.
I don't mean to have this be triggering for packer fans as you are used to this,
not just with Aaron Rodgers, but with Brett Farve.
The positive is you don't have to worry about this.
Your year's away from this with Jordan Love.
Jordan Love does seem like a different cat, doesn't he?
I don't feel like, I say all this and you could replay this in five or six years
if you want when I'm wrong, if I'm wrong.
But I don't feel like you're going to be dealing with a lot of the things that you have dealt with with Farve
Rodgers that you're going to deal with with Jordan Love.
It doesn't seem like it at least.
But it is going to be interesting to see what happens if Aaron Rodgers is going to continue to play.
What I think is more interesting is not just if he plays and where he might play,
but what his next act is.
I think that's going to be fascinating to see what happens.
Whether we like him or not, you know, it's going to be seeing and going to be interesting.
I thought that it was an interesting weekend for Laura,
who is of course joining us right now to talk a little bit powerlifting.
That's how I think that we don't get to talk nearly enough on the air.
Correct. But one thing I want to get to real quick, Laura.
And Laura knows this because not only have we talked for years here,
but you have to, you not have to.
Part of your job is podcasting the morning show in our midday magazines.
You do an amazing job at it.
And I always like to note this because we don't get a chance to note these things
much to the audience.
It's going to be hard behind the scenes for us and also the running the board for producing our sports for us as well.
I say all this because Laura has to hear me talk more than most human beings should have to.
It's a shame and I feel for you.
I don't know if they pay you enough for that.
But you know how I work and how I interview.
One of my favorite questions, one of my first questions is usually an origin story.
So Laura, I think to an average listener, they'd be like, why is she talking powerlifting?
Where did this come from?
Did we just grab this out of the ether?
Laura, how about you cover this too, along with all the other things we're asking you to do?
But you got a history with this.
I do. I am from Nasida. I am a high school graduate from Nasida.
And that means that not only do I know what powerlifting is, but the chances are pretty likely that I took part in it, which I did.
I started powerlifting in eighth grade.
I did not do it my senior year, but I did do it for four years.
I have since my graduation also coached powerlifting for a couple of years in Toma.
And now I get to cover it in sports because I'm passionate about it and no one else is covering it.
Right up, right up.
You know, I appreciate Randy, Michael, and you and the coverage that you guys are doing between the three of you.
There's so much high school sports.
There's so many teams, so many athletes, so many sports just in general.
There's no way we'd be able to cover it all.
We are looking and I've talked to Phil about this a little bit too.
Phil has a real tie-in with tennis, a local tennis around here, and covering that more too.
So as we go along here with playmakers and we've got these two extra hours to play with, we're going to try to do this.
Laura, did you enjoy yourself? Did you have fun time this week?
Yeah, it was a great time. It was a really successful meet.
Coach Mock was able to pull off another spectacular meet, but this time in a little bit of a different setting.
I want to make sure that I shout out and see the high school for all and see the powerlifting specifically, especially the Mock family for all the work that they put into pulling it off every year.
Fantastic, Laura. That's all the time we have for power.
No, I'm joking, I'm sorry.
I know there's no camera, but you can imagine the face I just gave him.
Take your time with it.
Please continue.
And in addition to shouting them out for pulling it off, I just want to make a point in saying in the past, Nacita Powerlifting was able to use the full size gym for this meet.
But for a reason that I have not yet understood, despite asking a few people, they were not able to use the full size gym.
They were forced into a much smaller multipurpose room when we're talking about a K-12 school district.
So it's a small building. Everything's small. The multipurpose room is no exception. And they did it.
And it was successful and everyone was safe and everything was fine. But man, it would have been nice if we were in a bigger gym with more seating and more room.
It's a good note. That's a good note.
That said, there is a really impressive team of lifters coming out of Wisconsin Rapids.
And I want to make sure the town is aware of it.
I didn't only cover Wisconsin Rapids, of course, I paid attention to some other area lifting teams, Adam's friendship, put a really good showing out there as well.
They have more equipped lifters compared to raw lifters. That's a subject that I think I will cover in some articles in the future.
I think I'm going to be working starting tomorrow on a series to cover the powerlifting season this year.
But it's going to include a couple of introductory articles to kind of explain what is a powerlifting and what is a powerlifting meat.
And how does one do a powerlifting?
And so I feel like those are important points to make for lifting for dummies.
I'm not going to call it that. But if you would like to refer to it as such, you're welcome too.
I appreciate it. As a dummy, I will hardly say that.
Fair enough.
It's somebody who wants to learn the sport too much.
Like a lot of people, I think we've caught it during the Olympics and things.
But I don't think that unfortunately it feels like one of those sports where we don't see enough in here enough coverage of,
except for when something crazy happens, whether it's a world record being broken or somebody being broken.
Well, the thing about powerlifting is that Olympic powerlifting is not the same as the powerlifting that is being done in high school gymnasiums on Saturday mornings.
As a point to me being a dummy because you were you informed me of that and I didn't know that until you were telling me that.
Yeah, it's the most basic way to explain it is a is it's an individual competition as in you are the only one doing the work, the lifter.
And so as a spectator, what you're going to see is more than one, they're called platforms, but more than one spot where a weight class will be.
Each lifter will have the opportunity to lift the most weight they can in three times for three different events and those events are squat and then bench and then deadlift.
Again, the lifter gets three opportunities to lift the most they can for that.
And the goal is to lift more than the other people who weigh as much as you and to qualify for state so that you can go to state and try and lift more than the people that weigh the same as you.
Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that breakdown and you did it so well, even I understand, even I get it.
I did try and make it as simple as possible for such a it's a very complicated thing.
There's a lot of parts and pieces and you know, if I'm watching a kid do a deadlift and I call it a beautiful lift, what does that mean?
You know what I mean? Those are things that I'm going to kind of expand on in the articles. This kind of isn't the format for that.
One thing before we get to some of the numbers that you have and everything and information from me over the weekend.
One thing I don't know maybe this is, maybe this isn't difficult for you to explain or say, what is it about the sport that made you fall in love with it that you really like and still to the point where you still want to cover it?
It was the first thing that I did that gave a very insecure eighth grade girl confidence and as someone who as an adult has also coached this sport, I have seen it happen to other student athletes in the same way.
Powerlifting is a great place for maybe bigger kids who don't know their own strength to you know, especially a heavier girl of which I was and you know, you walk into a weight room and when you walk in the first time, you're just the fat girl.
But you walk out feeling strong feeling like you can accomplish something and you know, especially if you go to a powerlifting meeting you do well there, I mean, you go out feeling like something, you know, and that's worth having.
See now that's something that the numbers can't tell us and I appreciate you sharing that and I think that any parent out there who may have a young lady like that in their house or something like that.
Absolutely, absolutely.
There is nothing as fun to me as watching the bigger boys really put on a show and truly your 275 plus powerlifter land in leech, man does he put on a good show.
He got first place, he didn't qualify for state yet, but man was at a good show.
One of the better performances you saw over the weekend or can you name some of the others that you saw.
So for me, it's about form and so if a kid's got like exceptional form on the on the lifts that they get, you can tell and that's to me what made land and performance so fun to watch.
But I do have a lot of kids from rapids and a few from Adam's friendship that I did want to highlight.
I want to just off the bat, apologize to all the JV lifters.
I just didn't have the time to cover you guys by name, but I just want to shout out all the JV lifters, especially those who placed to comb metals qualified for state because you can qualify for state as a JV lifter.
And so shout out to all you guys, you did spectacular.
But I'm going to cover the varsity lifters on this.
Where would you like me to start?
Oh, at local.
That's what I did.
So I guess we'll start with the girls.
I there are two different categories of lifter. There is equipped and then there is raw equipped means that they have a compression suit compression shirt for benching that kind of thing.
Wisconsin Rapids does not have equipped lifters. However, Adam's friendship does and I'm going to take a moment to shout out the Adam's friendship equipped lifters first.
So the girls equipped varsity 148 pound weight class Naomi Lucas. She got first place and she qualified for state with a total out of her three lifts of 775.
And for boys equipped varsity 132 branded and man the got first place. He also qualified 875 was his total boys equipped varsity 275 plus this is all out of Adam's friendship still Christian Ferge first place he qualified with a total of 1435.
And the 242 weight class again, this is equipped varsity Jacob Cortez. He also got first place, but he did not qualify for state and then will move to the raw varsity lifters from rapids.
Starting with the girls the girls raw varsity 132 weight class lifter Michelle tra truly an impressive lifter. I can't wait to get a chance to talk with her and like have some sound bites with her. She placed first she qualified for state with a total of 620.
Girls raw for 148 Veronica candler. She placed second. She didn't qualify for state, but her total was a very respectable 540 165 girls raw varsity Annabelle Ross first place she qualified with a total of 655.
And I'm going to apologize to everyone for their names. Girls raw varsity 181 pound weight class she placed first and she did not qualify for state, but she lifted 510 pounds.
Girls raw varsity 198 lifter Ellie Rippler also placed first. She qualified for state with a total of 635. And then girls raw varsity 242 ainsley Kaczynski first place qualified for state with a total of 865.
I want to take one minute to shout out one JV lifter specifically because he was the only lifter there representing assumption high school so shout out to Gabe hawk. I'm hoping your name is pronounced either way you were seen and appreciated good job dude.
And I believe I could be wrong but Gabe appeared to be injured when he was up on that podium getting his first place medal for JV.
So I don't know if we're going to be seeing him back this season or not so huge shout out to Gabe you did great you were seeing.
And now the boys raw varsity from rapids we've got six boys here all of whom placed in the top three so we're just going to go on down the list. So boys raw varsity 148 Michael Mitchell first place he did not qualify for state but he lifted 910 pounds.
Boys raw varsity 165 James wiker or or weaker I'm sorry James and to your mother and grandmother who were so very kind to me at the powerlifting me.
James placed third he did not qualify for state though but has a total of 915 from the day Richard Tao boys raw varsity 181 he placed second and he did qualify for state with a total of 1130.
He's also one to watch man was he an impressive he stood out to you he he sure did he was he was really fun to watch he was a little intense but still fun to watch.
Boys raw varsity 220 Wyatt Jungworth or young worth again sorry to everybody for your names he placed first but he did any did not qualify for state but he lifted 970 still a great total.
Boys raw varsity 275 Elias Heckman first place qualified for state with a total of 1310 and land in leech shout out again to land in he was my most fun to watch of the meat if you ask me.
He did not qualify for state but he placed first in boys raw varsity 275 plus with a total lifted of one or not what 1075 pounds nice work nice work can I share something with the audience a little look behind the curtain a little bit.
Laura works so hard on this this week and she works just diligently on her notes and putting everything together and then of course it's not here.
No not only is it not here but when I called my kids to look for it and like text me a picture of it it is missing I had to completely redo my notes while James and Randy were chatting.
And you knocked it out that was great that was awesome I can't wait for more of this more coverage of this and to really be you know be will hopefully celebrate this sport a little bit more we'll also encouraging younger kids out there and parents to get their kids involved in it and everything.
Absolutely we know we got to let you go because you got a game to cover we want you to be able to get ready for that and everything Laura will be working the board for us producing our port Edwards boys basketball game tonight.
Versa Northern Lutheran 650 our start time will be for that looking forward to it appreciate the work Lauren really appreciate the coverage and bringing this to our show here we're looking forward to more and more coverage as we go forward thanks.
Thank you nice work we will take our final time out of the show come back and hopefully take some phone calls I don't know why you guys are so quiet isn't because it's a Monday what is it.
I give us a call is something I said it's not my set isn't call up on the show we're looking forward to talk with you will come back with more playmakers brought you probably by quality plus printing getting your words out right here in Wisconsin Rapids.
Welcome back everybody to W F H R's playmakers got about five minutes left to show we'd like to fill it with your phone calls 715 424 2600 want to thank Randy and Laura for joining us today it's been a lot of fun great show good work everybody nice Monday show.
Do have some notes to get to before we wrap up certainly going to talk about our schedule as well.
But for those that did not hear just on interesting one here a couple of interesting notes actually for one there was a tweet the wind viral about Bob Euker and this person it actually came from the Bob Euker account Bob Euker says.
I propose I propose that a 200 batting average be referred to as the Euker line from now on.
This is a grassroots thing I this is maybe not anything official ever but I think that from now on I think somebody's bat 200 that should be the Euker line.
And I think Bob we could I think every time we say it Bob will smirk I like that I thought that was pretty good I also wanted to touch on a couple of other things that I thought was pretty interesting.
Steve you know can city chiefs Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl we're seeing this all over again it's a repeat.
I find it kind of funny I don't blame anybody at all for having fatigue of they actually have more fatigue of the Eagles than the chiefs but I get people having fatigue of either of these.
Nobody likes a repeat really in sports especially in the biggest game in the last game of the season.
I think all of that is fair one thing I find kind of funny though and I mean genuinely like I'm laughing at is when I hear people talk about conspiracy stuff.
And I laugh at this no differently than I laugh at a flat earthers or I laugh at any other like kind of crazy conspiracy stuff.
I'm all for questioning everything I think that's important in life and I don't think you just take what's handed to you no matter what no matter who's saying it.
And so I don't mind the questions but I do find it interesting that some people that I consider to be very intelligent genuinely can believe this stuff.
Did the Kansas City chiefs get a lot of calls yes yeah they did they got a lot of things go their way they have a lot over the last couple of years that's how championships are one.
What is one of the oldest phrases in all of sports no matter what the sport were playing home cooking.
Well the chiefs have been playing in home a lot so they've been getting a lot of home cooking I don't think that's very surprising.
You can look up the stat yourself Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes nobody over the last three four years have gotten more roughing the pass or calls than those two.
So that plays into it too and look plays into it too so that those factors I agree with but the idea that thousands and thousands of people in 2025 are working together to pull off these these hoaxes and make it so that the chiefs are in the Super Bowl and and the NFL has a repeat.
Like how many people out there rushing to their TVs for repeats you think that's what the NFL wanted a rerun and does this conspiracy only work for these things did it mean that the NFL also wanted the packers to win and there was conspiracy for them to win their championships.
I find it interesting the conspiracies only work when it's what you don't like that seems to be kind of I don't know that seems to stand out to me a little bit.
I think that what's more noteworthy is seeing greatness and whether you like it or not just seeing in happen it happened in front of you we've never seen anybody get this close to a three a three-peat in in the NFL every other three-peat has fallen in the in the championship game.
Nobody's ever made it this far that's kind of cool to see we've never seen a quarterback like Patrick Mahomes it's amazing.
And personally me I love Steve Spagnolia he may be in fact I'm I'm ready to say it he's my favorite coordinator of all time.
I thought it was mouse Davis I thought maybe even one of the right you know buddy Ryan or something but not it's bags.
This guy's a hall of favor Chris Jones believes that the chiefs will keep winning as long as they keep him from being a head coach somewhere.
Speaking of coaching I did want to shout out Antoine Randell midwestern Illinois guy getting onto the staff of the bears so we forget about I know you guys don't care about the bears are like the bears but I think we can all get behind a midwestern or getting a coach for his hometown team.
I think that's pretty cool and we don't get to see that happen very often.
And as long as I'm talking about it did anybody see the Uber Eats commercial with Matthew McConaughey is Mike Dicca.
Not only is this the best Dicca's ever looked or sounded or anything like that but it made me realize we need an 85 bears biopic movie and I want McConaughey play in Dicca.
I mean the rest of the casting is going to be difficult I admit good luck casting somebody as a William refrigerator Perry or Walter Peyton or something or any of that but man I think that be an entertaining movie.
That be a fun movie and you got McConaughey to start Dicca well all right all right I think that be all right I think that'd be pretty good.
Thank you so much for joining us we will not have a playmakers on Wednesday but we do have Wisconsin men's basketball for you taking on Maryland that'll be great.
I will have the great guard show you for you at 605 on Thursday Friday we will be here for playmakers we'll also have Wisconsin hockey for you as it's a puck night Badgers taking on Minnesota and we'll have Lincoln taking on Wassau West as basketball over a WIRI.
Be good to each other have a great night we'll talk to you on Thursday.
