Ep. 11 - Embracing Northwest Arkansas: A Journey of Community, Podcasting, and Soccer Evolution

When Randy Wilburn made the leap to Northwest Arkansas, he wasn't just changing his address; he was about to uncover a treasure of community spirit and local wonders that would capture his heart. Join us as Randy takes us on a personal voyage, from his initial reluctance to the moment this region truly felt like home. We unpack the allure of the local amenities and the infectious Razorback pride that will captivate anyone who visits, while also delving into the unexpected delight of newcomers as they discover the region's burgeoning fame.

Podcasting isn't just a hobby; it's a powerful vessel of connection, and in this episode, I share my own podcasting journey that began back in 2009. With storytelling at its core, we discuss how Encourage Build Grow came to life, empowering brands to find their voice and reach global communities. As we navigate the realms of impactful narratives, we uncover the profound ways in which personal stories can foster inspiration and offer assistance, nurturing bonds from Alaska to Australia to India.

The episode rounds out with an energized glance into the future of sports in the area, as we discuss the USL Soccer Academy's introduction and its promise to revolutionize local youth soccer. We reflect on the cultural shifts away from traditional pay-to-play models, envisioning a future where local talents are honed right in our backyards. It's a heartfelt celebration of Northwest Arkansas's evolution, where the excitement of growth and opportunity in both work and lifestyle is palpable in every corner of this vibrant community.

Transcript

Wes Harris: 0:04

Pitch to Pro is the official podcast of USL Arkansas. This will be our platform to tell our story about the club and the special place that we call home, northwest Arkansas. This is a journey we want to bring you along for the ride. We'll share what's going on behind the curtain, help educate the community at large about soccer, our league, and give updates on the progress of the club along the way. Together, we'll explore and unpack our journey to professional soccer, the magic that is NWA, our community, and talk all things soccer from on the pitch to behind the scenes, telling the story of our club.

Wes Harris: 0:42

Pitch to Pro podcast is proudly sponsored by PodcastVideoscom. Podcastvideoscom is Northwest Arkansas's premier podcast recording studio, equipped with industry-leading equipment. The recording studio and services save you time, money and hassle. They are dedicated to helping you create, record and publish high-quality podcasts for your audience. Be sure to check them out today at PodcastVideoscom. Hello everybody and welcome back to the Pitch to Pro podcast. I'm your host, wes Harris, managing director for USL Arkansas, northwest Arkansas's professional soccer club, playing in the United Soccer League. Hey, today, guys, we have an awesome guest and a great conversation on deck here with Mr Randy Wilburn. Randy, welcome to the show, my man.

Randy Wilburn: 1:27

Thank you so much, wes. It's an honor to be here. It's not often I get to be on the other side of the microphone, so I'm enjoying this not having to prepare in the same way that I normally do for an episode.

Wes Harris: 1:40

I know and we'll get into that and what you do and all that, if I to our audience, if I seem to be upstaged by Mr Wilburn here across the desk he does this far more often in a much better background and podcast hosting than I do, but anyway, we'll get into that. So, randy, welcome to the show man. And, as we kind of mentioned, randy's just got an incredible background and is involved in so much and doing so many great things and cool things, honestly in the Northwest Arkansas community and, like myself, was a transplant, but now we call Northwest Arkansas home together and so, before we get into all your cool things, I wonder if you could just kind of tell a little bit about yourself, how you came to Northwest Arkansas, how you found Northwest Arkansas, and just give a little bit more background on you man.

Randy Wilburn: 2:32

Yeah Well, I love being asked my origin story. So I ended up in Northwest Arkansas in 2014. A friend of mine who is a teacher in the San Juan College of Business his name is Mark Swagg and he invited me back to a company that we used to both be owners of, but the company got acquired in the early 2000s and Mark and I were always remain friends. He hired me not right out of college, but I was a young guy at the time and so he hired me and ultimately I became an owner in that company, and so we had a strong relationship, very good company. We were on the Inc 500 a couple of times, so we knew what we were doing as far as business was concerned. He invited me back to the company in 2013.

Randy Wilburn: 3:18

I joined, but I worked remotely from New England, and I told him at the time I was like, dude, I'm never moving to Northwest Arkansas, I'm never moving to Arkansas, period. And he laughed. He was like you don't have to. You can get on a plane from New England and go do whatever you got to do with clients. And then one it was October of 2014. And he was like hey, what if I invite Nicola, my wife, to come visit for a week and I was like, yeah, okay, we'll come, we'll both come. He put us up at the Dixon Street and it was the perfect October week, amazing 80 degrees in the morning 80 degrees during the day, it was like 60 something at night.

Randy Wilburn: 3:58

I ran the Razorback Trail every day. I was right there at the foot of the campus and I just got to experience what life was like here. My wife visited several schools. She went to the Fayetteville Public Library, which, if you haven't been, it's probably arguably one of the finest libraries in our country, if not maybe one of the top 10, 15 libraries in the world in terms of what it has and just its collection. But the bottom line was we were sold within two months. We were moving here with our moving truck at the end of December of 2014. And we've been calling this home ever since, to the point where our youngest has pretty much known Northwest Arkansas as this home, way more than he recognizes New England as home.

Randy Wilburn: 4:42

So, yeah, I mean it's a special place and I tell people all the time that I'm very fortunate that we made a decision to come here, because it wasn't on my radar screen before I came back to work with this company and I mean the only the weird thing was in the 90s I was a huge Nolan Richardson fan. I rooted for the Razorbacks in that run. I mean they should have had two chips, should have had two. I got one and I'm happy for that. But yeah, it's just interesting that I find myself here now and at the midpoint of my life. I can't think of another place that I'd want to be, and I've lived in the Bay Area. I've lived, I grew up, right outside of New York City. I lived in Boston. I've lived in Washington DC, where I went to college Shout out, to Howard University. I lived in Atlanta and I lived over in Europe. I've lived all over, have experienced a lot. I gotta tell you that this place is special.

Wes Harris: 5:39

Oh yeah, I mean, that's the, but it's one of those where people are still. I mean, they're starting to wake up to it because of the national coverage, but I think, even still, with that, you still get the. Really no, that's all, it's all. And then you all the time and then, but then you get people here. This is the conversation we have with everybody. It's like you get people here and they're like oh, now I get it. And this is I mean we all talk about anybody who's ever been here or lived here. We have the same conversation and it's almost weekly, daily depending on the context, but this is something that we talked about all the time. As soon as somebody gets here, they're just like blown away and they're like, wow, I had no idea. And half of them end up moving here and never leaving.

Randy Wilburn: 6:23

Yeah, I mean, and that's funny, when you look at where we're situated in the United States, we're kind of like where the heart would be on the body right, that's what they call it, the heartland. And I think it's important for people to recognize that there's. It's still kind of rugged Back in the day, and when I say back in the day, I'm talking like the 1800s. This was considered the wild, wild West. This was part of the frontier movement. It was part of the frontier. So we still have that feeling.

Randy Wilburn: 6:50

I mean, yeah, we're about three hours due South of Kansas City, about an hour and 20 minutes, depending on how you drive from Tulsa, about five hours from Dallas.

Randy Wilburn: 6:59

You're kind of, you have close proximity to a lot of things and you're, you know, as you know, I know St Louis is the gateway to the West, but you can, we can get to New Mexico pretty quickly. I mean, you just have accessibility to a lot that this nation has to offer in terms of landscapes, in terms of places to visit, cultures to see and just things to experience. And that's why I think people, as people start to figure it out, they're going to recognize that, oh my gosh, I live in an area where I can go to one of what I say is arguably one of the best museums of art in the country, in Crystal Bridges. You've got the Amazium. You've got, obviously, everything that's happening at the University of Arkansas, so you've got a little bit of everything. The only thing we don't have is a pro sports team, which now we do, and so yeah, exactly, so it's like I mean yeah, I mean so all of the.

Randy Wilburn: 7:53

we are filling in all the gaps slowly but surely and as we continue to grow. We're currently around 576,000 people population-wise and they're saying that we're going to hit a million by 2045. I think and I was just talking with somebody earlier today I think we're going to hit it before 2040. I would agree with you At the rate I don't think public math but at the rate that we're adding new people every day, I think we're going to hit that number well before.

Wes Harris: 8:21

well, what people are saying I would agree with you because I think the rate that we're hitting now, I think, is only going to increase and it's going to continue to step change, like that. And so you're going to get the hockey stick. Yeah, I would agree with you. It's not going to be a linear growth. No, it's not, and so I tend to agree with you there. So, but yeah, I mean, you hit on it, right. I mean, we've got almost all the things and, if not, we're really close to them. But we are now starting to fill in some of those gaps. So, like a lot of the work that, like Alice Walton's doing either on the arts but also on healthcare, right, like we're starting to do some of those things, it's literally awesome.

Randy Wilburn: 8:57

And it's the Alice Walton School of Medicine it is. And then the whole health institute. I mean all of those things too, it is great. I mean it's certainly helpful to have you know that I think at the time the 12th richest woman in the world. But beyond that, you have a lot of people. I mean Alice Walton isn't the only philanthropist in the area that's giving back to this community. We have a ton of people that utilize Northwest Arkansas as the launch pad for what they were about to develop, and I'm speaking of JB Hunt and his family. I'm speaking of Don Tyson and his family. You know Todd Simmons and Simmons Food, and you fill in the blank. And then all these new companies that are here, like Charu, thomas and Ox, and you know all these startups that are finding a home right here in Northwest Arkansas. That's right, we've got startups here, it's at the top.

Wes Harris: 9:48

Startup like ecosystem, like it's the right and like that fosters that community and it's right here with the work that, especially like startup junkie is doing and everything that they're doing, like just everybody, in the way that it rallies, we rally around some really cool things. Yes, absolutely, as an entrepreneur.

Randy Wilburn: 10:09

I mean, your capital is here. They see the writing on the wall and it looks really good. Yep, it does.

Wes Harris: 10:16

I love it. So you've been here now since 2014. Yep, and you got out of. You know, you kind of stepped away or got bought or whatever it was that brought you here and you got into some other really cool stuff Right. Probably the one that most people know you for is the I am Northwest Arkansas website and podcast. Yes, especially one. Yes.

Randy Wilburn: 10:44

I was. Now, that that's. I have to remind myself now that that's a real thing. I'm like, oh yeah, actually own that. You know that's awesome. Yeah, it is kind of cool. No, yeah, you know it's West.

Randy Wilburn: 10:53

The reality was I've been podcasting since 2009. So I'm kind of an old hat at that, but it was something that I didn't do as much as I should have. I just liked talking, I like sharing and telling stories, and this podcast ultimately was the podcast I would have wanted to listen to when I moved here in 2014, but it didn't exist. I looked everywhere for information about Northwest Arkansas. It was still the best kept secret. We were still trying to keep it a secret, exactly, exactly.

Randy Wilburn: 11:24

So in 2019, when I left ZY Group, I decided I started my business in Courage Bill Grow and ideally at the time, I was doing and still do some consulting work. I do podcast strategy consulting. I help businesses get their podcast off the ground and extend their brand through storytelling that way. But one of the things I wanted to do was I wanted to have more people who were like me, that were thinking about coming here. I wanted to give them a lay of the land and just do it through storytelling and essentially, all I do is share my platform with other people that are here doing interesting things, and that's what I tell people, because people say how do I get on your podcast?

Randy Wilburn: 12:04

Well, I mean, we got a backlog of people that don't want to get on, but the bottom line is that you know it's open and we want to share it with as many people as possible, and over the years, all that we've seen is that, as we have shared our platform with others and told their stories, it has resonated with a very wide audience, and so we have listeners all over the country. We actually have a huge contingent of listeners in Alaska, which I still can't figure that out. That's crazy. We have a contingent of listeners in Australia. We have a contingent of listeners in India, and then we have people from all over mainland United States that listen to the podcast, some that I suspect are planning to make a move here and others that are just like. You know, I want to. You know I want to see what this area is all about.

Wes Harris: 12:50

Yeah, no, that's great man. I mean, talk a little bit about some of the. You know what you've learned from doing that. I mean, part of what and I'm experiencing a little bit of some of this is, in order to be successful, you have to ingrain yourself into the Northwest Arkansas community. Absolutely, you have to be involved. Yeah, and I mean I was always an active community member, but not to the degree that I am now right and I know I still need to do more and will do more with what's to come with the project. But talk about that man, because that's a very different experience, I think, for people who aren't used to it too.

Randy Wilburn: 13:28

Yeah, and you know, and I tell anybody that's from Northwest Arkansas and lives here now, you are an ambassador for Northwest Arkansas. So let's just be clear, it's not just West and Randy, it's West and Randy, chris and everybody else that is living here now and calls this area home. But yeah, I found that. You know, I always my grandfather taught me a story a long time ago where he said hey, if you give to a city, it will give back to you, not for a quid pro quo I want something in return but figure out a way to give to wherever you are and it will return the favor. And the way that I have found to give is to elevate the concept of storytelling by virtue of the fact that we all have an interesting story to share, and so, as my platform has grown, I've basically encouraged people to tell their story. So if I reach out to you and say, hey, I'd love to have you on the podcast, it's because I want to help you elevate yourself and you're thinking about your story and about the work that you're doing, and I just think, as human beings, we sometimes need that edification, we need that encouragement to you know, be the best version of ourselves, so that A people don't think, well, I'm the only one going through this, no, you aren't.

Randy Wilburn: 14:43

There's a lot of people going through what you're going through. Tell your story and let other people hear it, and then you might free them up from whatever they're struggling with. And it might free you up in the process, because a lot of times when we tell our story, it has a very cathartic effect, does so. I think it's important, and so I tell people to lean into their stories, because stories matter and you know, honestly, I mean, when you I think of, like Joseph Campbell and the hero's journey and just the whole arc of a good story, I mean stories have resonated with human beings for thousands upon thousands of years. So there's people were telling stories back in caves and they're telling stories right now, today and with what's going on. So our histories are past time.

Wes Harris: 15:25

Exactly, exactly. It's through storytelling, it's the way that we do it now is different. It is, it's totally different.

Randy Wilburn: 15:31

Yeah, no, I mean, our oral tradition now is that we have the ability to podcast and digitize our voices and share it, and so that when we're long gone and dust, people are going to be listening to this as it's archived and say, wow, okay, that's so. That's how they started Northwest Arkansas Metropolis of now I don't know, and I mean it could be a place of 10 million people at some point in time. It could be, it could be. And then you're like, wow, I remember when.

Wes Harris: 15:55

So yeah, so that's interesting. No, super cool. So you're doing all this podcast and stuff. You've got your encouraged Bill Grove. Yep, you dabbling a little bit of instruction at the U of A it's room time.

Randy Wilburn: 16:09

Yeah, it's all.

Wes Harris: 16:09

So yeah, Talk about that a little bit.

Randy Wilburn: 16:11

Yeah, and shout out to the former dean of the San Walton College of Business, dean Matt Waller. They've got a brand new dean now, and so I was given an opportunity. I've spoken to a number of the classes there. I've had a chance to speak to the MBA program for a couple of years in a row, and Professor Stover-Rink has invited me there. Adam, yeah, he's a very good guy and I really appreciate him. And then I've had a chance to also teach some classes for the extension program, and so I've got a chance to do things with the Delta Leadership Initiative.

Randy Wilburn: 16:52

On behalf of the University of Arkansas, I've taught classes to the Arkansas Bankers Association. I've taught classes because what a lot of people don't know is Arkansas is a very diverse state in terms of economy and so and this is something I didn't know First of all, we are the number one rice producer in the world and we're also one of the largest paper producers in the world. People don't realize. I mean Georgia's big. Arkansas is very big, and if you go to the south part of the state, there are a lot of paper mills. So I got a chance to do some training on motivation with a huge paper mill that has locations all over the country, but one of their biggest locations is right and down in southern Arkansas and the Delta, and so this area is unique and they don't call it the natural state for anything. I mean, there's a reason and so, yeah, the University of Arkansas has given me some really cool opportunities to expand myself from that perspective, and I've always done adult education and teaching, so it's not new for me, but it's new in the sense that I'm getting to do some new things around that area.

Randy Wilburn: 18:00

But I've always done trainings and classes on leadership development, on motivation, on communication, of course, because that's my area of expertise and I try to help people as often as possible, because typically people struggle in that area and a lot of the struggle is simply from the fact that we don't like to publicly communicate. No, it's like my wife struggles with it. Everybody, most people, I mean people would rather die than talk in public. It's just, it's like dead, dead as opposed to get up and talk on the stage. I don't care. I mean I've spoken to 15,000 people, I've spoken to groups of five. It doesn't matter to me, I could do it in a heartbeat, but I'm just wired differently as far as that's concerned. But anyone can develop that skill and muscle, and so my encouragement to anybody listening is always just that you just have to get up there and get your reps. It's like in soccer, just like with anything.

Randy Wilburn: 18:52

Yeah, it was just like with anything. You know my son, he's a soccer player, he loves playing soccer and I'm like did you do your touches today? That's like my own maximum. The first thing I asked him at the end of the day did you do your touches today? Cause if you're not doing your touches, then don't come to me after a game talking about, hey, I couldn't get my ball around this defender or that defender, it's cause you haven't put the time in to work it out.

Wes Harris: 19:15

I saw a clip recently and it was of Kobe yeah, rip Kobe Bryant and he said that from 12, when he was 12, he was like barely making first team kind of stuff, and he was 12 years old. And then by the time he hit high school, when he was 14, he was, you know, the standout that he was.

Wes Harris: 19:42

Yeah otherworldly and starting to get noted like otherworldly, whatever yeah and people were asking him what he did and it was literally just consistency of every day, two to three hours of just practice and just shooting, dribbling whatever he could do to just but doing something every day. And he said if you only go to practice when it's a team practice, you're never gonna be next level. You'll be good, you'll have fun, you'll whatever, but in terms of next level and continuing to build on a skill set, to be elite or to really make a step change, it's the consistency of everyday reps. And that was I was like I mean, it makes total sense when you think about it, but like to hear that from one of the greatest to ever do it in his sport At Mamba mentality and kind of where that was cultivated. But to do that at 12 is also something I know.

Randy Wilburn: 20:42

I was doing something very different, totally totally, and you know the reality is is that young people nowadays, my kids included, have so many other competing interests and just access to stuff.

Wes Harris: 20:55

I mean, I had Atari.

Randy Wilburn: 20:56

I had video games when I was growing up, but my first inclination when I came home from school was I went and hit the basketball court. I played a lot of basketball growing up. I played all sports growing up, but I played a lot of basketball. And then when I got to high school I got into competitive swimming and the rest of that was history. That was my focus and I went to college on a swimming scholarship. So you know, I know what it is to be an athlete and I certainly I think I wish I had maybe discovered swimming a little earlier. I could always swim, but not competitively. And then when I finally got in, I put my all into it. But you know it wasn't a thing where I was like 10 or 11 just going every day to the pool and swimming. And so you know, I've shared those motivation videos. I see those videos as motivation. And when you hear other people talk about his habits, he never lost those habits from the time he was 12 to the time, you know, to his untimely death. But you hear Chris Bosch and others that played with him or were around and talk about just his skill set, and you know the fact that sometimes these guys would be just getting up in the morning, he'd already had a workout. He'd already had a workout and he was icing his knees getting ready for the next workout. That's, you know, that's that championship mentality. But it's also a perfect understanding of what it means to get your reps in. It's just like with what we're doing here with podcasting.

Randy Wilburn: 22:10

You, you know, people say how do I know how you do that? It's like, hey, it's just like riding the bike. You get on, you start going little by little. I mean, it's old hat for me now. So people look at me, don't look at me. You just have to decide oh, if this is something you want to do, it's just exercises. It's like a barbell. You might start off with the five pound weights. Eventually you'll put a 10 in your hand, then you'll put a 15, then a 20. And before you know it, you're pulling those 45s and you're pulling them up and back and rotating your bicep and really building something of considerable heft. And it's the same way with just getting your reps. You've got to get your reps in and before you know it you become an expert. You know Cause they have to bunk that whole 10,000 hour rule. They have, they've got that a little bit. You don't necessarily need 10,000 hours, no, but 10,000 hours can help. That is not gonna hurt. And it's not gonna hurt 10,000 hours. It's certainly not gonna hurt.

Wes Harris: 22:58

It took them to all another levels. Yeah, yeah, but it's about habits. You know it's about habits, it is, and so I'm glad you said that word. I love it and we try to teach that too. And I'm a soccer coach, obviously, with what I do too, and it's about habits in terms of what's good in game or not, and off the field too. But I forgot that you were a swimmer too.

Randy Wilburn: 23:19

Yeah.

Wes Harris: 23:20

What did you swim?

Randy Wilburn: 23:21

I swam the 500, the 1,000. Every now and then I would swim the 1650. So you were a dead coach. I did distance and I was a breaststroker Okay, very good breaststroker. I swam 100 and 200.

Wes Harris: 23:33

And you and my wife needed to be on a relay. That was the one stroke she needed you know it's so funny.

Randy Wilburn: 23:38

I swam with a kid that was a really like. We had this kid come in and you know, swimming's one of those sports where, like, you'll have like some every now and then you'll have these younger kids that are just like super fast. And I remember this kid that came in at ninth grade and I was, I think, at 11th grade or maybe I was a senior at that point, and he came in and he was super fast, you know senior nationals, the old nine yards, I think. He ultimately went to the Olympic trials. I swam with several people that went to the Olympic trials but he came in.

Randy Wilburn: 24:05

His name was Dan Bowman and we broke the record for the four by 100 medley relay and I swam breaststroke on that and he did butterfly and he was just I mean he was, I think, at that time and that was fast. I mean he was a ninth grade swimmer, like a 49 or 50 flat in butterfly, which when you're in high school and you're not around a lot of competitive swimmers but just people that swim every year. Right, I mean that's super fast, that's fast. I mean he just blew the doors off, but I think our high school record still stands to this day. Oh wow, yeah, for the four by 100. You get a lot I got to introduce you to my wife.

Wes Harris: 24:42

Okay, yeah, she's a big swimmer.

Randy Wilburn: 24:43

Absolutely no. I think it's a great sport. I got all my kids into swimming. One of them swam competitively. He liked it, but he didn't. He got burned out.

Wes Harris: 24:52

So yeah, yeah, but it's all good, you gotta balance it. No, I get it. Well, I mean, we've kind of talked a little bit about it. But I want to talk and just ask you, why do you love Northwest Arkansas? And we talked a little bit about it. But, like, why do you love Northwest Arkansas? Have you seen it over, change over the since the time you've been here? And then, what excites you about the future? Yeah, other than this.

Randy Wilburn: 25:15

No, those are good questions, Right? Yeah, I mean, of course I'm excited. I mean, when you guys announced not to get off on a tangent, but when you announced that you guys were going to bring a soccer club here, a pro soccer club, I was excited about it because soccer wasn't my sport growing up, Although I do remember going to several New Jersey Cosmos soccer matches with Franz Beckenbauer when Haley was on the team. Yes, RIP he just passed.

Randy Wilburn: 25:44

RIP, rip, rip, rip. Right, and I remember going to those games, and that's when soccer was like it wasn't even a thought. Even though you had some of the greatest players I mean Haley, arguably one of the greatest to ever play the game it still wasn't, and it was like I don't know fourth or fifth fiddle in a city like New York, where of course, you had the Yankees, and I'm talking about the Reggie Jackson days and all that. So things were different, but I mean, I think it's a tremendous sport, it's a tremendous way to just really get out there and try and embrace something that we haven't been used to, and I think it's.

Randy Wilburn: 26:23

You know, the time has certainly come, and so I think what USL soccer is doing is emblematic of where Northwest Arkansas is going, meaning that this area is fundamentally just, little by little, we're chipping away at, you know, what the possibilities are and what this area can be, and we keep talking about the little things, but little things lead to big things. They do, and so I'm tremendously excited about how this area will grow and that I won't recognize it in another seven to 10 years. I mean, I already don't recognize some things just because it's happening as quickly as it is, but you're also in the midst of it. So, like when you're in the eye of the storm, you can't appreciate the depth of that storm Exactly, but it's when you pull back and take a look at the totality of it, you're like holy crap this is serious.

Wes Harris: 27:19

So I've been here collectively about a decade, right, and so I moved here in 2011 and was here for a few years, and then my wife and I moved to Minneapolis for almost four years, where it's cold in the winter. It's quite cold. Take your breath away cold.

Wes Harris: 27:34

Yes, exactly exactly, exactly, but, and we loved it. But when we kind of looked at each other, started having family, like where do we see ourselves? We didn't have that destination. Where do we want to be? Neither of us she's from Northeast Ohio, I'm from Maryland we didn't want to get back there. But we said, where at well, where, like start somewhere, exactly, is it here? I don't think so. But okay, well, where is it? Well, I don't know.

Wes Harris: 27:58

But Job market's great and for what we did in consumer goods and we still had friends that have become family and hey, we were really happy in North-West Arkansas. Let's try it and get back. So when we came back after that kind of three and a half, four year hiatus and it's 10x that from if somebody were to leave now and come back in three years, like I said, that hockey stick growth right. But to your point on, once you're in it and you see it I know I drive around and you do probably too and you're like, oh, that's new, I didn't know that was going and things like that. But when you are completely removed for a good chunk of time and you come back and you can just see the explosion, we didn't recognize the place and we had only begun in three years.

Randy Wilburn: 28:41

It's crazy. It's crazy, and you know it's funny, as I go back from time to time to Boston, which is the last place that I lived before I moved here, and you know, Boston's one of the oldest cities in the country. Of course, there's like nothing new there. I mean there are new things, but it's not like that. Like the joke when I was living in Boston is they're not growing any new land.

Wes Harris: 28:59

Because you pretty much build every new land.

Randy Wilburn: 29:03

Here it's like everything's wide open. It's almost like a blank canvas. So in the eye of anybody thinking about coming here, just imagine yourself as an artist you literally have a blank canvas. Even at 576,000 people. I feel like people that come here, this could be a really blank canvas for them, not just for their vocation, but just for their living in general, all the things that they want to do and how they want to live and being able to take advantage of all the great outdoor activities and, you know, being able to connect with so many interesting people from so many different walks of life. This is a blank canvas for people and that's the thing that gets me most excited about Northwest Arkansas.

Randy Wilburn: 29:46

And yeah, I mean, I don't care where you are, there's all you could find something to complain about. I choose not to complain about stuff. Yeah, I would rather come up with solutions rather than have a what I call a stitch in you know what session that doesn't serve any purpose. No, it really does, and I get it, and I've actually talked to several people that are like lifetime residents here and they're actually a little salty because the area grew beyond them too fast Cause you know the longest time you know you live in the South.

Randy Wilburn: 30:17

It's like, oh well, people like the slower cadence and I always have to check myself Cause, you know, the New Yorker in me is like I'm always when I drive.

Randy Wilburn: 30:26

I'm always driving like I'm like 10 steps ahead. Nobody here drives that way and I get it, and so I've had to kind of ratchet back that. But it's coming for everybody here and we have to embrace it. They struggled, they have struggled with it in Atlanta and some other parts of the country where we've seen just an inordinate amount of growth. But I think, from a place making perspective, we can be really thoughtful here about how we want this place to be in the next 10 or 15 years. And so, as we start adding new things like USL, like a professional soccer team, like all of the different organizations that are bringing an office here, like a brand new medical school, we've got James Beard nominated restaurant chefs and we've got a little bit of everything we do. So, yes, while we might be in the heartland and we may be really far from the West Coast or the West Coast or the East Coast, the bottom line is that Northwest Arkansas is really ready to explode.

Wes Harris: 31:33

I know the beach bum in me is the one growing up in Maryland.

Randy Wilburn: 31:37

It's the only thing I miss. I mean going to Oceanside or going down Jersey Boy, going to Belmar and some of these other places. That's the only thing I do miss. But I have to say I've done the one mile swim around Beaver Lake Dam twice with swim awes. Shout out to those guys. There you go and there are a lot of opportunities for you to get out and get into some bodies of water.

Randy Wilburn: 32:02

And then, if all else fails, we've got nonstop flights to the West Coast. We do, we have nonstop flights to the East Coast and we've got really cheap flights to Florida. Yeah, we do, and I can drive from my house to Destin because I got a heavy foot in about 10 and a half hours, so I can get to the beach in less than a day's time. Like I can wake up super early in the morning and hit the beach before I get dinner in the afternoon. Yeah, so I mean, so it's not that bad, you can get there, you really want to do it. Because people say, oh, I just want to have the beach. Then I start asking well, how often do you go to the beach? Because I have friends that live in LA, exactly, and they don't go.

Wes Harris: 32:39

They rarely ever go, yep. So I 100% agree with you and you can still get there. It just may not be with the same frequency, but if you use it and if you even knew what you had when you were there, yeah, I agree with you. That's my one thing, absolutely.

Wes Harris: 32:55

But, you get there, you figure it out and get out on the lake, so get your fix. No-transcript. I know you weren't a soccer guy growing up but have kind of dabbled and become one through your kids and just as an adult and everything going on.

Randy Wilburn: 33:12

I mean I didn't know much about it. I really didn't. I mean I knew about it but I didn't grow into understanding it and I think once, like my youngest is 13, he's been playing travel soccer at a pretty high level since he was like eight or nine and he was like one of those kids. Where he went to they had Oliver soccer, which they do like a rec league, and he played a rec league and people were like where is this kid, what is he doing? It's not fair. He's scoring all these goals. So eventually we took him out of there pretty quickly, we took him to the Comets, which is a local team, and then we ended up at FC Arkansas. Shout out to Steve Oliver and Logan Lamaster and all the great coaches there, aaron Kaiser.

Randy Wilburn: 33:53

But you know, I just, I really, I really enjoy soccer. I love it for the aspect of the team sport that it is Cause, like my son and his teammates, those kids are inseparable. They're all phenomenal athletes for their age range, but they're also really nice, well-rounded kids that you know what I'm saying. I mean. And soccer instills in them that level of, you know, desire to compete. But they're not jerks, and that's the other thing that I like and I've seen that across the board. And yeah, you're always gonna have your folks in every in every snow. But yeah, soccer has really become. You know, I've gotten into the Premier League, la Liga. I have my favorite teams. I'm a huge Christian Policic fan.

Randy Wilburn: 34:39

We took them to the Conca Calf Gold Cup when it was up at Sporting KC, my and so and I'll share this little story which I think you'll find interesting my connection to soccer is really through my wife, who's from Trinidad. So my wife's uncle, his name is Everold Cummings, and Everold Cummings is kind of to Trinidad what Pele is to Brazil, from a soccer player. And the crazy thing is, so that's my wife's uncle. So I kind of feel like my son has it in his blood and I've kind of gravitated towards it from there. But then when I was at Howard, my freshman year, and I was an athletic dorm, I hung out with all of the soccer players. That was the year that we lost in the national championship against IU, but Chaka Hislop, who was a goalie for Manchester United, who was also from Trinidad, who was coached by my wife's uncle. So it's that circle of life, that connection.

Wes Harris: 35:43

He's now on ESPN. He is on ESPN.

Randy Wilburn: 35:45

He's a good friend of mine, but I mean. So, yeah, I mean soccer. I have a real affinity for the sport and the thing that I appreciate more so than anything, and the only regret that I have is that I wished and this is where USL Soccer comes in is in the team is that I wish that I had had access to an academy for my son from an early age, because I do believe he could have been, he could have done that, but I just was. I mean, he's just too young and I wasn't traveling back and forth to do that kind of stuff. But you know, it would.

Randy Wilburn: 36:22

People don't realize here in the United States is that as serious as football is, or AAU basketball and all that. When you go to like in Germany, oh yeah, every, there's an academy everywhere and these kids, I mean they get put into a program, they get exposed to soccer and essentially, and in most of those programs, those parents don't pay for those kids to go. They go and the coaches tell the parents hey, just be quiet, we'll take care of it and you go. Here in the United States everybody wants to say it everything, and that creates challenges. But I would love to see us get to more of that academy style portion of growth and training in soccer, because I think it would do a huge, it would really serve us well in the country and in this country, united States, and I think that it's possible.

Randy Wilburn: 37:12

But we need more situations like what you guys are about to do here in Northwest Arkansas. So I think what you guys are gonna do is gonna be a tremendous difference and just I'm really, really excited and it may not reach my son at 13 right now, but some of these younger kids that are just being born here in Northwest Arkansas I'm telling the parents now who want to get their kids involved with soccer you're gonna have access to something that a lot of these kids, a lot of great soccer players that have come through this area, never had access to. So I think it's important for people to recognize and realize that and then I just think, obviously, just what soccer brings together, and then the beauty of soccer too, which is like there is a very finite window for how that game is gonna be you know, there's never.

Randy Wilburn: 38:00

I mean unless you go into extras or anything like that. You're not gonna run into those issues where it's like that game's an hour and a half, it's an hour, you're done, you're in and out. You don't have to worry about it. You can schedule it like clockwork. You can't do that for a football game, you can't do that for some basketball games, but in soccer it's very clear what's gonna happen.

Wes Harris: 38:20

No doubt, and I mean you talked about it a little bit, but maybe you know I expound a bit more in terms of you know you talked about what it's gonna do for the youth, but what do you think you know in for you, as you see NWA and ingrained in the community and understand what soccer is? What are you excited about? What a pro soccer team can do for Northwest Arkansas?

Randy Wilburn: 38:43

Simply for me. So for for I mean, obviously I I I said I was a big Razorback fan back of the day. It was just because I really liked Nolan Richardson. Now that I live here, I'm a Homer for the team. I like the Razorbacks, I like what it represents, because I've always been inclined from a sports perspective and I understand the ability to build that camaraderie through sport, and so I see a real value in that.

Randy Wilburn: 39:05

The thing that I'm most excited about by by having you guys set up shop here in Northwest Arkansas is that now I'm going to have a home team. Yeah, so all my family's from Pittsburgh, so I'm, I'm I'm a diehard Steeler fan, I'm a diehard pirate fan, a diehard penguin fan. That's never going to change. But now I'm going to have a soccer team that I can really really root for.

Randy Wilburn: 39:27

Right, and ever since, I saw this 60 minute story that they did on Borussia Dortmund and just how, cause that Dortmund? That's a small area, it's not as big as you think, but they packed that place out. I mean it's huge. And when you see them with their black and gold scarves on and everything, yeah, it's amazing. And so I want that for Northwest Arkansas and I believe you guys are perfectly set up to create that type of an environment where, in 10 years, everybody's going to be walking around with these, like hey, look at me, I've got this, I'm all set. You know, are you ready? And you see somebody walking around with one of these, whether they are just all in or they're headed to a game.

Wes Harris: 40:08

Yeah.

Randy Wilburn: 40:09

And that's, that's what I'm really excited about. And so, whether it's it's you know, and it's infants, infancy, in terms of you know, we're getting a couple of thousand people out to the games, or when we get to a place where it's like you got 15,000 people at a stadium in Rogers, Arkansas, cheering a soccer match, it's, it gives me goosebumps thinking about you know, yeah, it's cool, I mean that's.

Randy Wilburn: 40:31

I mean, that's what's coming for us and I think people need to recognize that and get excited because it means a lot more than I think we'll even register with the average fan, I agree. But for those that are like into soccer or understand, or if you have a kid playing soccer right now that's like six or seven years old there are going to be opportunities that and that kid turns out to be really special. They're going to be opportunities for that kid to not have to leave this area and go to Dallas or go to Kansas City or go to Tulsa or some other place. They'll be able to continue to grow and we will really truly have homegrown talent that doesn't leave. We will.

Wes Harris: 41:10

Yeah, so no, that's, that's great, man. Well, you hit on everything, man. You just gave me the goose bumps. It's a great way to end it. So, randy, thank you so much for that. It's my pleasure, thank you. Thank you for what?

Randy Wilburn: 41:21

you're doing and for the hard work and see, nobody sees this is. This is the hard work, right? Because this is the stuff that nobody sees. But this is part of that, the marrow that that brings things together, and you have to do that in order to have a successful organization. So I firmly believe and I didn't even know you guys were doing a podcast, but this is just part and parcel of everything else that you're doing to help unite this community behind your efforts to build this, this pro sports franchise right here in Northwest Arkansas. So I'm rooting for you, as I know a lot of other people are, and whatever I can offer, I'm happy to do that, but I'm excited to see what's next. So my encouragement to you is keep pressing record, keep sharing these stories because of these stories, because everybody here in Northwest Arkansas is going to get it, and they're going to be like yeah, I'm part of you. Know where can I go get my scarf?

Wes Harris: 42:16

I will be part of this team. So, yeah, yeah, thank you, man. Well, thank you so much for your kind words and what you're doing for the NWA community, absolutely For everybody listening. Don't forget to follow our journey here at pitch2procom or wherever you listen to your podcasts, uslarkansascom for any details on the club and follow us at pitch2pro and at uslarkansas on all social platforms. Until next time. Northwest Arkansas Cheers.