Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to WFHR's Playmakers!
Good Monday afternoon, Wisconsin.
Hope everybody's having a good afternoon out there, too.
Katarose James here, joined by Randy Paul.
Good afternoon, James and everyone else.
Good to have you with us, man.
Good to have you with us.
This is a real Monday.
Appreciate everybody being here.
Just a real quick lap.
That's the first time I got the timing on that new intro right.
That was the first time.
You can't say anything until afterwards, though.
That's how no hitter goes.
We will talk a little baseball a little bit later.
I want to take some time to talk George Foreman as well with you, Randy.
And we're also going to cover some local stuff that we have going on.
That's recently the expo that we had Ross on recently to talk about.
I want to touch on that.
But I cannot resist this opportunity, Randy.
I don't know how often this happens or how often it will happen.
Back-to-back weeks, we get to congratulate a champion.
Last week, of course, our assumption lady Royals,
and a big tip of the hat to them, bringing the gold ball wearer belongs right here back in Wisconsin Rapids.
But of course, we want to start off the show congratulating the Lady Badgers.
Wisconsin Women's Badger Team NCAA Women's Hockey title first in overtime.
I keep hearing keep people complained about March Madness with not being mad and not the craziness that they want.
Apparently, every game is supposed to be a buzzer beater and all these different things and stuff.
Hockey's got you.
What are you worried about? What are you complaining about? Go watch Women's Hockey.
Did you see that?
The whole tournament has been like this little on this game.
Did you see that goal on that penalty shot?
Oh, that was made by us.
Christensen. Oh my gosh.
Christensen Sibs could do whatever she wants as far as I could assert.
The other O'Malley and her play.
O'Brien, I'm sorry, O'Brien's play.
Just incredible season for them.
One of the greatest hockey seasons you will ever see.
38-1-2.
Is that insane?
I feel like it's as is a lot of skew sports, let alone women's sports.
They don't get covered nearly as much.
I do think Wisconsin does a really good job of this.
I'm not talking local, I mean nationally.
I think Wisconsin does a great job of covering these things.
It's part of the reason the women's team is so great.
It's the coverage and the amount of attention that young ladies see in this sport and they want to play it.
And thank God they do.
Because man, I will never forget that game.
Especially that third period.
Eight championships now for the Badger.
Eight championships.
Super. That's a dynasty.
That is just incredible.
And a big tip of that to them.
Thank you for an amazing season.
If I'm Ohio State, I don't have my head down.
No. You lost to the better team.
When that happens to me, you can't have your head down.
Regardless of what happens.
And as far as that's concerned, that's one of my questions to Badger fans out there with the NCAA tournament.
And how that one ended.
And how do you feel?
Did you feel you lost to the better team or not?
How do you feel about the season?
We talked about this on Friday a bit.
I don't think anybody had the Badgers even here.
Like maybe in the tournament.
Maybe in the big dance.
But I don't think anybody had them as a number three seed.
Or having the season they did.
Or John Tanji having the season he has.
Possibly if I think the big 10 player of the year.
I want to hear from all of you.
Let's go and take to the phones.
Get on the show.
What's up? What's going on?
What's going on, James?
What's on your mind?
Well, you know, stick with the women Badgers, the lady Badgers.
And I'm kind of just looking at some stuff here that when they played Ohio State.
They were actually one, one.
Or two, one, and one.
Oh, okay.
Because they, because they, they at this year.
At Ohio or Wisconsin.
They played at Ohio State.
They won the first game, lost the second one.
And then back out, it was at Wisconsin.
Which was at a sold out crowd.
The first game was a January second.
They beat Ohio State six-nothing.
And then on the fourth.
They lost in a shootout.
One-nothing.
So, I mean, so Ohio State and Wisconsin see each other quite a bit this year.
So that's, that was a, that need to see that the WCHA was well represented in.
And ladies are hockey.
It, it has to feel extra good to do it against Ohio State.
It just, it has to feel a little bit better just against that particular team,
especially considering they've kind of traded punches in the championship game
over the last couple of years.
These two teams.
But I don't, you know, I talked about this with the River Kings.
So what was facing them, if they did end up facing the mullets, like we saw that they did.
And what happens in hockey and in the playoffs, when you're playing somebody who's just an elite athlete
and just very good at scoring or in particular in this game of hockey,
where it's such a, a game of, of, of angles and luck and so many other things.
And skill, obviously.
And I don't believe that whatever team Casey O'Brien was on this year,
he probably was not going to win a title with the season that she was, he she had.
88 points on 26 goals, 62 assists through her first 40 games,
just 40 games on the season.
Any other athlete pulls it off at any level.
And it's, it's just a headline news on sports center.
Like that, that bugs me a little bit.
I will say that I am proud of the national, the local coverage,
the statewide coverage of this team and this young lady.
I am, I am ashamed of Fox and ESPN and the way that they cover women's athletics,
where it's, if it ain't Caitlin Clark, it's got to be low hanging fruit.
It's got to be really easy stuff for them and where they don't have to wrap their work too hard
to think about or anything because God help them if they have to pull a couple muscles
thinking about sports differently for the first time in their lives.
This lady pulled off one of the better collegiate seasons period.
I don't care what the sport, I don't care what era decade you're talking about.
It's incredible what she did.
And like, and I'll own this too.
I haven't talked about it enough.
I'll be completely honest.
We got three shows a week and I haven't talked about this team nearly enough.
I'll admit that.
I feel like we should have given it more attention.
I'm sorry that we're doing it so late.
But man, did I appreciate that team?
Because that was a heck of a, heck of a playoffs.
I do have a little story to tell you that will happen over the weekend with O'Brien.
Friends of mine on Facebook, they were actually at the game.
And they were right behind the goal and they must have been pretty close
because you can see the buck going from Sims at the end of the game.
They actually had it, they were recording it when they did it.
But their daughter, she plays hockey here in Wisconsin and happens with the club team.
She actually had to sign up and O'Brien actually gave her,
she said that she, you know, the check list is, you know,
they heard their bucket list and actually she said in hoping to get a stick from O'Brien,
she did it.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
That's awesome.
And then the girls actually, their girls actually got pieces of the net too.
Wow.
Oh, wow.
That's, I don't know why, but that meant even more to me for some reason.
Like, I don't know.
That's a really cool idea.
I don't know if I've even heard of that.
I'm sure it's been a thing, but I haven't heard of that.
That's just a really cool story about it.
Yeah.
If you go on TikTok, you can actually see the badger women having the,
having a piece of the net too when they were, they must have had a chance to cut them off the,
the goalposts and stuff like that.
So that was really cool.
And it just, you know, it was Sims.
I mean, they were talking, I was listening to a little bit of the ESPN this morning.
They were talking about, they were saying most professional guys can't handle the puck like what Sims did on that penalty shot.
Yes.
Oh, that was fantastic.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
And then, you know, but I guess my, I'm a little confused and someone did explain it to me a little bit,
but I don't know if you want to, if you know the rules a little bit better than I do James or,
or if you can explain it, why they did hold the penalty shot at the end of the hockey game.
Um, you know, what I, what I read is that they, I think a girl from Ohio State,
the, the ball was in the tree, the puck was in a crease and she put her glove on it or her hand on it.
Yep.
Yep.
It was a hand-to-god situation for soccer fans out there.
It was a hand-to-god situation where they, this time they called it,
this time they didn't allow it and everything.
But in, in, in this, you know, I've heard some, some grumblings.
I will, I will say that I haven't heard nearly the amount of grumbling out of Ohio State
that you normally do in these things, but we're not talking football.
So I don't know how much they're paying attention.
Um, but with, with that, I think that it's, it's one of those things where it's a pretty clear call.
I, I like referees, uh, you know, swallow in the whistle at the last, uh,
the last period of the game, the last couple minutes of the quarter, whatever the game is.
In this situation, uh, they had to do that.
They had to call that.
If it was, was constant doing it, I'd say the same thing.
Um, that's, that's just a clear, you know, uh, kind of knucklehead move,
uh, or not knucklehead move.
They just not thinking move, you know, uh, that's, that so much of sports is reaction based.
And, and more times than not, it's for the better.
That part just didn't help that young lady there.
I don't know if that, to me, that almost is not, is that true?
You had knucklehead move because if she wanted to do what she did, the puck was going in.
No matter what.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But she did, but she went in there and slid in there, tried to stop it.
Yeah, obviously hit her hand, but she could have missed the penalty shot.
So it could have, it would have ended up, you know, Ohio State could have won it at three to two.
How many times in football that a play is going 60 yards down the field and you see the corner, you know,
purposely, uh, move the, you know, do whatever he can to stop and hold the receiver and take the penalty.
I see what you're saying.
Um, I, I feel like, I, I feel like in hockey, uh, yeah, I don't know.
I don't know.
I'll be honest.
I don't know.
I just don't.
I'll say that I do think that, um, one of the things that, uh, that she could have done differently.
Uh, well, I, I don't know if she should have done it to be honest with you.
I think you even let the goal in.
I honestly, I know that I'm thinking about it.
I don't think she could.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't think she did.
I don't think she did.
Regardless, um, they want, they won game over and congratulations to them.
Uh, one more time.
Congratulations to his assumption, Lady Royals.
I don't want to keep you too long.
We got some other things to get to, but I didn't want to touch, uh, wrap up the badgers, uh,
bat men's basketball season and, and touching on that a little bit.
Uh, and, and, and I think, um, certainly, uh, I'll take any, you know, uh, any feedback, any opinions.
But I really do hope, add your fans by now, you know, you've had a little bit of time to feel and think about it and everything.
I'm not saying right after the game, but by now thinking, you know, what, that was a fun season.
Oh, it was a great season.
And if you even listen to some of the post game, post game interview stuff, they did with guard and,
uh, in guards that this was probably the most funny.
He's had it in over 30 years on his, um, since he's coached, you know, in coaching.
This is one of the most, the team played like a team and, you know, and then you said earlier about the,
uh, referees kind of swall the whistle.
You know, there were some grumbling at the end of the game that, you know, um, Tom J was fouled,
but I agree with the swall because that you can't make a, unless it's blatant.
You can't make that that be the outcome of the game.
I think the only one that I think the only one that kind of bothered me was they said on the technical fall on the bench.
Well, that one, I'm not explaining it.
Yeah, that he, you know, why not just say what he heard or what happened?
Yeah.
Why would you not say why you gave a technical?
That doesn't make any sense to me.
Yeah.
Yeah, I agree with you on that one, Randy.
I mean, that was just, I don't understand that either.
And I mean, I, I mean, but the badgers, I mean, they just, they, you know, didn't shoot very well.
The free throw line.
They missed six free throws.
The best shooting free throw team in the lead.
And you, you know, shoot 79%.
And, and plus it also didn't help that, you know, be why you shot 46% from the three point line where you're sitting,
crewing 34.
Yeah.
They just, and they were bombs too.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And they're not team right now.
They're shooting.
Well, they are.
One thing about, especially having a season like John Tonjeez had, it makes me think of this as we're talking about Casey O'Brien and everything,
neither of these kids are locals, not really even close.
They're, they're transplants, they, they came here to, to go to the university to, you know, fulfill their careers and their educations.
I bring this up in part because, I personally, I focused so much on the pipelines in, in college athletics,
in recruiting in college athletics, and now more than ever, it's important.
And, and vital to your business, and by that, I mean your university, to be able to recruit and be able to bring these kids in.
When you have solid seasons, in college sports, winning, winning everything is of course awesome and great.
But most, most people understand whether it's subconscious or not, only one team gets to do that.
So it goes, then it goes down to, well, what can this team do for me?
How can, how can they help me get to the next level?
How can they help me and my family and these things?
And, if you are a fan of Casey O'Brien, if you're a fan of Don Tonjeez, you're seeing these two individuals excel at these places,
more than they have anywhere else that they've been in their lives.
And, if you're, your Macintosh, and you're sitting there at the top of the, the university of Wisconsin,
you got to feel pretty good about this.
Again, there is not, you can't lose in the recruiting game when it comes to a season like this.
I know it didn't go the men's side, the way you'd like it to.
Certainly did on the women's hockey side, but for every, every loss, what did you gain?
And, what they've gained from the national exposure of Don Tonjeez and some of these things are Casey O'Brien.
That's recruiting gold.
There's very few universities in the big 10 that can offer that.
Certainly Ohio State, and that's an outlier.
That's a difference maker right there.
But, I'm not even sure that Michigan has some of the poll that Wisconsin does in some regard.
They've got a lot of national pundits that kind of push Michigan agendas and talk in that M and everything.
But, I don't know how respected, and I'm not saying this as an opinion.
Look at the recruiting they've done.
How many great, who's the last amazing Michigan athlete?
Certainly, what's his name and Detroit, Adon Hutchinson.
Adon Hutchinson is certainly all pro.
He might be a Hall of Famer, so there's one.
There's not too many, and there's certainly not a lot of Michigan natives going to Michigan and becoming the next great athlete.
Wisconsin's got a handful that you can talk about, and Casey O'Brien's one of them.
I also think it's interesting too, because I think the Badgers were picked to finish 12th in the big 10 this year.
And they ended up getting a third seed.
Had they not lost a Penn State?
They probably wouldn't have to go out to Denver, where BYU was right next door, and they could have played him walkie.
But, just think about that.
They went from being a, to the 12th, you know, picked to be 12th in the conference, and ended up being a third seed.
And now people are calling still for Greg Gard's head.
Yeah, yeah.
Just in my mind.
You know what?
I will say this.
We need to do something on social media.
Where, okay, you want to tweet this certain thing.
You have to be able to answer certain questions, right?
Like, what do you know about basketball?
And what do you know that Greg Gard doesn't?
Yeah.
What do you, like, I'm even saying this for me, because I get angry.
I just don't, I just don't add the comments.
I just don't take that extra step of, like, commenting it online or anything like that.
But I'm not different than any other sports fan.
I get angry at some times that I let event.
And then, like, 10 minutes later, I realize, okay, I'm acting like a fool.
I don't know anything.
These guys are paid to do this for a living.
Are we in the locker room?
Are we at all the practices?
Do we have the one on one of these kids?
Yes.
Just think before you hit send, man.
You're lucky.
Any university would be lucky to have half of these coaches, half of these players and all of that.
Kav, we appreciate you, man.
Thanks so much for joining us.
Thanks.
All right, you guys have a great night.
You too.
You too.
715-424-2600.
Just a touch or two away.
I'm the civic media app.
Feel free to call up and join the conversation.
Randy, you did some bopin' around recently over at the expo that Ross provosts from
Bernanadez was joining us talking about.
Yeah, he joined us about two weeks ago.
I believe it was.
Talk a little bit about the upcoming expo.
And of course, we had that thrilling two trips over to Green Bay on Friday and Saturday.
It was like, well, if we get over there Saturday, if the expo I love going on Saturday because the crowds are huge.
But if we don't get there till Sunday, that means we're over at the state tournament.
And guess what?
We got there Sunday.
Yeah.
And so that was awesome.
And so I was talking to Ross a little bit over at the expo.
And he said it was larger than ever.
Usually when you get into the expo center in the back, they've got maybe a few boats set up back there.
But now this year there are booths back there.
Also, he said it was the busiest they ever were.
And they said that on Saturday.
And they have pretty wide aisles.
I would say that those aisles are probably 10 to 15 feet wide.
They said if you wanted to get from one end to the other in a hurry, good luck.
Because the crowd just kind of shuffled along.
It was just 15 feet wide all the way down the aisle of about, gosh, 30 yards maybe.
So it was just a packed environment.
And they said they just had a great Friday and Saturday.
And then Sunday, of course, everything wraps up about two.
So we were there for maybe a couple of hours and got a chance to see all of the fun, cool things.
But he wanted to give us and wanted to say thank you to you for allowing this for him to come on to the show.
And share his message about pertinates as well as the expo itself.
So thought I'd pass that along too.
As long as I'm in this chair, we'll make time for fishing.
We'll make time for Ross, pertinates.
And it's not just because I like the guy and I like fishing.
I believe that even if I didn't have those things, that's my job.
We cover local.
We know we got a lot of anglers out there.
Got a lot of people that love fishing.
We're at that expo with you.
That's what we do around here is cover these things.
There are a few people that cover these things better than Randy Paul and Michael Comer.
Do you believe Michael is joining us right now?
Please be Michael.
Well, you know, I was in the front of her and some toast and I was going to buy some minerals and go fishing.
But I heard Randy Paul on the radio and I had to get on the phone.
Nicely done.
Nicely done.
Real quick, Michael.
I do want to shout out Ross Provost and pertinates.
Find out more of pertinates.com.
Be sure to follow them on YouTube as well with great videos over there.
We'll have Ross join us again real soon.
And great to hear that the expo was successful, Randy.
I appreciate the notes on that one.
Michael, how are you doing, man?
Doing all right.
There's just two things I want to touch on.
I would have called before the break.
And that was the first one.
There's this conspiracy theory out there that there should have been a technical call at the end of the game when the...
the while you player did throw down the jam after the horn.
You know, I see both sides of that one because boy oh boy, I know the rules still apply
until the officials are off the court.
So I remember there's a game, Randy and I did the other year, that the official waited till after the game to let...
or a coach let waited till after the game to give the official piece of their mind.
And they're in handshake line and the official looked at her and gave her the old hook and she was still escorted off the court
before the end of the handshake line.
So, you know, I don't know what all is really involved with that.
But it was an interesting thing to, you know, applying it to what Randy and I have seen over the years.
And then the other one was I was able to mark myself safe today from hearing people complain about the Ohio State Buckeyes getting hosed on that penalty shot and then losing it over time.
Yeah, yeah.
Ridiculous, that one.
You know, I think I could have gone either way on the BYU Wisconsin game and that call you're talking about right there or non-call that you're talking about there.
I leaned towards, here's my problem though, I'm rooting for the badgers, I'm in on the badgers.
At the same time in the situation like this, I love the idea of the madness.
I'm not sure if it's the right call or not or if it's just me and the lover of storylines and how amazingly insane we could fill the next hour or two of our show talking about that had they made that call and what hat would proceed it.
See Wisconsin wins that game, they make that call Wisconsin wins that game.
Like you want your madness, there you go.
Like that had been a amazing storyline wise.
As far as the rules go, morals go, character of the game, I do think that a lot of that karma catches up with you.
I think that if you're BYU or the Connecticut coach who I never take the time to learn his name no matter how many titles he wins because he's just a big baby.
Guys like that, people like that, I think karma always catches up whether the refs catch it or not.
You know, it was interesting to I don't know if you saw the end of the Colorado State Maryland game.
Yeah, yeah, where the freshman makes that layup immediately I said he took three steps and you know they replayed over and over and then they finally went back and they were having the post game show and they somebody must have said that to them because also they have.
This on and then they were talking to Jean Starrator about it and he was like well well you know what is they don't actually count the steps until you've got firm control of the ball and he was bringing it up to his chest and maybe was moving a little bit and didn't have two hands on it.
He took three giant, enormous steps with that left hand with that but same thing you're not they're not about to call that you know because that's what they're looking for the madness ending.
You just teed me up on one of my biggest pet peeves and all of sports and when we.
So when I'm a kid and I'm learning to play you know inner murals and I'm learning to dribble better and all these things if I traveled my coach would stop play and we had to start over and do the whole drill over again these things.
Now a days with the euro with some of the growth of the euro step and and I don't mean to put it on him but he's the biggest name and you don't get to be the face of the front of the league for nothing and LeBron James in the way he just literally crab walks with that ball.
Instead of the refs and the game of basketball being like well we got to catch this we can't dumb down our sport we can't do that they have dumb down dribbling.
One of the simplest things in the universe to dribble a ball somehow even dumber and I know I'm not supposed to use those words or anything like that.
I don't care they've taken the sport I love and made it dumber by just making you know what we're not even going to call it.
Yeah we're just going to let you know I know what we say in rules are traveling but that's just between us wake wake nudge nudge when it's LeBron or somebody like this.
That that's messed up one of the things that's not what that's the exact opposite of what we're supposed to be doing not only teaching young people young athletes women men whoever are playing the game we're supposed to be making the sport better and evolving it every year.
It's instead basketball has gone backwards in some ways one of the things somebody one said that they were told by an former NBA official that people are not coming to this to the games and paying whatever astronomical price they are.
To watch you call Michael Jordan for traveling. Yeah. You just let Michael Jordan. It's fair. That's fair. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of Michael's Michael a thing else before we go to break.
Just I guess the other shoe dropped. I'm sure I don't want to steal your any thunder on up the other shoe did drop after I left the left or left the you guys hanging on Wednesday. Yeah.
Yeah. Pat McDonald longtime Lincoln high school hockey coach. He announced he's retiring effective at the end of the season as well. Yeah. Yeah.
Had a number of these stories lately. So I appreciate you appreciate your coverage on it and talking about it man and nice work on the in the newsletter again appreciated looking forward to talking with you soon.
Yeah. I'm about hopefully be in on our Wednesday but I'll let you and Randy go back to buttering toast and catch your medals to go Christian and I'll I'll see you guys soon.
I have a good umbrella. Michael Cobra Jordan. I'll be with us on Wednesday. Real quickly before we do go to break and come back. I believe I don't know if you've got some local notes for us Randy.
I want to take some time to talk a little bit about George Foreman got our stat of the show coming up as well as we wrap up beginning and ending with women's college hockey Wisconsin forward Casey O'Brien for those that didn't hear.
I mentioned the season she had. She did also win the 2025 Patty Kitesmer Memorial Award for the top player in women's division one college hockey.
Congratulations to her and again on Wisconsin and congratulations to the Badgers. We'll be back with more show and we're able to do that.
Thanks to our friends and family natural foods and quality plus printing.
Welcome back everybody. Playmakers Monday edition of the show James and Randy hanging out with you. We got plenty more to talk about and the phone lines are wide open.
Hit us in the numbers seven one five four two four twenty six hundred. A big thank you to family natural foods and quality plus
printing sponsoring this hour letting us catch up on local sports with you Randy. What do you have for us?
High school boys state basketball championships were held at the Cole Center in Madison this past Saturday.
In division one Wisconsin Lutheran home to Duke's con conniple won the title by rallying to defeat Wisconsin Valley conference champions Marshall.
What a battle that was 57 to 55. Marshall was holding on to the lead with about a minute to go and just couldn't put it away.
I really thought they might. I did too. Man they played well. The Vikings moved up a division this year after winning it in division two last year.
Landon Lee led the Tigers with twenty two points. He had four three pointers and that effort where they came up just a little bit short but congratulations to Marshall.
Great season for them undefeated in conference and getting the silver ball at state division two after defeating was saw East 75 to 63 on Friday.
Wallotosa West upset the number one seed received park 60 to 57 to claim its first ever state title and its first ever state appearance.
From division three Milwaukee Academy of science upset top seeded freedom 57 to 54 to claim their first state championship both teams were making their third appearance in Madison.
Division two saw bond well winners of the central Wisconsin East conference fall hired to lacrosse a coin of seventy four to forty five.
The blue golds had defeated mineral point the number one team in division two in the sectional finals before blowing out the second ranked bears.
And in division five top seeded Cochran Fountain cities top second seeded Shaboyan Lutheran 60 to 54. It was the first state championship in two appearances for CFC.
Well beside the assumption royals winning the state championship in division five nine days ago ending with a record of twenty nine and one as they defeated Barnabelle thirty four to thirty.
They were also had a few of their girls named to the all state team senior Anna schooly who finished with thirteen point nine points per ball game five point eight rebounds and three point four steals.
Was all named to the all state squad as was junior Jordan let Jay glinsky she averaged fifteen point one points per ball game and forty five point six percent of her three point attempts honorable mention went to Sarah Shaw who averaged twelve points per game five point nine steals per game.
And personally I think she probably should have made the all state. Yeah those numbers definitely because of course you're in good hands with.
Oh nice lift all nice. Sorry. That was good. And by the way next week on playmakers we're hoping that assistant coach Paul Jay glinsky will join us at about five ten to talk about all of these awesome accomplishments of their team.
And by the way assumptions Logan Maister also competed in the three point challenge this past Saturday at the cold center before the championship games he advanced to the semi finals before being eliminated he finished in fourth place a way to go to Logan.
Yeah Jordan Jay glinsky would have been in the competition she was the top percentage three point shooter on the season but fortunately she was playing the state championship.
She was a little busy. She was a little busy. She was not able to play in that. I'm guessing Jordan's good with it. I'm guessing you don't want to speak for the young lady but I'm guessing she's going to spoke for it. She was fine.
Great coverage as always Randy appreciated. Thank you so much for that. We had so much fun in Green Bay last weekend. Wow that was a blast.
I feel like the stories of the trip of the experience are just as amazing. So that's really cool. Happy great work by you and Michael again appreciate the coverage as always.
And enjoy the breath while we wait for what two minutes for the next season to begin and everything and we've got more summer sports coming up Michael just sent out an email about some of that and everything and we're touching out of you Pam I heard talking about it a little bit as well.
So look forward to that. I want to take a moment to real quick they get to our stat of the show but it also leans into talking about someone and our stat of the show everybody is 45.
45. That is how old George Foreman was winning the heavyweight title of the in the world now I understand to our younger listeners out there and appreciate you guys.
The heavyweight boxing in general let alone the heavyweight title doesn't mean what it used to and even by the time my generation came around it didn't have the punch that it used to it didn't have the pull that it used to and everything but it still meant something and George Foreman winning the heavyweight title at the age of 45.
And unfortunately because of because he was so good as a salesman and because of his grill sales and TV interviews and smile and being being seen as almost a caricature of George Foreman.
And to be fair too boxing has a long history of you know people wondering hey is this is this guy fighting a kangaroo just for show or something like this.
So is this all just a bit or what have you and even if it isn't a bit people just kind of like well that's good for him and then moving on.
We have we have we have lost sight of the accomplishment that this man has had now it takes two seconds for somebody to bring up LeBron James and at what he's doing at his age or what a Alexander Ovechkin is about to do and breaking when Gretzky's record at his age or even joke of it and tennis you know some of these things.
But all of this stuff comes up long before anybody will bring up the fact that George Foreman won the heavyweight title at 45 years old.
Anybody over the age of 30 right now tell me how you're feeling.
You got any aches, you got any pains, you got any hurt and how did you get most of that doing nothing.
Walking, living, breathing, I was shoveling the other day Randy and I've got some pain in between my shoulder blades where it hurts whenever I breathe deep.
I can't I couldn't fight I fight I couldn't survive a fight with my shadow right now.
Like what and I know how to fight and I'm an actual like I grew up with a boxer as a father I know how to handle myself and wouldn't last two seconds with my own shadow.
This man won the heavyweight title in the world and not only won it but won it doing something that nobody ever gave George Foreman credit for.
He won it with his brain.
Go back and watch that fight and all you got to do is watch you know I'm sure you can find the highlight and everything but I rewatch it this weekend and watching it with my dad and and I understand that boxing for most people is just punch punch harder than the other guy.
Nobody that you've ever seen get paid to box did that nobody that you ever seen paid to box I'm not even talking about winners great fighters or anything like that I'm talking about anybody.
Going out there has ever approached boxing that way Mike Tyson was one of the smarter athletes you'll ever see that's something you ain't going to hear anybody else talking about.
George Foreman one of the smarter boxes you would ever see Michael more has got him on age got him on energy all of these different things.
But George has can take a punch George Foreman could take a punch better than most people could ever take a punch in boxing and he's taking these punches right to the face.
And Michael more gets a bit winded and and all you need if you are George Foreman is one opening and Michael more just let's down his left just a little bit pop just one pop from George Foreman the cameras not even really there the announcer doesn't even quite catch it for he's talking about Foreman hopefully being able to you know make this a fight and everything and then boom and Foreman wins and the first thing George does is get down on his knees and thank God.
I go to his go to his corner like a professional and then he can't help himself he just collapses and it's one of the more cool moments I think of in sports.
I grew up in an Ali House I grew up loving boxing George Foreman was always respected in my house but I'm not going to act like just because he passed that he was one of the great names and we always talk about him or anything.
But I think when somebody passes one of the honors we have of the living is to remember them as the complete person and see their whole story we get to do something that few people get to do in life.
We get to see the arc of a human being their complete storyline and while this guy did something to Joe Lewis that nobody on the planet thought could happen including Howard Cosell who was calling the match George Foreman was supposed to earn his bones against Joe Lewis.
Joe Lewis was the man nobody was beaten Joe Foreman whooped Joe Lewis he whooped him.
He may that may be the only time you can say that I know Ali beat Joe Lewis he didn't whoop him George Foreman go back and watch that fight.
It shouldn't it that's not supposed to happen in boxing and George Foreman wouldn't did it long before Mike Tyson George Foreman was that.
Everything that my generation loved about Mike Tyson George Foreman was already doing it man the playback was already the playback was already written for Mike.
George Foreman went out there and did something that few people could ever do to Joe Lewis and then 20 years later went and did it to Michael Moore when nobody thought he could.
And among all these things they pale in comparison to him as a man because all I saw people talking about in social media was people raving about George Foreman the man and how kind he was.
How he take extra time to talk to you and hear you out how he be the butt of the Ali jokes he take it so that he can promote the sport of boxing around the world.
How he took all of this he took the punch left and right in the ring and out of the ring and did it with a smile and was the last one laughing because man that grill sold well.
And it's so cool to hear not just boxers and athletes talking about George Foreman but hearing people that I never would have dreamed talking about him and having George Foreman stories to the point that right before we came back from break Pam had a George Foreman story.
Thank you Pam. Just an incredible life and we get so caught up nowadays and oh he was the greatest this or the greatest that I'm not looking at that I'm looking at a great life.
Interesting my grandson was over and he was looking on his phone and says hey grandpa you ever hear of George Foreman and I said yeah you won the gold medal in 1968 and yeah he was a great boxer undefeated until he went up against the rope at Opa against Muhammad Ali and then lost for the first time there.
And same thing great humanitarian and things and you're right though when you talk about boxing the younger generation has no idea what boxing was like back in that era.
1976 were fortunate enough to go to the Olympics in Montreal and so we got tickets to the finals.
Oh my god 12 out of the 13 boxers were America and I think they all won if I remember yes yeah you know it was crazy.
Oh I just look at my goose bumps here man I didn't know you got to do oh my god it was the spings brothers were boxing there.
Sugar and Leonard Box. Sugar was there. I mean probably about three sections over after every match also we see this commotion over there.
And we realized the boxers are going over there because our families are sitting there. So we go over there we're getting autographs from these people so somewhere in my mother's house.
There are autographs of these people but yeah the the era is completely different now but yeah George Foreman you know again all those things that you just said how true they are about them.
And unfortunately I think people if they think of George Foreman if they are from a you know I air gone past probably think of the loss to Muhammad Ali more than the wings that he had.
Yeah that's the unfortunate part of it I think. The loss to Ali in boxing realms as far as on paper and records and all that.
The loss against Ali is not nearly as significant as the win against Joe Lewis or the win against Michael Moore and yet you're right.
And that's that's a shame and a shame on the person more than not on George not on George that's not on George at all.
That's a shame on the person that thinks that he had 81 fights as a professional 76 of them winning 76 of them and 68 by knockout.
Yeah. And go back again another thing we all imagine George Foreman as soon as I say his name older George Foreman yeah go back and look at that man.
Oh my god. He was like built in a lab to box that's that I mean more than any other boxer at his time this is what I'm saying when I'm talking about Mike Tyson and everything that this was him before that.
And he was he was a bigger stronger Mike Tyson than his day right.
Yeah and just a good person by everything we can tell.
When did you touch on a couple of other things with you Randy certainly talk some baseball as we were just days away from opening day man.
That's awesome. I don't know if anybody else saw this did touch on it a little bit last week.
The Brewers have settled under short set situation.
Oh you're going to be moving joy or tease over to third base Bryce Trang going to stay at second.
It looks like and yeah.
So and who they have at short stop.
I haven't really necessarily heard who they were kind of trying our teeth over there.
They had Trang there for a while but I think he actually came up with a sore arm doing all the tries and plays and throwing so often.
So I don't think I'd move a gold lover off the second base.
No no no you can't.
It does lead to questions about some of the off season moves and why you didn't cover this sooner and some of that.
And I understand the the the outcry about some of that.
But you know when we're talking about this team money always always going to come up.
And I think like Don all Meyer said that Tony colonizer courts quotes all the time.
The answer to all your questions is money.
If it wasn't we'd still have William Thomas.
Right.
It's so smart.
Yeah.
And you know I think that you can get you can you can do a couple of things.
You can get bent out of shape about that or you can see okay well who's going to step up and I can't do anything about that.
But I can certainly you know why focus on the players and the team and you know enjoy.
Enjoy the season.
Think about what the management for the brewers has been able to do with the limited amount of money they have.
I mean basically they're going to lose corporate burns right.
Yeah.
Because he was in the last year and they could have got nothing for him.
What they get instead joy or tease.
And they got DL Hall who struggles a little bit but you know he's still got a possibility.
But my goodness.
And where's corporate burns now is Ian Baltimore.
Yeah.
Nope.
He was there one year one and done.
And now I try to remember he went Arizona.
Yeah he's in Arizona.
Okay.
Yeah.
So kudos to the you know manager.
Absolutely.
I know they've been they're high on some of those young players that they've been working on trying to get at short stuff.
I think one of them's named Durbin.
I might be wrong on that.
But you know got to give him an opportunity because that's what look at RTS.
Look at terrain.
You know give him an opportunity and next thing you know your solid at the corners too.
The brewers are in a situation where you're hurt almost either way.
You've been doing so well.
This team has been playing so good and they've been doing it in spite of them not spending money.
So as ownership looks at this and if they're not concerned with winning a championship and they're just looking at finishing in the black.
They've got everything they could ask for.
They're they're winning in spite of that play and look at how they're doing.
So their argument is why should we spend money?
You know our teams are already doing well.
As a fan as I think sports people who are covering this this team and all that.
We're looking at it as you're a piece or you're a player to away from maybe winning the world series here.
The them I don't see the I don't they have not shown us anything to not only earn the benefit of the doubt but to show us that they they care about that and that they are playing for that.
How are they going to ever possibly match the money that's being thrown out by the Dodgers the Yankees Houston even now San Francisco.
You know they just can't they just don't have the resources because they get penalized right.
Yeah that's what it's it's not like there's a cap there is but it's just a luxury tax right.
And so a big deal we got bottomless pockets you know so we can just buy anybody one if we got to pay a tax or pay a tax but we get the best players.
You don't have that in the NFL that's the beauty of NFL.
I mean it's a solid cap and you know I wish I would do that in more sports but it's not about the equity it's more about people at the top winning.
You mentioned football though and I will stay I as we go to break here.
I'll maintain on one of my hotter takes and to be fair to everybody there's no way you can prove or disprove what I'm about to say.
But I don't believe under a shadow of it now if you could put him on a lie detector test if Jerry Jones took a lie detector test.
I don't believe his biggest goal with the Cowboys is winning a Super Bowl.
Right.
I don't believe that.
I don't believe it.
It's really head scratching isn't he wants that team to be worth more he wants he looks at that team is any other business
and he wants it to be the biggest us the biggest most expensive team in all of professional sports
and he's still trying to be bigger than soccer teams out in Europe.
He's still trying to compete with that.
That's his real goal.
Not winning a Super Bowl.
He's already done that.
He doesn't care about the fans in that way.
They any younger fans have never got to experience a Super Bowl too bad as far as Jerry Jones is concerned.
His concern.
He'll tell everybody because he's smarter this job.
He'll tell you that's about winning a championship and how dare you and I love this sport and I'm a good old Southern boy.
And all I care about is winning footballs.
Get out of here man.
No.
No.
You spent time around a guy like that you you understand what really matters to him and that's finishing in the black.
Like his oil.
That's where that what really matters.
And I worry about that with others what was franchises.
Like the Milwaukee Brewers or teams like that where you don't we don't know because they're not as silly as Jerry Jones
and doing a podcast every five seconds or can't wait to call up somebody after a loss
and tell him how much he loves his team and how hard he's trying to win and blah blah blah.
We'll take a quick time out.
We'll come back and wrap up the show.
Thanks to our friends at quality plus printing and family natural foods here at WFHR.
I'd play it again.
Why not?
Welcome back to Playbakers here at WFHR everybody.
Randy and James hanging out with you.
We're going to wrap up the show.
Take you to the top of the hour.
Stick around.
Got Pete Schwabba with night light coming up.
A great show that if you haven't shot checked out before and curse you too.
You know another one we should just real briefly mention sorry James.
The retirement of coach Pat McDonald.
Been doing for quite a number of years now.
And every time we see each other we always talk about the good times that we had away way back in the early 2000s
where we'd be making those trips and it was really unique because it seemed like for some unknown reason.
It was like the last Saturday and February right and we'd be going over to Claire LaCrosse
for a state sectional semi final or final.
And it was just like a beautiful day like today.
And you're kind of in the middle of winter and you're looking forward to spring and it was just one of those gorgeous days.
And some of those games, oh my gosh, overtime thrillers are right down to the wire.
One of the state tournament games, six over times that Terry Stake broadcast.
And I was fortunate enough to go there the next day and go into the semi final they were just exhausted after playing six over times.
Some great teams and he's going to be missed that's for sure.
And every time I see him we're going to reminisce about those old days too.
As we say goodbye to some of these coaches, it's all the more opportunity for us to appreciate their legacies and what they've done.
We've had a couple of names recently that we've been talking about.
I think I also give us this opportunity to be encouraged and look forward to the next level, the next stage for not only those individuals and what they do,
but also for the programs and what's going to happen there and what's going to go on with those.
I know we'll be paying attention and I appreciate the notes Randy.
And it's kind of like when we talked about with Greg Gardt, you know, you don't know what goes in the locker room.
You don't know what goes on in practices.
You don't know the relationships that he has with the players.
And for those people who have never coached him, you know, they think they know how to do it.
But unless you've actually been there and you have that relationship with those kids and you're pouring your heart and soul into it.
Yeah, it's easy to say, well, we should get rid of this guy, but put yourself in their shoes and see how you would do.
Over the weekend, the previous weekend, Dick Vitel had a very heartfelt goodbye as he was doing his last broadcast.
And as we're talking about this, just kind of leans right into what the Dick Vitel conversation actually wanted to do this last week when he didn't get a chance to just want to congratulate him on an amazing career.
He's not going to go away completely. He'll still be on sports center over here and there or whatever.
But as far as doing live games and that you won't be seeing Dicky Vee doing that anymore.
It's a shame. One of the characters of college basketball that we've come to love over the years, over the decades.
Certainly his different relationships have really been highlighted over time.
I'm not going to get into a bio on Dick Vitel to everybody that already knows about the guy.
But I do appreciate it. And it does remind me again, it reminds me of losing Bill Walton and not hearing him call games anymore.
How much I miss that was so unique.
You know, it's really easy to get caught up in nostalgia.
I am excited though for the people that we still do get to hear.
Oh, you know, Grand Hill is back with Raf, you know, on those CBS teams.
Yeah.
And just not having Jim Nance there because he just wanted to go back to golf, right?
Right.
That three, someone's always so much fun at tournament time especially.
I know for me football wise, I love Kevin Harlan.
And we've got so many locals here in state that we get to hear, that we know we love.
And so familiar with those voices set tonight.
We're talking about it just last week, about looking forward to that coming up and everything.
Brian Anderson, right?
I mean, he's nationally, he's on these national games for the, for the NCA tournament.
And he's, he's our brewer.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And of course, locally we've got Randy and Michael calling games.
So we've still got that. You guys don't get to retire.
It is in your contract, by the way.
You can not retire.
I'm sorry if you had plans.
You can't go anywhere.
Hey, that'd be a great way to go out though, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's a great point.
That's a good one.
I could not, you know what?
I couldn't say anything.
I'd have to let you out on that one.
Real quick, no, as we're leaving here, Randy.
A quick story that came up, or a story that came up just right before we got on Aaron,
I didn't get to dive too far into this.
But a wide receiver, a young wide receiver, all pro for the Los Angeles Rams,
Pooka Nacua.
He's 23 years old and he said in an interview recently that he is hoping to,
his plan is to retire at the age of 30.
It's kind of something we're seeing a little bit more in NFL players,
locally Chris Borland, I think is a note.
He didn't plan on retiring.
He was forced to, but retiring early.
This might be the next level of that, of athletes kind of having this plan.
Now, you want to make God laugh, make plans, who knows what's going to happen.
But I do find that interesting, the idea of mapping that out a bit more,
and saying, well, I know I'm going to take some trauma.
But I'm not going to have a level there, so I could tell my family,
look them in the eye and say, well, I get eight years of this.
Give me eight years.
Make all the money I can, get all the championships I can, whatever else,
and then I'm done.
Which is especially interesting since I think the average length of an NFL player's career is four years.
So to plan out to eight years, you know, you're hoping your health will hang on,
and you can accumulate as much wealth as possible, too.
Kind of crazy when you think about that, too.
I thought that was an interesting note.
And I wanted to note that our Wisconsin Rapids rafters are getting ready to sell single-day tickets.
They'll be coming up on the 31st.
Everybody be sure to get your tickets and get ready for opening day.
Coming up on the May 31st.
We're only about two months away from that.
May 21st?
Yeah, maybe I've got that.
We're right around the customer.
The brewers start this Thursday against the nephews.
And the brewers are right around the corner.
Spring is sprung.
We'll be talking baseball on Wednesday and talking plenty more.
I'm sure taking a look at our sports schedule.
We're it.
Playmakers.
I only get to say that like once or twice a year.
Yeah.
Where the only thing out the sports schedule for Pam and you guys is playmakers.
And, you know, well, you know what?
You guys, you guys worked hard enough.
I'll take care of playmakers.
I'll take.
A lot of people don't know this.
Pam actually writes this whole show.
We're just reading script.
Yes, yes.
But you know what, Pam?
You take a break.
I'll go ahead and I'll just cover playmakers for the next couple of lines.
Yeah.
I mean, I told everybody I'm an actor.
You guys know of this acting right now.
No, no, no.
We do want to say a big shout out to our sponsors, family and retro foods, quality plus printing,
giving us three hours every week to talk sports, to cover local sports with all of you.
We greatly appreciate them doing that.
Thanks so much to them for putting into our community and putting into our station there.
We appreciate that.
And we'll stay local next Monday with Coach Jake Linsky coming in and chatting a little bit about that wonderful last weekend.
Looking forward to that and looking forward to hanging out next week.
Randy, thanks so much for joining us.
Thanks, Randy.
Have a great night, everybody.
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