Do you ever wonder how a decision made miles away can send ripples across the college football world impacting teams, players, and fans alike? That's exactly what stirred up after the ACC's veto and the selection committee's controversial decision favoring Alabama over Georgia, leaving Florida State on the sidelines. We plunge into dissecting what this meant for Florida State, the uproar it caused among its fervent fans, and the shift it brought about in the college football landscape.
We welcome on a very special guest, Neal Feinberg, the President of Florida Indoor Racquet Club to talk about his new premiere tennis and pickleball facility located in Southeast Florida. Opening February 2025 it will have private tennis and pickleball courts inside with air conditioning for year-round tennis! We talk about the exciting launch as well as the ins and outs of tennis. Welcome Neal!
Our deep-dive doesn't stop at the playoffs. We also venture into the heart of teams - quarterbacks. The role of a quarterback is pivotal, and when there is a shakeup, it can alter the course of the game, as we saw with the 2014 Ohio State team. We offer a study of the Heisman Trophy, questioning its true merit and the bias that comes with it. We also shine a spotlight on Florida State's 2023 quarterback situation and the domino effect it had on the team's performance. So, buckle up and join us on this journey as we navigate the complex world of college football, from playoff picks to player selections!
Do you ever wonder how a decision made miles away can send ripples across the college football world impacting teams, players, and fans alike? That's exactly what stirred up after the ACC's veto and the selection committee's controversial decision favoring Alabama over Georgia, leaving Florida State on the sidelines. We plunge into dissecting what this meant for Florida State, the uproar it caused among its fervent fans, and the shift it brought about in the college football landscape.
We welcome on a very special guest, Neal Feinberg, the President of Florida Indoor Racquet Club to talk about his new premiere tennis and pickleball facility located in Southeast Florida. Opening February 2025 it will have private tennis and pickleball courts inside with air conditioning for year-round tennis! We talk about the exciting launch as well as the ins and outs of tennis. Welcome Neal!
Our deep-dive doesn't stop at the playoffs. We also venture into the heart of teams - quarterbacks. The role of a quarterback is pivotal, and when there is a shakeup, it can alter the course of the game, as we saw with the 2014 Ohio State team. We offer a study of the Heisman Trophy, questioning its true merit and the bias that comes with it. We also shine a spotlight on Florida State's 2023 quarterback situation and the domino effect it had on the team's performance. So, buckle up and join us on this journey as we navigate the complex world of college football, from playoff picks to player selections!
3, 2, 1. Hello and welcome, sports Bros, episode 31. In a while a lot of things have happened. College football playoff is set Undefeated. Florida State did not make it. Let's talk about that. Andrew, you have a question. You want to start us off?
Speaker 2:I have a question for Corey. Was Sunday the greatest day in the Florida Gators sports history of the last five years? Was that the greatest day as a Gator fan?
Speaker 3:It was a great day. It was a really good day.
Speaker 1:Could you walk us through your Sunday morning?
Speaker 3:It was just a complete inverse trajectory for Florida and Florida State and that just completely crumbled.
Speaker 2:And Georgia. You literally had both of your rivals balling at the same time.
Speaker 3:Oh man, I was so shocked. The only person I really kept hearing Florida State from was Herb Street Before Sunday. That was it really.
Speaker 2:I was watching you like yeah, you mean like not making it. Herb Street was the only one saying they couldn't make it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like Bama making it over. Fsu.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I think no one wanted to say it Like people wanted to give the benefit of doubt and not go to the doomsday scenario, but everybody kind of knew it in the back of their mind, like are they really going to let this team in with a third string quarterback? Drew Freshman has taken 10 snaps.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's so funny because it's only FSU fans that are like this upset about it. Everybody else is like well, Bama's better.
Speaker 2:So I just I love the other end of the spectrum where you have the people that the Florida State fans are upset right, the Georgia fans are upset but they had their chance, like all they had to do. I mean, they knew, going into that game, if we don't win this game, like there's a really good chance we're left out. So they had. They had that going into them, that mindset going into it. Florida State fans were convincing themselves and they were delusional, going into that game thinking, oh, all we have to do is go undefeated. There's no way they can leave us out, no way. That was the problem. They didn't even conceive of the possibility of being left out of playoff as an undefeated Power Five champion and being Florida State.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not even a blip on their radar, not even an option.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I think when you, when you break it down, florida State fans like they, they act like they've been here the whole time, right? They act like they have been right here amongst the powers of college football when they haven't been relevant. In what 10 years? Right, James Winston was the last time they were relevant. And in fact, if you go back to the first playoff year, we were going through this same scenario when you had the undefeated James led for Florida State Seminoles coming off. The national championship went through a cupcake schedule barely as a team.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they weren't as good of a national championship team because they lost to go out guys, the NFL, they barely won a lot of their games, like they had a lot of games where they had to come back. They were calling to even make it Almost lost to Louisville.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it did lose to.
Speaker 2:Louisville Right, but they slept they. They should have been slotted higher in the playoff. They fell to three. They played at Oregon and got destroyed in the Rose Bowl. That was the infamous James Fumble, and the rest is history. And here they are. That was the first year of the playoff, and here we are. In the last year they literally bookended the playoff era. Just disappointment. At least that time they actually made it. This time the committee was like we're not doing this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so did they make the right decision.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it depends, Like you have. So you have the Florida State fans who are upset, but you also have the people that are upset of OK, you're calling it the four best teams. You didn't get the four best teams. George is not not there. Like everyone in college football accepts that George is the best team Still, even though they lost. They lost one game. But if you put George on a neutral field against any of the playoff teams, they're probably favored. And Alabama, they were just favored over them, Like last week. That's that's what's interesting about. It is like then you're looking at like, OK, this that was a playoff game. Right, that was just you, that was your play in game to get the playoff, but they missed their opportunity. But if you wanted the four best teams, you would have Georgia over Washington.
Speaker 3:You think that Georgia would be favored over Michigan? After a neutral field yeah, no, after Michigan beats Ohio State. I don't think I'm not score wise convincingly, but pretty convincingly and then definitely convincingly versus Iowa.
Speaker 2:I don't know, yeah, michigan didn't play a non-conference there. Michigan only played two tough teams this whole season.
Speaker 3:They were last to their last three games Penn State and yeah, but their biggest strength isn't their schedule itself, it's the fact that they won by like 35 every single game, right.
Speaker 2:But that's what Georgia was doing. Against harder schedule, yeah, but they lost, lost the Bama. No, I mean, yeah, just hate. You just hate to see it right. You just hate to see it happen to two fan bases like Georgia fans and Florida State fans.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it sucks for them, but you give 13 people subjective criteria and you put in those bylaws hey, you can take into account if someone's not playing, and that's what they did. That was their out.
Speaker 2:You know, the other interesting piece about this is that people forget this was supposed to be the first year of the 12th team playoff and it got pushed by a year because of one conference. It couldn't be the ACC, right, it was the ACC that vetoed the 12th team expansion year in 2023.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you this If the ACC hadn't done a 180 and just went on board with the 12th team playoff, and FSU was the top 12 team this year, they'd be in the playoffs. No.
Speaker 2:So people are saying that that was like the committee pretty much got down to the wire and they're like look, are we really going to do this for the whole, the team that put us, the conference that put us in this situation to debate. This is the reason why, you know, we're even even in this room, like if it was 12 teams, there's no debate, like we know the 12 best teams Florida State would be in. But because the ACC was trying to hold it together, because the ACC thought they had a power in Clemson and thought they had a guaranteed playoff spot with four teams, they tried to delay it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they put all their eggs in one basket. Yeah.
Speaker 2:They didn't work out. For what four or five years there was working out every year Clemson, clemson, alabama, ohio State. They were just in the playoff every year.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:If Florida State thinks they're Clemson, that's the problem here. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Without Jordan Travis Right. That's the issue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it sucks, but as soon as he goes down, they knew their season's over. They knew they had no chance of winning a playoff game. They at least wanted to go. They just wanted to be invited to the party. It just sucks to not get invited to the party.
Speaker 1:I mean they got to see the layout of the party, how it looks, got a secondary account of how things work. Maybe they'll take that in next year and maybe they'll get invited to the big dance. Yeah, it would be funny if they end up being like 13 or 14 next year. I'll miss out again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I think, I think. I do think Norvel is a good coach. I think he's built something there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think he's a great coach.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think he's built something. I think this will fuel them. I think they'll come back stronger. Honestly, I don't know what Travis is playing on doing. He's probably got I mean, I don't know what that rehab looks like, or is that a year? Could he play next season?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm not really for sure what his injuries were, so I don't know, did he break his fibula, did he break his leg?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, okay, yeah. I don't know if that's a one year, I don't know if he can play.
Speaker 3:I guess it's probably Dax's injury. So what was that Like? 12 months, 12 to 14 months, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a long time for a cramp, damn.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the sideline official in the states game got it worse than Travis.
Speaker 1:That was bad, that was so bad.
Speaker 2:Did you see Kamara's reaction when he got up? He's like holy shit.
Speaker 1:He's like hey you probably went back to the huddle and he was like shit dude. You see that.
Speaker 2:Oh my God. I mean, it was so hard not to laugh because it was just like holy shit. You're just waiting for something like that to happen to these people. I can't believe the amount of people that get to stand on NFL sideline. They're lucky that more people don't end up like that.
Speaker 3:And they're like facing the stands. Yeah, that takes a lot of people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so risky Crazy.
Speaker 1:You can see what big hat said he's like. If you do that and you're in a fluorescent bib, it just looks 10 times worse. It is a tough look. It is such a tough look they hate. Dan. I saw you on TV. How are you doing?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, I hope he has like medical leave or paid for by the NFL. I hope he's like on the same retirement plan as the players and stuff. It's the same benefits because, geez, that's going to be a long rehab for someone that's not an athlete like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Geez.
Speaker 1:So Florida States. So I guess you could say Alabama winning was the worst thing that happened to them, right, that effectively took them out of the running.
Speaker 2:I mean, go back to one week prior. It's fourth and 31. There's 43 seconds left and Alabama's down by four. Yeah, I mean, this is all Aaron's fault. That's what's crazy about this whole hypothetical situation that we're in. If you reverse it and go all the way back to that moment, alabama needed a miracle to even have a chance which you could sit there and say, okay, if they lose that game, they probably lose to George anyway. Like, why would they show up with motivation? Yeah, because they didn't mean anything, just crazy.
Speaker 3:So is FSU and George going to be pretty fired up for that game? You think no, Damn.
Speaker 2:I think if you're FSU, you win that game. You make the bet, you hang the banner, you pull the UCF, you get the trophy. You sell the shirts, you sell the merch, you're 20.
Speaker 4:You have to be Georgia, though.
Speaker 2:But you have to be Georgia.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean. I mean because with legal sports betting now the committee's decision is somewhat vindicated when they come out 14 point dogs in that bowl game, because they'll probably get crushed, they'll probably lose by oh well, the lines were always available.
Speaker 2:Like everyone knew, florida State versus any playoff team was a double digit underdog.
Speaker 1:No, I know, but you can use that as like hey, this is why Like this is just another reason why this is not going to work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's not the excuse. Like Florida State fans feel like they got job because they deserved the playoff spot, not because they were one of the four best teams. They agree, they're not one of the four best teams.
Speaker 3:They thought they met the. I don't know if they all think that way, though. No, I think a lot of them still feel like they can do Michigan again.
Speaker 1:Have you seen that defense? Though you seen that defense? I mean, they can beat anybody.
Speaker 3:I'm sure there's Florida State fans out there that think that Team doesn't lose. You know this team hasn't lost. Every team you put in front of us, we figure out a way to beat them, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just listen to Mike Norville, I guess. But I mean Ohio State in 20, 20 or 2014,. Right Right, cardell Jones, that team is the exception, not the rule, like that team, because they went to the playoff and won it with a third string. Quarterback doesn't mean that quarterback doesn't matter. Quarterback play doesn't matter on a playoff team. They literally they had to go into the Big Ten Championship game and win by 40 or 59. They would think it was 59. Nothing is what they beat Wisconsin. Yeah, they had to do that. If they didn't do that, then they would have been left out.
Speaker 2:Because, anyone watching that game against Louisville, anybody that knows football is like that team is not the same team, man. They can't play like the same way that they did with Jordan Travis. They're such so hampered on offense they're just so stuck on the nerves. That's why I didn't understand. They're just so stuck on the nerves.
Speaker 1:What's that? They're just so stuck on being deserving and they earned that spot. That's their whole crutch and yes, it sucks, but there's no, I think they did earn it halfway.
Speaker 2:They did earn it on their regular season resume, but they didn't earn it. I consider the ACG Championship the first game of postseason. That's your postseason, because not everyone goes to a championship game. That was a different level. You need to perform on us as a championship team. Louisville is. Everyone knows after Kentucky beat Louisville that Louisville is not a top 10 team. They should have been lower than 14. The fact that they were at high they're still. They should be somewhere down the 20s. But anyway, Florida State's a substantially better team than Louisville. They should have blown them out. I've been going to the game. The spread was like one and a half For the most part of the game, aside from that one big run. That Florida State had to score their only touchdown. Remember they scored one or two touchdowns. Did they score two touchdowns? They scored one late. I turned it off. They also had a bunch of field goals. I think it was one touchdown, right? Yeah, pretty sure, yeah.
Speaker 2:So they scored one touchdown and it was off a long run that they took the quarterback out. They took the quarterback out, they ran Wildcat. They busted off a 70-yard run. They get down inside the five and they punch it in with the same quarter. They same guy run the football, Yep.
Speaker 1:Just peaked too early. They should have peaked next year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they scored 16 points. They scored one touchdown and three field goals.
Speaker 1:Well, that's enough to beat Michigan, right, if you're playing Iowa?
Speaker 3:Also I'm pretty sure in that Ohio State Oregon national championship game Ezekiel Elliott had more yards than Cardale Jones did Right. So, it's not exactly the same situation either in that aspect.
Speaker 2:Cardale was good Like Cardale. Legit, of course, made the most infamous mistake of all by not deciding to declare for the draft after that playoff run.
Speaker 2:Came back to school, even though he quote unquote said I hear to play school. Yes, I come here to play school All-time, quote Gosh, all-time. I couldn't believe. I remember he just like he was after that playoff run. So he took over. I think I think he had to beat Michigan, right, or I think because JT Barrett, I thought, got hurt in the Michigan game I can't remember when he got hurt that year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I thought Cardale had to come in, beat Michigan, he had to beat Wisconsin and then they had to win the two playoff games and on that alone people were already projecting him to be a first round pick and the dude decided to come back and then sucked Like then. Now he's in the XFL or whatever. But that's why I threw out the possibility of if you're Florida State and you lose Jordan Travis one, if you could also go back to that game and say, oh, they were losing to North Alabama when he got hurt. So it's not like they were up bigger. I mean, they were actually down. It was weird. It was a weird situation for him to go down. I thought they were going to lose.
Speaker 3:I only heard them like, oh, they might lose to North Alabama.
Speaker 2:That would have been the funniest. Actually, this is fun here because they actually worked themselves. You gotta get the fan base like literally on the peak precipice of hope.
Speaker 3:And then they were already watching tape on Michigan, I'm sure Scouting we got cracking on tape.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they already had. Yeah, they already had the Carter Stallions look out scouting Michigan.
Speaker 3:But can you imagine how excited they were after they beat Louisville? They must have not had a worry in the world. They woke up Sunday morning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how many Fork State fans booked their hotel for Pasadena?
Speaker 1:Oh man, I'd love to hear. Oh, it'd be great.
Speaker 3:Oh my god, what, uh what ball are they getting? What's the one for ball? I mean Michigan, alabama.
Speaker 2:It's the one, the road, the Rose Bowl, yeah.
Speaker 3:Can you imagine if people bought tickets to that game and they go and see Alabama get housed by Michigan what they would feel like?
Speaker 1:then it would be hilarious if, if Michigan annihilates them and then Florida State happens to beat Georgia. Oh, that would be.
Speaker 3:No, I don't know, because there would be no closure after that point. You just have to hear it from them at the whole off season. Chris, trust me.
Speaker 2:This is the scenario you don't want to have happen. You do not want Florida State to win this ball game. You just wanted to kill it, because they will claim this national championship for the rest of eternity.
Speaker 1:No, because they've been saying the past five or six years that when UCF did it it was embarrassing, it's a joke and they would never do that. Right, they wouldn't do it. No chance, no chance.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, you got. Do you guys remember what happened in Florida States like 93 championship? No, like Ron, I'm pretty sure they finished the season with a loss to Notre Dame earlier in the season and they got in the BCS over undefeated West Virginia. Follow the money. Did you say 93? Either 92 or 93. It was the.
Speaker 2:BCS didn't exist until 98.
Speaker 3:No, but whatever the 90 was Okay.
Speaker 2:What was just before the BCS? There was just the polls Right.
Speaker 3:Whatever bold they call it.
Speaker 2:That's been so ridiculous is we have people complaining like, as if for like the first hundred years of college football, we didn't just have a bunch of journalists vote with all their different polls, like on two teams, on two, the two best teams.
Speaker 1:I can't wait for next year, though. 12 teams, that's going to be awesome. There's so much fun.
Speaker 3:She's oh man, she's massive. How about all the talk that it's corrupt NCAA, corrupt ESPN? Chase the money.
Speaker 1:Yes, the communists.
Speaker 2:Are they really going to spend Florida tax money to sue the NCAA? Is that what they're really doing? That I mean, they'll get that thrown out, but the fact that they're going to pay lawyers to even file this case, this lawsuit.
Speaker 3:If they think it'll help with votes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just buying votes as the Santa city.
Speaker 3:I think so.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:What do?
Speaker 2:you say Kind of what you expect, what would Scott say?
Speaker 3:It'd be funny if you had like the same thing. What if he came out and just said I respect the committee's decision?
Speaker 2:Go get your stuff. And he would win over like probably half the state. I mean you know.
Speaker 1:No concerns, no concerns. I'm concerned, I'm high and go Gators.
Speaker 2:He was like I respect the committee Go Gators, go Bulls, go Knights Go Cains. Oh my God, screw the nobles.
Speaker 3:That'd be so funny, because if he goes with FSU fans he's not really upsetting the others. But if he flipped and went against FSU he would for sure get everybody else.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:He should have done that.
Speaker 1:We should get him on the pod Politicians.
Speaker 2:they should totally get into these rivalries and just pick a side and just be like suck it.
Speaker 1:You guys just go with the numbers.
Speaker 2:You guys should have played better, sorry.
Speaker 1:They started to go like all X's and O's. You should use the full back or just like tell them what they did. No legit.
Speaker 2:Like that's what I was trying to say is, if your quarterback is your star player and he goes down with an injury and you know you don't have a good backup like your backup. They literally didn't have a backup. They had no backup plan for Travis Like they had. You know, a couple of these young guys Don't put a quarterback in literally line up every play without a quarterback.
Speaker 1:Like you force the committee. I don't think you can do that right. What you can't do, that right. You don't have to have a quarterback, no, you play Wildcat has any team ever done that Kentucky did.
Speaker 2:Kentucky had the same. That's what I was trying to explain. Kentucky had the same situation happen in 2018, when we had Terry Wilson break his leg week two and then we had Solier Smith get hurt in week three, and so we were literally down to not no quarterbacks. I think we had a true freshman and we're like okay, the same working. So fourth game of the season, we're just like. We're just going to put our wide receiver quarterback. He threw a little bit. He played a little quarterback in high school, so he's just going to run around and we're going to play Wildcat every play. And we won seven games. We went to a bowl game. The Virginia Tech ended Bud Foster.
Speaker 2:And we rushed for like 500 yards every game. It was insane. It was awesome. They should have done that, Because then you forced the committee to be like, oh okay, well, he obviously wasn't that important if they were able to just play their offense without him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what do you make? What do you make of the case that if Jordan Travis not playing is the biggest reason why they were left out, because he's that big to them? Yeah, shouldn't he be at least invited to the Heisman ceremony?
Speaker 2:No, yeah, I thought he should. I mean, honestly, the Heisman is bullshit anyway because, like Marvin Harrison Jr got invited, malik Neighbors has better yards and better more receptions. Just as many touchdowns and more yards is better stats, the wider receiver.
Speaker 1:It's like they're just trying to get the top players in the draft that's coming up, yeah.
Speaker 2:Like a pre-ceremony forum.
Speaker 2:They're literally just plucking the best player from like five, like a couple of the best teams. Mm-hmm, it's a marketing scheme. I mean if Bo Nix, if he beats Washington on Friday night and throws for like three touchdowns, 300 yards, just as his average game on the season, he wins the Heisman easily. Yeah, but they can't give it to him because he had his moment and he fumbled it, yep. And they can't give it to Penex because Penex tanked at the end of the year. I mean he was awful the last four games, like he was throwing picks, like he was just not good. He wasn't the reason they won those games. Because they're defense in the run game. Yeah, don't you guys agree with that? If Florida State just would have ran the Wildcat like they did in the one play that actually worked and they ran it for 70 yards, if they just do it and did that the entire game, that would have completely changed the narrative.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean they should have just rested all their players last three weeks. Just give it up.
Speaker 2:We can't do that. The problem is the committee is able to like if you have a great quarterback and you supplant them with a quarterback that's nowhere near as good, then the committee has to acknowledge that injury, like you're forcing them to analyze. Okay, this guy's stats at quarterback. Their offense is not the same with Jordan Travis without him. But if you just remove that position and just play Wildcat and run the ball every play, maybe throw it like triple option, whatever, throw it past every 10 plays, keep them honest. You force the committee to be like wow, they revamped their entire team. They're a better team, not a better team, but they're a good football team, not just a good quarterback.
Speaker 1:Yep, they lost their quarterback, they got unlucky Would they be able to?
Speaker 3:would they be able to trust that Like completely new offense to beat Louisville, if that's what it took?
Speaker 2:No offense, Corey, but they were playing Florida the last game. I think that was their best attempt to try it.
Speaker 3:That's fair, I mean how many Russian yards did.
Speaker 2:Corey, I just want to ask you a question how many Russian yards did Ray Davis have in the first half of Florida?
Speaker 3:Like, wasn't it like 270, something 275.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's the team that they tried against. Yeah.
Speaker 3:We were gashed at the end of the season, by the way, let it be known. If it worked, it's because we were gashed.
Speaker 1:Corey, I have a question for you as a Gator fan. Would you have rather beaten FSU or seeing them flame out like this? Is this funnier?
Speaker 3:No, I would have rather beaten them, because it would have been similar. We would have ended their season instead of the committee doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they get to end the season, that's definitely better.
Speaker 1:Sorry, sorry the question. Sorry, the question sucked. I was just. I was just promoted for discussion. I started to get that to go, so that's why I offered it to.
Speaker 2:Corey Corey. When was the last time Florida stormed the field at the swamp? That's a stupid question.
Speaker 1:It was last year Last year.
Speaker 2:Who did they beat last year at home? I?
Speaker 1:don't know, I don't watch college football.
Speaker 3:I'm the field at the swamp.
Speaker 2:No, it's a good question. When was the last time that? I don't. I can't think of a time that Florida has stormed the field.
Speaker 3:Did they do it when they beat Tennessee? I don't remember.
Speaker 2:This year. Yeah, no, no, they didn't storm the field when they beat Tennessee. That was early in the season. You guys thought you guys were really good by that, remember. You guys thought you were really good. And then the next week you know, it's not key.
Speaker 3:Oh, going into the Tennessee game, or like coming out of the Tennessee game, you mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, coming out of Tennessee game.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, you were back. Yeah, yeah, but not going into it.
Speaker 2:You guys, okay, you guys I mean no, we got beat by Utah and then was like, oh, we're not really, yeah. And then Tennessee was the game where you guys thought you were going to be decent.
Speaker 3:And then I think we only beat. I don't know if we had played Charlotte by then, but we only beat Charlotte by like 10 points or something. Yeah, I have no idea, though that's not something that would be stored in my memory.
Speaker 2:We're looking at Saturday down south the last time every SEC team.
Speaker 1:Never Florida, just like Alabama Florida just like Alabama.
Speaker 2:Florida, just like Alabama. Did you just look it up? Did you find the same thing?
Speaker 3:Chris, are you going to say something?
Speaker 1:I was reading the Florida one. It said just like Alabama, they're over it. Yeah, they never rushed the field. Been there, done that, been too good rush field. As a fan, I probably should have done that this is an old article too, because I just watched ball.
Speaker 2:That's all I do. Oh, this is seven years ago, kentucky. We stormed the field two years ago when we beat Florida. Now it's an everyday occurrence. So we don't just storm the field, just do it every year.
Speaker 3:Slow rebuild coming out.
Speaker 1:Slow rebuild, Wow. So in the SEC the first offense for rushing the field is $100,000. Second offense is $250,000. And every subsequent violation is $0.5 million. So it's just good business sense to not storm the field.
Speaker 2:Yeah right.
Speaker 1:So what are you guys doing for the games on New Year's Eve?
Speaker 2:I'm going to watch. Remember last year when I had my epic thing. I'm going to watch.
Speaker 1:You're going to watch? Oh, never mind, I was going to do something else.
Speaker 3:What were you saying, Andrew?
Speaker 2:I said watch me, this year I'll do my predictions, like last year, where I would have thought every game was going to be a blowout and it ended up being like the greatest playoff games of all time.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I forgot about that. We'll see.
Speaker 3:I actually think it's going to be a good playoff.
Speaker 1:I think it's going to be an amazing playoff. It's going to be the best one so far. What's your, what's everyone's predictions? Who's in the championship and who wins it? I feel like a.
Speaker 3:Alabama Rematch, Alabama Texas rematch would be interesting. That's what.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking, I think Texas is going to win it.
Speaker 3:I think Texas is going to.
Speaker 2:Texas can't beat Alabama twice, man, there's no way.
Speaker 4:It's Alabama.
Speaker 2:They're going to win. Michigan's got too much pressure. Think about it. Alabama is. They're playing with house money right now and that's scary for Nick Saban. They were playing with house money against Georgia, Now they're playing with house money in the playoff. Yeah, it's really smart.
Speaker 1:They didn't have. He didn't have stats and Bennett, it's crutch. You don't think Jim Harbaugh is going to fold. He's never won a playoff game.
Speaker 3:Now it's time for the khaki pants. We'll be ready. Has Michigan ever played a team this year with like a mobile quarterback, like a good one, kyle McCord? True Good point, thank you, never mind. Future coast of Carolina superstar, kyle McCord Is that who that is NC State Stand up. Do we know if he has or hasn't? I always got a pretty lethal quarterback right.
Speaker 2:No, whatever the over is Bethe over, like it's.
Speaker 3:What if the over is like 75 and a half?
Speaker 2:You got two conflicting styles. Yeah, honestly, I think Alabama might win that game. I honestly think they might be able to beat blowouts. I think Texas might vote race Washington and I think Alabama might just dominate Michigan.
Speaker 3:I can see Texas vote. I tried to reuse the phrase but I forgot it. What is it? Boat racing, boat housing Steam Steamboating yeah, steamboat housing, steamboat rolling. I can see Texas steamboat rolling Washington, but I don't think Alabama's going to do it to Michigan Steamboating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can see them steamboating. It's going to be a boat race. Anyway, you cut it, roll the boats.
Speaker 3:Also shout out Brandon, release the renders. Mission accomplished Release the renders. Did he ever see them? I think they sent the pictures of it, he did Okay.
Speaker 2:Back.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we'll see it might even.
Speaker 1:We'll see USF's new stadium or Grand Theft Auto 6. Probably released around the same time.
Speaker 3:What if Kyle McCord comes to USF? He must have sold the renderings, yeah.
Speaker 2:How long has it been since they've been at a bowl game? It's been a long time. How's it?
Speaker 3:I don't know, oh, okay.
Speaker 2:So Harry's back on Arsenal now. That's the new kick Top of the table.
Speaker 3:Did he do it again? Yeah, they got lucky today. Unreal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were losing to Luton. Hey, the good thing is, if they just keep waiting, they're going to be okay, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly like last year. They just have to keep winning.
Speaker 2:Should I say that to Harry? Hey, at least there's no committee. Harry's a focus on style points.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you need to start a steamboat rolling these teams. Harry, your ass is toast.
Speaker 1:Well, with that, should we turn it over to Mr Neil Feinberg. Sounds good to me.
Speaker 3:All right, neil, great guy. Can't say enough about him. Great guy.
Speaker 1:Great guy, neil's a great guy. Got to have him back on when they open.
Speaker 2:You know, Neil was talking to you, talking about how Florida State were frauds right A couple weeks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right before we were in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great plug. I should have started with that, but yeah, neil called it. He said the ACC are frauds. He's seen it for the past 18 months materializing what it's turned into today. We recorded it two weeks ago and it's come to fruition here. So congrats to Neil, give him his flowers. And yeah, here's Neil.
Speaker 1:All right, now we're going to welcome on a very special guest. We have Neil Feinberg. He is the president of Florida Indoor Racket Club, a premier indoor air conditioned tennis and pickleball facility located in southeast Florida. Neil is a certified tennis professional by the United States Professional Tennis Association as well as the Professional Tennis Registry, and as a pickleball coach by the Professional Pickleball Registry. He has extensive experience in tennis and we welcome on to talk about the new Florida Indoor Racket Club as well as tennis in general. We go a deep dive into the sport of tennis, which we have not done yet on sports broughs. It was great to welcome him on. And here we go, neil Feinberg. All right, I think we're back. So we didn't quite get that heartbreaking moment. Could you just walk us through that again? Yeah, this one's off here.
Speaker 5:I'm in North Carolina, summer tennis camp will be Van Horn Tennis Camp, pinehurst, north Carolina. It's probably 1982. And I'm playing in a tournament where the youngest kid and the other kids are bigger, older, somehow. I've gotten to the quarterfinals and I'm playing Jonathan Bloom from Huntington, long Island, and I'm up five love, 40 love.
Speaker 5:In the first set I was just zoning and feeling it and then it was. I was about to close it out and all of a sudden it hit me. What was happening? It became real and I started to choke and I couldn't breathe and I couldn't really even swing my racket and I double faulted. The next thing I knew I couldn't even get a serve into the box and I think I double faulted the entire game away. So now it's five one, five two, five, three and I lose the whole set and then I was just shattered. So he blew me out the second set and that was my first time experiencing choking. I'd never experienced it before.
Speaker 5:It's a physical thing that really had starts mentally, but then it becomes physical and my performance had exceeded my expectations and probably even my self worth. I didn't think I was good enough to beat this guy. So even though I was beating him. Some part of me found a way to lose and it was devastating. Like here I am. It's now. It's over 40 years later. I remember the court I was on. I remember the feeling in my chest. I remember the look on his face. He couldn't even believe what was happening. He was like you should be beating me and I lost and it haunts me to this. It'll probably haunt me till my dying day. I probably need to back him down and challenge him to rematch.
Speaker 1:I think so, I think, yeah, I think so. I think we need to be there if that's the case. But it sounds like a rematch is in the cards, 40 years later.
Speaker 5:Yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, if you have a heartbreaking moment when you're 12 years old, I don't know I'm sure the chances of you forgetting about it at this point are pretty slim. Right, stick with you for so long. What were the stakes of this match? Like you said, quarterfinals, like, was this a national tournament?
Speaker 5:No, it was a tennis camp, but it was kind of a pretty high level camp. There were a lot of players which I was not nationally ranked, but every week there would be a tournament. At the end of the week Is there be a new influx of kids or some kids would leave, and so every week there'd be a tournament. And it was a big deal to us back then and to get that far was just like just beyond my comprehension. I just couldn't believe I could be that good to beat somebody that much bigger and older and better, wow, you know.
Speaker 5:And now I've had a whole career of tennis and coaching and I can understand like now is techniques and there's a whole science behind relaxing your body and all of that. And I work with players on visualization and exercises and building up self-esteem because you've got to have a big head. The bigger the head, the better the player, the better the athlete. And if your head's not big enough we see it in sports all the time the teams that will find a way to lose, no matter how good the matter who they're beating, they will find a way to fumble the football, score an own goal, double, fall, you name whatever it is.
Speaker 1:That's the teams we root for, yeah.
Speaker 3:That's what they do. Yeah, I mean, the best athletes are their psychopaths a little bit.
Speaker 5:You kind of have to be. Yeah, it's not a nice thing. You're not going out there trying to get into a different state of mind, a champion state of mind, and it looks like times I'm an asshole when I'm winning, I get myself so fired but I'm the nice guy I'm going to collapse. So yeah, I think we got to have a safe place to let out the caveman, and better we do it on the field or the tennis court, then behind the wheel of our car, or in the workplace or at home with our families. We need a completely come unhinged. So I do it down here in Florida.
Speaker 5:I'm the old man on the court now, but I play Battle of Boca and it's all teenagers and college kids and they're ranked. They are high, nationally ranked players. Some of them have gone on to turn pro. Back then Shelton, who just got pretty far in the US open. He was playing the battle Boca last year, so really I still don't. Yeah, I'll try to get a good doubles partner if I play in the doubles. I was lucky enough to get Evo Karlovitch to place my doubles partner up there to it. You know who he is.
Speaker 1:Just by. Basically you told me on our previous call, but sounds like pretty impressive. Yeah, it's a pretty good doubles combination for Dr.
Speaker 5:Evo. He's six foot 10. He had the world record for fastest service until someone else 156 miles an hour and he's one of the ace leaders of all time, you know. So I still play when I can, but as far as the singles go, florida heat, dead of summer, 18 year old kids. I've had COVID a couple of times. Man, that's sure I can hang with that, but that's why. That's why we're open an air conditioning indoor club. So no matter what they.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my question. I was, like you talked about this Florida heat. If only someone had, you know, a facility, that's, you know, air conditioned in the state of Florida. Do you know of any of those facilities that might be within the state of Florida?
Speaker 5:Funny you should say so. Yeah, so, after being down here for just the painfully brutally hot summers and the frequent rains, we said why is there no air conditioned indoor club down here? I know we're not the only ones suffering in this heat, and it turns out that it takes a very special kind of well. First you need a lot of money and then you have to have a certain structure with private members to keep the business going, because if it's just open to the public, people just come on the rainy days and they cherry pick when they want to come and you're out of business within a year. But if you could find the right place so that's what we're doing we're going to, you know, try to change the whole how the tennis industry is done down here and offer something that's never been offered before, and then they will come is the vision and the hope.
Speaker 5:So, florida the racket clubs coming and we're going to be opening around February of 2025 and pompano beach We've got five and a half acres. We're going to have eight indoor tennis courts and two of those actually may be converted into six pickleball. We're still making that decision, but it's going to be just beautiful climate controlled and people will be thrilled to finally get out of the heat, and I think it might actually make tennis players stay down here in the summertime, because right now they flee and they go up north where it's cooler. But if they actually have a cool off doors they might even stay.
Speaker 1:There you go.
Speaker 5:Yep, yep. So that's the dream, and we're close to site plan approval and then we break ground and we're going for it. We got we got some big name tennis players that are involved in the project Bianca Andriyescu, who won the US Open in 2019, she made a great video and she's been helping to talk about our club, as has Evo Karlovich, and we're talking to some other big, high ranked players that are currently on the tour. Another fun thing about the club is that you'll be able to hit with some of the biggest players in the world, which is like a huge dream, so awesome. Yeah, I don't know what your favorite sports are, but imagine you could just get on the field or the court with your favorite players and train with them and compete against them for a few minutes. You've got to try to return Evo Karlovich's 156 mile an hour serve.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, yeah, I'm a big golf fan, so obviously Southeast Florida is a big haven for golfers. Is it a pretty big haven for tennis players as well, training in the off season? It?
Speaker 5:seems like most of them are here year round, within about where we are. Well, we got the Miami Open 20 minutes from our club at the Hard Rock Stadium. Got the Delray Open about 20, 30 minutes north of us. And everywhere I go I ran into Amanda Anasamova getting her COVID shot and CBS Name. She won the Australian Open a few years ago. Her name's escaping me right now. They're all down here, they're everywhere you go, they're training. And we got to Crandon Park and Keep Us Gain. See Gilmour and Fees out there and Adrian Manarino and yeah, they had a place here. Chris Everett Academy is nearby. Rick Macy Academy is nearby. This is kind of the tennis epicenter of the universe, I could say. I mean, they live all over the world but in the highest concentration, south Florida is where they live and train.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, in Pompano Beach. Corey, how far are you from Pompano Beach A?
Speaker 3:couple of hours. Yeah, I'm in Florida, myers, so it's a little over two, two and a half. I'd say yeah, right across the alley, very cool. But so is it Florida Indoor Tennis Club or Florida Indoor Racket Club. So we've seen some Florida Indoor Racket Club Racket Club. And when did that idea start? When did you first think of it? When you were 12 years old, right after the loss in Pinehurst.
Speaker 5:North Carolina. Yeah, ben's against the world. No, it was three years ago. I moved down here during the pandemic and I was coaching a player full time and, as me and his father sat watching him during these matches and going to train with him on a daily basis, that was when the idea came to us. We just kept looking at each other and he'd done this.
Speaker 5:It seems like a no-brainer for your vision. And to find the land is a lot harder than you might think, because every acre of undeveloped land has been snatched up from Miami all the way up to Pinehurst, from the ocean all the way to the Everglades. It's all been bought and developed. But we searched on the market for about a year and then, off market, I found an attractive land. It's called Opportunity Zone Land and it used to be the Palm Air Gulf course. So literally like the sand traps are still there, and nine holes of it was for sale. The other nine holes were converted A housing community, a housing development, and so we bought these acres and we rezoned it and we're going for it. That sounds awesome. Yeah, I suppose that name is because we want to have the ability to add Padel as well as Pickleball as well as Tess.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, yeah. Maybe while Andrew's getting his mic situation figured out, I want to ask what your? I don't know if this is Andrew's question or not, it could be.
Speaker 5:Sorry, it came to me the girl that won the Australian Open that I see around town. Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 1:What was her name? Sorry, you cut out what was her name.
Speaker 5:Kenan.
Speaker 1:Kenan.
Speaker 3:Oh okay, okay, I want to ask oh, here it is, sophia. Kenan 25. Sorry, there you go. What is the reputation, I guess, of somebody like you in the professional tennis realm of Pickleball, kind of the? I mean Picklesball has been on a big trajectory climb where I am, at least, in Southwest Florida. But what does it look like in Southeast Florida? What's the, what's your feeling on it and how it's growing?
Speaker 5:It's gone utterly viral. It's everywhere, yeah, and over the country, but it's really taken over down here and at all the outdoor parks. They've converted a lot of tennis courts into Pickleball courts, and one of the places I like to play outdoors is in Plantation, where they have 24 outdoor courts and they're all full day and all night.
Speaker 3:I'm sure of it, oh yeah.
Speaker 5:Go there. It's the greatest social connector that I've ever seen in my lifetime and there the culture that's very it's kind of different from tennis. You could just go up, put your paddle on the net post and that's the symbol for I got next, like if you were in the pool hall, like the billiards hall, you just put your court around the table. But in Pickleball you put your paddle there and then you get the next game and if you win, you get to stay on and play another. If you lose, you got to wait. That's one thing that kind of does stink about the public courts. That'll be different at our place is that if you rent a court, you have the court, you don't get bumped, lose.
Speaker 5:And actually we have the number five Pickleball player in the world I want to say his name right, david Igna Taowich, who's also going to be training at our facility, and we plan to host Pickleball events as well, as you know, tennis tournaments. So Pickleball is, it's fun and the beauty of it is that you're playing matches instantly, even if you've never picked up a paddle before. Within five minutes you're rallying and playing matches, whereas with tennis it could take months, sometimes even, you know, years, to get good enough to rally and play full matches. So the simplicity, ease of learning make it incredible. Very cool yeah.
Speaker 1:I've never. I've never played, never played Pickleball, but what I feel like it's, you know, the past few years it's, year over year, exponentially increasing in popularity. Do you attribute that to anything particular as to why it's growing at such a rapid pace?
Speaker 5:Somehow the pandemic was involved. People needed to wait for us and be far enough away from each other where they weren't getting sick. And it's funny because in tennis at the end of a match you shake hands up at net, but nobody wanted to shake hands during the pandemic. So you tap the paddle against the opponent's paddle, but I guess some people are tapping too hard and they would smash paddles and crack them. So you're at the edge of the foot, so that the hand taps the handle of your opponent. Yeah, so that seems to be when it really blew up big time, because the sport itself was invented over 30 years ago.
Speaker 5:I don't know if you know the history, but these two men were on vacation in Maine with their families and it was like a rainy day and they were in the basement looking for something to do and they just invented this game. They were like they took a couple of badminton rackets and they put up a net and they just made up a couple rules and they started playing and it grew there. But it really went with explosive growth over the last few years. So if I had to pick a single event that seemed to really accelerate it, I would somehow correlate it to the timing of the beginning of the pandemic, not when people were locked in their homes, but when people were eager and desperate to get out. It's sort of semi-final.
Speaker 1:Interesting, yeah, and I think, like you said, just the easeability of just picking it up in five minutes and being able to play, I suppose, tennis, which I know I'm not very good, it takes a lot more work to play tennis.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Andrew. Andrew, you have a question? Yeah, beautiful Mike, sounds great. All right, perfect.
Speaker 2:Sorry about that. Well, I was trying to jump in there and say is there going to be squash? What is the distinction between squash and tennis racket ball? Is that looked down upon? Is that a sport that's going to be part of this?
Speaker 5:I don't think either is looked down upon. It really just depends what sport you know the best. I've been doing tennis four years old, so that's in my blood, you know, and I've been running tennis clubs for over 25 years. So I know tennis really really well. And I've now gotten certified as a pickleball instructor and I've been playing a ton of it the last couple of years so I know pickleball also. Pedal I'm new to but I know that it's growing in popularity. Squash I've played a few times. It's kind of a wristier stroke as opposed to tennis, which is more of an elongated stroke. And so it's not because one is better than the other. I just kind of want to go with the sports that I know best and that feel have the heaviest demand, and to me those seem like pickleball and tennis.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just know squash from like the Northeast is where I know it, from like New York area, chicago, philly maybe I haven't heard too much of it down here Same.
Speaker 2:Well, it's almost like pickleball is substituting the squash. Like you know, it's been a country club and there's all these squash courts, but now people are starting to play pickleball you know retired people. So I don't know, maybe that's capturing that demographic.
Speaker 5:I think squash it's played indoors and that usually is going to involve some form of a private or paid for facility. The fact that pickleball is usually free helps. It's free no, it's free to learn and it's with people who want to have a good time. I mean. What could be better than that? You know, if you want to, just walked up to three people on the court and said, hi, could I join you? They'd be like who are you? What are you doing? But in pickleball it's like they don't discriminate. You could be a man or a woman or a child or a grown up or a year obese, like nobody cares. There's a very accepting kind of attitude where you'll pretty much let anyone go on the court with you for at least a game. If they totally suck, you beat them, then you play someone else. But there's no snootiness that I've encountered around pickleball and that's really cool.
Speaker 1:I was wondering that.
Speaker 5:Yeah, such a kind of beautiful, you know, social connector and it makes it such a cultural thing. It's that, I think, a sport that brings people together instantly. You're meeting people. If you look at how many pickleball groups there are on Facebook, I mean it's incredible phones, over a hundred groups.
Speaker 2:Crazy, yeah, yeah. And they're building these social clubs like Topgolf that are going to be like restaurants and bars.
Speaker 4:Oh really.
Speaker 2:Pickleball courts? Yeah, oh, I didn't know. I started building them out in Texas so Neil was interested. When you so what I do for a living is I'm a civil engineer that does real estate development. So when you were talking about finding sites and stuff, I've done a lot of work in Florida so I've been through that whole process Okay, multiple times is what I do for a living. It's very I could. I could understand that. Yeah, it's very hard to find good, good land like vacant lots at this point, especially down there, and the way the development has been booming it's insane.
Speaker 5:Yeah, For years ago. It exploded even to a whole other level when the whole world started moving into Florida. But the comics and the spatial requirement of pickleball make it a dream from a business perspective. So there's a restaurant and pickleball clubs that are called chicken and pickle. It's huge, yep, yep. There's an organization called pickle mall, where they go into empty spaces and malls and they put indoor sports boards. Because you don't need the kind of height that you need for tennis. You need minimum of 35 feet of indoor height for pickleball. You can play with, you know, 20 feet, maybe 25 or, but you can get away with 20. And because it's a wiffle ball, speed and power don't really matter that much. As fast as you hit it it starts losing speed. The second it leaves your racket. So you can put three spacious pickleball courts, or four narrower pickleball courts with less room between the courts, on the space of one tennis court. So the economics are incredible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't think about that. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:No, it sounds like. Is that going to be a big component of your new facility Having the pickleball feature? Is it going to be because we kind of talked about the training part of it too? Is it going to be half and half a club versus in a training facility? Yeah, or is there?
Speaker 5:going to be. Yeah, things that are adjoining. So there's the tennis structure and I can share with you. I'll share some renderings that you guys can maybe, in post-production or whatever, put in the podcast, but building it is a brick and mortar structure.
Speaker 5:It's about 50,000 square feet and that's going to have. We're still figuring out if we're gonna do eight tennis courts. Probably we're gonna do six tennis and six pickleball and we're gonna have an acoustic curtain to muffle the loud popping noise of hitting the pickleball, which is, if you've never heard it, it's Right. We have to contend with that issue because there are sometimes battling cultures with tennis players and pickleball players. But we're gonna just be one big, happy family and we're gonna have a acoustic sound buffer so they can coexist. So that's in the court building and then adjoining that is a separate building which is the clubhouse, and the clubhouse will have the restaurant, the locker rooms, the pro shop. We're gonna have a and a gym and ping pong. It's gonna be very family friendly and kind of place you wanna hang out, even if you're not playing, just cause it's beautiful and the food's great, and you wanna get out of the house and chill somewhere. It's a great place to chill.
Speaker 1:Air conditioned. That sounds awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, very cool.
Speaker 5:But I ran the club up in New York City, yorkville tennis. I ran it for like nine years and I would say in summertime nothing makes people angrier than when they get hot and it's irritable.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 1:Especially people in New York. New York tennis.
Speaker 5:Because it's very Face of New York. We had two tennis courts that were located on top of a parking garage and then bubbled above that and the constantly being inflated by the air compressor. But then we separately had an air conditioning unit which was basically powered by pretty much like a jet engine and that was located up on top of its own building that I had to climb up on a ladder in the middle of summer when I was freezing and restart this old prehistoric machine and when it cut out, men, they wanted air conditioning, Air conditioning, they had a lot of money for it and if it cut out they were furious. So we're gonna have the necessary ampage and BTU. The place is gonna be like a meat locker, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, could be a little expensive. We're on the AC for a facility that big, yeah. But yeah, what's funny, I just did the indoor track facility. I'm up in Lexington, so the University of Kentucky, I helped design the indoor track facility we just did here and they opted for no AC because of the cost, because, really, because it's so expensive to have an AC, yeah, yeah, so what you could kinda do with the track. So we're gonna have the roll up doors so you can get a lot of crosswind. But I could see in a tennis facility you really don't want that crosswind. Yeah, you're trying to play tennis.
Speaker 3:Especially with a pickleball.
Speaker 5:I just blow through. I've played in indoor places like that where they didn't have to spend the money and, yeah, even if they turned fans on, well, they're just blowing hot air.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right.
Speaker 5:You know. So that's no fun. I did a lot of research talking to indoor air conditioned bubbles and clubs. I talked to guys who did it the cheap way and those who did it the more expensive way, and we're gonna have AC blowers on both sides of the building, you know, at the north end and the south end, because if you just have it on the north end you gotta hope the cold air goes across eight courts and then people probably.
Speaker 5:Yeah, the cold court, not the hot end of the building, so we're gonna have AC on both ends blowing. Yeah, that's what people are paying top dollar for.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm Sweet. Well, I have a question for you, Neil. You mentioned we kind of touched on this over the phone but say I have a two year old that wants to get involved in tennis. Good place in the state of Florida with a three year old tennis program, Maybe air conditioned.
Speaker 5:That's a matter. So I've been coaching we used to call them Peewees but we'll say little kids from age two and up for 25, 30 years. And I just figured out, you know, I also had sort of a background in comedy. So I figured out that the ideal tennis pro is part comedian, part psychologist and part actual tennis instructor. And with kids, if you can make a kid laugh, you can make a kid learn. And so the whole key is the very first time you get a child on the court you have to give them the simplest, easiest tasks they can actually achieve. And that means now I'm recently now a father and I have a three and a half year old. So that means I take like these giant soap bubbles that you blow, you know, like that, or you dip them in the soap and you pull it through the air, and these giants and kids love it and they can chase them and pop them with a racket and they think they're just popping a bubble.
Speaker 5:But I'm doing sort of a Mr Miyagi training technique that they don't realize they're learning I hand coordination. We're working on their basic motor skills. He thinks he's popping a bubble. He doesn't realize he's hitting a four hand volley and an overhead smash and a service motion. Start with stuff like that. Then you can move on to balloons, because they're big and they move very slowly through the air and the worst thing you do is like get a kid on a court with an adult sized net. You put a rack in his hand, he starts throwing balls to him. He's gonna nine out of 10 balls. He's gonna get frustrated and say I wanna go home and get on my and I wanna go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I quit.
Speaker 5:Yeah, this is hard.
Speaker 5:But and you put him on a big she had a bubble pack and you make him jump up and down and pop the bubbles and he's having fun. What you're working on is footwork, his balance, his acceleration and deceleration and explosive first step like lateral movement, like all these things he doesn't know is going on, and the next thing you know he's having so much fun that he just wants to keep going and playing games with you. And so, over the course of time, I've developed the first legitimate, bonafide two-year-old tennis program, because as a nation, we have lost all our best athletes to other sports. We lost them to basketball and baseball and soccer and football and all these things, because tennis is just too hard. So what happened was around 2010,. The USDA realized that and they said we need to change how tennis is taught and they introduced what they call the Quick Start Program, which uses smaller courts, smaller nets, smaller rackets and foam balls. But it's still too hard and kids need instant success and validation and encouragement to stay with something and they get frustrated very easily, especially in today's world of instant gratification. So that's okay, like gratification on a tennis court, but just get smarter and more creative.
Speaker 5:And I'll never forget the first summer I ran a three-year-old tennis program. I was the assistant coach and the head coach was a former elementary school principal and he was in his 70s. His name was Norm and the kids' favorite part of the lesson was when they took the tennis basket and they would pick the balls up and put them in the basket Like they loved it. They did meal to it and I said why? And he said because they can actually do it.
Speaker 5:And that's the point for me and how I teach kids. Like, don't worry about it being too easy or too. No such thing to a toddler as too easy or too simple. The whole key is you have to get them addicted to an experience that is fun, and let them hit you in the face with the ball over and over again and whatever makes them laugh and have fun. And they keep coming back and the next thing you know, they start acquiring skills. And then you raise the bar a little higher and you make it a little more challenging and then you got a full-blown addict in tennis players yeah, get that routine going yeah.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm. Yeah, what you talked about, neil, with how other sports are taking over a little bit in the youth. That leads me to my next question, because we know a little bit about the path it takes for other sports to get from the youth levels up to the high school, collegiate and then into the pros, and sometimes those sports high school weighs a little bit more than other sports Sometimes college does. What is the progression from tennis, from a very young age of tennis? How do they progress through the ranks and how do they get to where they need to be in terms of turning pro? Because I'm sure for parents, for kids, I'm sure as a professional yourself, that's a big attraction for the tennis club. How does that work Well?
Speaker 5:the ages of eight to 12 are considered the golden years of tennis development. That's what teaching instructors believe. I believe that you have to get them really hooked in before that. But as parents and instructors and nurturers and teachers you always are finding you're trying to find an even balance between nurturing and fun versus teaching, and teaching involves competition, but you don't want them getting discouraged by losing too soon. So the youngest age for any competition sanctioned by the USDA, the United States Tennis Association, is eight and under tennis and the kids are playing on 35 foot courts, which is half the size you and I would plan a grown-up court which is 78 feet and the net for the kids is three feet tall, versus the net you and I would plan which is three and a half feet tall, and the balls bounce lower and the rules are very simple and the original, the youngest level tournaments are called. They're not even called tournaments, they're called play days and they're very easy to set up. You don't even use a banner. So if the kid hits the ball and it goes under the banner, he loses the point, but he does not have to experience the frustration of hitting the ball in the net.
Speaker 5:So the first competitive experience for these kids usually happens around the age of. It could be the age of three, four or five. By the ages of six, yep, yep, by the age. The next stage is on a 60 foot court where they're using orange balls. The age below that were red balls that bounce lower. And now, for the 60 foot court, the rackets are no longer 19 inch rackets Now they've moved up to 23 inch rackets and now they're keeping score. The rules are getting a little more enforced. They're serving by themselves, they're playing out points, and so that's from ages six to eight, and then from ages eight to 10, they move back to the full length court, but they're still not using yellow balls. So, using yellow balls with the green dot that are low compression and they bounce lower, okay, after that, some kids by the age of 10 are ready for full court, and no kid really wants to go through that progression. They all want to think they're playing real tennis and get back to the baseline and play the grownup version. But there's a method to the madness, because if they play grownup tennis too soon, they will distort their stroke, they'll use the wrong grip, they'll do anything they have to do to get the ball over the net and they form bad muscle memory from a very early age. That's harder to undo later. So the key is to start on the small courts with the low net, with the low bouncing balls, and just make it the funnest experience possible.
Speaker 5:I was always struck by so the Bryan brothers are the winningest doubles team in history and their father only had one question. He would ask them, on the way home from a tournament, pizza or pasta. I loved it, because there's no criticism you can give to a child, or helpful, constructive criticism or teaching or whatever on the way home from a tournament that he hasn't already lashed himself with. So all child needs at that point, if he hasn't won the tournament, is just some love and go out to a nice meal and make it family time and that's it. And then you get back on the practice court and you say, okay, what you need to do better is this, this and this, and now we're gonna work on it.
Speaker 5:And so the whole key is to keep a kid going, and so the legacy if you ever read his book open his big secret that he reveals in the book is that he hates tennis and that he's really boy.
Speaker 5:The father who was abusive and coaching him and who built an extra ball machine I think he called it the dragon that had a special attachment to hold like a thousand balls and the kid couldn't leave the court till he played the dragon and hit all the balls.
Speaker 5:And I don't think you torture kids. To make a champion does take a special kind of drive and dedication. But so that's my goal is to just start them as young as possible, make them fall in love by virtue of their own success, not just by compliment but the difference between what's real and what's just fake compliments. And there's nothing more satisfying than to a child than actually hitting a great shot and seeing he did that on his own and that makes him wanna keep coming back for more. And so when I used to run tournaments at any of the clubs that I ran, first thing is like it was a party. Everyone got a medal, certainly if they were three, four, five, six, seven years old. But when I coached individual kids, I always made sure to pick a tournament that they were either gonna win or at least do very, very well in, because you get crushed your first time, you ain't going back. And then eventually, as they say, you get success, you get confident, raise the bar higher and then you're into it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 5:So one of the kids that I coached early on one of my favorite kids of all time I started working with was seven years old was TJ Pura. And TJ was into soccer at the time. But I saw the physical talent on this kid. His father was a triathlete Iron man. His father had been drafted by the Kansas City Royals at a high school and he turned it down to get a full scholarship to pitch for a Harvard baseball team and.
Speaker 5:But there were good genes in that family and I could see early on TJ had talent. So it got him really into tennis. The father then saw it and got on board and because we made it so much fun and he had a lot of encouragement development, he ended up doing well in tournaments at a young age and then he got on a Duke, played number three for the Tar Heels and some of his contemporaries were like Tommy Paul and Riley O'Pelka guys who are currently having huge careers on the pro tour. Tj had a great experience also. But I'm firmly convinced If somebody had just come in crack in the whip at an early age kid would have bailed. You know that's something that coaches all the time is burnout, and we got to avoid the burnout and the kid who feels like a failure and just will hate tennis for the rest of his life. If you manage them well, they'll love it, whether they stay with it or not, and the love will turn to passion and drive Guys love it.
Speaker 5:So yeah, yes, so that's my goal from you know, from the early stage, and even more so now. I always felt that way as a coach, but especially now as a parent. I see how quickly kids absorb, how much they want to learn, but also how quickly they make up their mind whether they like something or not, and that how good they are at it. If they're good at it, they want to keep doing it, and if it's just frustrating, bye Ow.
Speaker 1:Same. Yeah, that's me.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's adults also, and in the high-grade world it'll only go so far.
Speaker 5:It'll make them think, forget them one more time, but you want them to catch kind of catch fire with it, you know, and that magic. So what I would do? I had a little boy who worked with, named Shepherd. He was, how old was he? He was five years old at the time and I just came up with creative ways for him to. I had a huge bucket and he would hit balls. They would go in the bucket, would make a big, loud, booming noise and let him hit me with balls. And Shepherd ended up playing tournaments and he did well with the Very cool, awesome.
Speaker 1:I have a question this kind of kind of what you brought up earlier as far as tennis and you mentioned the mental aspect of the game, like you mentioned about, you know, choking earlier when it becomes physical. So how much of the game you know you hear about it in golf all the time how much of the game is mental? How much of the tennis game is mental, would you say?
Speaker 5:A tremendous amount. I've placed more emphasis on the mental probably the most coaches do, because if you think about how many thousands of hours athletes spend working on on their muscles, on their physical training, on their aerobic stamina, all those things, all critically important, right, but in the most evenly matched competitions, what does it end up coming always down to? Who, in the critical moment, in the tiebreaker, in the long rally, who can, who cannot melt down, who cannot push too hard, too soon, who can be patient, who can be confident enough to wait? And that comes from a mental discipline. And the mental discipline can be formed through many, many exercises. There are some physical routines that good coaches coordinate among their players after analyzing hours and hours of tape of all the great athletes. For example, the end of a point will transfer the racket from the dominant hand to the non-dominant hand. They take a deep breath, they go phew points over, they turn their back to the court, they start playing with the strings on their racket and they're walking back to the base. You know, it's a very coordinated thing where you're letting go of the tension and then you start analyzing what happened, you start regrouping and all the players each have their own rituals they do to prime themselves before the next point.
Speaker 5:So some of the exercises that I've done that have been very effective with juniors are. One of them is the bragging exercise. So if you're my student, you sit and you're gonna talk continuously to me for five straight minutes about all your strengths, all your amazing qualities, all the things you do. Well, it's excruciatingly painful for anyone to do this, because in everyday society we're taught like be humble, be modest, don't boast, don't brag, let other people feel comfortable around you. But that's not what the athlete's trying to do. The athlete's trying to win. So the athlete asked to build this memory bank of all my many, many great qualities and strengths. So that's the bragging exercise. The second one is the victory exercise. And the victory exercise. You talk to me and you tell me about real victories that you have experienced throughout your life Sort of the opposite of how we started the podcast today.
Speaker 1:A little more motivational.
Speaker 5:Yeah, you talked to me about every victory you've had. Now they could be on the tennis court or off the tennis court First time I worked up the nerve to ask out a girl on a date, first time I learned to cook pasta on my own, or the first time I won a big match. And as you talk about these victories, you start to see your life as a series of victories, one after the other after the other. So when you're on the court in that moment of fear and panic and doubt and your heart's your pounding, if you take a moment, you're gonna all of a sudden remember this wave of victories that you've experienced and so it feels natural that you could prevail in this moment. Also, because that's what I do in life I win, I've experienced victories. And it's not hypnosis, it's not some like psycho babble. These are real, genuine memories that they're based on that a person's had and the whole neurochemistry that you experience of the victorious moment when it occurred. Your brain and your body experienced that again just when you retell me the victory. So that's another one. And then the third one that I use is called creative visualization, which has been used by top athletes all around the world Michael Phelps and many, many others, and I'll have a student, just sit eyes closed and I'll talk them through an entire tennis match, one point at a time, with the typical challenges that they would experience during a match. Maybe they double faulting or somebody's hooking them online calls or they're experiencing whatever the challenges are, and then they find a way to overcome those and they'll be there 15 minutes. But when that player walks out on the next court for their next match and some of those actual visualization start to occur in real life, they feel like they have been there before, they feel like they've been through it, so their body doesn't seize up and tighten and panic. So these are some of the ways that players can essentially just be their natural best version of themselves.
Speaker 5:A lot of players who overplay or choke. In the big moments they feel like they have to step it up and do something extra big and extra special and they push too hard and they over hit and they lose and what they really need to do is just stay in the same flow state that got them as far as they can come, and that only comes by believing in yourself enough to not push too hard, not take your foot off the gas. You know, if you just picture it like the engine, you don't wanna be up in the red zone and you don't wanna be not revving at all. You know you wanna kinda be right there in the middle to be able to hit the gas when you have to. So those are some of the exercises that I like to use for players and I've just seen tremendous, immediate, dramatic results with them. But I swear, it's really weird, even players on the pro tour, they don't wanna do it.
Speaker 5:I'll spare them by not naming him, but a friend of mine was playing the US Open last year and he was playing the number one seed, first round, and I made a video and I'll show you guys the video. I'll send it to you after I go. Here's your game plan. You can beat this guy. These are the things you gotta do, and I talked about a lot of things. We just did window. You know there's. I think some athletes have a sort of mentality like, oh, this is just too touchy feely. I need to get stronger, I need to do more pushups, I need to have more protein, I need more potassium and magnesium. You know what I mean. Like all that and all the physical conditioning training is vital, not downplaying any of that but without this component you've got this like superhuman physical machine that mentally, is gonna implode in the critical moments. So I'm a big believer that we gotta work harder in that area.
Speaker 1:Sure yeah, that makes complete sense to me.
Speaker 3:You think that's a case of players who you know they lean on their strength strengths a little bit too much. They avoid their weaknesses or they're so dominant physically that they love to just, you know, rely on that. They don't even think about the mental part of it. If that's a little bit weak, take the work out on their type thing.
Speaker 5:I think it's human nature. We rely on our strengths. We over, and then any good analyst can just exploit the weakness, and that's what a great coach does. There were some players on the tour that will hire a specific coach who used to coach the opponent they're about to face. No, there's insight and information on that player that they can get. One thing that, yeah, they'll just know you know, if you're winning slams, the difference between getting to the quarterfinals or the round of 16 or the semifinals at one of the grand slams. We're talking another $500,000. We're to get to the final $1 billion. Isn't that worth spending a couple hundred grand on a coach that can give you insights into a player's influence against, of course, and if they could tell you there's this one thing this player hates above all else. So, yeah, it's, we all rely on our strengths and they get us as far as they get us, but eventually we hit a ceiling.
Speaker 5:A lot of players know, Tiger, at the peak of his game, rebuilt and redeveloped his whole swing because he knew it wouldn't take him as far as he needed and wanted to go, and the same is true for a lot of tennis players as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah absolutely Interesting yeah.
Speaker 1:So do tennis players change their mechanics like golfers do? Yeah, really.
Speaker 3:Yeah, never thought of that, even the top players.
Speaker 5:Yeah, there was a period of time where Fed did this thing that he favor, which basically he started returning serve and just charging into net, which we used to call in the old days chip and charge. But it was like wait what it seemed? It was like the opposite of everything we've seen Fed or do, but he felt that it was important to try to do something different to turn a corner on his game. So, yeah, everyone that wants to go to the next level is trying to find, you know, and now, with our stats and the kinds of mechanics we have for analyzing revolutions of spin on the ball and stroke speed I mean there are incredible cameras and computers that analyze your strokes that can show you where your mechanics can improve. That's not even talking about strategy in the game, that's just talking about your physical mechanics. And we could see Fed moves well side to side, but he's terrible coming into net. Or he hates bending for low balls he doesn't get down so well for those or he hates slow shots. There's nothing harder to hit than a slow ball. Everybody loves speed. Nobody wants to be bored to be in the ball. So I'll never forget so.
Speaker 5:Madison Brangle beat Serena one time You've probably never heard of, but you've heard of Serena and the little cutaway shots of Brangle. This is when they first allowed coaching on the court and she was whispering to her coach. She was laughing. She was like Serena can't handle how badly I suck. Serena's used to people just crushing the ball as hard as they can and Madison just slow balled her to death and just screwed her up her timing. So every player has their Achilles heel. The whole key is can you find it Like don't just do what you do, well, do what works and look at what unnerves and unhinges your opponent. And once you find it Brad Gilbert is the best. He has a great book called Winning Ugly and once you find what that nerve is, it's just like a key turns in a little bit to just see that person fall apart.
Speaker 5:But yeah, that's where the mental game not on yourself but in analyzing your opponent comes in. So a lot of people tell their opponents before the match and go watch them play a previous opponent and do some analysis. Oh, this guy hates high balls, this guy hates slides. Girls love power. Me sound counter to girls love power, don't like slides.
Speaker 2:I got some rapid fire questions if we want to just go through. I know you're going close to an hour now, so I don't want to take too much of your time. Neil Sure, but just curious who's the who's the best tennis player that you've faced on the court? Who would you?
Speaker 5:say, best tennis player that I've faced. Let me see. Well, there's um. Evo Karlovich kicked my ass. He was top 10 in the world. I was not a top 10 in the country, but I returned one of his servers legitimately and won the point and I will show you that clip and I'll play that clip over and over for the rest of my life.
Speaker 3:Oh, you have to, you have to.
Speaker 5:Because I was late in you. It was the number one seat of Wimbledon. I think it was right around the year 2000 and Evo served and volleyed and kicked his butt so that, uh, yeah. So Evo was amazing junior or who's the top. He was a pretty high ranked doubles ATP player. I play with him sometimes down here and he's the best doubles player I've ever seen. And um, uh, I got my ass kicked by Steppen Koss law recently. Koss got to the second round the Australian open last year where he lost to Baratini. I think those are the three, the three strongest players that I've personally faced.
Speaker 2:Okay, Some big names. Who's the best player in tennis right now that no one knows about? That's not talked about.
Speaker 5:I talked about in the men's game. We got him, we got him.
Speaker 1:Joke of it.
Speaker 5:Hi, but I'm going while people are starting to talk about him. I mean, Blake Elton would be a new guy Really interesting yeah. I don't know if I could, if I could tell you the next up and coming guy who's going to break out, uh, that nobody's heard of, if I've seen him and heard of them, they've been seen and heard of and talked about already.
Speaker 2:I'd have to, I'd have to. So I, I, I went to Georgia Tech so I had heard of Christian Eubanks before the open and cause he was just a freak when he was there, and so when he finally broke through, I felt like I knew something, because this guy, like he, was everywhere after his performance there at the open. That's crazy.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:All right, couple other questions. You were rapid fire real quick. Yeah, we're going rapid fire. Why aren't tennis bands allowed to be rowdy? Why can't we have like a venue? Yeah, like getting loud and stuff, like it's every time you watch a tennis match you know you can't talk, it's a, it's silence. It's very serious, it's easy, it gets possible where we could have a tournament where we let the fans go crazy.
Speaker 5:Well, that's world team tennis. Billy Jean King started the league about a year ago, where tennis is branched into um a team sports like baseball or football, and I was the live on court announcer for a few years and the whole purpose of world team tennis was a more engaging that got the fans like rowdy and wild and I would say in between points they still go ballistic, you know, especially if you have open during points.
Speaker 2:Quite Right yeah.
Speaker 1:I got one. What's the hardest? Uh, what's the hardest surface to play on?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 5:For me it's Clay, because I like short points. I like grass and hard courts. I want to be done with the point within 10 shots. Other people prefer.
Speaker 3:Okay, you fell right into my trap. You fell right into my trap. Can you explain to me why Ruffin the Doll is the goat?
Speaker 5:Oh, it's going on, clay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the hardest surface.
Speaker 2:The hardest surface.
Speaker 5:Well playing on Ultra Uh Spain. Most of the courts are clay. It's kind of a crushed brick. I coach and that's if you grow up on that, you're going to be best at it, and his whole game was specifically designed for clay more than any other surface. So he's the goat on clay. Why All?
Speaker 2:right. Speaking of the doll, my last question who's the most famous person in your cell phone?
Speaker 5:Oh boy, well famous Uh, jerry Seinfeld, george Soros.
Speaker 2:Diane Sawyer. What Wow, really.
Speaker 5:These are all people through tennis.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:Seinfeld, big tennis guy. I didn't know that.
Speaker 5:I worked with him and his family for a couple of years and they love tennis. And Diane I played with at my club in New York. Emma Watson, I don't have her on my cell phone but I have her email if that counts. We played together a bunch in New York. Who else I don't know. That's it.
Speaker 2:We need these contacts for our next interview.
Speaker 1:Yeah, All right, I have one last question for you, Neil. What's that? So I noticed that in the retirement community, tennis is a very popular sport. You're located in South or Southeast Florida. Well, you know Messi is getting close to retirement. Have you reached out to him for a possible membership? Florida Indoor Rack Club.
Speaker 5:Kind of high profile figures in the area that I am hoping to invite. He is actually one of a few of those people. Jeff Bezos moved to the area. Jimmy Butler is also a big tennis player. We want to reach out to him as well. Okay, but is he really? Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, if you Google, look at the US Open. There's a great point with him playing against Alcaraz, and he can actually play. He's good Really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was like trained to be one of the ball boys at the last US Open. It was funny, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:Really oh.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so. So we would love to have a few, a few folks like that at the club. And we actually are going to reach out to Messi because he is close by the club and we're very family friendly club and I think he's got some kids and I say let's get him out on the court.
Speaker 1:Sure, yeah, and that's why he moved to Miami. And what I was reading is the family oriented atmosphere as opposed to the Saudi Arabia League. Yeah, right, but yeah, neil, this has been great. We'd love to have you on again, you know, as the time comes closer to you know, february 25. Is there anything regarding you know how the memberships are going to work? Maybe the costs associated with it? Is it unlimited? Have we gotten that far in the process yet, or is that still kind of TBD?
Speaker 5:Well, our goal is to have a small, powerful membership base of maybe between 50 to 100 members, and we don't want it to be too crowded because we want to be able to offer guaranteed on-demand court time 24-7 to our members and if you have too many members you can't do that and at the same time to keep a club this expensive in business. You know it's going to take an affluent clientele, but people who are happy to spend the money so that they can have the kind of access that they can. So we do have membership inquiries that are already coming in and I would say that would be about the size of the membership that we're looking for. I don't want this place to be packed morning till night, every single court. I want our members to be on any rainy day or any hot day and say we're coming over and they get guaranteed on-demand court time. That's a perk I've never heard of at any club ever as long as I've been.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's a premium.
Speaker 5:That's a premium. Yeah, Out on the phone right away. Everything's sold out, or the most popular time, Saturday and Sunday mornings or weekdays after work, they're just sold out. But for our members they get guaranteed contract court time so they have standing court time available to them, but they can also pick up the phone and come in any time. So I think that's my answer about the membership availability with us.
Speaker 3:And you said early 2025. Is that right?
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's right. Awesome, yeah, we're hoping for that. Or the Miami Open, which is in March. Okay, and players to come by and hit with our members, which is going to be really thrilling for a lot of them to get to play with some of their favorite players on the tour.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's got to be a little surreal. I'd imagine for some of them That'd be great.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's really cool. Yeah, well, guys, any last parting thoughts, for we let Neil go get on our day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, last thing, Neil, how did you find us? It's our question we're dying to know.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah. How was my PR team? They were good.
Speaker 3:They found you guys for me, they found the Diamond and the Rough yeah, they're great, the Diamond, and the Rough. You got a good team yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, michael's great. I don't know if you know Michael by first name, but he's been awesome.
Speaker 5:That's great. I'm glad this worked out. You guys are fun. I'd love to be on again anytime. This is really cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe like the next tennis tournament or something going on tennis wise. Yeah, keep in touch as we work towards the grand opening. I think that'd be a lot of fun.
Speaker 5:That'd be amazing. Thank you, guys, so much for having me today, see you, Neil. Thank you for joining Good night Nice to meet you. Thank you, okay, bye, bye.
Speaker 1:All right, that was Neil. Thanks, neil. Appreciate Neil for joining. That was fun. How's everyone doing? Thanks, neil. I'm good to kind of wrap it up there, unless you want to try to get Harry on. I don't want to ask him. I'll just throw the link in the chat and see what happens, if you want to do that.
Speaker 2:No, just send it to him.
Speaker 1:Don't throw it in the chat, Dude. I'm not sending it to him.
Speaker 2:I'm not invoking him.
Speaker 1:You want to text him. Of course you text him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't want him on here.
Speaker 3:I would like to talk to Harry about this for seven minutes, but that's not going to happen.
Speaker 2:No, chris, what you should do is invite Harry and then all of us, one by one, drop off. It's just him.
Speaker 3:Last one's Victor.
Speaker 2:Last one has to be Victor.
Speaker 1:Oh, you have him join, have him join. You can be like oh, harry, you're the fifth one to join, it's just us four, sorry, oh, that'd be funny.
Speaker 3:What if we invite Harry on and treat it as if Florida State made it?
Speaker 2:No, he won't.
Speaker 3:But just like, don't break though and see what happens.
Speaker 2:Oh, if you, if you act like there was just breaking news that Florida State has been granted.
Speaker 3:Breaking news.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they have substitute Alabama, Florida State the playoff.
Speaker 1:Dr Fauci caught for doping. He's unvaccinated. Yeah, Lama got COVID.
Speaker 2:Oh, that'd be hilarious.
Speaker 3:Question.
Speaker 2:Harry, do you think COVID, you wish COVID came back. So that's a family could get this well.
Speaker 1:There's, there's our thumbnail right there.
Speaker 2:Do you, do you wish for another pandemic? So the playoff gets canceled.
Speaker 1:FSU fans desperately miss COVID Well, any anything else going on in the world. You know, the past month or so since we've been anybody watching any good shows. I just watched the new squid game. If you guys seen that, it's awesome. I didn't even know there was one. Yeah, it's like a reality show this time.
Speaker 3:Oh, isn't that the one where they got sued for it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's awesome.
Speaker 2:Is it worth it? I started it, Emily Hayes. I didn't keep watching it.
Speaker 1:No. So how you have to watch it is they do like one minute bios on a bunch of people and they do. It's like ESPN draft day where they try to make the most relatable sob story to make you feel bad for them to hope they do well in the competition. And there's 456 people and they're going to go down to three, so everyone you want to win is out. So I just kept skipping that. And there's so much crying, there's so much. They made it so dramatic. But just skip through that. Just watch the games, because it's the games are intense. They kind of follow the regular squid game but they changed it up and there's a lot of psychological just mental warfare in between the games. It's intense but it's a fun watch.
Speaker 3:You recommend Hell yeah, grand Theft Auto is going to be sick, that's going to be, so sick. Awesome trailer. Did you guys see the trailer? Most watch YouTube video right now? Yeah, that's not music.
Speaker 1:I think it's hot, it's trending. Looks lifelike, victor. You seen it?
Speaker 3:No, yeah, andrew, do you know anything about what we're talking about?
Speaker 2:No idea.
Speaker 1:Do you know what Grand Theft Auto is?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I played. The last one was five, right. That came out a long time ago though. Yeah, ten years.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think it was the next one coming out. Grasses are insane.
Speaker 2:What's it going to be on? What's the game console?
Speaker 3:It's going to be on PS5 and Xbox Next Gen, so Series X and Series S.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I got to get the Xbox Next Gen. You have a year and a half to get it Is that what the college football playoff game is going to be on.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I can't wait for that game. It's going to be Elite next year. Yeah, like what College football?
Speaker 3:It's going to be on what Everything? It's going to be on everything, yep.
Speaker 1:We should have got Brandon on about the renderings. Damn, that'd be sick. Also, harry's given up on fantasy football. What a great foot forward for the new league.
Speaker 2:So I guess he's not going to be welcome back next year. He didn't even set his lineup this week. He had like three players out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's not even trying. Yeah, he's out.
Speaker 3:Big football, you know.
Speaker 2:Cory, you better step it up, man. You don't want to be the odd man out on the playoffs.
Speaker 3:I won the pot last week. You see me go. I had a good week. This week too have we won more this year.
Speaker 2:Oh Vic.
Speaker 1:Vic, I don't know if I have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have Chris. Maybe once Alex keeps weighing the pot. Alex has won it a few times. So is your dad.
Speaker 4:Yeah, alex has won it three times. Three times, I think. Yeah, Alex has won it three times.
Speaker 1:My dad's won it three times, I think.
Speaker 3:Oh guys, last night I lost. Hold on, Let me find it.
Speaker 2:Oh, that was insane, that Jamar Chase almost brought you back.
Speaker 3:I lost 183.9 to 183.8. Damn so that last out of bounds review that Jamar Chase had. If he just needed an extra yard.
Speaker 2:Oh no, he also had a couple of drops too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would have done it. He also had a 76-yard touchdown.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's hard to hate on him.
Speaker 3:I will, but it's hard.
Speaker 2:Chris, did you see the guy that won a $28,000 on a single game parlay? I saw it on Instagram $50 bet $28,000. It was like the same format that we usually go with to passing yards with receiving receptions. Who would have thought last night was the game yeah.
Speaker 1:You got to get back on that this weekend. Put some winners together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's do the Dolphins play.
Speaker 1:I don't know Tennessee.
Speaker 2:Maybe Dolphins play the Titans on Monday night. There's two Monday night football games. That's weird. What about the play and tournament. The NBA play and tournament.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hoops is more, so my sport.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I like the box the walkies.
Speaker 2:Yeah the box. We're in the play-in yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, who wins the NFC South?
Speaker 2:I thought it was going to be the Saints. Honestly, if the Saints would just play Taysum Hill, they'd win the NFC South. Disrespect the Dara.
Speaker 1:Carr.
Speaker 2:He's terrible dude. I don't understand. Yeah, is he like?
Speaker 1:hurt, hurt. Yeah, he's done, done. Yeah, saints are trash. I just hope they keep it in the satellite because he sucks.
Speaker 2:Oh, dude, he's. What's he like? 20 and 40 as a coach? Is it that good Like? No, he's that bad, he's like. I'm leaving the record.
Speaker 1:No. I didn't know if it was that good. Like he's 15 and 35 or something, I can't believe he's won a third of his games. He's 20 and 44.
Speaker 2:20 and 44. Yeah, 20 and 40. 20 and 44 is even worse.
Speaker 1:Andrew, how's the pool?
Speaker 2:Pool's closed man, 30 degrees here. It's been closed for a month.
Speaker 4:Yeah, speaking of pools.
Speaker 2:What happened?
Speaker 4:to yours. I had a lizard crawl into my filter so I left a little gaping hole where, so when the machine was running, the water kept pumping out of this hole, so I lost like six inches of my pool. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:A lizard.
Speaker 4:The only reason why I stopped pumping or losing is because the water got below the trap. The trapper.
Speaker 1:I don't know what that means, but yeah.
Speaker 4:So the square hole on the side where it goes filter out, so I still have the vacuum. So it stopped like draining pool. So now I'm about half a foot short and right now I don't want to refill it back up because it's kind of a lot, you guys just got a bunch of rain over the weekend.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 4:It goes fast.
Speaker 1:I barely got anything.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I'm kind of decommissioning myself, so I'm turning it off just for maybe an inch or two every other weekend. Should I get back up Wow?
Speaker 3:Stupid lizard Andrews are cold up there, or I guess better question how cold is it up there?
Speaker 2:Right now it's 37. 37. That sucks. Yeah, highs in the 40s, lows in the 30s now.
Speaker 1:It's kind of cool here for the next like 24 hours 64, where I am 64.
Speaker 2:Yeah, last Tuesday went to the Kentucky Miami game Back when I was feeling pretty good about the Kentucky basketball.
Speaker 4:So my future is on them. Is not going to do good, not going to hit dude Parallel.
Speaker 2:we can't even beat UNC Wilmington at home. Tough look.
Speaker 3:Sneaky good team though.
Speaker 4:Well, all just going to get better, right.
Speaker 3:Prisky team, you mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, prisky.
Speaker 3:It's only. December yeah, Any chance Coach K is losing on purpose. Just so the heads don't get too big Ooh, we're the forces away.
Speaker 1:Long game, long game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, coach Cal, just like Coach K.
Speaker 3:Yeah, coach, cal, I just.
Speaker 2:It's like what's Coach K doing now?
Speaker 3:Wrestling is the world's probably Doing the same amount as Coach Cal is to the Kentucky Wildcats.
Speaker 1:Maybe not financially.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought we were. I thought we were a legit title team when we played Miami. I couldn't believe, like this team, the style they were playing up and down the court shooting, taking 33s a game.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's okay.
Speaker 3:I thought Florida was going to be good, and then we just lost to Wake Forest.
Speaker 2:Dude, how did that happen? You all were up by like 15 in that game. I don't know. I've watched you guys play a couple your game against Pitt because I had actually bet on Pitt that game. I couldn't believe how good you guys looked.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we do look good. We have a lot of options, it feels like.
Speaker 2:but yeah, dude, that guy I don't know who, I can't remember his name the point guard that he hit like six threes in that game. Clayton yeah, clayton, he's good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's the. He came from Iona with Fatina.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:He's good I'm in the Seton Hall guy Tyrese Samuel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I can't figure it. In college basketball it's going to be a weird year because you got the Biggs again with Bacon, edie and Dickinson yeah, you know, it's still got all these really old players, so it could be a weird tournament like last year, with just a bunch of experienced teams prevailing or, you know, you actually have some good freshmen.
Speaker 3:I think that Texas might be able to make some noise.
Speaker 2:Texas.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What's they get, d'soubek, I don't know or.
Speaker 3:D'Soubek whatever his name is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought they were good and then I bet, like I couldn't believe, louisville took them to the buzzword.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, Wasn't that like the first game, though, or one of the first games?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:How's Bama this year? They?
Speaker 2:suck. They lost to Clemson at home.
Speaker 3:They're about to play a. They play a Biggs team.
Speaker 2:They play the hardest schedule in college basketball.
Speaker 3:They're playing some team from the Big East like Providence or something. Maybe they're playing UConn.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 3:No, UConn's playing UNC tonight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's tonight.
Speaker 3:I think they play Providence or something. Providence is good.
Speaker 1:UNC, my double digits.
Speaker 2:No, they don't play. Yeah, it's just. I don't know, it's an unpredictable season. I mean, kansas is only by seven on Kansas City right now. Weird, the hardest sport to bet on.
Speaker 3:Oh, never mind, Providence just got housed by Oklahoma.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I had Oklahoma in that game.
Speaker 3:Oklahoma's good apparently.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, they're pretty good. They got. What's his name? The coach from below the Chicago? What's his name?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I don't know it, but.
Speaker 1:Damn Saviour lost to Delaware.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, they've lost like four games.
Speaker 1:They were behind us. A thousand money line, yeah, peace.
Speaker 3:Villanova literally just won. What was that? The Bahamas. They won the Bahamas and then they got beat by Drexel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they lost to Drexel, they lost to Penn. I mean they've lost to all the other Philly teams. It's weird. Alabama plays Creighton, that's the only thing. That's Creighton, creighton. Alabama plays Purdue on Saturday. Then they play Creighton, then they play Arizona. That's their next three games Corey, purdue, creighton, arizona.
Speaker 3:Yikes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Arizona plays Wisconsin, purdue, alabama and FAU. Back to back to back to back.
Speaker 2:Dang yeah, purdue's got a schedule too. We're chank. I saw that Purdue Northwestern game going a mile away. They always losing on the Western. I don't know where it is. Fau lost tonight. Illinois beat him, illinois is not. They're pretty good too. Yeah, I don't know. Kentucky has the pieces. We're going to need Aaron Bradshaw to actually turn into a good player. He just came back. We need, we need to want Wagner to come back. He's hurt right now. He's honestly the reason, probably one of the biggest reasons why we lost, because we didn't have anybody that could take the ball and basket and we're just going to have to shoot it. Really well, our defense sucks. So if you want to guarantee that, just bet the over on the Kentucky game. I think it's hitting like all but two of our games.
Speaker 3:So keys to success this season is you got to shoot the ball, Got to shoot the we got to take 33s.
Speaker 2:You got to play fast. Yeah, it's all the stuff that counts in life. That's why all you like to play fast, but taking that maybe three is like and he likes to play half court sets a lot back down the big guys. That was that's what we got in trouble with against it, you and CS. But we couldn't hit from outside and so we tried to back down our bigs and we don't have Oscar, we don't have a guy like that.
Speaker 2:It just wasn't working and we couldn't guard them. They were, they were making everything. So we buried ourselves in a hole, we got down 11 and we just couldn't really fight back. It was, it was tough.
Speaker 3:That feels like the, that feels like the literal worst decision when you have a bunch of good incoming guard recruits.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I don't know. Yeah, it's weird Like he just kind of something with Cal has changed and he's got these tendencies now that he can't shake, and it's weird, I don't know. It's kind of like we we thought we were playing a different style and things were progressing and trending in the right direction. We had turned the page and that game kind of set us back, you know. But, like you said, it's December. We thought we'd have two non-coffers losses. Now we just got to go beat North Carolina next week. So we'll see how that goes. That's the one I'm worried about. How do we match up with a guy like Baycott?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't love you and see his guards that much though.
Speaker 2:No, no, let's let's. His name has been there forever. He's hasn't really done it RJ Davis. Rj Davis. Yeah, yeah, it's looking like you guys going to beat him pretty easily. Yeah, this NBA N-Season tournament, we guys think about it, we're, we're down to. The three of the four spots have been filled.
Speaker 3:Now I haven't watched a second of it.
Speaker 2:I'm going to be honest. You haven't watched a second. The Indiana Pacers have come out of nowhere and look incredible. They took down the Celtics last night. I saw that Highlights up, yeah, and then you get the Pelicans winning. They're the two surprising teams. The Pacers are one of the worst teams in basketball. All right, chris, are you calling Harriet or what?
Speaker 1:No, I thought we said no.
Speaker 2:Oh, we're going to throw him in, we're going to hop out.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to do that to him.
Speaker 2:Well, just.
Speaker 3:I just want to hear he's gone through enough.
Speaker 2:You guys really don't want to hear him, Like you don't want to have you talked to him on the phone or in person, since that it's happening no no, I think Corey is like I don't want to talk for more than seven minutes and we're not going to get him for under seven minutes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm about to get off, actually, I got to go.
Speaker 2:All right, all right. I thought it'd be funny we can do it another night.
Speaker 3:I would love to hear Harry try to spin zone it any way possible to cope.
Speaker 1:But not right now. No, I just keep it short. That way we can just put this with the interview. Just get it out.
Speaker 3:That's good. All right, I'm out. All right, see you guys.
Speaker 1:So did we want to end the show like we in the show I don't know the other 31 episodes or? Yeah, all right, go for it, our boys, because it doesn't force. I think we nailed it. We'll have to get our FSU brethren on soon enough. I'm calm down. First, yeah, the imitations have been respectfully declined and one has gone along the wayside and have not heard back. So FSU is doing some soul searching, trying to cope with what happened. I'm sure we'll hear eventually, but we will try to get them on so they can have their platform, their pedestal, to tell the SEC, tell college football what happened and we'll go from there. Yeah, thanks for joining. See you in episode 33.
Speaker 3:We'll send them their most important invite in the past week.
Speaker 1:Hey, it works.
Speaker 2:It in the invitation right. I'll use that invitation.
Speaker 3:It's all you need. He wants it. You just got to get it.
Speaker 2:That should be your Christmas. Every Christmas car to a Florida State fan. This Christmas should be. I am formally inviting you.
Speaker 3:Alex, hitting everybody with the thanks for the invite is going to hit a little different now.
Speaker 1:Oh no.
Speaker 3:Oh, no, thanks for the invite, and then that's what FSU said.
Speaker 1:I can't wait for the first TFT. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:Oh well, all right bros.
Speaker 1:Go big blue. Okay, go blue, go blue.