Israel Gutierrez: I Was a Dolphins Person First

00:00:00 Speaker 1: You're now diving straight sitting down with Seawell, and this is strictly for them too. Fagans number one one, of course, just how nearest was Welcome back to the Fish Tank, presented by iHeartRadio right here on the Miami Dolphins podcast Network, Seth Levitt and my main man O J McDuffie juice. We're worldwide again. Oh okay, we'll say word, I ain't really Yeah, for sure, big Seth, we are world feeling a big time man, feeling a real big time today for sure. Yeah, big time for sure. Israel Gutierrez, you're looking confused by this. Not confused. I thought I thought you were, like you're you're growing as a podcast world I'm talking about me right, Well, thanks for diving in the fish tank. Man. This is a long overdue. I know we were trying to figure out how to get like NBA guy talking NFL. We're going to figure that out today. Yeah, I mean I grew up like in South Florida, so I wasn't always an NBA guy like I was a Dolphins person first, and so there's a lot of orangin cocke in my life. I'm glad you remember to call it, Yeah, I would have been a rough start. Yeah. So well, actually that's kind of what I'm getting at, because I thought this was gonna be um, I don't say a layup because that sounds yeah. I thought this was gonna be pretty corny, right, and it wasn't. Yeah, okay, But I really did think this was going to be easy because of our friendship, the history. We know each other really well. But I almost think that that complicated things more because I kind of want to get to so much. There's so much to talk about. And so we did this pre interview, and in the pre interview, in talking about growing up here, you let me in on something that I wasn't aware of, and was that the Dolphins did make an impact on your life at a very early stage. I mean they were my first sports memory. I mean when I was seven years old. My family had just moved into this house in North Miami, and I don't remember them ever being like Dolphins fans to the time, but you know, Miami people like they just do like everybody else. And they got to the Super Bowls to their bandwagon jumper. So yeah, I remember, you know, invited some family over. I remember me and the cousins were like downstairs in the basement, and I would peak up every once in a while and I'd be like, oh, are they in it? All right, They're kind of in it, but like and I would just run back downstairs and hang out. But um, it's the first thing that I remember bringing like family together and stuff, and that was what got me into sports fandom. Like eventually from there, like I remember watching some tape delayed Boston Celtics Finals games and so yeah, after that, I started picking up NBA, but it was it was always Dolphins, as it should be. Yeah. Yeah, you know what that being said though, is you know, how did you become a basketball guy? You know what I mean? Si, you talked about a little blary bird. We were just saying that the heat NBA growing up seth and I probably feel this way growing up in a football town, you know what took you in that direction. So I remember specifically, I was like twelve, thirteen years old and it was like ninety ninety one, and I would just want to stay up late, and so I'd be finding things to watch on TV. And it was always like Thursday nights, the second half of like the TNT doubleheader would always keep me awake. And the team that I just fell in love with was the Golden State Warriors. That was Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond, Chris Maullin and those guys, and that, I mean, that team just made me fall in love with the NBA. And then I just kept being an NBA fan. And then once I got to college, whatever covered football, covered some men's basketball. But then I graduated and got to Palm Beach Post and they didn't have a basketball beat available, they didn't have a football being available. Obviously you're not just jumping straight from college into the Miami Dolphins beat. But they threw me into the Florida Marlins beat. At the time they were the Florida Marlins. And then just one year later, Ethan Skolnick, you guys know very well, he left the Palm Beach Post in the Miami Heat beat and I just asked to be the Heat beat writer and they moved me over from Marlins to Heat and I've been on NBA ever since. And so I think initially, if you would have asked me coming out of school, yeah, which is my favorite sport to watch? I probably would have said either NBA or NFL. But once I got that NBA beat, I was like, I'm comfortable writing it, and you know, it's a lot less people to deal with, and you know, it's a it's a relevant team down in Miami with pat Riley and Alongs of Morning and all that stuff. So I just stuck with it and hung in there with Yeah, you briefly talked about some baseball coverage, and you said you prefer the other two sports. Tell us a little bit about the baseball coverage you have. Baseball was interesting. So, I mean, when I was twenty two years old, like I graduated college and I'm at the Palm Beach Post in my editor my pause is really quick because you've said college twice. But I think it's important that OJ knows where you went to school. Yeah, is it the University of Florida. I've been important. I just wanted to make sure that you know. I mean, that explains everything more he is, you know what I mean. It's awesome. I think you guys are really good friends. Because you are. It's the fact that any chance he gets to bring a gator in here, he does it. I mean, I think show has been gators. Well, that's great. I just did a podcast which we're gonna talk about a little bit. But I had Jokim Noah on there because he was a Gator. I had Matt Bonner on there because he was a Gator. I had you done As Haslim on there because he was a Gator. And you know, it comes back, there's a trend. Yeah, I see, it is great to be a Florida Gator if you're right. Baseball, as you were saying, it was like such a short part of my life. But it was so strange because like, I, you know, graduating college whatever, and I'm thinking I'm gonna cover some high school sports for a little bit, right and you know, three weeks into my professional career, I get asked to do baseball, and I'm just like, I like baseball. I don't love baseball. I don't feel comfortable walking into a clubhouse right now and having a conversation with like Greg Maddox and being like, hey, you know, and so I I like maybe bought some books that night and I started just kind of reading up yeah yeah, and so that was one of them. And so but I realized that it was just unnecessary that like all that stuff I would pick up if there was any sort of like jargon or anything, or any sort of language that I needed to pick up. But it was all just about, you know, knowing I knew the game enough, I knew, you know, how to talk to people, and it was it was interesting, but I had like I had some some growing pains in that uh, in that first year. But like even we talked about it a little bit. I tried to do an interview, a feature interview in Spanish, and my Spanish was terrible, and uh, Alex Gonzalez, poor guy who probably had the stroke, guy spoke some Spanish to him while he uh, well he spoke Spanish back to me. But it was it was an interesting year. Was there an expectation that you, you know, you're Israel Gautiera is the Dominican guy from Miami. Of course he speaks Spanish, That's why they hired him for this locker room. I did have like a level of shame. There was like whenever, like the Dominican guys, in particular Luise Uti, because I'm Dominican, Luise Kisto, Antonio Fonseka, they'd be like you're a Dominican. I'm like, yeah, yeah, but you're not speaking Spanish. I'm like, you know, is kind of terrible at the moment, and they're like, uh and so a little bit shapeful. But I mean I tried, and then I just realized that, like, um, I just wasn't strong enough with it, and I had too many other things to worry about them sharpening up my Spanish, and so I just kind of bailed on that. It's not why you left baseball, isn't what's the real story. I mean, I talked. I spoke more Spanish than any other other beat writers that didn't work for like Elnuevo Herald or something like that, So that's something to hang a plus, I could, like, I can understand it all. So if you're having conversations over there and you think like, oh, we're gonna speak in Spanish, other reporters don't understand. I might get a little information on that, right, okay. And the fact that you weren't as fluent as they wanted you to be in the clubhouse, they didn't hold that against you, not that I knew of. I mean, they were probably talking smack about some respect, but not that I didn't know those words like those are the words I didn't know. So all right, Miami, kid, you're twenty two years old. You just went through this outstanding journalism program at the University of Florida. Juice if you and uh, it's pretty good. It's pretty good. We got a long list, like the resume of the list of I just had to throw that in there. But you grew up down here, so you had to and at some point you decided that sports journalism was where you wanted to go. Who were the people that you watched that you read that in this market that the people who listened to this show would would be like, oh, yeah, I did the same thing. I read all of that person's columns or whatever. I had to imagine that there were some influences here in South Florida market. Yeah. I don't know if I was just one of the rare people who paid attention to buy lines and stuff, because I remember, like growing up, I would pay specific attention who was writing you know, this dolphin story and I read Steve Weisha Toun, I read him covering the Heat as well. Um, I read you know, Linda Roberts Sinata, and I read Armando. As the years passed on, Dan Lemotard, of course, was probably the most influential for me and of his writing. Uh, and it was a little bit of everything. But yeah, I read all those reporters and I paid special attention to the byelines, and I knew who was giving me the information, and so I started to, you know, trust these people. And I also just like learned I'd consumed so much of their stories that they basically were my journalism teachers in high school before I was even taking journalism classes in college. Because by the time I got to the student newspaper, the Independent Florida Alligator that they are you a subscriber third day free trial m I went out and did my first story on h I think it was a spring soccer team that was just coming off a championship, and they loved it and it was just structured, you know, the way they wanted it. And I was just like, yeah, basically, just write the way I've been reading stories my whole life. And so I consider those people, you know, my teachers, and you know, I probably didn't tell them as much growing up when I eventually saw them either at the Herald or you know, at different places, but yeah, those those are the folks that that taught me no disrespect to the university of Florida. Well, I just I find that interesting because usually it's an athlete or a former athlete. You're an athlete, but a performer professional athlete sitting in that chair. Chris Chambers was just here and he talked about you know, we talked about the sideline catches and how he said he grew up in Cleveland watching Western slaughter and so then he tried to emulate that. And I didn't think about it till this very moment. But you know, how much of that did you? You know, when you're reading these folks, I mean, there had to be a point in time so you fell in love with sport. But did you make the decision. Okay, I'm in love with sport. I'm probably not going to make it as a professional athlete, but I can be involved in professional athletics this way. And I see what this guy did or what this woman did, Well, see, I think it's weird because when I was younger, it was you'd never really become a journalist because you want to have any money, because you want any sort of fame or any sort of like wheat craze success. It's just like you have now, Well, it's just because you loved it, right, And it's what I was saying before. Like all my friends and not all of them, but most of my friends, when they graduated, they had to go to some smaller newspaper or some other talent. They didn't, you know, never expected to work. I had a friend who Robbie, who worked in Arkansas out of college and he's still there and it's just like all right, And so I was never really in it for that. And so when I was, when I was leaving school or high school, I was saying to myself, I probably want to be a lawyer. I can do pretty much anything I want. Like I was president of the debate team when I was in high school. And then I was like, you know what, No, I'd rather do something that's just fun, entertaining. I'm not going to worry about the money. And I chose sports. I chose journalism when I got to college, and then I officially chose sports journalism like my third year of school. And so it was just kind of like a slow decision where it was I felt like I had, like I said, a bunch of opportunities. I could have picked anything. But once I made that choice, I was like, yeah, I'm pretty happy with this. And then you know, every time I had some sort of success, it was like I probably made the right choice. And then when you got into the industry and these folks that you read growing up are now your peers in some way, shape or form, did anyone become somebody that may be transformed from being impactful to becoming some kind of a mentor as you're now on the beat for these different sports. Yeah, it's it's weird because I've never really liked expect I've never wanted to take somebody's time and say, hey, you've got this important job, now pile on this which is helping me out. And so I never actually went to Dan Lebotard or Greg Cody or Dave Hyde and said, hey, you know what can I do to be more like you guys, especially because early on I was I was a beat writer. And so I'm just doing as I believe journalists are supposed to do, present the news, kind of write some you know, nice featuring stories every once in a while, and that part I could do without needing any sort of guidance. It was just when I think of those guys in particular, I think of voices of a town, right of a sports town, and like they are the voice for the fan, and that to me was always like, Wow, it's it's an honor to be that. Like, you know, I might not speak for every fan, or you know, Dave Hyde might not speak for every fan, but he gives a voice to either what peeple some people believe, or just to start a discussion or And it's back in the day when columnists, you know, we're a lot more of a big deal. And so when I'm growing up reading all this stuff and I'm just like, wow, that's cool to be that guy. That's cool to be that guy. And you notice that they don't relinquish those positions. Most of them, you know, some kind of go. But like some guys, like those that I'm mentioning, have been here pretty much their whole careers. And that's just an attachment to where you grew up that I never you know, I was always necessarily jealous, so but longing right. I always wanted to be part of something right, and there's a whole deeper dive into that. And so once I became that, like once I became a columnist, then it was like it's just it felt like a lot of pressure. It felt like, um, even though I feel like I am sort of a voice of a fan, like I'm an average fan type of voice, it always felt like, you know, I wanted to make sure I wasn't taking anybody off, and like make sure that I had all my bases covered, and to make sure there wasn't some assistant coach in some office saying, look at this idiot, like he doesn't even know what this means. There probably was, Yeah, I'm sure there was a ton, but it always makes you know, it's always just a lot of It felt like a lot of pressure early on. And so you know, I told Greg Cody this the other day before Florida Panther's Stanley Cup final game. It's just it's so admirable for him to continue to be, you know, a voice and outlet for the fan and whatever, take any arrows that come with it, but also just trust in him and himself and his viewpoint in his you know, what his eyes see and what you know people tell him, and just you know, carry that mantle for for so many years. I admire that a ton like I only did it for five years, and it felt like a long time, you know, It's great. You're talking about coming off to beat and being you know, becoming a columnist in two thousand and eight means you had to maneuver all these different locker rooms. Now, not just you know the heat, I just you know dolphins. So I mean tell us about that, you know, going from locker room to locker room, culture to culture, you know, dealing with guys you know that play a couple of different sports. And then on top of that, like going from basketball locker room to a football locker room, and how different they might have been to have to be some differences. So I'll go like chronologically because it kind of makes the most sense, Like the baseball locker room in the clubhouse. Rather, it's the most like familial, I guess if that's the word. Like they spend so much time in there, and I know, you know, football players spend a ton of time, and during the lead up to the season especially, but then you know, during during the week and stuff. But this is what it is, six months of baseball season, and it's from like basically three pm to like midnight, Like it's just they're there all day. They spend more time with them than their own families and so they're wildly comfortable in that space. There are you know, pockets, there are groups here, their factions everywhere, and so it's kind of like its own city. It sounds like it's own community. It's own like really large household where you just have to navigate different types of personalities, you know. I think people, like I said, those players feel really comfortable, especially when they're in their own groups, and so you just get a lot of people being themselves. I think with a baseball locker room, there's a little bit more of hey, what happens here stays here because it's kind of like jokey a lot of the time, and you know, they don't have to worry about being on all the time or media because the media is loud in there a lot in the baseball locker room. And so I think that's just more of a comfortable like setting. Depending on how comfortable you are in there, Like if they're you know, a bunch of naked dudes walking around, it just makes you wildly uncomfortable, then you're probably not going to be comfortable in there, or just saying things that you don't you know, expect because it's you know, that's the clubhouse. You know, the locker room atmosphere going to basketball, it's a little bit more. It's a smaller group. It's a little bit more I don't know how to put this, just measured, Like, you know, when the media is coming, so you just kind of escape for a little while, and maybe you go to the training room in places where the media can't and if you're there, you're kind of like, alright, i'll make it available. But it's just it's not the most like active locker room. You know, you just kind of go in and get your job done and get the heck out. You're not really schmoozing a whole lot, at least not anymore. Used to be a little bit other back ten guys, right, and when you're if you're lucky, there's three of them in the locker room when availability is there, and so it's just a bunch of media people staring at each other. Uh. And then so the Beast football one is funny because that was like the last, if you're going chronologically, the last one that I experienced the NFL locker room, and this was after I had to become a columnist, And I don't know, it's just it's it's wildly intimidating to me because just the size of the humans are so much bigger. Um, you get this this uh idea of what they're all like, and it's just like the you know, in my head, it's the bigger they are, the meaner they are. Like I remember Anthony Mason in the in the in the heat locker room was just like a big, burly like gave me like a football player vibe, but he had just had these weird, like aggressive like tones in the locker room and he'd be like putting on like baby oil while he's like answering the question that It's just like I was like, oh, okay, this must be what the football players are, and it's just like it's it's you know, it's no correlation, it's no connection necessarily, it's just whatever your head makes up. But it's I think the difference in there was just just the different positional groups. And it feels like everything is chaotic. But if you've been there, if you're there every week or every other day or whatever, you kind of know the routine of things. You know who talks when and where, stuff like that. But if you're just kind of walking in cold and people think, Hey, it's a vet. He knows what he's doing. I had no idea what I was doing, and so, like I remember just kind of walking in, like my head was spinning, looking for a couple of familiar media members that I can talk to. And the one person I just kind of popped up. And I didn't know who he was at the time, but Jason Jenkins was just kind of right there, had a giant smile on his face and just kind of from the other side of the room. Could I feel like he could tell that I was a little uneasy, probably pocked all the way over, and you know, shook my hand, you know, told me, told me my name. I know my name. I said my name. You really shocking, And I was like, oh, I'm so glad you know, you know who I am and everything else. And so we chatted for a little while. He sort of gave me sort of the lay of the land and sort of told me what to expect and everything else. And so I was like, all right, great, at least I know who and when. But I could never like it took me a while to just build up the confidence to even like ask a question or a series of questions or like take over a media scrum, which I've you know, done in the past, and it all is just because of this stereotype of the NFL player and didn't really turn out to be much like that interesting. And how about I mean, of Jason's many superpowers, that was one of them. You know, you could just sense yeah, yeah, and make everybody feel like he's known him for you know, his whole life, and yeah, what a what a great another shiny example of that. But so that that's that's interesting that you had built all of this up about I mean, not that bad. You might have got hotheaded every now and I did. I did well. I I had this practice. So I had this one incident in the Marlins locker room. And again at this time, I was probably twenty three, had just turned and we were in Tampa and Derek Lee, you know it, eventually was going to be an All Star first baseman, a really good player. He had only hit solo home runs to this point of the season. He hadn't hit a home run with anybody on base, and so you know, this game he'd finally hit I think it was a three run homer. So we're you know, going after the game and we're approaching his luck locker. It's me and the other the other beat writers, And I think it was Kevin Millar on one side, Mike Lowell on another side. And I want to say it was like a spand I say it was Alex Gonzalez, who remember famously that didn't really speak English much at least publicly, but would always be listening. And so I remember asking Derek. I thought it was the most harmless question. I thought it was me just saying, all right, like, you know, what sort of my tricks did you use to get that out of your head? Because they would have been talked about, right, So I asked, I said, what'd you do? Pretend there was nobody on base? Wow? Which which let's just pause right there? Is that that terrible a question? Like if you're you know, if if you were on the free throw line, if you're asking Shaq Shaquille O'Neil, if he had missed like fifteen consecutive free throws and to make the next one, like he zones everything out and pretend there's nobody there, and you say, hey, what did you do? He goes, I pretended nobody was in the building, you know whatever. So if you say, hey, I pretended nobody was on base. I just didn't. Okay, it's not the craziest thing to in the world, right, But immediately the whole even Alex Gonzalez, who like probably shouldn't have been listening to me anyway, goes, oh my god. And so thankfully they're like they know me for a little bit a couple of months now to have a bunch of nice guys, and like Mike Lowell kind of looks over and he goes, is he how many homers have you hit in the big leagues? And I was just like, come on, you know, and I didn't mean anything by it, and so I was just like turning red in the face, probably like I am right now, and then just backed up a little bit and I go, you guys, just go. And I looked at Derek and I was just like, you don't think I meant it. And so three weeks later I go up to him in the Marlin's Home clubhouse and I'm just like, just to be sure, because I feel like there's been like this distance here. Did you really think that I meant something by that? He was like, well, it kind of sounded, and so we kind of talked it out, and I was just like, no, man, I'm just a dumb twenty two year old kid, like it, just didn't know the right way to ask that question. And he was like, totally fine, totally fine. But I thought of that scenario whenever I was just like in an NFL locker room, I was like, man, if I say the wrong thing, I'm thinking bite my head off like he did to that other reporter. Yeah. Now is when when you talk about that, now, do you have certain relationships with guys and that you can you feel comfortable saying certain things too, or some guys that you know, you especially like saying in the Dolphin locker room, do you have you have a couple of guys that you know you could talk to and be more candid with with other guys you had to be kind of well, it's like I could have in the past like been you know, candid with JT and been more like, you know, friendly, But that's I also know that that's not the way he treats those media settings. And so like a guy like Dwayne Wade, for example, like yeah, from the locker room, like back and forth, you know, joking around. Oh yeah, that crossover you kind of lost it off your foot or whatever, just giving him a hard time. But you're not going to do that in a setting where there's another ten media members where it's just like, oh, they don't know our relationship, so they might think there's, you know, something weird there or whatever. And you know, I wouldn't want to put him in that position to have to like everybody else can be that same level of joking around with him or you know, sophomore work with him, and so I think I wouldn't really do that in a in a sort of a public setting, but yeah, like one on one or just a smaller setting, for sure, I think that's probably what happened there, right, you know, hearing it all back is well. Number one, it clearly was a sensitive issue for him. Just whether you had said nothing it obviously you said it had been talked about. I have to imagine he had been thinking about it. And when those guys are in there and then people the gallery is always the problems, right and then well sure absolutely they got elevated. So then he felt like he was shown up in front of his teammates. But there are some h some of your peers who will be a wise ass or will think that they're more comfortable or they are more comfortable than they maybe should be. They will think that they are more connected with these guys because they work around each other. But they think that maybe there's a friendship in there. It's not. And so then they'll, yeah, they'll throw a little one liner as if they're one of the guys, and it's not always received very well. That's the one thing like I've always you know, and it wasn't your intense distance, you know, from the people you're covering. They're not your friends, as much as you know you want them to be, or as much as they might present as friends, is always going to be like an awkward situation. And so like, even though you know, I'd be playing a poker game at Jason Taylor's house, like, I'm not going to be way too you know, jovial. I'm not going to be too friendly in that media scrum because especially after a like wouldn't to do right well, that that would just be stupid, that would be done well, let's still let's talk about that, just to maybe connect those dots. So I don't know the exact timeline I'm you know, I left my position here with the Dolphins in two thousand and four to take over well, to start Jason's foundation with him, and so I think it was around OZ five or oh six. So now I just work in general. There were certain social circles. I might have a great relationship with a reporter, but I'm not hanging out with people necessarily. But now that that was no longer an issue, I'm not a pr man for for the Dolphins. If George Sodano has the keys to the Miami Pace Gym on a Tuesday night, I can go out and play, and you're there, and Lebotard's there, and whoever else is there, like a couple of yeah and there. There's no three second role apparently in the camping out all day long. But those were some fun games. You get a kick out of that. But you know, or if Ethan was hosting a poker game, and I think that's where you and I met, and then we became friendly, and then there were a lot of card games, a lot of basketball, and I started to invite you played basketball over at OJ's house. Certainly, whenever JT was hosting a poker game, hey is you know, we looked for any excuse to go play cards, and so you guys became comfortable. But you didn't cover the dolphins. You know, at that point in time, you were a heat beat writer. It was fun to get some perspective from you on what was going on with the heat We could talk about the dolphins. You weren't ever going to be writing about that. And then when you did become a columnist that first year he was in Washington, so again it was not an issue. Then he came back. Yeah, and so now talk about that. You know, you you were just as you said, you would sit there in that game, but now you would go in there and he wasn't. It wasn't just a player on the team. It was a team captain. It was in many ways if you talk about being the voice of the fan, the voice of that locker room, of that position, you know, of the players on that even just from hanging out with him, like some of his not like standing opinions that he but like previous opinions on like a writer's article or some predicted and I'm just like, oh, I don't want to be that person. And then I also didn't want to be a person like Frankly, I just tried to stay away from him a lot because I didn't want to be the person that would like blow smoke and they'd be like, well, that's not an objective opinion, it's just like well, so I was also fighting that because he was also a legend and like great still at the sport, and it's just like, well, why would I avoid writing about him if you know, I can't ask him a question that he might feel a little freer to answer. But this is where my sort of crippling lack of confidence at times affects me, because I just I always feel like somebody else is better suited to do so. So even in these games where you know, every Dolphins game is an event, every columnist is there on the road. Even if I'm on the road, there's another columnist there, even from my own news paper. So if we're both in the same scrum with somebody as veteran as Jason Taylor, I'm thinking I'm probably gonna show my you know, behind a little bit if I try to do too much here. Let me just leave where, you know, and then let the others sort of lead the way a little bit. And if my question hasn't been asked, Ben, I'll sort of step in and getting there. And I don't know, I think it was just that sense of if it was like, you know, a third year player, if it was somebody in there, you know, mid twenties or something which was you know at the time, like my age group, I probably would have felt a little bit better about it. But it was just an intimidation factor. And and and Jason has that sort of presence about him. He I mean, hell, when we played poker, like he never turned it off, like he was the most competitive dude at the table all the time. It was just like, you know, you never knew if he hated you or it was just putting on his poker pace. So you know, it's it's you know, in a postgame locker room winner loss, it's just like, you know, I just don't know what he's he could have had, could have been a win, and he just had a crap experience or had a bad conversation with someone, and it's just like, I don't know, I don't know how he's feeling. And so I remember writing one kind of glowing column about him after a performance and even then feeling kind of icky about it. I was just like people are going to read that and think, but that wasn't turning out that was also that's what you thought people were going to read that. So those guys are friends. I think that people that knew me, we're gonna read that and they're like, Oh, I'm not gonna read I'm not gonna pay that today. But maybe he just had a good performance. So you were struggling with your own objectivity there is that what was gonna feel like? I was absolutely that's interesting. So and you you kind of mentioned when we were talking, I asked you if you were worried about what others because it was you were new to covering the sport and I think you didn't know football, but you were new covering the sport. Were you worried about what another writer might think or or you know, what a coach might think? And you said, no, it was what would j T think? For that in particular, Yeah, because you know I would see him a lot, but mostly because again I trust did his judgment. I felt like he was very much whether it was true or not. I felt like he spoke for the team. You know, he always had the right opinions of the team at the time, if they were worthy of criticism. He would be fair and say, hey, yes, of course that's worthy of criticism. But if it was something that was over the top or for something that was misguided, I feel like he would always be that that on budsman, if you will, he'd be just measuring what and and he consumed a lot of me correct me if I'm wrong. Like I feel like all those guys, especially the top leaders, they might say they don't read it, but they I wasn't. Yeah, we read it for sure, and that's how we knew would avoid locker room like you know, So it's all it's all part of Yeah. When I think of like probably like my high school years, early college years, and I think of like the guy that was sort of representative obviously damn Reno. But I never thought Dan said anything. And so I looked at you as like professional, like mister professional, like on the offensive side of the ball, and like even after like your toe injury and all that stuff, like the way you handled that in public, it was like most of mister professional. I was like, you makes sense that you would be one of those guys, one of those leaders in the locker room. Yeah, tribe man, you know, it's hard you know, Danny didn't want to step up. You know, somebody had to do it. You know, I told me I made Danny's. I made Marino. It's a good thing you were here. Well, I didn't get any of the advice to the poker games man, well Jats or anywhere else. J's Poker Games made me buy a personalized poker table because he had this one, like really nice oval shaped like maroon poker table with the cup holders and everything else. And I think it had and I had number ninety nine or had his initials or both in the center. I think pocket nines or something. Yeah, I think that's what it was. And I was like, it's a smooth and I asked him a few questions and I like immediately like jotted it down. Then it's it remains, is that right? I think it remains the most expensive piece of furniture I've ever bought, because I'm very much like a Rooms to Go city furniture guys. So it's like, yeah, but that that was like a that was the expective table at the time. Payment zero interesting right now, I don't even know if I play once a year. Yeah, I'm proud of that thing. You know it's Steph had mentioned about the ball up you're coming over to the house and playing it at the place. I do remember you over a couple of times, maybe once or twice. I mean, you could run all day. You got this little funky little set shot. People people keep telling me that, So I don't want I don't look at my shot on jumpers, right, But Chandelle Richards said, who you knows me a hard time all the time. Oh he jumpers ugly. I was like, man, that shot is wet, but uh and so like, I know it's not like it's not a fluid jump shot from Mike from here to here. That thing. So like, I don't really know. I don't want to know what they think they see, but I know when they leave me open, they're nervous. And so that's all I care about your your game. I do remember some of it. I remember being gassed early on, and I don't I don't know why. It's like the outdoor court, but felt like longer than most of the door courts, right, it's like standard, And so I just remember being gassed because these guys would take like I don't remember who was playing, but I remember a couple of big bodies, and it would be like three steps from half court and there at the rim, and I'm just like, I'm just gonna hang out here. And I remember like getting a first shot and I was like, I think I got Nope, that guy's closing hard. I'm pretty sure he's gonna block. And then so I just kind of like moved the ball. I remember like probably shooting an airball and probably making one shot and then that was about it. That was it different level of athleticism than the media games. I thought, sure, Yeah, Like when we used to play at pace, Like there were times where I was like the best guy on my team and I was like, okay, I was like we could do this. But there was other times where it was like it was a fun game. It's like a good you know, mixture, but that you're run Like I would have to go out there a lot to fund my niche in that game. It was crazy. It really was, you know, we're basket we're football players that were big enough to play basketball. More felt you know. But buts my jump shot wasn't as wet as yours. Selling yourself a little short there? Remember something, guy definitely better, I tell you that I remember Carter playing really well in that particular game. He was just kind of bullish and kind of got wherever he wanted to. Yeah, I'm gonna there are some guys that might be on you. We always do this, you know, top five on the basketball court. One of who some of the guys that are out there that day that you thought were pretty good basketball players or that were out there on the court or Yeah. See, I don't know how many of them I actually saw, because I've got like, I've got like a list of guys that I think I would want on my basketball team. And it's the Dolphins that I've seen from you know, my life. There's two of them on this team. There's I just feel like you just need a burner. And I just want Tyreek on the team. Like if you're a world class athlete in basketball. You just said this, they're just not big enough to play basketball, Like, then you can play basketball, and so I trust him and the other one. I always want a freakish big guy athletes and because like those wide guys who could take so much space, but also just so Christian Wilkins, Yeah, that's that's gotta be a guy that's just gonna sort of mix it up. You could probably handle a little bit one quick spin move and he's at the rim. I had o grande gas and whether you know, even if he picks up a few pounds, like he's gonna be the power forward, he's gonna be right there. But I think I think he can do a lot. I think I got jt as my like James Worthy kind of wing. And then I needed like a real sort of shifty ball handler. And I just started thinking of like the shiftiest um running backs. And there was two. Dang it, hang on, there was two that I was coming down to. It was either Bernie Parmly Ernie. But that wasn't him. That wasn't my choice. My choice is Mark Higgs, Higgy some little wiggles a little bit, so Higgs is my So those are my five. And then I got Randy McMichael coming off the bench. Okay, Randy Mack, I like your thought process there with Higgy. But I will just let you know this little intel. Whenever we played, I guarded Higgy. So if they put me on Higgy, you may want to. In my mind, he would have been like a bigger like Kine. I mean, here built like that. But I'm just going to keep that vision. Ok. I mean, you play decent defense. Not out there, man, Oh I can still hear Zach Yellen. Let me move your damn feet. Move your feet. Oh no, not out there for sure. All right, we're going to completely shift gears here. September fourth, twenty fifteen. You're with ESPN. At this point, you've built, right, We've talked about it. You've built a following locally, you now have a following nationally. You've spent your entire career working in locker rooms, working around professional athletes, around coaches, um. People know you or they think they know you. And you publish a blog and within three pair no but been three sentences, you tell the world, or at least anybody who's got an Internet connection, that you're gay, and you playing why you're telling them you're about to get married. You talk to them about how difficult it was to share this, and the decision making process and everything that you've dealt with. And it was open and it was honest and it was heartfelt. You had shared it with me and some of your other friends sometime earlier. And I remember the email that you sent me, and it was like it was unbelievable to read it, and just how open and earnest it was. Talk about the decision to tell people publicly, because it's there's no reason that you needed to, right, I mean, let me rephrase that, you didn't have to do that, Just live your life. If people knew, they knew, if they didn't know, they didn't know, whatever it might be, but you felt the need to say it publicly. You work in a world that is I don't want to it's not fair to sports to say toxic masculinity, even though some of that exists in some places, but hyper masculine. And so I'm just really curious as to what you were thinking, what internal struggles may have existed professionally, you know, to to have to were their concerns about what would happen after you pressed send and then went back to work. I mean, there's so much think I think properly answer your question, I probably have to sort of answer a little bit earlier. And just so, I was closeted to everybody in my life until I was thirty one, and so that was in two thousand and nine, and so that's when I had, you know, met somebody for the first time and then decided, you know, I'm going to go ahead and tell my family and my like a couple of close friends. It wasn't really like friends that I had met after college. It was like friends that I've known my whole life. And so that sort of gave me a little bit more of a hey, a freedom of a feeling of what it's like, at least in your own circles to be out and open and comfortable in who you are, and so in that. So that's three years later, I get the ESPN full time gig, and I had been on TV for them. I had done Around the Horn in two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, I had done Sports Report from two thousand from two thousand and eight up until it was canceled, and I want to say two thousand and sixteen maybe, and so had I had been something of a public figure, and so it was like all right in my head, like the initial coming out, I knew there was a deadline on it, because my family eventually will be like, well, you know, what's going on here, and then the professional one I just or the rest of the world, or the official, you know, total public coming out. I just thought there was a deadline too. I just didn't know what it was. I just didn't And then once I decided, we started to get married, and I knew that, you know, in two weeks, i'd have a ring on my finger, you know, talking sports on around the horn where they only see this much, It's gonna be like, hey, where'd that come from? And it might not be the fans, it might be you know, Tony really or all these other panelists who I you know, know and love, and so I figured, you know, I just had to do it, you know, just go ahead. And plus it was one of those situations where you know, my partner at the time was out since he was eleven, you know, with parents who weren't really welcoming and accepting, and his whole life was him you know, struggling to you know, maintain just his sanity and just you know, get through high school while you know, going through different friends house because his parents just kind of abandoned him. And so it's like you hear all these other stories of people who were for you know, I don't know if it was courageous back then or oblivious, but they did it. And so at the time I was feeling a little bit like a coward, you know, and with this idea that I have a platform, and you know, at the time, BARAQ was still president, and so it was good vibes going through the country, you know, and so it's like it's it's time, like I've got to do this. And I honestly felt like it was late because it was literally what I think you said, September four, So that's eleven days before my wedding days. And there were people like I mentioned, you mentioned that you got an email because in large part I wanted to tell you earlier so that I can give you a wedding And right right there were people that I didn't tell until that day that got a wedding invite with eleven days notice. And you know what, Tony really Josh Bard around the horn, they showed up. They were there from from Washington, d C. They showed up with with a week's notice, and so I just thought it was it just had to, you know, it was inevitable, and I thought, you know, I was ready to handle whatever it came with. You know, a lot of people were wondering, you know, because I've read different columnists, different you know, magazine writers, different radio personalities who have come out across the country over the years, and I've seen it done different ways. And you know, people were asking me, are you worried about being pigeonholed? It's like just the gay writer, and I'm just like, well, if there's enough work for me where that's what I'm doing, I'm good with that. That's a lot more important than you know, no offense, because this is the reason why people you know, got to know me and like me. It's because I talked sports, but some more important in sports, and so I knew I was ready for that. And I think the more I was I said anything at all out in public, the more I realized that it affected people and it didn't have to be this nuanced, detailed message. It could have just been an acknowledgement of you know, me in a situation, or just the fact that I was gay, or that I was out and I was supporting this, or that so many people had come up to me and saying, wow, there's such a powerful voice in our community. I was like, what are you talking about. I'm just doing my job. And so I think what I realized is it doesn't take that much to have an impact. And to have an influence. And so it all turned out to be exactly the right reason. I don't know about the right time. Like I said, it could have been earlier. I always wanted to my thinking to get your final answer. My thinking was I always wanted to establish myself as a professional, have people make there to sit and make their opinions on me based on just what I do, just merit based, and then hey, here's a little bit of my personal life. Do with it what you will, but hopefully it doesn't change your opinion of me because it's been based on all this other stuff for that and if it does, and you're kind of telling on yourself at that moment, right, yeah, yeah, but I you know, I remember you talked about talking to people afterwards. You had committed to Jason Taylor Foundation back to School shopping event that was two or three days after. I didn't know the timing of when you were going to push that blog out, and then I wondered whether or not you were going to come out to the event, and you're like, yeah, I'll be there absolutely at this point, might as well, And you showed up and there's sixty sleds. You know, you talking about being uncomfortable in the NFL locker room. So now you're walking in with all of these football players and JT. You know this whole what would JT think concept after now coming out to the world, And if I recall you guys had a little conversation and it went really well, and he was just one in a number of individuals that you covered that were incredibly supportive. Well, it's interesting with Jason because I didn't really know what any of his you know, thoughts were on the subject, and never really asked. And so the thing that I and I think I mentioned this in the email to you, I know I did to all my friends, is I never wanted you to feel like I was lying to you, you know, And so developing a friendship with Jason, it was like it was intimidating and it was cool that I was friends with him, but I just and I hate that sentence because it makes me feel crappy. But it never wanted to feel like I'm lying to anybody. And so whenever I was face to face with somebody for the first time after telling them, that's what I was thinking of, Like, it's cool, like I trust you, I don't think anything poorly of you. It's just I just had to I had to wait. And so that's what that conversation was like, and it kind of brings up, you know, similar thoughts to when like I told my sisters because you know, we have a great relationship in my entire life, and I didn't tell them until I was thirty one. It doesn't make any sense, you know. So I think that's where I was that time. I was like, I'm ready to like come out and show everybody. But you know, there's a back and forth with this, and like I always feel like, you know, I could have done better, and I could have you know, navigated everything a little bit better, and so there's always that feeling of like, hey, I'm sorry too, you know, but I can't imagine any of us needed that. Probably, I mean you that was that was all things that you were feeling and understandably so, but I can't imagine Jason, Dwayne Wade, your sister, anybody like was you were lying to me? Like nobody accused you of that? No, And I mean like, yeah, I mean all these you mentioned. Dayne Wade, he reached out, you know, Gabby Union reached out, Dwayne Udonistas him every a lot of people from the heat. It was just I don't know, like when you're in that sort of place, you know, you're in your own head the whole time growing up, and so you just have these conversations and you just figure you just make these assessments. And that's what it was like, where I just you know, I just thought that that's what people might think, or that's what people would think. And like I will say, the one thing that it allowed me to do was like I can compartmentalize like a son of a gun, because like, you can tell me a problem, and I was like, oh, I'll get to that. I like triage that I'll get to it right when when it's necessary. And so me like being able to focus on my career, being able to focus on my family, being able when I send my family, me and my sisters, my parents, my nieces and nephews, um, you know, just a great group of friends that I had, you included M really just kind of buoyed me. And I didn't need that other part of my life necessarily, at least I didn't think I did. I probably could have used some of it, but didn't need it. And so yeah, whenever I think about all that other stuff, like it kind of comes out, as you can tell in certain times when I talk about it, like unexpectedly. But for the most part, you know, it was all a great experience, and like you know, somebody like JT just added to that and just and I think hopefully my experience and me being around to him maybe added to his, you know, thoughts on you know, the GBTQ community in general. I'm sure it did for him, for I know it did for me. I'm sure it did for a lot of us. You know. It's it's really interesting, you know, hearing your story, man, amazing story, and how it intersects with you know, the Miami Dolphins in so many ways, and then to look at this organization and they're, in my opinion, you know, when the leaders in sports when it comes supporting you know, the LGBTQ community. I mean, it's been pretty amazing. Can you talk about some of the things you have done in partnership with the Dolphins, you know, over the past few years. Yeah, for sure. It's one of like, honestly my proudest I wouldn't call it accomplishments, but one of just the notes that I've done just away from my career and my family and stuff, just in my personal life. Like I've been a big flag football player for the last almost ten years now. Like once my knees couldn't handle playing basketball all the time and decided to to play some flag football. And I found an LGBTQ league in our community in for Lauderdale, and it's under the umbrella of this national league. It's called the National Gay Flag Football League, and it just obviously provides, you know, safe space for people who maybe we didn't find safe spaces to compete, and especially with a sport like football, it's just a little bit first again for those who haven't competed in it, maybe from the outside looking in a little intimidating. And so it was a league that when I found it, had already been active for a few years in South Florida and had been doing pretty well. And then with the national league, you also have you know, travel tournaments you can go to, and you know, I played in one in Chicago just two weeks ago, playing another one in Seattle in October. And it's such an enriching league. There's so many stories of I mean literally stories of that league saving people's lives because they were considering suicide before finding you know, a sense of community. It's also just a great like competition. Like I mean, we're talking guys who have been in the league, like Wade Davis is a player who had been in the league, who was playing in the league in the NFL when I was there, and some other players, and so it's a great combination. It's meant so much to me and people around me that at the time, I was a sponsorship director. So I was on the board of directors for the league and it's a five or one C three charitable organization as well, because we do work around the community as well, and so I just thought that the Dolphins should be involved. I thought, you know, given the work that they do around the community, that it just makes sense for us to maybe seek some sort of partnership sponsorship however you want to, you know call it. And I ended up calling up Jason Jenkins and it was, you know, a brief conversation and he looped in another person. It was a great, great woman, a great person on that staff, and we talked and it was just right away it was an immediate, you know, partnership sponsorship, and I want to say it's been since two eighteen that they've been a sponsor, maybe nineteen, they've been a sponsor of the you know, South Florida Flag Football League and there, you know, it hits different when that Dolphins logo is on your you know, on your recreational league jersey, and so you know, we've been doing that ever. I haven't not on board anymore, but they've been doing that ever since, you know, I sort of stepped down and somebody else took over, and like even for our travel just to expanse of the rest of the rest of the NFL, or actually not even stopping there with what the Dolphins have done for us. We host a national tournament here in February every every year over by the Swapshop Broward Central Broward Regional. That's the park over there. We host a national tournament every year. It's like five hundred six hundred people from around the country coming play men and women. We have two leagues, two division rather and the Dolphins sponsored that too, and it was for a couple of years. And nationally, you know, for our the big national tournament that travels to different cities every year. They call it the Gable that's the one that's in Seattle this year. The Seahawks are putting sending a ton of money for that tournament. The Patriots in twenty eighteen in Boston, you know, and Robert Kraft was at our closing party and gave a speech. So there's a lot of connections not just with the Dolphins, but with these other teams around the league. And in fact, if you go on to the NFL Twitter page, you'll see just got to search for real quick, but you'll see a mini documentary that they put out about our league and there's a couple of players from our women's side who are interviewing interviewed in it. And so it's just it's a growing league and the Dolphins have been such a huge part of it for us, and you know, we and then in turn have just helped them out with their events and Day Out with the Dolphins has been a couple of years now, has been a phenomenal event, and it's just seems to be getting better. So, you know, the work that they've done in our community has been crazy impressive and I'm very thankful for it. Yeah, we're gonna need that schedule. We want to need a schedule big step. Yeah, because well, I mean, if you want to know how my team has been doing in the league, two time defending champs, haven't lost a game since the final of two seasons, it goes right now, we're on a little bit of a rock, right, So this is the highlight of my wreck football career. Are you like publicists too? Or I actually do write out a weekly poll which kind of ranks the teams. It's a little bit of humor involved in it, but it fairly it's just the committee the media would So that's awesome. I cannot imagine that you do a whole lot of interviews where it takes forty five minutes to get to your coverage of Lebron, James uh Doing and Chris Bosh. But here we are. That's what happens when you're hanging out with dolphin folks. I just I had to bring this up because this is a podcast and you just finished and released an amazing podcast. It's eight part eight part limited series in partnership with our friends at iHeart and the NBA, and what a title four Years of Heat. So if you don't know what it's about, it's about the four years of the Lebron James era and when that team was like the Beatles or I don't even know what you mentioned the name of it. We had a lot of restrictions on the name. Couldn't use Big Three, couldn't use Heatles, couldn't use South Beach, couldn't use a lot of things. So four Years of Heat is where you landed on. And I kind of like the t Well, I mean, it works, and you certainly I have if you had no idea what it is. But you're a Heat and you gotta well, they got to be talking about those four years. Yeah, right, you would have to know exactly. So can you just tell us a little bit about it's If you are a Heat fan, this should be like on the syllabus of required listening here, I believe so. And if you are just a sports fan in general, this is where I fall. I just it was great storytelling. You guys did a phenomenal job. I think in being in the podcast space, it was you know, I called you, I was like, how many producers did you have? That is really curious? Was actually one of those things that made me additionally proud of what we put out. So, yeah, the podcast called Four Years of Heat, and some of the folks from my heart sort of approached me with it. I want to say. It was like December maybe January of this year, and um, you know, told me, hey, we want to put out a podcast, maybe eight to ten episodes about you know, the Lebron era, Miami Heat, the Big Three era. And my initial answer is, of course, yes, I had no idea what that entail, right, Like, what what am I supposed to do? And so once they told me, it was like they didn't really tell me a style, but I ended up it's kind of like a documentary style. So you're just basically lining up a bunch of interviews talking to a bunch of people, you know, on Zoom or whatever whatever software you use, and and you just kind of write the episode from there. And obviously, as a narrator, host or whatever, I just kind of take you through the story. And so I realized that, oh, it's just like writing a story. You're gonna be a little bit or a lot bit more quote dependent, but that's fine because you're actually listening to the voices and they're telling you these stories. And so it ended up like you know, starting conversations. I think one of the first people I talked to was Joe Kim. No, I just kind of get that one out of the way, and like just having these conversations, it was just like they were so other than the ones who had been hurt by Like Joe Kim didn't love, but you know, like once they started talking about some of those good times, they realized it's just fun to talk about. Like even Matt Bonner, like he was in his house, he came outside, downloaded the app on his phone, just went in his car and was just like cramped up, and like I thought, oh man, he's gonna want to leave after five minutes. Fifty five minutes later, he's like, you guys, anything else. I didn't want to go once I realized they were talking, and there was so much not only stuff that you know, I already knew that would just be kind of a reminder for Heat fans maybe give them some goosebumps, but there were so many other little things that either you wouldn't have remembered or you just didn't know as as somebody who followed the team. If I didn't know it, and I'm pretty sure you know, nine percent of the listening audience wouldn't know it, and so going through that whole experience and fortunately got a great lot of good names Jim Gray, Rachel Nichols, Tim Reynolds, Dan LeBatard along with the player Shane Battier, Ray Allen Udonis, Haslem and you know. And I had all the MBA archived footage too that I could go to at any time because we were partnered with the NBA. So it was very much just this enriched look back and the part I was nervous about what was, Hey, are people gonna like the sound of my voice? And am I gonna mess up any facts? Get things wrong or um, you know, just miss something right. And I think I just trusted myself there in terms of, you know, now not knowing what what what to include and then you know, once I heard my voice on the thing, I was like, yeah, it's not too bad, and so your name and then you had to hear your voice, you know bad. I don't watch myself on TV very often. I just I don't. But how great is this? Just you get asked to do this podcast series in January and then the Heat go on this historic run as an eight seed and the thing launches when they're in the NBA Finals. You said you were watching one of the finals games and and they're promoting it on the ticker. I was one of the conference finals against the Celtics, and it was like a day before the podcast was supposed to come out their episode one, and it's on the bottom of the ticker on TNT. I don't work for TND, right, so it's like it's one thing if it's ESPN promoting its own people. But I was just like, oh, people are actually gonna listen to this. Sounds like this is getting some promotion, and so I was like, all right, something nerves started kicking it. It just made me just be a lot more thorough make sure I didn't miss anything, make sure I listened to every episode, like the rough cut, like five or six times, just to make sure there's anything that we could fix. And yeah, I just it's turned out really good and I'm really proud of it. It should be. It was. It was great, Yeah, thanks for it was great. Definitely, all right, he's time to first have a little bit a little a little fun here, right, Like we've been having a lot of fun and you know, I've been looking forward to this. So the media love they love to tell us about how to perform doing critical points in the game, okay, and most critical point most of the time. It's two minute drill, right, all right, So what we're gonna do is we're gonna flip the script a little bit. We're gonna we're gonna put you on the other side of this thing and put you through a little, you know, a little two minute drill. We're gonna throw some sports questions out there and sneakers. Yeah, that's okay, that's all right, that's sorry, we're indoors. It's it's gonna be gonna be pretty sure. You know, I'm a two time champion of the Jason Jackson Miami Heat Halftime trivia contest. Really yeah, it's probably not backing the probably got archive, I got some maccolades. I had no idea. All right, who's about the clocks. We're gonna put two minutes on the clock here. We're gonna fire off a few questions at you. You're ready, yeah, I'm ready, All right, all right, here we go. You just talked about your sneaks. I understand you're a sneaker head. What is the greatest sneaker of all time or at least your favorite pair. Oh, my favorite pair is I'm gonna forget the name of them, but it's the Jordan's elevens. They're just basically like white on white. Gosh, I forgot the name of them. It's some sort of North Carolina related thing, I believe, but it's just the cleanest looking sneaker. It's the eleven with the patents on the top mostly and it's just white on white with a little bit of baby blue. Because I'm that's that's the greatest of all the time. Like A close second is probably the seventy two and tens. I definitely like the elevens that those are my favorites, but the seventy two and tens, which is the Jordan elevens, where like the black and red and black and white a little big, I mostly have Jordan's. I have some some leanings for your boy, Dwayne Wade. I have some some lebrons like, actually, you know what, I'm gonna take this back. I've got these. Do we have these? We're gonna do a top three. Then the seventy two and tens of the white ones that I don't remember, and then it was the what the Kobe's They came out in like Christmas. There were these like high tops. They had all these like pastels. They were made. I've only worn them three times. The day I wore them because I got a plug and I got them like three weeks early. And the day I wore them. I remember Dave mcmeneman, who was covering Kobe and the Lakers at the time, was there for a Christmas game and he was like, how the hell did you get those? And I was just like, too funny. Well, have two minutes on the Sneakers twelve o'clock turned off, So there's not what we can do, all right. So we talked about poker earlier. Here's the question, which South Florida media member do you never want to see again at a poker table, and which media remember are you inviting to every game you play him and sitting him or her directly to your right. I mean the first one's easy. Ethan Skulnick is a terrible poker player. I'm taking his money every time. He makes them terrible bets, So you never want to see him, yeah, yeah, yeah. The guy that I never want to see probably Jason Jackson. Yeah. I feel like Jason Jackson is just wildly unpredictable, and like Ethan's unpredictable, but in a way that's going to lose him three quarters of his hands. Jason is just hard to read and can just take you for everything at any given points. I just rather not concurrent. And you also know you have no idea what's going to happen after the game. You don't know where that night is headed. I like to be have my evenings be a little bit more controlled. Okay, I know we talked about this a little bit earlier, which mine dolphin current or you're mintioned a little bit current or past would be a bigger contributor to the Miami heat. Who who had the best ups? Honestly, I don't know why, and I don't think he had. Chris Chambers had the best Chris Chambers. I might have to go to Chris Chambers. I probably left him off my list then because I remember those hands like he had big Barrack ball hands and so probably not gonna strip that ball from we can probably dunk. I gotta go Chris Chambers. She's like in terms of forty five in vertical, that's what that was. Yeah, what we talked about fourth all time, I think in combine history. All right, what heat player would make the best Miami Dolphins all times? Lebron James, but the most basketball player type I would argue that Anthony Mason. I think I mentioned Alright, we got time for one last time, last question. All right, you mention your flag football team earlier. If you could sneak one of the current Dolphin players onto your team right now, who would it be? Wow? So, man, how much time I have left? We we we are like when we travel all across the country, we always are just like, man, why don't they make bigger people in South Florida? So we meet some size So I kind of like my first answer is some some big dude with hands. Who's the biggest guy that you could throw the ball too? Right now? I don't know if I'm want to go there. Then you know what I'm gonna have to change it. I'm taking toa I'm taking to because we like, look my partners. The quarterback right now, hell of an athlete. I mean, honestly, any sort of sport you can pick it up in two seconds. He's five five. He is not an ideal quarterback. And so if we can get to it again, not ideal side in the NFL, but in our league, it's fine. I'll take to it. There it is. That's your two minute drill with an NBA guy who turns the last two minutes of a game into twenty minutes. Just fouls and everything else. But but some good answers. It's so good, good, some really good answers. Thank you, man. I appreciate you making some time. I know you've been doing a lot of traveling. Were you just out and you said Vegas? But was that for summer league basketball or Vegas summer league? Cover Ridge watching I making sure that that Dame Lillard trade didn't happen while I was out there on my watch and uh yeah, just watching the Thompson Twins, who uh if you don't know what man in Sar Thompson, you'll get to know them. They're gonna be really good. We'll be on the lookout. Appreciate your time and sharing your story, man, and has always being so open and honor. Yeah, makes you're diving in. You're now diving been pisch take sitting down with Seth Living Oh Jay, and this is strictly for them true fans Number one one of course, y'all this how hord of Nevers was talk never been at pitch tank, go get your aqua arms's kind of never been at pitch tank. It's on the legend that we're talking when you never been that pitch tank rocking? Well, oh Jay, you're seth will you never been that pitch tank? Fans attitude kind of damn but I'm down. Had celebrate big orna, cry hard, leave it all on the field. We're gonna try hard. Old school a new school, mixing in feeling like we're up close when we listened in Dolphins tales. Here Miami is the deep end. We're vibing one our favorite players. No seat bread we get with step and McDuffie bringing up stars we never heard to the public. Man, we love me. Dolphins fans never brush. We're loyal to the team. Wasn't happier we upset? We'd be like, what's next. Don't twist the subject. You know what's all about the fence hinting if you read it for that wat time to dive in. Don't twist the subject. You know what's all about the fens hinting if you down with Dolphin's nations trying to dive in don't twish the subject. You know what's all about the fence. You're looking at that fish tank. It's time to down tank. Okay, I go on yet, it's time the devil been at Fitch tank. It's a new legend that we're talking when you devernvent it Misch tank record, were all jay yourself down a devil minute pastime. Don't never had a talking about the Devilo minute pastime.