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From the Civic Media World Headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, it's the Todd Alba Show.
And now, pursuing truth wherever it may lead,
Here's your host, Todd Alba.
Across Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio Network and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.
Good afternoon, everybody.
Todd Alba, along with Mr. Aaron Zommers, our producer and engineer on the board.
It is six minutes past the hour of three o'clock.
Welcome into hour number two.
of the big broadcast here on a TGIF Friday, the 26th of September, 2025.
It is a great day to be a Wisconsinite.
Welcome in, everybody, for the world headquarters of Civic Media Downtown Madison at the intersection of state and fair child.
One more look, Summer, is just because I want those fine folks who are watching on YouTube, Facebook.
Whatever else they stream it on the look of that the lovely shot on the same Davidson Street cam So beautiful lovely afternoon in downtown Madison get outside.
I'm gonna I gotta measure what I'm gonna do, but after the show zombers I'm out of here.
I'm gonna get outside
Todd will create a window that opens
Maybe that's dangerous because we're on the second we are on the
second
floor
But wherever you're at get outside enjoy I went down to my probably my favorite place of Madison Memorial Union Terrace last night and You know I have spotted cow often but last night I had a hankering because I saw it on the on the tap a little lining coogles Oktoberfest so I had some Oktoberfest and and a cheeseburger and I sat and also I Don't I probably talked about this on the show before
One of my favorite things to do and it's I hope it doesn't sound too creepy because I'm not looking at anyone physically but I like to go down to the terrace and get a beverage whatnot and plant myself at a table alone, but close to other people particularly college students Because they talk amongst themselves and they have no concept
that anybody could possibly be hearing what they are saying three feet from them, maybe even two feet from them.
And they have these, and it's, A, I learn things about a younger generation, and B, I find it enormously entertaining.
I could see how somebody could think it's creepy, but knowing you, it's definitely not.
Because
they're to my back.
I'm not ogling anybody.
It's just people watching.
But it's listening.
But it's people listening.
That's exactly what it is.
It's
not eavesdropping to find secret information.
It's
just, you
know, just like if you're sitting in a cafe and you overhear something, you're like, oh, that's interesting.
Right, exactly.
And so I'm not sure it must be rush or something for the fraternities and story because it seemed like there were a larger amount of usual than and they were divided up in gender So you had dudes sitting at a couple of tables and then girls sitting at a couple of tables and the girls were right behind me and They were carrying on about about
Some things I probably can't repeat on the air, but just, you know, like, yeah, so I was trying to get my clothes, and I, what kind of bag do you have?
Because I have this kind of bag.
They're talking about sort of bags they use that transport their clothes, and then the guys were talking about, you know, I wasn't gonna tell her that, you know, apparently about some girl he was dating.
And my favorite one was from last summer.
I think it was last summer where two girls right behind me and I'm like two feet from me and they're talking in a rather loud voice and there's a place downtown called the James which is a big apartment that's mostly college students and I've never been to it but apparently it must be a hot tub on the top of the James oh no and and one girl says um
Just so you know, the hot tub of the James is not good.
Like I was there and like so and so and I were hanging out and this other guy came and then it just got really creepy, really fast.
I love the conversation because I was never cool in college.
I never had any experiences that you would want to ease up on, but it entertains me.
Now, is that is that too creepy?
I don't think so.
You know, I had a similar, like a smaller version of that today.
We were walking back from getting some coffee at Wonder State and walked past a few random, presumably college students and just hearing some very interesting conversations that I certainly cannot repeat on air.
So whatever you're doing, people watching, people listening, our own Terry Barr, the great Terry Barr cohost of Max Inc Radio.
at six o'clock on Saturday nights, if you don't live in Madison and can hear it over the air on WMDX, check it out on the Civic Media app via WMDX.
Terry Barr says on YouTube, listening can give you great story ideas too.
She is a thousand percent right, as she usually is.
Yeah, she's also gonna be on Nightlight with Pete Schwabba tonight for another Bar Band Friday.
Love
it.
Tune in tonight, Pete Schwabba's show from six until eight, Nightlight, the great Terry Barr.
with Bar Band Friday night.
Great segment indeed.
Speaking of great segments, it's 11 minutes now past the hour of three o'clock.
Time once again to play Civic Media's Green and Gold, text to win multi-state contest, daily prize of $200 cash and gold jewelry.
And everyone who enters gets put into the kitty to win the one grand prize, two club level indoor seats to Green Bay versus Minnesota.
It's a Green Bay home game on November 23rd of this year, of course, at 12 noon.
The winner will get a gas card as well to get into the game and home.
It is a $1,550 value.
Open up your Civic Media app.
If you don't have it, you can download it for free at your Apple and Android device.
Open up the app.
First 10 stations are the ones that we're on.
Choose one closest to you or the top one, WAUK or MDX, whichever you prefer.
Open up one of the stations in the lower right hand corner.
It will say text.
Click on that.
And now I'm going to give you the keyword today to text in to enter the green and gold text to win contest.
The word this hour is coach, coach, C-O-A-C-H.
The word is coach.
In order to win, you need a good coach.
C-O-A-C-H.
The word is coach.
Please text into the civic media app you until four o'clock to get it in.
Good luck, everybody.
There you go until four o'clock.
So make sure you text carefully, as they say.
All right.
At the bottom of the hour or just thereafter, our friend, ongoing contributor, Brady Ewing, will be with us talking sports and life and all those types of things.
And we'll talk a little bit of brewers.
Let's get this in quickly, Zombers, because Pat Murphy, they had the big pancake breakfast with Murph today.
And Donald Driver, former Packer, was there as well and other celebrities.
And part of the proceeds, whatever, went to charity.
But it was kind of a fan appreciation thing.
They were giving away free pocket pancakes.
Murph was was flipping them, literally flipping flapjacks.
And then he took a moment to address the crowd assembled.
in the parking lot outside Amfam Field this morning.
And it's a little, audio isn't great just because it was outside, but this is courtesy of the Brewers.
Here's Murph's message to the fans at Amfam this morning.
You know, you gotta keep it light.
You gotta continue to do the things that you did all year.
Now, Majority Baseball says you can't win like that.
It says for years that teams with small budgets, teams that don't have a lot of home runs can't win at all.
We're here to prove that you can.
There you go.
Here to prove that you can, Murph says.
We'll talk with Brady at the bottom of the hour about this great magical run of the Brew Crew.
They get underway once again in the final three games of the regular season.
In Milwaukee, Ampham Field, the Reds in town fighting for their playoff lives.
They'll have a lot to play for against the crew.
Crew has to win one more game, and or the Philadelphia Phillies have to lose one for the Brewers to have home field advantage of the number one seed in Major League Baseball.
You can hear the pregame show at 6.35 with the first pitch just after seven o'clock.
You can hear it on the old home station.
WRCE and Richland Center, WISS and Ashgosh Bagash.
WCQM in Park Falls and WBZH in Hayward, Wisconsin.
Cannot wait to listen and watch these final three games and then the postseason ramps up.
Right now, 15 past three o'clock.
Time once again to play What's Worse.
Let's go.
Time once again for what's worse, nothing of way, no prize money involved in this portion, still doing the green and gold thing.
It gets confusing, I know.
But this segment is simply to have your voice heard at all 10 news, weather and sports news, weather news, talking sports, well, whether to sports stations across the civic media, radio network, timely, timely indeed.
as Mike Lucas is fond of saying, because we had this story earlier of Ryan Starnard, or what is it, Starnard?
I
think Starnard,
yeah.
If he's not gonna be the thing long enough to matter, but the Democrat candidate for governor who wants now his proposal to sell alcohol and beer at high school games, because what could possibly go wrong with that?
Well, here now, maybe this could help him out, the category today of what's worse, what's worse, decaf coffee,
non-alcoholic beer What's worse decaf coffee or na beer 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 You could also Texas on the old civic media app as well, but the category decaf coffee or na beer
What's worse 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 you can also chime this in on YouTube and Facebook and Twitter and all that kind of good stuff as well I love the photograph today's honors for those watching on on on the stream They have a they have a carafe of coffee and it's just kind of a green piece of tape and black Marker that says decaf stuck to it And that's a way a lot of people do it.
It's just an afterthought, right?
And now look there's this is the humorous side of this, right?
But there's, there's serious sides to both of these things we'll get into here.
Well, I guess number one, I used to own a couple of coffee shops.
So I know a couple of things about coffee.
And this is, this is, some people find this disturbing, but it's true.
Decaf coffee is one of the worst things for the environment because I did not know that you didn't know that because, because people think, and I get it.
If you, you know, if you don't know, you don't know.
there's no such thing as a decaf coffee tree.
Like you can't, you can't just grow coffee and say, oh, this is decaffeinated coffee.
All coffee that grows on trees is caffeinated.
So the way that you decaffeinate coffee is you take the coffee cherries and you take the hulls and the husks off of the fruit, the actual fruit part.
And then the seed of the coffee cherry is what we know as the coffee bean.
It's green.
when you first comes out of the cherry and you dry it.
So the way that you decaffeinate coffee is you take that green coffee, the bean, before it's roasted and becomes brown, you take the green coffee and you have to run copious, i.e.
huge amounts of water over it to take the caffeine out.
So it's kind of like almond milk where
it just loses tons of water.
And you can't do anything productive without water.
It's wastewater.
And so it's terrible for the environment to, to produce decaffeinated coffee.
Also a secret.
There is some caffeine, even in decaf coffee.
It's just a very small amount.
Right.
So that's number one.
I told that to a customer at my shop one time and she goes, you've ruined my coffee experience for me.
I'm serious.
I'm sorry.
The truth hurts.
Uh, no, I don't think there's any environmental negatives about.
Non-alcoholic beer and I get it before people start adding me.
I get it people with certain heart conditions It's very important.
They don't have caffeine I get that and certainly anybody with an addiction problem or alcohol You know, you don't want people having you know alcohol so there's places for both but on the fun side
Far's taste or whatever.
What's worse decaf coffee or non-alcoholic beer 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 Zombers I'll give you ours on the other side.
What's yours?
Give us a ring a ling There will be no decaf coffee in my cup.
I'll tell you that back after this on the civic media ready to
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What's worse category decaf coffee or non-alcoholic beer decaf coffee or na beer What's worse 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 or you could text us on the old civic media's App the civic media app Matt great UPS driver and Michelin Center out there doing God's work delivering all the time to order crap online
I guess you know it gives him and all the other drivers a job But just be respectful and thankful of our great drivers because they're hauling all the crap that we ordered into our our to our houses Without trucks
when
America stops.
Yes, it's a hundred percent true great bumper sticker Matt Michelin center says when Letterman ie David David Letterman had heart surgery.
He had to switch to decaf
Whenever he took a drink a little jingle would play that said decaffeinated coffee.
It's useless warm brown water.
I Remember that I can't sing the tune, but yes, I had forgotten it.
So I appreciate you Texting that in Robert up there in the cross listening to us on wonderful W. L. E. Pardon me WLCX get it right yet our great station lacrosse WLCX
Stop by, say hi at the station sometime.
Robert in La Crosse says, I prefer plain black tea.
Oh, there you.
Well, it's not a category, but I know a lot of people.
I found that one Rishi tea recently that I liked.
Otherwise, I'm not big on on tea.
But thank you, Robert.
Appreciate your listenership up there.
Beautiful La Crosse by Granddad's Bluff.
Have you been to Granddad's Bluff before?
I have not.
Oh, you should.
Fantastic look out there on La Crosse on WM DX Tyler.
up in Columbia County says decaf coffee is worse.
I stayed at a hotel recently, one that had the cake cup brewers in the room.
There was only decaf cake cups.
Ugh.
I had to go to the front desk to ask to get some just to find out.
And the delivery is after checkout.
The delivery was after checkout the next morning.
Where were you staying, Tyler?
Ugh.
From that hotel, nay nay, stay away.
What's worse?
decaf coffee, or at a beer, Matt and Milton, saying decaf coffee is worse than non-alcoholic beverages, or as worse, he should say, as non-alcoholic beverages are very good these days, and rather enjoy them.
That's a great point, because they have come a long, long ways.
I mean, there's some non-alcoholic beers out there, if you just taste it, I can't necessarily tell the difference right away.
And as we said earlier, it certainly has a place.
Usefulness eight five five seven five two four eight four two.
Let's go to Whistler out in beautiful Richland County listening on to be RCE Whistler decaf coffee or any beer.
What's worse?
Any beer is gotta be worse.
Why I can always have peanut butter and jelly on toast and dunk it in the decaf.
He'll taste like coffee.
All right.
But you don't.
And what's the sense of non-alcoholic beer?
Well, I like to say,
right.
I mean, I like, I like the taste of a good beer.
I also like, you know, a little bit of a buzz if I'm not going to drive.
But I understand there are people that, you know, obviously have alcohol or addiction problems that don't want the alcohol.
So I think that's the place for it.
And that's fine.
But now
in terms of taste, would you say that.
then any beers come a long ways or not so much?
Yeah, but I still don't appreciate
it.
Well, yeah, it's fine.
It's America.
All right.
Thanks, Whistler.
Have a great weekend out there, beautiful Richland County.
Go up to our friends at Oakwood Fruit Farm, one of our great sponsors at Civic Media.
They have things, do-ins go on, great apples.
It's the best caramel apples in the world, bar none.
I'm an effectionato, Oakwood Fruit Farm, Richland County.
I haven't really had many caramel apples, because I had braces by the time I was old enough,
and then you
just can't
do it.
I am going to bring you a caramel apple from Oakwood Fruit Farm, and your life is going to change.
Well, all right, I look forward to it.
Joseph on YouTube says, I agree with PJ.
Well, first I guess we should say PJs.
PJ says decaf coffee is worse, terrible flavor.
Any beer actually tastes like beer.
And then Joseph says, I agree with PJ, I have discovered some NA beer that's very tasty.
Decaf coffee serves no useful purpose.
Mr. Zomers, decaf coffee or NA beer, what's worse?
First, I think Robert and McFarland had a funny text.
Go ahead.
We said, sorry, can't help you out with this one.
I've had neither.
Go big or go home.
All right Gordy Kopke down there another great sponsor of Civic Media Kopke's greenhouse town of Dunn here in beautiful Dane County outside Oregon Gordy says decaffeinated coffee is like kissing my sister at social gatherings I could knock down a few NA beers and still drive home legally
I Think I am gonna have to say that decaf coffee is worse though because at least for me
I feel like any beer has more of a purpose.
I mean, obviously,
if you have
heart conditions and you just really love the taste of coffee and can't have it because of caffeine, sure.
But I don't know.
I just feel like if I don't want caffeine, then I won't have coffee.
But if you're
at
an event and everyone's having a beer and you don't want alcohol or can't have alcohol, then you can have that.
And I don't know.
This is my opinion.
This is very, very easy for me.
It's not even close.
Decaf coffee is a million times worse because as other people pointed out, you know, there are any beers that taste pretty good.
Decaf coffee, A, it's terrible for the environment and B, it tastes like crap.
You buy a bit.
You're running so
much water out of it.
It's
not
just getting out of the caffeine.
And if you, you know, if you can't handle the caffeine, well, then have tea, have whatever.
Right, just don't drink coffee.
Or take a little bit of coffee and put a bunch of hot water into it, like mom does.
All right, stay tuned.
A guy who will get you caffeinated on the other side, Brady Ewing, joins us after this.
Welcome back to the title of our show on the Civic Media, radio network 35 now past the hour of three o'clock on a Friday.
TGIF, it is the 26th of September.
Glad to have you.
Long's hour is on the board.
Play the tunes.
That's a song only means one person is on the other side.
We'll get to him in just a moment.
But first of all, I have to give out the magic word this hour for the green and gold.
Text to win contest you have until four o'clock to text via the civic media app.
The word this hour is coach Coach in order to win a game.
You've got to have a good coach C O A C H text the word coach right now to the civic media app up for grabs $200 cash and gold jewelry and everybody's entered in for the grand prize tickets to the green
and gold.
Not only is he a great player, but also is a great coach.
And let me make this clear, a two-time Big Ten champion for the Wisconsin Badger football team, NFL veteran with Atlanta and Jacksonville.
He joins us every other Friday from his home in beautiful Richland County, Wisconsin, our mutual hometown, the one, the only Brady Ewing.
Brady hard.
Todd,
I'm great.
How
are you doing?
Oh, I'm great.
And for those watching on the stream who, you know, they got to look at my ugly mug and they're like, well, at least every other Friday there's a handsome guy on.
We have technical difficulties.
So we were hearing the voice of Brady Ewing.
This one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's
fantastic.
Sorry about that.
I don't know what's going
on.
I've got my new mic rolling, which I know we had some issues with last time I was on.
That sounds funny.
I think
that might be messing with something on my computer.
That's
fine.
But I just wanted to explain to people why.
Because they're going to say, we want it.
Your public wants you, Brady.
Your fan base wants you.
So I got to tell people what's going on.
But your voice, your ear, your life.
And that's fantastic.
I made a little joke because Brady and I and his sons and his dad and his brother-in-law, we all, we took a guy's trip down to Ampham Field a couple of three weeks ago.
Your wife was feeling a little ill and your mom said, I'm not hanging out with all those guys.
And so it was a boy's trip down to Ampham.
And it came out during the trip that for, you've been coming on this show since basically day one.
And for three years and I introduced you as a three-time Big Ten champion and Brady being the gracious kind guy He is says well, I'm not gonna make all ball look like an idiot, which I do well enough myself It turns out you're a two-time Big Ten champion Brady
Yeah, and and no I didn't let it slide Todd.
I just I guess I don't pay attention to the details as good as I should
you know, it was brought up in a different light.
And I actually started to think about it.
I'm like, hold on now.
I am just a two time, three times sounding great, man.
It
rolled off the tongue.
It does.
Well, I think I got confused because when you go to Camp Randall, you see, you know, the 2010, 11 and 12 champions.
And I'm thinking, well, you know, the confusion was that the 2012 Rose Bowl in which you played was from the 2011 season.
So you were
there,
you were, you were big 10 champions in 10 and 11.
You played in the 12 Rose Bowl and then the Badgers won the big 10 championship in 2012 as well.
Correct.
Yeah.
I get confused.
I played in those games and I get confused about that because yes, the Rose Bowl is on January 1st.
Everybody knows those January 1st full games.
But yeah, it is it is definitely confusing, but I'm glad we got it sorted out.
Yes.
Now there's no
excuse.
No more free time.
Well, I know it's probably embedded in your head due to the introduction.
It is because like you can say three time Big Ten champion three years in the NFL.
But as our mutual friend and former social studies teacher, Ken Lewis is fond of reminding us I was too poor to pay attention.
That's right.
You're never so
poor.
You can't pay attention.
I was so poor, I couldn't pay attention.
Brady, we couldn't help but pay attention to former Wisconsin head football coach Barry Alvarez, former athletic director Barry Alvarez, who was on ESPN Wisconsin this week.
Talking about now, you're all the modern on last week.
It was a home game.
We both picked this as a win.
This was one of my four wins that I predicted the Badgers would win against the Terps of Maryland.
But no, the Badgers got spanked at Camp Randall to the point where these student sections started cheering, fire, fickle.
And it got louder.
Barry was on ESPN Wisconsin this week.
Here's what he said.
Coach, what do you make of how fans have reacted here so far?
I think it's embarrassing.
I think it's terrible, despicable.
They're spoiled rotten.
Here's a team that you get young players trying to come on.
They're competing.
They're going to have a chance to get better.
And you flip on them.
You're early in the season, and you flip on them, and you're chanting for the coach.
How do you think that makes the players feel?
Exactly.
That's a great point,
coach.
That's disrespectful.
It's not loyal.
You're not a fan.
If a person's sitting next to me, boom, I tell him, get your ass out of here.
We don't need you in here.
You don't want to watch this?
Go someplace else.
Go boo in a bar.
That really upsets me.
My favorite line from that is
go boo in a bar.
Yeah.
Now, in fairness, with an interview, a follow-up interview with the Journal Times, Alvarez was asked if he stood by his comments.
He replied with a chuckle quote, Well, I think more than anything else, I tend to overreact at times.
He says, I meant what I said, but I think the way I said it, I'm sure I overreacted.
Brady Ewing, what say you?
Yeah, it was a pretty bold statement.
I think you think about what seat he's looking at this from.
you know, or at least I do.
And he was the guy that built Wisconsin football into what it is today.
And that's really all I've ever known.
And, you know, there's other people from different generations you talk to have seen, you know, the Morton era and others where, you know, Wisconsin football was just a totally different team, a different culture, a different program.
And Barry, you know, coming in early 90s and building Wisconsin football into what it was.
Yeah, I mean, he told you how he felt.
And so I wouldn't say I disagree with him.
I think as a former player, somebody that took pride in helping keep that program where it was at, with the exception of probably my freshman year, we had a seven and six year kind of underperformed from expectations.
But I think it is embarrassing for the fans, but I think the program's in a tough spot.
performing to everybody's expectations.
So is that the, is that the way to handle it?
No.
As a former player, would that really bother me?
I don't think so.
I don't think that would bother me.
I think
that's the question not to interrupt you, but you know, I'm a, I'm a, my dad coach, wrestling and cross-country job for 38 years or whatever it was.
I understand from a coach's perspective as a son of a coach and, and you know, get, you know, our families, our neighbors, our parents are and, and scene.
how a family reacts when you're hurt or you live and die virtually by every play.
So, I get it.
So, I personally don't think that I would ever boo or yell a coach.
I certainly would not a player.
I think players are
on the
limits.
But I think this is why I want to ask you, I get a lot of these fans, Brady, you know, in the South End zone, I mean, those heated seats, they ain't cheap.
I mean, it's thousands
of
dollars.
And if you're even for the regular tickets and and even for the student tickets, I
think I
think that fans have a right to be angry at the administration and at the coaching for not.
I don't care about wins and losses, but what you're feeling shouldn't at least be competitive, especially against Maryland.
Yeah, I think that's as a former player as a fan myself.
I think that's what you want.
I don't think, especially with the schedule we have, I don't think the expectation is you go out and.
win every game.
You know, the over under was what five and a half this year.
And it's a very, very tough schedule.
And we're coming from a tough past couple of years.
And so I don't think the expectation is that you go and, you know, we'll go 13 and 0 and go to the college football playoffs.
But the expectation is that you put a competitive team out there that's going to do the basic things right.
And I know there's some challenges that have happened here the last couple of games that I'm going to be totally frank.
I've told you this too.
That is one thing with having a young family and coaching right now is I don't get to watch a ton of the games live and don't do a great job getting back and watching the full games.
So I'm not coming from a place of analysis, but just from what I've seen from highlights and heard, you can't have fumbled snaps and block punts.
You can't have blocked field goals.
You can't have some of these basic things that don't put you in a position to be competitive and to have even a chance to succeed.
I think that's the bigger
the bigger
question.
We're talking to Brady Ewing, two time Big Ten champion, Wisconsin Badger football team and a veteran of the National Football League.
Whereas they say the league joined his Soviet Stream yard from Richland County.
Brady, from a player's perspective, when you played for Wisconsin, I don't ever recall anybody saying, you know, fire Brett isn't Brett Pilema because he was winning Big Ten championships.
But from a player's perspective,
When you hear that, especially from the student sections, does that have any sort of effect on your psyche as a player?
Are you just able to block that out?
I mean, you hear it.
Definitely.
I think, you know, when I was when I was playing, it was always about ignoring the noise, whether it be negative noise and the naysayers and the haters per se, as the kids are saying nowadays, or, you know, maybe the people giving you praise, whether that be in the media or.
on the TV, wherever it may be in the polls.
And so our mantra and our thought process was always ignore the noise.
And I think this would fall under that category.
Now you hear it, honestly, as a player, if you came there for a certain head coach and believed in them and were recruited by them, honestly, it probably would motivate me as I think back in that situation where, hey, we hold ourselves to higher expectations than any fan ever could.
I think that as a player, as a coaching staff is generally true.
But at the end of the day, I speak out of the other side of my mouth and say results don't matter.
You still have to put a competitive team on the field that can compete.
But as a player, I don't think it would really bother me other than maybe motivating me to try to do everything I could in my power to help that coach that I believed in, that I said yes to go out and have as much success too in his career.
I think that's a great point of the motivation for a player.
Don't have time to get into all of this, but I mean, you've seen these articles.
I mean, USA Today has already put out the top five people that could replace Luke Fickle.
But as my out is, is north of 20, 22 million dollars and Urban Meyer, former of the Ohio State University coach coming out now, Fox News or Fox Sports Analyst saying that he doesn't think that no matter what happens.
that Wisconsin's going to go in another direction because Wisconsin doesn't have the money to buy fickle out.
I'm not asking to make a prediction whether or not Coach fickle should stay or not.
But how do you dig out of this, Brady?
Yeah, deep question.
I think, I mean, hopefully fickle the year goes a different direction than it appears that it might right now.
I think first and foremost, I hope he has success.
I hope the program has success.
If he doesn't, I mean, it's truly got to be an
be an overhaul of, you know, the coaching staff and the culture that's been built there and kind of set a new trajectory going forward.
And there's been other, there's been examples of it throughout college sports where, you know, coaches have been able to come in and have success generally quickly with the transfer portal with NIL and everything that that entails right now.
So it's, yeah, we'd have to be just totally different direction and someone that's going to be able to have success in what Wisconsin
is, and I think honoring and serving the past, I think is important.
Maybe I'm biased because I was a part of that, but I truly believe at a place like Wisconsin, that matters and that's important.
And I feel like they're trying to get back to that this year, but we'll see how the rest of the year
goes.
We're up against the clock, Brady, on the way out here.
Any predictions?
Green Bay down in Dallas this week?
I like them.
Tough, tough, tough game last weekend, you know, back and forth and the field goals kind of.
You know down the stretch, but I like I like the way they're playing their competitive And fun to watch.
Yeah, I'm gonna take the Packers the Micah Parsons project returns to Dallas and takes on the Jerry Joneses We'll come back talk baseball bull hunting and bye-bye from the boys.
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Welcome back to the Toddleball show on the Civic Media Running Network.
Eight minutes now before the hour of four o'clock on the top of the hour.
ABC or CPS News, depending upon which of our great stations you're listening to, weather update with the Brittany Merleau.
It's going to be great this weekend.
Get out and enjoy it.
Then the sports update from our great sports reporter, Mike Clemens, lost to talk about.
We're doing that right now.
And by the way, also stay tuned for Maggie Dawn and Pete Schwabba following our fine program and another shout out to my favorite oldest godson, Alexander Kohler, whose birthday
tomorrow have fun down there Alex with Keegan in beautiful Indianapolis Indiana right now talking with our ongoing contributor and friend two-time Big Ten champion and NFL veteran Brady Ewing is here via StreamYard Brady we've caught Brewer fever I think all of us and I want to play get your reaction to a couple of cuts here from Pat Murphy who spoke with
The great Bob Costas on the Major League Baseball Network over the weekend.
We've chopped it up a little bit for time.
But this is Murphy talking about the it factor and that being Sal Freelick.
He's the it on our team.
You know, he's the dude that represents like this is how you play the game.
But what we have that people aren't understanding, I think, as much as we have the right people.
It's about the voice.
And we all got to follow the analytics.
We all have to follow the data.
I mean, it would be crazy not to.
It's information.
But it's about people.
The success that people think we're having, it's about the who.
And the who is
everything for me.
Pat Murphy, the manager of the walkie-brookers with Bob Costas on the Major League Baseball Network.
Brady, you've been on championship teams at the University of Wisconsin.
You played
at the highest level in the NFL.
What is it about the who to speak with to what Pat Murphy just said?
The who because I think a lot of us fans think, oh, it's about drills and it's about, you know, talent.
But this who factor speaks to that a little bit from a player's perspective.
I got goosebumps hearing that.
And I think there's a ton of validity to it.
You know, the fact that a team.
you can have the best talent in the world and I think this goes back to the you know the culture you try to build in a program especially in college athletics today but you can have all the talent in the world the guys that test the best you know on paper have the the best skills and can go out and execute like that is great you need those guys but you also need to have great team chemistry and camaraderie in order to go accomplish things because challenges are going to come your way and you can't
quantify the value that the relationships, the tough things that you've already went through, and the good things you went through as a team, and just how can you can rely on each other, band together to then go accomplish that next feat.
And I would say in baseball, probably more so than any sport in professional baseball, how long their seasons are, the amount of games that they play back to back in nature.
Like if you're not having fun and enjoying the people that you're on that journey with,
it's going to be a really, a really long season.
And clearly the brewers are showing that they don't have the highest salary cap.
They don't have the guys on paper.
They have great talent, but don't have the guys on paper that should be able to go out and compete the way they are, but they're doing it.
And I think that's a testament to the leadership in the clubhouse, but also the guys because they live it every day and they've created that environment, clearly fostered it.
And it's fun to watch.
And I think as a fan,
it's energizing because you can tell they're having fun and they're enjoying
it.
They're not just out there collecting a paycheck and they're truly enjoying the process and the journey together and then that allows other people to get in underneath their wings as fans and can enjoy that ride with them.
Brewers get back underway tonight 6 35 the broadcast pregame show first pitch just after seven o'clock that Cincinnati Reds in town for the final three games the regular seasons crew needs to win one and or the Phillies need to lose one to secure the number one overall seed and home field advantage Throughout the playoffs you can hear on several of these stations tonight Brady.
Let's give a minute or so bow hunting Archery season kicks off.
I know you're a big bow hunter This is a big deal for a lot of people all across Wisconsin for the
of you that do it?
I only gunned your hunting never bow hunted.
There's just something special about this time of year.
Oh, absolutely.
Especially as you start to get those cool mornings and those cool afternoons, it just starts to feel bucky as they would say, or the bucks are going
to start
moving around.
So I there's nothing like a fall morning with frost on the ground.
The sun comes up and it's just got that warm feeling to there's literally nothing like watching the world wake up in the woods on a fall morning.
when the bucks are running around chasing the toes and just being a part of that and just being out in nature enjoying it.
I know it's good for me to clear my head and you know all the craziness that goes on in our world and in our family with sports and just everything that we chase and so it's really just good chance to slow down.
It's some of the most precious time and now we'll be able to take a kid or two out with me and at different times it's just been amazing to expose them to that.
and just enjoy that with them and see it from their eyes, too, is really
special.
Yeah, I think again, so much of hunting and things.
I think for both of us, it's the outdoors, being outside, the time of the people that you care about, that meditation.
It goes far beyond the actual hunting to it.
For me, too.
And yeah, it does that as well.
I want to get to this.
Speaking of just hunting and getting outside and spending time with family we got to go down to the brewers game with your family here recently that was just a heck of a lot of fun and Appreciate that time together and your your boys
We're, I know you want to, you're trying to get the starting five.
I know you and your wife have said no more, no more kids, but you know, you got four, but I'm thinking Brady instead of a starting five with basketball, maybe you have the next boy band because as I got out of my, out of Brady's car, a vehicle here in Madison, this is the serenade of the union
brothers.
Now that was fantastic.
I've never been serenaded as I left an event.
It was awesome.
And like I told you earlier, it got better and better as we traveled home from Madison to Richland Center.
It got better and better as they fine-tuned it.
But Brady's like,
why did
Todd start this?
No, that was an
awesome day.
I appreciate
you too.
Well, it was a lot of fun.
Thank you guys for going.
Brady Ewing, always appreciate you, my friend.
Have a wonderful day.
Hi to the family.
We'll see you soon.
All right, thanks guys.
Yep.
Thank
you
Brady Brady you and everybody two-time Big Ten champion and NFL veteran Enjoy your weekend Maggie Dawn is next whatever you're fighting for whatever you believe in keep banging your drum We'll see you next weekend or next week and go pack up
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