Deshaun Vs. Cleveland, and a Mega-Mailbag With Joe House. Plus, UCLA’s Bob Chesney.

24:13Bill Simmons:And Mendoza's really good. Same thing. Oh, this is great. This will help solve a bunch of the challenges. Is this a top 10 quarterback? Is he a top five quarterback? Is he a top 15 quarterback? Now we have Mendoza. Where is he in relation to Mendoza? His interviews are really incredible. I have such high hopes. Like when they get better and they're on more nationally television, nationally television games, it's going to be tremendous. Love him. So you like the floating Mendoza line, depending on what happened. And I hope he's awesome. I hope he's a top 10 quarterback and we're doing it. Yeah, because we need more quarterbacks.

24:49I don't want to watch shitty quarterbacks. We really need more quarterbacks.

24:52Bill Simmons:I like watching good quarterbacks. Ryan McQueenie writes, a long time ago when X was Twitter and fantasy basketball leagues were still prevalent among friend groups, I would send you my team names into your replies. never a response, not even for Chris came in my pants. That was a team name he said apparently. What's a guy got to do for a pity laugh right now? Chris came in my pants. I'm positive if we were still playing fantasy basketball, that would have been a team name for you. I mean, of course, of course. Not too late for football. Chris came in my pants. Well, it's too late. It is too late for football because I have that one that I don't feel like I should share.

25:37Yeah, don't share. Inspired by the WNBA. Take that in whatever direction you want.

25:45Bill Simmons:Dan and Raleigh said, since the NCAA is always talking about expanding March Madness, which is true. They're expanding it again. I think they're adding more teams. Great. Awesome. I have a half-baked college basketball idea. What if we expand the tournament to 1 ,024 teams? This would be a 10-round tournament and would include every D1, D2, and D3 team in America, we would still reach the point when it narrows down to 64 where everyone could have a normal March Madness bracket to fill out. But you could see some D3 school playing in a first-round matchup against Duke. I mean, at this point, why not?

26:20What's the difference? Why not? They literally turned the perfect thing, the perfect vehicle, into Arch Madness just out of sheer fucking greed. No reason to tinker with it. No reason to fuck with it. No reason to make up some bullshit games on a Tuesday and bullshit games on a Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio, wherever the fuck they do it. The play-in to the play-in. It's a play-in. Yep. Speaking of eat a fat dick.

26:49Bill Simmons:You're riled up today. You haven't eaten dinner yet. I can tell. I definitely have not eaten dinner. He's a hungry Joe house. Good. Adam R. from Indiana. I'm so glad somebody sent this email. Am I wrong to think it's ridiculous that not only is Howell Burton's first game back not on national television, he goes, parentheses, fine, whatever, but it's not even at home. It's hard to imagine any other star who led his team to Game 7 in the NBA Finals for tearing their fucking Achilles would have their first game back after missing an entire year, and then that game would be in New Orleans, of all places, just hoping to shine a spotlight on the continued Pacers' disrespect.

27:26Bill Simmons:I wholeheartedly agree. I don't understand why they played it this way, and this is a league that over and over again loves to prioritize its 35 and over stars who are all not going to be in the league for much longer over something like Tyrese Halliburton's first home game in Indiana which is on a Tuesday or Wednesday night like what the fuck house yeah and we will be accused because I can tell already from the way that we in the ringer basketball community are talking the Pacers are going to be beloved by many of us We're all sort of on the idea of the Pacers.

28:04What's the word? Even Spock Lowe is in on them.

28:07Bill Simmons:Yes. He's in Croatia watching people jump off cliffs. And he's still like, I like the Pacers. He's thinking about Zubat's pick and rolls since he's watching cliff divers. Getting themselves back to where they were. and you know I'm still pondering the question that came up on the pod that we did where we were talking through um Jalen Brunson and we we together made a case and came into agreement on the idea of him as a top 50 all-time player yep and and Halliburton if they had won that series we would have to make that same case for him and he would he'd be in there but they didn't win the series.

28:49Yeah, I don't know if it would be top 50, but he definitely would have been top 75. But his resume already is stronger than Brunson's resume. Like Tyrese has, you know, I think in terms of all-star appearances and all NBA teams, but there was a very quick aside. I think you did it with Koppelman. You were going through the last eight NBA. Oh, I did it with Derek. Yeah, yeah. Eight legacy titles. Right. Yeah. And there was a place for Brunson to be recognized. And I'm not recalling it, but Brunson has the most unlikely. Oh, because I was saying for Curry. Yeah, yeah.

29:27Bill Simmons:Yeah. The reason I went with Curry was because I thought it vaulted him into a Kobe-Jerry West area. Sure. Where if they hadn't won that title, that's a non-starter. Yeah. And I think that's the difference. That's fair. All right. We're going to have some good ones left, but we're going to take a quick break. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Imagine you're running a professional sports team. Nice. That would be a dream of mine. Imagine the player contract report is due today. Not so nice. You've got performance notes from the coaching staff. You've got a salary spreadsheet from your analyst.

30:06Bill Simmons:Three rounds of back and forth emails with the agent. And all of it is scattered absolutely everywhere. Well, that's where chat GPT work comes in. It's a new way to use chat GPT for bigger multi-step projects. Give chat GPT work access to your apps and files and can create real work documents. For instance, spreadsheets, slides, structured reports. You can bring all those to your next meeting. And when you don't need answers, you need help just getting the work across the finish line. Guess what? Chat GPT work can move your projects forward while you stay in control. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects.

30:46Bill Simmons:Get started. Just go to ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode available on plus and pro plans. All right, mailbag coming back. So Mike Gordon has summoned Conspiracy Bill. By the way, I wanted to give a promotion. Conspiracy Bill is on Wait a Second with Jace Concepcion and Tyler Parker this week doing his top 12 conspiracy deep dives that he's done in 2026 so far. I wasn't on, conspiracy bill was on. Very good. Anyway, Mike Gordon asks, with all the coverage of what's happened to the Lakers being sold, what may or may not be happening behind the scenes with Mark Walter, does conspiracy bill find it odd that LeBron got out of there just before the shit hit the fan in Los Angeles as it possibly had intel that this organization was on the verge of becoming a complete clusterfuck.

31:41Bill Simmons:First of all, thanks for sending that to Conspiracy Bill. We enjoy all conspiracies at all times. This is just a flat no for me. I don't think they wanted LeBron anymore, and I don't really think they wanted him since last winter. And I think they moved the team away from him. They did not want him to come back. It was spun a certain way, you know, because LeBron has a lot of media people. He's got an agent who has a podcast on The Ringer. like there was a way to spin it to make it deserves the respect and he's the second best player of all time and deserved all the respect yeah i don't think they wanted him to come back and you can see it with luca um this week where he had a team building thing in slovenia the entire lakers team they were posting photos it was dinner in slovenia i i just feel like it couldn't be luca's team if lebron was there he's too famous he's too powerful i think they felt the tug and pull of that all year last year.

32:37Bill Simmons:And I think their intention this entire time was we have to start fresh. As great as LeBron is, thanks for everything. And I think LeBron knew it. Nobody wanted, especially him, he doesn't want to be somewhere where he's not wanted. So I think both sides wanted him to leave. I agree with all of that. And, you know, they had a little bit of a taste of what that combination of Reeves and Luka and the efficiency that those two playing together. But I think I take a tiny bit of a different view. I don't think the Lakers are going to be a clusterfuck. The ownership situation and everything that led to it.

33:14I think that's what it meant.

33:15Bill Simmons:Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Because I think the team, it's a lot of white guys. So you could maybe point to that. It's a lot of white guys. They'll be competitive. They fit right in in Slovenia. this is from oh another conspiracy this is from Andrew and Kitchener he wanted to point out the recent NBA trade deadline Giannis stays in Milwaukee and then makes his big surprise announcement that he became a shareholder in another gambling company and that's not Fando I'm not going to promote them a strange partnership and then after months He was traded to the Miami Heat. But before and after that happened, the Miami Heat accidentally posted, then deleted his scheduled YouTube live stream, LeBron James introductory press conference.

34:10Bill Simmons:It caused a big spike in Kalshi, the prediction thing. And LeBron ended up going to Philly, which was, I think, 9 % of the bets. And he says, I'm not saying, but I'm just saying, that's an awful lot of money moving a platform. Giannis is a shareholder, and thanks to a team Giannis plays for, it's enough to at least do a year-and-a-half long investigation and have a lot of guys at training camp having no comment. I can't quite get there with this, but I did enjoy it. It's good. It's pretty good. I like the connecting of the dots, but for it to matter, there has to be some evidence of the money.

34:50The YouTube thing was extremely

34:53Bill Simmons:suspicious. It was like, oh, I set it up. I didn't realize it was scheduled. It moved the market when that happened. And if you're doing that, thinking that maybe he wasn't going to go there and then bet the other ones. Anyway, listen, I didn't agree with that one either, but Conspiracy Bill enjoys all Conspiracy Bill emails. This one, speaking of prediction gambling platforms, John from Maine wants to know if they had been around in 1995, what would the odds have been of OJ being guilty? In which way would you have bet it? I did send this one to you because I wanted to really talk about this.

35:26Bill Simmons:Yes. I think OJ was probably, I would say minus 2 ,000 after the Bronco chase, maybe even off the board. Would you have, what person would have bet the other side on it? So this is what's fascinating about this conversation is that there's no trial that's rivaled it since, right? All of America was watching this on a daily basis and all of America, the ups and downs of opinion around the outcome of the trial. Even though I think the point of view of him being responsible for those crimes, that element didn't really change. I think whatever - Who's more, is he going to get off because there's not no bad luck?

36:12Yes, or look at how bad this prosecution team is doing. Yeah, Chris started the job. Look at the job.

36:18Bill Simmons:That's screwed up. Yeah, incredible stuff. out of the defense team. So if we had texting and gambling in 1995, the day Chris Darden screwed up the gloves, would we have been out there banging, like doing salvage bets for ROJ bets? Yeah, because I mean, by the time the verdict was, it was time for them to go do that thing. I think it was less than 50 % of America, if you go back and look at the polling, thought that he was going to be found guilty. Less than 50%. So yeah, the Darden, that would have been the time to jump in for sure. We would have got good numbers. Yeah, so that's when it flipped.

36:57What do you think it was like after the closing statements?

37:01Bill Simmons:Who do you think was favored? Was it OJ gets off or OJ goes to jail? I would have said OJ gets off was like minus 180. Oh, I think it was closer. You think it was closer to even? Yeah, I do think it was closer to even. I thought he was getting off after. But part of that also is like right down racial line. Yeah, it's true. Like, you know, so of course. Yeah, I was living in Boston that summer and there wasn't a lot of back and forth dialogue in the trial. I'll say that. People are just like, yeah, he did it. So you think it's like minus 140. The only thing that really compares, and this was a faster runway, but the 2016 presidential election.

37:47Bill Simmons:Oh, yeah. Which I think Trump was, I don't even know what it was, like 25 to one, 20 to one. That dipped. They were even. Then it went back up. And Sal and I had that, our famous parlay that we've talked about many times. Wow. The Pats with the AFC East. Were you in on that too? Yeah, I was, of course. The Pats with the AFC East with Hillary with the presidency. And we had all these times to hedge and decided not to. But the weekend before the election, Trump was plus 500. So I wonder if the OJ trial would have swung like that. Yeah, right. We all decided we couldn't hedge it. Anyway. Scott B says, after seeing James Harden just resigning with the Cavs for three years, 97 million, I'm curious, do GMs actually watch the games at all?

38:32Bill Simmons:This guy will have earned 500 million as perhaps the greatest resume of all-time crappy performances, and then parentheses, Game 6, Rocket Spurs 2017, the cherry on top of the poop pie. Poop pie. Have we used that one before? Nope. The cherry on top of the poop pie? Pretty good. That's going to be great for us. Who else would you put on the Rushmore of guys like that? I sent this to you. Do you have any other ones? Because Harden really stands alone. Well, I don't think he does. And part of this is how you kind of frame it. So the first, for me, is like, okay, who's made the most money in the NBA, right?

39:10So that's your first kind of review. And some interesting names around James Harden. Now, nobody, James Harden is now all the way inside the top five, well inside of there. And LeBron's number one, but KD, those guys aren't eligible. But if you sit down and look at how much money Chris Paul made over his entire career, worth of$400 million. And if you look at Chris Paul's playoff resume,

39:42Bill Simmons:He didn't shake that off with the 2021 finals? Well, it was a good performance, but they lost. He took them to the finals, though. And they lost. It came down to Devin Booker getting stripped, and then the Drew Holiday, Giannis Alleyoub, and then Giannis scores 50 in game six. I don't know. Harden never had a run like that. Well, I mean, he, Harden, doesn't get credit for being on teams. He's played in five different conference final situations. Harden has. I mean, Chris Paul has two of those. And the teams that Harden was on have a superior postseason record to Chris Paul. He's played in more playoff games than Chris Paul.

40:28Bill Simmons:If you're comparing those two only, the teammates Harden had, it's just a completely different class. Chris Paul's best teammates were David West, Blake Griffin. They were teammates. They were teammates. Right, yeah, James Harden. James Harden was probably Chris Paul's best teammate. The task, though, is to try and come up with a Mount Rushmore. So that's three other names. That's fine. That's all. That was the way. This is not surprising. Paul George has made a fuck ton of money in this NBA. Over$405 million and counting. I mean, he's going to be north of$500 million when we're all said and done.

41:08Bill Simmons:So conference finals in 13 and 14. Drag the Aspiration Clippers through the conference finals in 21. And that was the best run that he had. Yes. That's about it. It's where the train gets on. Nine and 12 in terms of series one. Wow, you did some real research for this house. Well, you said Rushmore is hard. You have to come up with names. These are good names. I like this. Yeah, this is a good... And then I hate to do it, but Russell Westbrook is in this conversation just because... He was where my mind went first. Right. Yeah. His playoff game record was 64-71, 135 games. Two conference finals, both of them with Oklahoma City and a finals appearance with Oklahoma City.

41:57Bill Simmons:And a couple good flame outs. And then after they trade KD, he basically never gets even sniffing close ever again. I don't think he makes round three after that. Did he make it? Was he on Denver? No. He was on Denver the year after. After. Yeah. So you would have Paul George, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, and then captain of the Mount Rushmore, James Harden. He's like George Washington. I like that. You wouldn't have Karl Malone on there? I know the money wasn't different back then. That's the problem. My gaining criteria, my first one was, who's made a butt ton of money over two decades. This is a full poop pie.

42:35Bill Simmons:That is. Yes. It's a full poop pie. That's pretty good. I really feel bad for Bradley Beal. I think he was on pins and needles wondering when you were going to mention him. Well, he was in the top 15 of all of the money made. He wasn't inside the top 10 of all the money made. I don't think he understands what else he had to do to get mentioned. There's still time, Bradley Beal. A couple of years left. Ryan Dempsey he writes he heard about the Caleb Wilson jizz room all stars I think people really enjoyed that he said I have not heard the word jizz since the days of the lunchroom at my Catholic all boys high school in the late 90s now in the last couple weeks Luke jizzed on Nate Sheets became an all time great below deck quote I don't know if you watch below deck but that was the biggest below deck moment of the year after deck came literally below deck Deckhead Luke did, in fact, jizz on Bosa and Nate's sheets.

43:32Bill Simmons:It's a thing that happened. Why did he do it? My wife explained it to me. I was half paying attention. Then you start throwing jizz in relation to Caleb Wilson and the Bulls offseason moves. Australians start sending you emails about it. And jizz is becoming a regular thing. It's back in the lexicon, like it or not. We're happy to help. Welcome back, jizz. Can we bring back Boner? Oh, Boner never left. I think Boner left. I don't think people say Boners the same way that they did. It's in all my text threads with the frequency. What about Boner as a mistake? Like Russell Rusper committed a Boner.

44:11What a Boner!

44:11Bill Simmons:Yeah, Boner was right there for years. Fred Merkel's Boner. We always heard about that growing up. Fred Merkel had that Boner in the World Series. Well, let's use it. We have the whole NFL season. I've been trying to bring Boner back. There's going to be a lot of mistakes. All of Deshaun Watson's boners. Jay Taylor sent in, he really enjoyed the Russell Westbrook thing I did with Kirk. Good, me too. Thought I missed the number one what if. And he thinks it impacted two NBA championships. February 2009, forgot about this. The Thunder traded for Tyson Chandler and then rescinded the trade because they were worried about his toe.

44:51Bill Simmons:they sent out Joe Smith, Chris Wilcox and the rights to Devon Harden for Tyson Chandler because the I forget New Orleans Hornets at that point were tanking Thunder's team doctor failed the physical was the same guy who performed the surgery two years earlier two years later Tyson Chandler wins the title with the Dallas Mavericks wow and then they had to trade Jeff Green for Kendrick Perkins. They just could have had Tyson Chandler and Jeff Green. It's a pretty good what if. I do think that might have swung a title. Right? 2011 or 12, one of those. Maybe they win. Going back, was he really hurt?

45:35Was Chandler for the following season after they said no to the trade?

45:39Bill Simmons:I mean, he played. He was on the Mavs. He was on the Knicks. So I would say no. That was over the life of his career. Yeah. Yes. that's a good what if Westbrook had a lot of whiffs David from Iowa I had that Westbrook stat about usage rate plus assist percentage and Westbrook had a 99 one year which is by far the highest and I was saying how you can't win that high if you have a Westbrook that high he wanted to know what was the highest Westbrook while also winning the title winning the title and the answer is that there wasn't really a high one for winning that title. It's all the usual suspects you would have anyway like LeBron, Jordan.

46:24Bill Simmons:But for guys who played 12 plus playoff games, only four people had a Westbrook over 80. 2021 Trey Young, 80.2. 2018 LeBron, fucking awesome LeBron season. 81.4. Great. That was when it was just him and just by himself. 2015, LeBron, when everybody got hurt and they made the finals anyway, 82.8. And then the winner at 86.7. 2016, Russell Westbrook. He holds the regular season and playoff Westbrook records. That's amazing. I'm surprised that Allen Iverson didn't crack it. That 2001... He had the assist percentage. He never got assists like that. When he was scoring like that, he wasn't getting like 15 assists.

47:15Bill Simmons:He would not pass the rod. One more Westbrook email from CH, who said, I coached basketball a long time. A player's glaring weakness cannot be the most important quality for his position. As a point guard leader of a team, decision-making is a very important quality that your leader, your point guard, and your best player must have. Russell Westbrook is a walking brain fart with incredible explosiveness and competitive fire. I can't have him at the point guard position if I want to win a title. That's harsh, but I also don't disagree. I don't disagree either. I think that was the Westbrook conundrum, right?

47:50Bill Simmons:We loved all this. This was the 90-10. We loved all the stuff he did, but there was that other piece where he just couldn't figure out how to slow himself down in the right time. So there we go. All right. I'm excited for this one. I didn't send this to you. This is from John from Boise, Idaho. He said, it's hard to stay excited about all the cool things sports was and is with all the news about wildly increasing team values, shitty owners, money scandals, athlete gambling, et cetera. Please give me in the sports world some reasons for optimism in this current sports climate. I would appreciate a pep talk.

48:25Bill Simmons:Oh, okay. I'm happy to do this. Let's do it. I'll start here. The schedule for sports is the best it's ever been. Good, good start. I feel like week after week, weekend after weekend, and there's stuff going on. Even last night, there was a good boxing fight last night. The baseball was good. I think the WNBA is the best it's ever been. Even in middle of August, there's shit to watch. Premier League started this weekend. Tottenham got absolutely smoked. Had to get a transfer guy from Manchester City United today, one of those. Anyway, I just feel like there's more going on than we've ever had, right?

49:06Bill Simmons:When we were kids and we were teenagers, I don't remember the schedule being stacked like this. It was dead. I mean, there was nothing right now. And no way to watch all this stuff either. Yeah, only baseball. Like, we complained about the streamers. Yeah, but it was, like, today the Red Sox game. I go to ESPN. It's not on. Like, what the fuck? Look around. Is it on Pika? Oh, it's the NBC game. And you take that 70 seconds to kind of, you're clicking on stuff. And then, oh, there it is. It's better than it was in 1982. I'll tell you that much. That's right. Couldn't find anything. Remember when USA started showing NBA in the early 80s?

49:47Bill Simmons:And it was like, oh my God, like Washington's playing Atlanta. This is on television? What's happening? Yeah, national cable games. Yeah. National games, like games, right. And I remember when USA started showing WWE, ESPN had the Sunday night game they added in the 1980s. These were seminal moments for us. Yes. And now this stuff is available. You're watching golf today. You can go online and watch any version of it. You can watch Nate's brother in whatever tournament he was in. You can do whatever you want. So that's good. True fact. Yeah, you're right. Good start. Good start.

50:30Bill Simmons:I think the players, for the most part, are more committed to their craft and being good at it. and staying in shape and being aware of the discourse around them and not kind of fucking up their own careers than what we grew up with. Would be my second one. You unwittingly touched on something that will come up in this conversation today. One of the future mailbag questions we're going to do. I have a candidate that is, you know, the epitome of what we grew up with. Right. A person that wasn't able to maintain. How many of those did we have? Dating to when we were young kids. A lot. Like David Thompson, that era.

51:14Bill Simmons:And then I think I wrote about this in my book, but all the guys in the 90s that we loved in college, C-Webb, Kenny Anderson, Derek Coleman, these guys that we thought were going to be in our lives in the NBA for 20 years, and their careers, Christian Laettner. All these dudes were like, oh, here's the next group. and like 20 % of them made it. Larry Johnson got hurt. But I think in general, the guys are in better shape and take care of themselves and just have more wherewithal about what's happening to them. I would say that's the key. They have more wherewithal because the teams are smarter.

51:51The teams understand. Like I was fortunate enough in the last handful of years, maybe going pretty far back now, to visit Memphis with Verno and they gave me a tour of their facility and walk through all of the rehab stuff that they have, all of the recovery stuff that they have. That's another example, yeah. All top of the line, and the guys are coming off the court from games and immediately going into your cryotherapy, your whatever, all of the kinds of, let's get inflammation, let's address it right away. Super impressive. And that technology continues to just advance, advance, advance. and so for sure guys are able because what we want more than anything else is to see the stars play the games.

52:40Bill Simmons:We want the best players to play. Another one I'd go, the internet. Like fantasy. The connection you have with people you went to high school, college with and you know like we've been in the ZFL, my buddy Gus's pick pool that he's had forever. he used to just mail it out come in the mail and be like who won last week and now we have a website that we can make picks on whatever fantasy league we want to be in we can do we can find out what happened to guys on our teams well the corollary to that is the text threads that accompany the leagues because the ability to have the in real time shit talking where the entire group can see it right away and participate in it.

53:32That really ups the overall enjoyment of all of it, from my perspective.

53:36Bill Simmons:Text threads would be another one, I would add. There we go. Text threads. I think you're on my most text threads. We're on text threads for all different kinds of things with all different kinds of groups of people. That's true. That is true. But yeah, we have a bunch of fun ones. And then, here's another one that doesn't get talked about enough. I was bitching about the stadiums with Derek Thompson and how the billionaires should build their own fucking stadiums, which they should. You know what's really nice now? Stadiums and arenas. Remember what we grew up with? Man. Fucking terrible arenas.

54:13Bill Simmons:The Patriots football stadium was the worst place on the earth. Literally, we had nothing good ever happen there the entire time, the first 30 years of my life, until the Tuck World snow game, the Tom Brady game. That was like the first happy moment in the history of that stadium. But, you know, when you think about obstructed views and just 25 % of the seats just being the shittiest seats possible, like that's gotten better. It's more expensive. Immensely better. The food's better? Important for you? The Capitol Center is what I grew up with for the Bullets and the Caps. and in the 70s, you could smoke.

54:56This thing was subterranean. You would come in and there would be a giant cloud of smoke at the top of the fucking stadium. You can't believe it.

55:06Bill Simmons:A cloud of smoke. You couldn't even see it being smoky for the entire third quarter. It's like shooting off fireworks inside the fucking enclosed dome. The other thing is like, speaking of recognizing the impact of those stadiums on the players. We went to Three Rivers to see a Pirates game for our buddy Chip's wedding. I couldn't believe how fucking terrible that place was for baseball. And I couldn't believe they played football in there either. I've been to some awful baseball stadiums and all of them. Like when we went to Camden where we saw the inside the park home run where the guy got knocked out by the throw as he went home for the inside the park home run.

55:50Oh, I can't remember his last name.

55:54Bill Simmons:and Jacko said that's the most unbelievable thing I've seen all weekend and then somebody you were with was like there was a whole story that I won't tell because it was obscene but it was a famous story for us but yeah we were at Camden and we were like and you were used to it because you lived near there but Jacko and I couldn't believe how nice Camden was and now there's probably 15 stadiums better than Camden better yeah all the baseball stadiums that are coming off It's way nicer now. I mean, some of them are sterile. Like, I think old Yankee Stadium versus the new one. I don't think it's a contest.

56:27Bill Simmons:The old one was just better. But, and there's some good ones too. So those are some good things. Those are all good things. I'm throwing podcasts too. I think podcasts have been really fun for learning more and not having to be so trapped to kind of the generic network or local sports radio. Just you can kind of pick what you want, whatever you care about, you know? I'm not coming in fully prepared, so I don't have the full litany of this, but I feel like we've been really treated to a slew of very good playoff slash championship outcomes across sports. Oh, like exciting stuff. Yeah, yeah. Yes, because there's a lot of unexpected shit happening.

57:10Nobody had Indiana playing Miami for the national championship in college football last year. And that happened. And that was fucking awesome. and what we got with the Spurs and the Knicks. Nobody at the beginning of last basketball season had the Spurs and the Knicks as the combatants. That was incredible outcome-wise. And we're having this flip over in football where immediately there are no dynasties in football. The Chiefs go 6-11, and it's the Patriots and the Seahawks in the goddamn Super Bowl. Right, and next year that can change. It's going to change. Yeah. I mean, we're sitting here. It's definitely going to be two different teams, in my opinion.

58:00Yeah, sports is great.

58:02Bill Simmons:And by the way, with these owners, I know I've done a lot of podcast content about it. It's not great that you have teams, you have guys or companies or investors buying teams solely as assets, right? I look at, we hung out with Ryan Smith a year ago at the Masters. Yeah. Somebody who bought the Jazz and then really wanted to build in Utah and understood the fan base and then bought, not to blow smoke up Ryan Smith's ass, but bought the hockey team. He's a steward. He really wanted to be part of the community. Yeah, wanted to grow Utah. The responsibility. Yeah, through the teams. And we either had terrible owners, and we've certainly both have had terrible owners.

58:46Bill Simmons:You have had bad ones. I've had bad ones. Snyder's a good example. Peter Angelos I had. I had to quit the Orioles. Yeah, you had some horrible ones I did too. Snyder at least was a Redskins fan. When he did that, he was just terrible at owning the team and was an unlikable guy. My point is, that's the part that worries me is if people are buying these teams but don't give a shit about them and it's basically how can I flip this later? That part's scary, but we've had bad owners our whole lives. It's true. Go back to the 70s and 80s, man. Owners have always been bad. It's like, you remember the good ones, you know?

59:29Bill Simmons:So anyway, Mike in Ridgewood Queens wants to say about Denzel Boston, who I've been raving about in the Cleveland camp. He said, you know how the Equalizer franchise stars Denzel Washington and is set in Boston? Well, his name is basically the movie. Why isn't Denzel Boston's nickname The Equalizer? Okay. So there's been three equalizers. They've all been set in Boston. Starring Denzel. Done. I accept this. This guy should be named The Equalizer. How do we get this going? My most successful nickname push ever was PG-13. I single-handedly started that. Okay. Maybe we can start the equalizer. It's good.

1:00:16I want him to be good. The thing that's got to hold it back is if they're bouncing dirt balls five yards in front of him. Or overthrowing him.

1:00:24Bill Simmons:Even worse, if it's over his head and he's jumping up and getting nailed. Jim in South Pasadena. I never knew this. This was one of the craziest emails I've gotten. Do you think it's a big enough deal that the Giants and Dodgers right now are tied all time in their rivalry. They each have 1 ,294 wins with 17 ties. They are dead even. They've been playing since 1890 and they play, what, 17 games a year? And they're exactly dead even. How is anything more insane than this? How is that possible? How is that possible? They played almost 2 ,600 games and they're dead even. That reminds me, it's akin to the fact that LeBron never had a 27-7-7, right?

1:01:18That's another one. How is that possible?

1:01:20Bill Simmons:Some nerds came out and were like, oh, that's actually totally conceivable that that would happen. But I still think it was pretty great. Dodgers and Giants, tied. Terry P had a two-part question. Did Seattle beat in the Patriots this year less than the joy and enthusiasm Patriots had from the Malcolm Butler Super Bowl victory? The answer is fuck no. And that's in all caps. Then he asked, then he asked, are the Seahawks the first NFL team since the 01 Patriots to have no haters? That's a interesting one. Good one. Who doesn't like the Seahawks? Right. I guess like the Niners fans. You'd have to have a team that played them or, you know, you were rivals with them.

1:02:01you'd have to come up with something even like at the Mike McDonald hasn't arrived and been a dick like there isn't a noteworthy rivalry between McDonald and Shanahan and McVeigh man it's a pretty good one everyone likes JSN Legion of Boom had an identity and everybody wanted them to shut

1:02:23Bill Simmons:the fuck up and Sherman talked a lot of shit he talked to Brady that time people are like who's this guy yeah this one Seahawks don't. They just kind of handle their business. Everybody loves the city of Seattle. Darnold is a, you know, a very likable reclamation project out of left field story. By the way, I think we're doing a Seattle-Portland swing for live shows. Oh, do tell. Yeah, it's happening. I don't know if you wanted. I know. You might have to come along. My hands up. Great food in those cities. Yeah. Great food cities. I think we're going to do a rewatchables in Seattle. Tell me when.

1:03:01Bill Simmons:Then a sports one in Portland. But yeah, we have the dates. Elizabeth Fehrman. Oh, love Elizabeth Fehrman. Yeah. She's the best. Probably the single most beloved ringer employee. Yeah. Deserve it. Anyway, I think we're doing a Pacific Northwest swing. Man. Speaking of the Pacific Northwest, from Andrew in New York, I know you already have a distaste for Tom Dundon, but were you aware he's also responsible for the growth of your least favorite sport, pickleball? is the majority owner of the Major League Pickleball has the whole thing about it. This is true. El Chippo is the number one pickleball investor.

1:03:39It makes perfect sense. See, I'm torn here because I'm boys with a guy that has been a champion of just the expanding popularity of it. And I've never, I've touched a paddle for it one time ever. I won't do it because I'm not like popping an Achilles. I'm not playing golf for six months because I played fucking pickleball. You were munching back and forth. I'm not doing that. I'm not doing it. But I'm just saying, I recognize its broad popularity, the demographic that it's seeking. And I like the idea of the tiny, intimate, little stadiums they're doing and everything. I get it. I get it. That's all.

1:04:20I'll leave it at that. That was disgusting. Not for me. That was disgusting, house.

1:04:27Bill Simmons:Aaron Reich wrote in with his son Ezekiel. He said he's been listening to the podcast with my kids. They're 10 and 7. Ezekiel Reich. Sorry for all the F-bombs in this pod. Oh, sorry. I asked my 10-year-old if he could ask a question. What would it be? He thought for a little bit and asked, do you think a healthy Jason Tatum would have led the Celtics to the same regular season record if you switched him with Jalen Brown last season? It's phenomenal. phenomenal question. Interesting that nobody's ever asked me this one and I've never really thought about it before. I think they would have been around the same.

1:05:05Bill Simmons:I think that's one of the great things about what Jalen did last year was he was able to basically match the production of somebody who just made four straight first team all NBAs. But yes, I think they would have had the same record. Maybe even a whiff better because of the rebounding. Well, I'm agreeing because the true architect, the person that deserves credit for this is Missoula. They played a certain way, a certain approach, and they took no nights off. They were going hard from jump, you know, first tip back in October 2025. I haven't told you this, but you knew it was going to happen.

1:05:50Bill Simmons:I've kind of talked myself into the Paul George trade. Oh, this is so good. August 23rd took over 50 days. It happened this week. Yeah. I was going to tell you. I'm going to have so much fun this basketball season. Yeah, it happened. The problem is when guys are missing games, we're going to be able to say, well, this is what happens. Guys miss games. This is who these guys are. These guys miss games. Yeah, I've talked myself into it. I knew I would. You knew I would. I honestly, 50 days was a long time, but now I've talked myself into it. I had to. What else am I going to do? You're going to root for the Celtics this upcoming season.

1:06:32And they have a chip on their shoulder. And, you know, okay, who's the laughingstock now? It's Paul. Look at Paul George, this defensive stopper out on the wings and all the rest of it. Paul George. I know what's coming.

1:06:44Bill Simmons:Ron Harper, Baylor Shireman. We can replace Jalen with Bulk. Yeah. All kinds of looks. Paul George, much better fit with Jason Tatum. Good catch and shoot, three-point shooter. Not going to care about an alpha dog situation in your turn, my turn, because he's in his mid-30s. He's ready to be a supportive guy. The basic question is, the chemistry of this team, is Jason Tatum plus Mitch Robinson plus Paul George better? With the guys that got a year older. Right. can they play though the way that Missoula wants them to play that's that question I thought Brad Stevens had this show that only Celtic fans watch it's like a YouTube show and he had some quote in there where he was basically like we had basically said I felt like we had taken this group as far as it could go and what he meant was these two guys I think we had taken as far as it could go and it was time to figure out a new version of this.

1:07:53Bill Simmons:And that's why they did it. And you get one year out of Paul George, and then he's an expiring next year, and you have all these picks, and maybe you can flip them into something legitimate. That particular proposition, I remain immensely skeptical of. I call bullshit on that. I call bullshit. This is why it took 50 days. It took 50 full days. How about this? Why don't you just see, let them play together with Mitch Robinson, and let's see what the team is capable of. Let's see that. Because those two fucking guys won an NBA championship together. And you knew that you were going to have Mitch Robinson.

1:08:31Mitch Robinson's been in your plans. I don't say I feel 100 % great about this,

1:08:36Bill Simmons:but I had to talk yourself into things. You're on a long car ride and then there's two hours to go and you kind of give in to the car ride and you're like, there's two hours to go. Let's... Let's just, it's going to, that's the same thing. I had, it was a long car ride. So you're powering through it. Yeah. You're powering through the Celtics season. And guess what? When I, when I figured out how to justify the trade in my head, it was like when we would drive to Vegas and you would see the Arby's. Oh. Yeah. It's like, we just need, we weren't probably winning the title this year. We needed to reset the team, get under, expiring next year, build the team around Tatum.

1:09:17Yeah. I tried. I tried, guys. Let's keep racing Tatum years. Let's keep racing Tatum years.

1:09:21Bill Simmons:Chad from Fresno said, I sent you this one. We've all seen the guy that isn't good at a sport, but he's dripped head to toe in the best apparel and shoes for that given sport. What about sports apparel items that you can only buy if you meet a certain skill level, like special ping hats for people that are scratch golfers, different tennis shirts or headbands for tennis players above a four or five, et cetera, et cetera. You see somebody in a certain hat or shoes, you immediately know they're good. So there's a slight parallel with this with the Masters. I know. I knew you were going to go to this place.

1:09:51Bill Simmons:It's at different stores. And then Berkman's has some special swag. But then if you get into the clubhouse store that only the member's in, there's really special hats and stuff there. So there's tiers. What do you think of this idea? I love it. I have no notes. The problem is it creates... I mean, what's going to stop me from buying one of these things? Oh, your buddy has a ping hat? Right. The person earned it, but I'm going to fucking buy it from them because it's the coolest one. And I want to be, you know, the guy walking around. Yeah, that's where it falls apart. Imprimator of excellence.

1:10:27Yes. The same way that we use, I'm not going to say out loud, the way the techniques that are out there, I'm sure people can figure them out. But you can get some great stuff out of the Augusta Pro Shop. I got scared.

1:10:37Bill Simmons:I'm not going to talk about like massage techniques. Not yet. Not yet. The Augusta Pro Shop, there's ways to sort of get, our buddy Chris Chen has some great strategies. he's used over the years. He gets a putter every year. So there would have to be some sort of honor system. Almost like when you get your own master's jacket. Like Jeff Yang. We know a couple people have master's jackets. Heidi Uberoth. Why do you have that? Why do you have that on? The master's jacket you wouldn't let like, oh house, borrow my master's jacket. So maybe these hats are like, maybe they're like$1 ,200 hats. Good, I like this.

1:11:17I wouldn't want to give that hat to anybody because it's my only one. No, you would not lend it there.

1:11:20Bill Simmons:Okay, all right, okay, yes. There's something there. Something there. It should be awarded from the PGA Tour or the country club. You win the country club. So it's priceless. Yeah, okay. Chad from Fresno, good job. Cody Larson basically wants to know if Miles Garrett is a Ewing Theory candidate. He checks every box. Okay, let me hear it. superstar. They never won anything with him. Everybody's written off the team without him. That's basically the Ewing Theory in a nutshell. Okay. The problem is it's the Browns and their quarterback's Deshaun Watson or Shador Sanders. And they've had a lot of suckitude.

1:12:01There were a lot of years of real suck.

1:12:03Bill Simmons:I'm going to keep my eye on the Ewing Theory for that. Okay. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Imagine you're running a professional sports team. Nice. Imagine the player contract report is due today. Not so nice. You've got performance notes from the coaching staff. You got a salary spreadsheet from your analyst, three rounds of back and forth emails with the agent and all of it is scattered absolutely everywhere. Well, that's where chat GBT work comes in. It's a new way to use chat GBT for bigger multi-step projects. Give chat GBT work access to your apps and files and can create real work documents.

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1:13:57Bill Simmons:Starring Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley, Allison Janney, and Guy Pearce. The Dog Stars. Only in theaters and IMAX this Friday, get tickets now. Luke from North Carolina said the Hornets have acquired around 20 second round picks over the next few years. I think that's pretty close to accurate. My question is, if you offered all 20 picks, who is the best player you could acquire for 20 second round picks? Did I send you this one or no? You did. And I'll have to confess, I didn't get around in the research, this remains one of the most confounding elements of the way that the business of basketball is conducted between teams now.

1:14:38Bill Simmons:Teams valuing second round picks, where you and I could give a shit. Right. We would just trade off. We would never have second round picks. But here, take them. I have a one in ten chance after 32. It clearly creates, it is a lubricant in the machine. It is. It greases all of these deals. All of these deals slide right in very nicely. They can make things work to some kind of satisfaction because we constantly see these second round picks added in as sweeteners and elements or something about the way the collective bargaining agreement works or something about the way the cap works that these second round picks, there's something there.

1:15:21Bill Simmons:So I couldn't get Jalen Duren for 20 second round picks. No, I don't think so. Could I get Herb Jones? See, now we're talking. I think it's like Herb Jones. Right. Like that, that's, that's a great, we got to do, I'm going to do some, some, some research as the NBA season. I think it's the Herb Jones level. It's great. That's a great call. Could I get Nas Reed for 20 second round picks? I don't know, man. Basically the Hornets would have 40 second round picks at that point. is Alex Caruso. I feel like Nas Reed is too good. Alex Caruso were a 20 second round pick. At this stage of his where he is and kind of the injury risk, now maybe.

1:15:59And everybody knows, you know, Oklahoma City, speaking of traffickers of second round picks.

1:16:07Bill Simmons:Could Washington get 20 second round picks for Anthony Davis? I don't know what to do with them. For what? By the way, I'm glad I brought this up. What the fuck was Dallas doing the last nine months? The last nine months? What do you mean? They basically gave Anthony Davis away last year for reasons that remain unclear. And then he immediately had more value on Washington. Why didn't they just keep him? They just bought out Klay Thompson to save$9 million. Why didn't you keep him as an expiring? Maybe your team's going to be a little better than you thought. Maybe you could package him in a deal.

1:16:47Bill Simmons:Instead, now he's just a$9 million sunk. Oh, congrats. You saved$9 million. Your team's tripled since you bought it. I don't understand these teams at all. This is like, but this Dallas team, it goes, I mean, the original sin of the Luka trade and every element of what they've done since. And I'll never forgive the fucking league for giving them Cooper flag. They could fuck off, continue to fuck off for that. I'll never forgive it. Peter from Chicago, we're almost done. Peter from Chicago said, you and House were talking about how the new Vegas expansion team, which by the way, I know for a fact is in the nines.

1:17:27Bill Simmons:Okay. It's in the nine billion range for Vegas team. It just seems right. We were talking about how they shouldn't be named the odds. And Peter said, it got me thinking. In the WNBA, they have a new expansion team in Philadelphia. They've yet to come up with a team name. They want to use fan support as input. Using your platform, I think this would be the greatest time to market the idea for them to be named the Philadelphia 70s sisters.

1:17:57Hey, there's precedent. I kind of like that. There's precedent. To this day in my life, there are multiple places where I have the soul sisters, S-O-L-S-I-S-T-A-H-S, which was the Miami mascot for the Miami WNBA franchise. that does not exist any longer, the Soul Sisters. Look, I'm into this. The Philadelphia 70 Sisters.

1:18:25Bill Simmons:It's strong. It's really good. We had a couple good ones. Arch Madness and the Philadelphia 70 Sisters. Good mailbag. All right. Martin from Estonia asked, who are my all-time driving to the airport Celtics top five? Estonia. Hi, Martin. Thank you. This comes from Kyrie's last year at the Celtics, which did not go well. And then I was joking constantly about how I wanted to drive him to the airport to make sure he got on the plane. And then I think we made a social video of me driving Kyrie to the airport. By the way, Kyrie, I'm glad he's figured out. I like this stage of Kyrie. I'm glad he's at a beneficial life.

1:19:07Bill Simmons:But he was not a fun Celtic. Were you wearing your seatbelt on that ride? I definitely was not. Definitely not. Nope. So I asked you for your five bullets. I'm going to give you, you go first and I'll give you my five self-exaptions. Okay. So this was tough because I do, there are some sympathy cases in here and then some that I have absolutely no sympathy for whatsoever. Top of the list because of recency bias. I was going to say Kyle Kuzma because his bags were always packed over the last two years he was in Washington, but I don't really have animosity towards him. He tried and then the circumstances changed and whatever, man.

1:19:41Jordan Poole is a whole other kind of deal. Like after, and really it's not Jordan Poole's fault. It is the organization that as the rebuild, you know, was arrived upon, they put this dude, they gave him a microphone and let him say, welcome everybody to this day. Like they put him front and center as a guy that was like a kind of leader thing and it blew my fucking mind. So Jordan Poole -

1:20:05Bill Simmons:Didn't they give him the end of the Jumbotron intros where it was like, he was the last guy introduced, all that stuff. Yes. Crazy business. Just insane business. Speaking of crazy business, insane business, and I do have sympathy for this guy, John Hotplate Williams, by the end of his five years here. Now, the story is that he was dealing with an enormous amount of stress and the way that he was handling that stress was eating it. And I understand that he was an early case. You just like to eat without the stress. Both. I'll eat the stress. But they put him, that guy had paychecks skipped by both Washington and the Clippers where he went because he could not get the weight thing by the end of his five years here.

1:20:55He made sense on your team.

1:20:56Bill Simmons:Yeah. Can we, quickly on John Hoplite Williams. Yes. This was Peter Vesey, who was a really influential NBA writer for the Post for years. And we loved reading his Hoop du Jour. but his two best nicknames ever he called joe barry carroll joe barely cares and then there was a john hot rod williams who was on two lane in the cavaliers yes and peter vesey called the other john williams john hot plate williams to separate them and it was just like chef's kiss 10 out of 10 yeah phenomenal anyway all right so hot plates on there yeah um And then some guys from this era in the sort of 2000s, Andre Blotch.

1:21:38Bill Simmons:Yeah, if you didn't say Andre Blotch, I was going to not even know if I knew you anymore. He was, again, if you wanted to be slightly sympathetic, he did get shot. He arrived in Washington and got shot in a carjacking effort. But then he got arrested a couple times. There was some solicitation kind of stuff going on. You ended up amnestying him. and he was, there's some famous clips of him going for triple doubles in all the wrong ways. Yeah. So by the time, you know, he was that chaser. Yeah, that's right. Um, these two guys I put together because they were both traded together and their most famous moment in Washington was, was attempting the, I mean, I, I'm not going to use that word, the colossally stupid cinnamon challenge, Nick young and JaVale McGee, Nick young.

1:22:28Jesus. I did that with Jalen. From 2008 to 2012, these two big dummies here in Washington with just incredibly outside, like their connection to reality. So those guys together, I was happy. Now this one I got to proceed carefully because I don't want there to be any repercussions that might be visited upon me, but I'm going to whisper it. Javar is quitting. Fair. Fair. You've got to be careful because, you know, he had connections.

1:23:02Bill Simmons:So is Brad Beal not on the airport list? Because he was pretty good for you guys at that point. Yeah. He was 38 in. And he'll be, you know, he's still at the top of all of the record books. I thought for sure Brent Price was going to make your list. No, he didn't do anything wrong. He just showed up and his foot didn't stop working. Didn't you overpay him? Yeah, but that's what Washington does. That's what they did. I don't bear him any ill will. he didn't you know have a gun in the locker room and and you know with the genuine threat of gunplay in a locker room i thought for sure you were also who was the the shooter you had in the mid-2010s that you overpaid no it was like a six foot eight is there one three-point shooter one god damn was it uh ursan elie sobo is like one of those type of guys you you paid one of those guys I mean it sounds right I could easily go back and pull up now I'm gonna have to was it Jan Mahimney didn't make it for you?

1:24:01nah cause again

1:24:03Bill Simmons:you liked him alright I'm gonna give you my I did by the decade I did one per decade 1970s Sidney Wicks it was really him and Curtis Rowe together but the Red R back his dumbest move ever let Paul Silas leave wouldn't pay Paul Silas who was the heart and soul of two title teams, whole Celtic run, won't pay him, and then tries to replace him with Sidney Wicks and Curtis Rowe. Curtis Rowe had the famous quote. It was something like, there aren't any W's and L's in paycheck. Something like that. He was not a popular Celtic. Sidney Wicks was worse, though, and was just a losing player his whole career with good stats, but kind of peaked when Calvin Murphy punched him out in a Rocket Celtic game.

1:24:50Bill Simmons:Calvin Murphy was 5 '9", and Sidney Wicks was 6 '9", and ended up getting, I think, a broken or a bloody nose. Everyone hated him, so that's one. Rick Robey in the 80s, he was a nice guy, great guy, backup center. One of the most frustrating Celtics. He would just come in, he'd bowl somebody over, he'd be moving on a charge, he'd go over the back on somebody, and then he would have a nice lefty hook, But he was just incredibly frustrating. And I was so delighted when we traded him for Dennis Johnson. I wanted to drive him to the airport just to make sure he got on. Todd Day in the 90s. Oh, wow.

1:25:32Bill Simmons:The most selfish player I've ever watched. It was the mid-90s when my dad would always give me the tickets. He had the Fleet Center record for a while because he was just... I mean, he was... If he had the ball over half court, it was going up. He was one of those guys. And you could just watch him suck the life out of everybody else. He was a good college player too. He was really good. I love that Arkansas team. Mark Blunt in the 2000s. Sure. I get it. When we paid him a big contract, I wrote an entire piece using a Thelma Louise analogy of Harvey Keitel at the ending running toward the cliff as they drove off it because I hated the contract.

1:26:12Bill Simmons:I couldn't, he suckered them in. He did the Jerome James. He had like six good weeks, suckered them in. and then eventually we dumped him on Minnesota somehow. So he's for the 2000s and then Kyrie in the 2010s. So we're only halfway through the 2020s. Seems like a nice guy, but Nikola Vucevic in the lead right now for the airport. I hope he got on the plane. Well, I mean, how long was he in Boston? He wasn't there long enough to, you know. Was him and Evan Fournier are the two leaders for the 2020s right now. Evan Fournier came in. He was the big 2021. He was like our big trade deadline score off the bench.

1:26:53Bill Simmons:And he went like three for 100 in the playoffs. Okay. Last question. From Parker from Utah. Finding out Joe House played water polo was not on my 2026 bingo card. I wasn't as shocked as when I found out Luka was traded to the Mavericks. but I was definitely more shocked than when I found out Tyler Durden was really the narrator of Fight Club the whole time. I don't have a question. Spoiler! Yeah. I don't know. Can we spoil that movie or no? No, it's fine. I think it's okay. I think we have to show the photo. I'm still working. I haven't been to my parents to get up into the attic yet. Well, you sent me the photo.

1:27:36I did. This is the team. Who did you send it to?

1:27:40Bill Simmons:What do you mean? Now I can't find the photo. I sent it to you. Just you. Only you. It was just to me only? Me to you. I didn't send it around to any of our threads. Oh, I found it. Okay. It's just a group of young men. All right, here we go. In bathing suits. The Joe Haas water polo photo. There it is. Joe Haas is in the back. Look at all my guys. All my day of you guys. Shout out to the feet. Nice full head of hair and skinny body. There we go. Yeah, there you go. The Joe House water polo photo exists. So you're going to try to find some more for us? I feel like there's some action shots that are out there.

1:28:21Like, you know, with the water splashing, you know, you're up, you caught the ball.

1:28:26Bill Simmons:So you played all through high school, and then you hid this from us when we were in college together. You were a year ahead of me. I didn't hide it. I played on the College of the Holy Cross team all four years. You never talked about it. None of us had any idea. It was always in the fall. You and I played basketball five times a week, and I somehow never knew you were in the water polo team until you were a junior. We were in the NESCAC League, and we played like Bates and Colby and Trinity. I can't remember everybody. You played all four years at Holy Cross. I did. I missed. So my number one activity at Holy Cross was the radio station, by far my favorite thing.

1:29:02And every year there was a great college, the College Music Journal, CMJ, hosted a weekend down in New York and the radio station would send people down and I was invited and I couldn't go any of those years. I chose to go to the water polo tournament because that's when the championships were every year up at Bates where it's fucking freezing cold. Oh my God, that's the worst ride from Holy Cross to Bates. It's like four hours. They let us take a van. The College of Holy Cross let us. It was a water polo van? We had a Holy Cross van. Guess how many cases of beer were in there? Oh, my God. I mean, it worked out.

1:29:45It was fun. I enjoyed it. But holy cow. Yeah.

1:29:49Bill Simmons:There you go. Joe House's water polo career. Amazing stuff. I'm going to see you this week. You're coming in. Thanks for doing the mailbag with me. Thanks to everybody who sent in the questions. Yeah, a couple of dinners. Thanks to everybody who sent the questions. We're going to take a break and come back with the guy who briefly resurrected our Holy Cross football program. And now it's trying to do the same. You say like Bob Chesney is next right after this. This episode is brought to you by Boar's Head. It may have been years ago, but I still remember the feeling of unpacking my kids' lunch boxes after school and to find nothing left.

1:30:22Bill Simmons:As a parent, that's a total win. Boar's Head, maple honey ham, American cheese, maple honey turkey, all time greats in the school lunch game. It's real quality protein that tastes great. So you can feel that winning feeling all term long. Whether you're doing wraps, sandwiches, or a quick snack box, Boar's Head makes packing school lunches easier. You'll be proud of what you pack. They'll be happy to finish it. Fuel their school day with the premium choice, Boar's Head. For lunchtime inspiration, visit boarshead.com slash back to school or head to your local deli counter. This episode is brought to you by NOS Energy.

1:30:59Bill Simmons:Every ounce of dirt, sweat, and gears, every checkered flag and trophy raised, every lap, every race, every hard-fought place. They're all jammed inside every can of NOS Energy. High-performance energy for burning the midnight oil in the garage and pedal-to-the-metal human horsepower for the streets. Go ahead. Crack open a can of NOS Energy and get after it. All right. I have not cared about college football since I was in college at Holy Cross. Holy Cross. Where you coached too, Bob Chesney. But yeah, we were really good once upon a time. Really good. And I grew up in Massachusetts and New England.

1:31:33Bill Simmons:Yeah. Didn't really have with Doug Flutie for a couple of years, but we just wasn't like going, being in Michigan or, you know, where you just Texas, where you fall in love. So I never really had a team. And now in my mid fifties, I have a team. UCLA football. Cause you got here. Welcome. Welcome to the team. Thank you. I'm your unofficial booster. I love it. Walk me through everything. Like, so you're at James Madison last year. Yeah. You're in the playoffs. and now eight months later here, you're in LA and you're in the NIL era. Like what's the single hardest thing about doing this? Well, I think that you hit the nail on the head.

1:32:09The timing of it was just, that was the hardest part about it because you know, you don't want to be, you want to be solely focused. You don't want any distractions in your team as you feel like you got a good team and you're doing something pretty special, which we felt like we had at JMU and you know, you go week after week and then your name starts popping up in something and somewhere else. And you're, you know, you're taking a zoom or a couple of zooms during a bi-week and you're trying to fit it in. And, you know, you definitely have interest in places, but at the same point in time, you know, that you can't mess up the product that you're, you know, and that journey that you're currently sharing with that team.

1:32:41So it was - And they know too, right? They hear about your name. Like they know indirectly and they see stuff out there, some true, some not, you know, so ultimately to them, I said, come ask me anything. I'll tell you the truth. I don't want you to ever feel like, you know, I'm not being honest with you. And there's sort of a business side to this, but whatever we're talking about is talking about next year, not the journey we're on. So, you know, it ultimately went in through, you know, there's a couple of home visits and things of that nature that, that occurred. And I really started to just see what, you know, UCLA was all about.

1:33:14And you start talking to some of the guys that were on the search committee and you start, you know, talking to Martin and you start feeling like, man, they want this thing back on track and you felt the energy from them and i felt like it was a you know a young crew but there's you know uh adam peters who's the gm of the commanders right yeah there's bob myers who did you know work magic obviously with you know the golden state and then there's casey and then doc roberts is calling me on the side and like every piece of it i was like man these are some like high level you know people that have won at the highest level in the sports, right?

1:33:51In the sports world, not just, hey, they're CEO or something else that doesn't know what the team dynamics are. And I was just so intrigued by that, that it really made me think, you know, more and more about it. And then eventually we make the decision, you know, it goes public. And after it goes public, we're still in the championship weekend, right? So we're still trying to play this championship game. And I did not want to be a distraction. And I remember when it popped, I told the team on the field first, I said, look, something's going to come out later today because guys text me that they got this story and they're going to go with it.

1:34:21I said, so I just want you to know what they're talking about again is next year. Now I've said that and I was like, how do I like, what's an exercise that I could do to prove to them that I am still solely focused on this. And it's funny enough, once that all came out, you know, probably 400 text messages in the first couple hours. So I end up, you know, holding up my phone the next morning team meeting and I have 400 or whatever it is, text messages. And I said, this, I have 400 text messages on her. I took a screenshot of it actually. And I said, I'm not answering a single one of these. I said, these are all about next year.

1:34:55I said, so you guys need to do the same. And it was cool because by the end of the week, I showed him, it was like 1 ,200. And I never, I just kept growing. And I was holding true to my word that I'm not interested in talking about this stuff for next year. I'm interested in finishing this with a conference championship, hosting it at home, and then maybe making the playoffs. And then fortunately enough, we made the playoffs, had a little bit of time off uh got to come out here do a press conference meet the team and figure some things out about the lay to land here um and then you know that was really it started to develop a staff and and put together you know our gm role ultimately because recruiting was going to be the first thing we had to do um didn't talk to a single kid at jmu about hey you're coming with me i wanted that to stay pure and be about you know that team that year and i didn't want to talk to them about any of those things till the season was over so so that only happens in sports movies yeah i'm taking you i'm taking you man it happens because then it was funny because then we waited because i also was you know just trying to be respectful of the relationship with jmu and i didn't want to technically tamper with any of these guys so we weren't calling until the portal opened and then when the portal opened we start calling them they're like where were you like i've been talking to coaches this entire time right and i didn't think you guys were interested we're like no we're we're trying to play by the rules here and do it the right way and uh you know and then obviously a chunk of them came with us, a couple didn't.

1:36:12But, you know, I think that what's here with us, we're really proud of, and I think helped set the culture of this program. And it's been really good. But the thing that saved me, it's a long ass answer too, by the way, right? I'm along for the ride. Yeah. The thing that saved me was probably the fact that this is three hours back, right? So I look at like Stein who went over to Kentucky from here on the West coast. So you get done with your day at 10 o 'clock, you know, it's one in the morning on the East coast. So he's got to find time during the day and take away from what he's doing, you know, at Oregon.

1:36:47I'd take anything away from JMU. I got to complete the day, 10, 11 o 'clock at night, get on the phone with, you know, GM candidates and start figuring those things out. And you still have three hours at the end of the day, you know, that you wouldn't normally have. I'm sure your wife was delighted. Yeah. She, I was in the basement. She didn't even know where I was. So she's like, I'll see you in you. Yeah, it's pretty much, pretty much. So that's how it all kind of went down, but it was good because I got to stay true to the mission we were on and not take anything away or dilute that in any way.

1:37:12And at the same point in time, do a little extra work. It was harder on me, but really just me, not on anybody else.

1:37:17Bill Simmons:I mean, that's always for decades been one of the worst things about college sports. Yeah. When a guy that's there is going to leave and it could go one of two ways. Like you can go in a limbo, it could tear the team apart or, you know, you keep everyone focused. I'm sure you put a lot of thought into that. A lot of thought into it. And I think the way we did it, I was trying to hold off from anything going public till after the championship game. It just didn't work out that way. Once media gets it, they get it. And it's kind of the end of it. I had it for like a month. I just sat on it. That's right.

1:37:44And you should have. And I appreciate that you did if you did. But those are the things that, you know, were, and then it came down to if we're in the playoffs, you know, I am coaching in this game and that had to be part of this conversation with any school I was talking to is, you know, if we're in a bowl game, I'm probably coaching in that game. Like I'm not going to, not going to like leave this team. I just, it wasn't going to be an option for me to go forward with any other team if they didn't respect that. So, uh, and I knew it would put us at a little bit of a disadvantage in the recruiting class.

1:38:12I knew our portal class had to, you know, then carry a lot of the weight, but is what it is. Like for me, I think, you know, the loyalty to that place that supported me so much and, you know, and, and had our back, I felt like I had to, you know, really do the same. So. Yeah. And you know, you're, you're UCLA. It's a great school.

1:38:28Bill Simmons:You're on the West coast you're still going to get some yes some kids correct so the jmu thing ultimately like it played out pretty well yeah you made the playoffs nobody was expecting that yeah um you lose then you come here yes um you take over when the last time i talked to you when it was with a bunch of people and you were explaining i think it was in the spring i can't remember it was like march april somewhere in there um you're explaining how different it is now to try to get people yeah and dealing with not only are you paying players, which has never really happened above the table before.

1:39:03Bill Simmons:Correct. But you're also dealing with like weird representatives, people that don't have the credentials to really negotiate. Correct. People that don't understand, you give your word to somebody and then you just, oh, you're giving me that? I'm going to go here then. That's right. So what is this world like? Because from afar, it seems like a nightmare. Yeah, I mean, it's close to a nightmare. I think that, you know, you look at the NFL and the cool thing about the NFL is that you have contracts, there's tampering rules, there's all the things that come with it. They're season complete, then it opens up the hiring cycle and everybody, you know, free agency happens, coaches make moves, all those things go down.

1:39:37You have to have permission to talk to a coach. That's not the case here. You know, obviously it won't be the case here for some time. I think till 2031, I think the national championship game is already scheduled at the time of the year that it is, which is starting this, you know, this next school year, right? So you're still playing through the Christmas break. You're playing, you know, into the next semester. And now guys are going to transfer out or transfer in or figure it out. So I think those teams that are, you know, in the playoff hunt, that's a hard, that's probably a really hard juggle because you got to have official visits during the middle of, you know, preparing for the first round or second or third round of the playoffs.

1:40:12And it's, you're making job interviews, but it's like one year job interviews. Exactly right. So that's the stuff that's different. And then, you know, you find a kid, we love you. You know, you love us. It's great. Everything's going good. but shoot, can you just, I love it. I'm going to definitely come visit and everything, but just can you talk to my agent real quick? You know, and then the agent gets involved. And when the agent gets involved, you know, it goes a whole different direction sometimes and the visit never happens or it does. And you got to promise money up front sometimes with a kid you never even met, or at least promise a ballpark.

1:40:39So you're just walking around with cash. You just have hundreds on you. You just don't know who you have to grease up. Yeah, that's right. So that's what it feels like. So it's really one of those things that, and then you got to know the market and the market seemed to escalate, you know, significantly this past year. How do you keep track of the market when there's like over a hundred teams looking for a left tackle? And really the truth is the market might be the market. It might be set for you, but then there's one other school that's extremely desperate and has money and just raises, you know, your value all of a sudden.

1:41:07Turns into an eBay auction. Out of nowhere. Yeah. Just a big spike in it. And now you got to figure out, is that worth it or not for us? And you just have to do a really good job of understanding your own budget, understanding your position allotment and allocation of what you're trying to do. and then you just got to try to stand by it. But you've never wanted to do this stuff. No, no, no. You just want to like coach 11 guys on each side and go. So that's the interesting part is that, name one coach that got into it to be a GM and to understand this and have the portal open twice a year, not too long ago, run a budget, raise money.

1:41:40I mean, I was always a little bit part of it, but then now you're doing all of that. And I realized that JMU, when I was the one talking to all the agents, and we'd get on a phone call and it would start and then there'd be a, you know, a rebuttal that would come back, you know, minutes later, then we'd have to go back to that. It was like four or five, six phone calls with every guy until you could even get near a number. Yeah, like, why are you doing that? That was at the point of this ain't, this is really hard work. So, you know, obviously having a GM and assistant GM and a recruiting department, you know, is necessity at this stage of the game.

1:42:10But then the thing that I really don't like about it is that as soon as you put an agent in contact with a GM, it's all business. And it's not about what's the best fit. Where should he be? What's his playing time like? Does he gel well with the coaches? Is the culture gonna fit him? You know, is he gonna be happy there? Does he like the area? All those, those things go out the window. And that agent, all he cares about is the highest number he could get for the kid. He could throw him in the shittiest situation and he's still happy because he got paid. And that's the thing that - This happens in sports media too, by the way.

1:42:41Does it? Yeah. There's some good agents that don't do that. And they will be like, this is not worth the extra money for you to go to this place. This is, and the guys that, I think we're the NFL guys that are truly credentialed and absolutely know the value of going to a good program or a program that fits their player. There's a long game to be played. And I think a lot of them, it's really hard to, to, you know, give up a lot of money on the front end, but man, there's a chance if you do it right to make a whole lot for a whole lot longer. And here, not only with football, but the connections and the education, you know, this is, I always say it to our guys all the time.

1:43:14Like, this is your life. This is your football playing life, right? What's happening from here to here? And are you preparing yourself in that small window of football life for the rest of it? And here's a place where you could do it both, you know, do both. And I think that's, you know, that's what I'm most proud of. We're not just football. You know, we're helping, you know, mold these young men into becoming great employees and employers and husbands and fathers and all those things. And that's what you get at a place, you know, with this type of, you know, education and people around you.

1:43:42Bill Simmons:Yeah, like in the, this would be like in the NBA if Kawhi was a free agent and his uncle was asking for under the table stuff from multiple teams. Yes. Oh, wait, that happened. Yeah. And here's the number I gave you and then shop that number around and go find another. Oh, wait, did I say that? Hey, how about, can you give me more there? You talk about bringing people into a program. Yeah. But this is 2026 and everybody seems like they're here for a year and then I'll decide after. Whereas like probably when you got into football coaching and you're like, someday I'll coach in college. Yeah. I'll build a program.

1:44:12Bill Simmons:I'll get somebody from high school. Yes. He'll be with me for four years unless something horrible happens and he transfers. Yes. But now it's like, you're just, it's transactional and it's one year apiece. So how do you have a culture when everything's one year? Yeah. So it's interesting that you say that because let's go back to Holy Cross, right? I was there for six years. Yeah. We had, I think, two transfers and both of these kids got in on their own and we're like, hey, we just were transferring. We got in on, because you couldn't get a transfer in to Holy Cross. It was nearly impossible.

1:44:40Academically, it was really hard to get into. Oh, thanks for pumping up Holy Cross. This is great. Thank you. Only smart people could go there. Really appreciate that. So that is really, you know, then you go to JMU, right? So I go from six years and two transfers in six years, no NIL, no work, but you're working partial scholarships. So it's kind of like NIL, you've got to value people and break up these scholarships and do what you got to do. They earn more, you give them more, all the things that come with it, but they were there. Those kids stayed because that degree mattered to them. They really wanted to stay.

1:45:08They wanted to graduate and they wanted those connections and the mentorship that came from that place, which is second to none. Then you go over to JMU, 67 new transfers. We brought in that year, 67. I went from two in six years to all of a sudden 67. Like, imagine what that's like. I don't know about the portal. I don't know about NIL. I don't know about any of these things. And our whole budget's like$250 ,000 when I get there. Right? And that's what we're trying to. So we couldn't take anybody based on money. They had to come because they loved the place. They saw the value in it. And they liked you.

1:45:38And they liked everything, that it worked. And then at the end, the final piece of it, that all these majority of those 67 kids we took came and said, I'm in, they never asked about the money. And then later you'd have a conversation of, Hey, here's what we're thinking. They'd be great. I'm good. I said, I'm coming there. That's where I want to be. It would be some of those other guys that showed up with a number, you know, agents weren't as prevalent back then, you know, their kids mostly represent themselves, but they show up with a number that they wanted. You'd sit there with them and you'd be like, this is not going to work.

1:46:06This is only about the money for you. And it wasn't possible for us to buy kids at that time, because really, if we acquired them with money, we were going to have to motivate them with more money and we have to retain them with even more money.

1:46:19Bill Simmons:Well, and then you have the starting sitting thing that too, like you got this guy, we paid this much, you expected he was going to start. And then he checks out if he's not starting. That's right. That's right. And then you sell the spring portal too. So you still have that spring portal window that, that happened in there. So 67 new guys, uh, next year went down a little bit. Our budget went up to, I think four or four 50 or something like that, you know? So that's what we walked in that Oregon game with a roster of about$400 ,000. So you made the playoffs for the 450 K NIL budget. Yes. And you're competing against like 30, 40 million that some of these schools are spending.

1:46:53Bill Simmons:Probably more. Pretty impressive. Probably more. Yeah. Probably more. So again, it was the kid, the right kids, the right kids that had a chip on their shoulder and wanted to go do things that, you know, nobody thought they could do and were maybe passed over whatever it might be. Those are the guys that work in our program. Is this system better or was the old system better? Meaning what? Which is like, is the system we have now, is this the right system or it's a better system than what we had? What is it? Oh, I think that players need to be paid. I think I cannot imagine, I cannot imagine back in the day, looking up in the stands and seeing everybody wearing your jersey and you got$0 for that.

1:47:27Especially football of all the sports where you're potentially getting injured or all kinds of things. That's right. So I think it was so extreme. You couldn't have a work study job. You couldn't have any job if you were on scholarship. Like that was so limiting and extreme and everybody was making money on these kids, right? So then it's the way the world works, right? You overcorrect. So then you overcorrect it to, no, you could have all the money you want and you could have NIL not pay for play, but then it becomes pay for play based in the eyes of NIL and all those things happen. I think there's somewhere in the middle, when you look at the NFL model, you know, we're slowly working, you know, towards a, you know, triple A team for the NFL.

1:48:06Right. And we are, we are the feeder program for the NFL. I think that, you know, agents that are actually certified can only take a certain percent. Some guys are taking 15, 20, 25 % from these guys, right. You shouldn't be able to do that. Um, you know, if you, well, they're not

1:48:19Bill Simmons:governing any of it, none of it. If you're, if you're tampering, you should be automatically barred from being able to represent anybody again. Uh, just all the things that come with it, you know, like the NFL has is what we really, you know, need to institute a little more multi-year contracts, you know, that kids can't need. I was going to say, could you make it, you can't transfer for two years and that goes for coaches too? Yeah, but then I think you just get into this antitrust things and are they employees and all the stuff that comes with it. There's so many, every move has a, you know, equal and opposite reaction, right?

1:48:48And then, you know, then it's just what road do we really want to go down, you know, when it comes down to it? And I think every, every, that's hard because every school, every, every conference feels differently about things and you're trying to get, you know, uh, unanimous decisions and they're just impossible to find.

1:49:03Bill Simmons:Yeah. And then everybody's jumping conferences. That also makes it hard to find. All right. So going backwards, you start at Assumption. That's right. You're there forever. And then for people - I started at Salve Regina University in division three, Newport, Rhode Island. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then Assumption, which put you in Worcester. Put us in Worcester. Yep. And Assumption. So Worcester has Holy Cross, Clark, WPI, Wester, the Polytech, Worcester State, Nichols, Becker. Bunch of schools. There's like eight of them in there. Yeah. And you're just, at some point you start killing it at assumption.

1:49:37Bill Simmons:Yeah. And then Holy Cross hires you. And at that point we've all given up on Holy Cross football. Yeah. It's just, it's never going to happen again. I was there when they got rid of scholarships. Yeah. And we've talked about this, but when I was there, it was right as it was transitioning. It was big sports school, could have potentially, it was the first one asked into the Big East. No doubt. And a lot of the people that were there were like jocks and high school athletes. And that was such a big part of the school. And we watched it kind of get nudged out as we were there. And then we just kind of all gave up on it.

1:50:08Bill Simmons:And then you brought it back and you're winning and you have this great season. And then you stayed for an extra season, which I think we were all like, oh, he's out of here, he's gone. So why'd you stay? There, to be honest with you, like I didn't, if I was still there, I'd be happy. That place was very special. My, my, uh, my daughter just turned 16 on Monday. All right. So she, that's all she knew. She had three years in Newport, Rhode Island, but my middle daughter and then my son was born in Worcester and we were there for 11 years in that town. And when you're, I remember being at Assumption and I went over to a game, a Holy Cross game and, uh, remember sitting up top, we parked in the baseball field and tailgated.

1:50:50Then we went and sat up top because we played a Friday night game at Assumption and, uh, they ended up beating New Hampshire, who was like number 15 in the country or 10 in the country at that time. And I was like, oh man, this is a cool place. Like, look at this stadium, look at these people. Like, how cool is this? Natural grass field, the history in that field, the names up above on the, you know, the, the, in the ring of honor in the stadium. And you're like, damn, someday this would be really cool. You know? And it just happened that that was, you know, the final, that was the next year. So I don't think they wanted me.

1:51:22I think they wanted a lot of other people. And I think eventually it fell, you know, to, to me. And, and I remember it's like everywhere I go. When I first became a D3 head coach, it was like, ah, you don't know how to, you've never been a head coach. You can't do this. And we, we won. And then I went to D2. They're like, well, now this is scholarship football. I'll never forget a referee. And I know his name and I won't say it publicly, but we were at, we were at Bentley and I remember his awful call. He knew it was an awful call and I was on him pretty good. He's like, this ain't D3 football anymore, son.

1:51:49Something like that. he said to me. And I was like, okay. And that's how I was perceived when I got there, which is fine. And then very quickly we were able to, you know, just become a top five team in the country. Then went to Holy Cross, same thing. You don't know, this is now full scholarship, right? Not only is it full scholarship, you're talking about this academic index thing. That's like the Ivy leagues. You're going to have to recruit nationally. You never done any of those things. There's no way you could win here. And we were able to win there. And then I went to JMU and it's the same thing.

1:52:14But wait, go back.

1:52:15Bill Simmons:So you, you won in a huge, huge way. And everybody's like, Like I was saying, he's getting poached. Yeah, yeah. So then - So why'd you stay? Yeah, yeah. That was the question. Yeah. Well, you did the politician thing. But the reason why, no, I was saying it because of just the history I had in that town. I loved that town. I loved, there was just some, you know, blue collar, tough people that loved football that I got a chance to, you know, everybody knew who you were. It was just one of these - And you had unfinished business too. Unfinished business is what you felt. I felt like the South Dakota thing was probably the thing that really drove you more than anything is that we got to get these guys, right?

1:52:45And we went out and played them in the COVID year. and they got us pretty good. And then we came back, and we had that next year where, you know, I look at it all, and there's a fourth quarter call that I just made.

1:52:55Bill Simmons:Are you the worst luck that season? Yeah, and if I just make this one call, I feel like we're winning that football game, you know, and we end up, you know, flying back on a plane, and it didn't work out. We knew guys were graduating, but we knew we'd still have a good class coming back, and there were some really young guys in there that I knew we were going to have to play with some freshmen, but I felt like we had them, and the ones coming in were going to be good ones. just happened. Then we lost the corner. Then we lost the other corner. Then we lost the backup to one of those years. And then just, it, it kind of puts you in a spot where you're playing with really young guys, you know?

1:53:26Um, and then at the end of that year, really, you know, I stayed because I still believed in it. I felt like we could do it. I felt like we're still, I'm not walking away from this yet. Like I wanted to win a national championship. Yeah. Um, but then I'll remember after that next year, all the kids, I'll never forget, like sit in my office looking out in the lobby one kid came in and i remember you know he said to me coach i'm on a quarter of a scholarship like i need at least a half or three quarters or full like my you know we can't do this anymore as a family yeah and i was like how many catches did you have this year and the kid like started crying he's like one i was like you can't come ask me for more scholarship money i said if you need financial aid we should go talk to the financial aid office i said but we can't do more and i looked out in the hallway and i saw like eight kids out there as I, so I stood up, I said, are you, you all here for the same reason?

1:54:15And like, yeah, I said, well, let's have a team meeting. So we went to a team meeting and I realized very quickly that that had turned because of the portal and because of the ability for them to watch all the other guys going places and getting paid and getting scholarships and promises and all these things. And I was like, this is going to be hard to sustain if we don't find a grad program or if we don't open the door more to transfers. And that wasn't, we weren't built that way.

1:54:40Bill Simmons:You're not getting transferred, but then you also can't keep gems. Correct. So that's what it felt like, you know, to me. And then obviously, you know, JMU came about and. And that was it. Yeah. And it wasn't it initially, like it took a while, you know, and I remember, you know, there's, you know, I remember my wife watching like the, you know, these people like track flights of where the AD is driving and flying to and they're flying to. And, you know, I did my interview. They came to my house, everything. I'm like, boy, that was great. I think we killed it. And then it was like maybe three, four, five days later.

1:55:14And I was out at the Campbell trophy near Campbell award ceremony is that it's called in the Bellagio. And I remember coming back on the plane before I was in the airport, I just, I called my agent. I'm like, let's not do this. I'm just gonna stay at Holy Cross. I said, this doesn't, these guys aren't calling me back. They don't see it the way I see it. This ain't gonna work. And he, as soon as I hung up with him, the search firm called me, right? So I didn't even talk to, he didn't even talk to him. He said, hey, they want to talk to you. Can you get on the phone with the president and everybody else?

1:55:45And long and short of it, I was flying back. It was midnight. I put on this shirt and died, sat in my kitchen and accepted the job to JMU. I mean, the big mistake was Syracuse. I don't know what they were thinking. I thought that's where you're going to go. I like where I did it.

1:55:58Bill Simmons:This all worked out perfectly. One of the things you talked about, And the last time I saw you and you were explaining to some of the people behind the program about how you come in and how you have to change the culture. And you were talking about people just competing every day on anything. And I thought it was so fascinating. I just want you to explain it. Like, just explain it the way you explain, like, just how your mindset of day after day after day, I want everybody pitted against each other in some way. Yeah. So I think you always wonder where you stand on a team. You always wonder and you just never get this feedback.

1:56:35I was talking, actually it was in the book, The Cubs Way. If you've seen the book, The Cubs Way, and it was talking about Madden and what he and Theo did with this team. And he was talking about, you know, in the minor leagues, they'd cut a guy and never really tell him why. And then he'd see him years later and he'd be like, man, it was just, you weren't doing this or that. And he's like, he had like sort of a profound moment where the guy was like, why didn't you tell me that when I was there? I would have worked on that. You know, I felt like that was, I was like, you know what? That's what this thing has to be.

1:57:07And this started way before, but that's sort of solidified the idea of it. Just constant feedback, constant feedback. Am I winning? Am I losing? Right. Am I getting better? And I don't need to compare myself to other people. I need to compare myself to myself a day ago. Right. That's ultimately what we're, we're trying to do here on a day-to-day basis. But if you don't put them in situations to succeed and fail, then I think they're guessing. Right. And to me, I say it all the time, the leading cause of success is well-managed failure. Well-managed failure. Any successful thing you did in your life, you probably failed at it first or a couple of times at it first.

1:57:39And it's just, you're gonna learn that lesson. It's gotta cut a little bit, right? And then you get into the part of, the leading cause of failure is mismanaged success. So they both, you're successful, but do I forget about why I got there? And now am I feeling like I've arrived? I'm entitled to this now. And what does that do? and you're going to watch yourself fail pretty quickly. So to me, the other side of this was, I'll never forget playing, Southern Columbia was the name of the team. They were all black uniforms at home. Their field was down and you had to walk down this, this like, you know, blacktop road from the locker room and you were wearing white because you were the away team and you heard them come down the thing and you could just, their cleats hit the ground different than your cleats hit the ground, right?

1:58:23And then when they walked on that field, like they looked different, they played different, they felt different. And to them, they didn't think anything of it, right? To us, it felt like this energy and there was like a hurricane, you know, but they were just in the eye of the hurricane. It was good, they were good. But for us, you're like, how do I, I wanna break through that thing and it's not that easy to do. I think that's no different to me in your personal journey on success and confidence. I don't think that you could have any success if you don't have confidence. And confidence is just a belief initially, right?

1:58:53But then you have this confidence, right? You could then start to have success. And then with a little bit of success might create a little more confidence, which might create a little more success, which might create a little more confidence. And that's how you start spinning, you know, like in this little vortex, like I said, and you're in the eye of a hurricane and everybody's looking at you like, holy shit, this guy's got it figured out, man. He is unstoppable. That to me is what you're trying to create. But you can't build confidence if you don't give them moments to succeed and have these micro successes over and over and over again every single day.

1:59:23And these failures, these failures so that they could get better and learn and become something that maybe they weren't a day ago. So that's ultimately what this whole thing's built on. We're not just competing for the hell of it and to keep score and embarrass people. We're doing it to have these micro successes, which will bring - But you're doing stuff like

1:59:38Bill Simmons:everybody's split, no weightlifting groups. Everything, five different groups. Explain some of that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we come in in the winter and we'll go through a couple workouts and then we'll have the team. And especially when you came here, it was different because they didn't know. You had to give them a couple of weeks with each other. And then we'll pull the fastest, you know the number one fastest one through five and then the number one strongest one through five all right so the fastest guy will go with the fifth strongest guy the second fast will go with the fourth strongest guy and it'll work its way that way and then they become the team so we were b-r-u-i-n right so we're the bruins right so as we went through that they draft the whole team which is now kind of cool because we publicized now it's getting competitive draft results of who was picked last who was picked first all the things that come with that and then their team is set to compete every single day.

2:00:25So we go out on that field and their station set up five different stations might be sled pushes, ropes, tug of war, uh, whatever it is. But before you go to bed that night, you get a, the email comes out or the text comes out and it's like bill against Bob the entire day. So you're like, Oh shit. Right.

2:00:43Bill Simmons:So now, so now I'm measuring myself against you for the next day. That's right. And really what you're doing too, is like, it's teaching you how to prepare. Like if I know it's going to be a hard day, probably going to go to bed a little bit earlier. I'm probably going to hydrate a little different. I'm going to eat a better breath. I'm going to figure out what I got to do to be at peak performance because I know I'm going against you. But then there's other moments where I think this will be an easy one. I don't need to really worry about it. But all of that score gets kept, gets publicized and the team wins based on it.

2:01:09Bill Simmons:So how many days before people were like, ah, I get what's going on here. I think it happens pretty quick. Yeah. I think it happens really quick for the most, you know, fierce competitors. And we break our, like in my mind, our competitors, right? You have guys that just survive and they're just getting through it. And then you got these other guys that are competitors that will be pushed and, and push, like not push other people, but be pushed, but you got to kind of outside motivate them. Then you got these dominant competitors. These guys don't need any pushing. They will win all the time. But then you got the other one, the ultimate competitor.

2:01:44And this is a guy that is the dominant competitor, but brings other people with him, right? And there's a big difference in there. I love Tom Brady going to Tampa Bay, right? The one, the example I love too is Doug Flutie playing for the, what, the Stampede for all those years, right, and winning great cup after great cup. And he gets traded to the Alouettes, the worst team in all of Canadian football, and wins there. The one guy goes in there and does that. So that's a dominant competitor, right? Or the ultimate competitor. And then you have the dominant competitor. He can do it, but he's not bringing other people.

2:02:12Then you have the competitor that's gotta be outside, you know, motivated. And then you have the survivor that's just watching the clock and trying to get through the day. And they start to fall into these buckets and they start to understand, you know, who they are. We define that for them so they could self-identify and then eventually correct whatever they got to correct. So, you know, that stuff starts happening right away and you see who kind of rises to the top, you know?

2:02:31Bill Simmons:I mean, basketball is probably the best. One of the things I love about basketball is you're measuring these guys by stats and all these different things, but the guys who actually won had that extra quality. Like when you talk about the ultimate competitor that bring everybody up, and that's like Bill Russell, and Duncan and Bird of Magic. 100%. Where you either caught up to them or they got rid of you. Yeah, you're not like taking a day off with Michael Jordan. Right, Jordan's another one. It's not going to happen, you know, and he ain't taking a day off. Yeah, or he'll send you packing. That's right.

2:02:59So that's what you're looking for. And that's hard to find. You know, you don't have a ton of those on any team.

2:03:04Bill Simmons:Well, so when you show up, are you like, who's my, who am I? Do I have a couple of these guys? Yeah, you're looking. And you hear people talking and you see people that have clout. Why do they have the clout? Are they popular? or are they the competitor? That's the question. And that's what you're trying to kind of sift through and figure out. And every day we film it all. We watch it all. We grade it all. Like that's all part of the process. Yeah, that's, I don't know why more people don't think this way. Because even like my daughter's first club soccer coach, used to have these Friday games and it would be like these three and three games.

2:03:36Bill Simmons:It'd be, you know, you keep going and then the winner would win. And some of the parents were like, oh, this is bad. Like my kid, my kid ended up on a bad team. and they lost, it's like, that's not why he's doing this. He's trying to figure out week after week, who are the two kids that always end up in the finals, that it doesn't matter who's on their team. And he's trying to teach them certain habits, but that's - That's right. Yeah, it's interesting. And that's where I think it's just honest with us. They gotta be vulnerable. The score pops up and they suck that day. And they gotta eat it in front of the team and they gotta live with it in front of the team.

2:04:06And that's all just part of it.

2:04:07Bill Simmons:So is there a moment when you feel, obviously it's like you're rowing and everybody's rowing in different directions where you kind of, there's this one day or one moment where you were like, oh, we're all in the same boat now. I can feel it. And those moments, I have screenshots of them. Like I'll never, you know, I'll never forget an assumption the first time. Like the centers in his stance pointing at like this linebacker that's fake blitzing who's pointing back at him. And then over there's some kid talking shit to the quarterback from the third level. Then the other kid's coming up and you just see this thing.

2:04:40You're like, oh, this is it. It's happening. Like this is it. They love this. They love this game. They're buddies. They're talking tons of shit. They are excited to win this, whatever we're doing. And that's when you're like, all right, we got it. Right. So when did that happen here? You know, I think it's a more recent thing. You know, I think today was really a step that I felt different. Yeah. Like I felt - Because I was coming? Yeah, probably. Yeah. We thought you were out there. So I told them all they have to practice. It's like Simmons is up there. He's watching. That's right. No, but today felt like it.

2:05:09Today felt like, I mean, the offense is always going to be a little bit behind the defense, right? Because defense just gets to run around with their hair on fire and make plays. And then the offense eventually catches up. And today felt competitive as hell out there. Felt like they were having fun and we could have stayed out there and practiced. I brought them up and then we called it. They thought practice was over and we went into an overtime period. So we did the overtime ones, however we did it. And then after, we brought them up again and they're like double overtime. They didn't want to leave that field today.

2:05:37And to me, that's a good sign. We could have stayed out there for three more hours and they would have loved every minute of it. Can you talk about your quarterback without going into coach speak? Yeah, I can. Okay. Yeah, I sure can. I think, you know, first I empathize with what he went through last year. It was his whole life up to this point in time in his collegiate life. You know, he was the villain in college football for a minute there, right? And he's so far from that. Like he is an unbelievable young man from an unbelievable family. Cares a lot about his, all of his eight, I believe, siblings.

2:06:07Has a mother and father at home who love him and support him to no end. and, you know, a brother on the team. And it's pretty awesome to watch this guy, you know, just go out here and compete every day. He's one of them too. That'll be, you know, hands under, you know, ready to snap the ball and talking some shit to somebody else out there. You know, he's a fierce, fierce competitor and a really, you know, unbelievable person that has the attention of this team.

2:06:31Bill Simmons:Can you have a quarterback that's not a fierce competitor? It depends on what's around him. Yeah, I think it depends on what's around him. I won't say any names, but there's NFL guys that won Super Bowls that had unbelievable defenses, unbelievable returners in the special teams game, you know, and really ran the ball. And all they wanted to do was try to punt it on fourth down and not turn it over. And the defense and special teams will take care of the rest. You can do that. But it's a lot harder to do that way. And you have to be really buttoned up and dominant on the other sides. When it's pretty even in a league like we play in, where probably teams will be more talented than us at certain positions in certain moments of the year, you know, you need a guy.

2:07:08Like, you need a guy. Like, you need the guy.

2:07:10Bill Simmons:Because he's the one, every time I tell everybody that you're going to win at least eight games, they're like, oh, and then they're like, what about the quarterback? And I'm like, well, he's definitely talented. Yes. Right? Yes. And, you know, you have all these transfers. That's the other thing people can't figure out. Yeah. What do you have? How many transfers did you end up with? I think we had 54, I think we ended up with. How many did you think you were going to end up with? Oh, man, I don't. Did you think it was going to be like over 50? Like, did you have any idea? You know, so this was the interesting part.

2:07:38we showed up here on the 3rd of January, right? And that's when I think the portal opened on the 3rd. So the portal opened on the 3rd. And later that day, we had 17 kids come and visit on the 3rd, okay? So think about it now. We're in school because we're on the quarter system. Yeah. So the semester started. So the whole team's in here. And as the whole team's sitting in this room, you're looking like, all right, I gotta grab a meeting with this kid and grab a meeting with that kid. I gotta figure out if they're staying, but you don't have time to really do that a lot. because of the fact that you're bringing in 17 other kids and you're parading them around while your team's lifting in the weight room, you know, doing what they're doing.

2:08:15Bill Simmons:And this guy might not be staying. And you're walking around 17 guys and then the agents are calling and everything else is happening. And eventually like, we can't, yeah, we're not going to get to his number. He can go, he can go, he can go. I don't understand how you do this and also have a family. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, my family wasn't here. So I was living in that hotel right there. Maybe that's how you do it. Yeah, I was living in that hotel for 60 days, you know, and it was what it was. You don't want your family here at the beginning because you're never going to see him anyway. Yeah.

2:08:39And I think it just was, it's part of it. So that was ultimately, you know, bringing together an entire team and coaches, by the way, that now you're going into an official visit. You met these guys three days ago, some of them three days ago. You don't really know them and you're trying to speak the same language through these official visits and figure it all out. And, you know, next thing you know, there you have it. But the number grew when kids laughed or saw how many kids were coming by. Eventually, I remember having to go to the weight room and say to our current team, like, look, stop it.

2:09:08Like stop having your agents call. Stop worrying about who we're bringing in. We're going to get to 105 guys on this team.

2:09:15Bill Simmons:Right. I don't care where you go. You're not going somewhere where there's not seven or eight running backs. You're not going somewhere. There's not 20 some offense alignment. You're not going somewhere where there's not 10 safeties and you know, eight corners. You're not going like, that's what, how these rosters are built. So you can go somewhere, but no, if you go somewhere else, they're probably bringing someone else too. You're not going to go somewhere and be the only running back on the team. So relax. If you like it here. If you value this education, if you like what you see so far from all of us, just stay.

2:09:43If you don't leave. And that was ultimately, you know, what we just had to eventually get to. And then, uh, the good and bad of the quarter system is that the kid visits on the third, your school started already. So they fly back home, pack a bag and fly right back out. Right. As we got later in that window, we would tell them if you're coming out here and you like it, just, you know, pack a bag, you got to fly somewhere. So they'd have to fly back to their aunt's house somewhere in Arizona or wherever, and then come back. Cause they couldn't really stay. They had to fly out and come back. So we had that set up for guys, like to be able to understand that, uh, you know, you got to move in quick to school started.

2:10:18Then the quarter ended, you know, wherever it ended and guys were still in the portal that allowed us to bring a couple guys in before spring ball started. So it was almost like we had two windows, you know, as And I'm fortunate because most of the time I've been at places where school starts on January 27th. So the portal opened on the 3rd. You have all that time to build your team, right? We start school on the 3rd the same day the portal opens. Like that's kind of a tough job.

2:10:44Bill Simmons:So, you know, I don't want to say you inherited like a losing culture, but it wasn't going great here. Yeah. And it's like you got to basically pour disinfectant all over the place and try to reinvigorate stuff and change. Yeah. Make it an optimistic situation. and not a pessimistic one. That's right. And I think that's what it's been for a little while. Like if it's going to go wrong, you know, it's probably going to happen here. It's going to go wrong here with us. And I think coming in and I think being on the outside, looking in, you can really see the power of this UCLA, you know, degree, university.

2:11:17I said it a million times. There's first round draft picks and Olympic gold medalists walking around in the athletic department. And then there's future CEOs and lawyers and doctors and everybody else walking around this campus that are regular students. like you have a chance to breathe some pretty rare air as you walk around here. And we're one good football team away from being arguably the most dominant athletic department in the country. We won three national championships this year and eight conference championships. I don't know if that, we might already be the most dominant, but if you don't have a good football team, it's hard to say that you are that.

2:11:45So, you know, that's what we're charged with and that's what we're excited to do. But you're right. The biggest way to win is first stop losing. Stop doing the things that the losing teams do, right? And I think that is - Which is being unprepared during the week. Being undisciplined. Not giving a shit. Worrying about yourself first, right? Not putting the team first. Do I get credit over the team? All that stuff. And that's what breaks teams apart. I think we got to keep identifying it. He only mentioned these three guys in the post-game speech. Meanwhile, I had 70 yards rushing. We just got to keep talking about the team, the team, the team.

2:12:19Ultimately is what this entire thing has to be built on. And everybody's got to understand that. And then in the end for us, we'll treat them how they treat the team. And if they treat the team well, they'll get it back, you know, well, if they don't, they won't. And I think that's life though, right? Like you get whatever you give, you know, if you're kind of a shitty person, you're probably going to have, you're probably going to be shitty. You're going to view everybody as like, they don't like me and they're, they're this and they're that. Well, it's probably what you are to them, right? It's kind of the way the world I believe works.

2:12:47So our guys understand that and keep fighting that fight. Speaking of shitty, people don't realize your abject hatred for USC.

2:12:55Bill Simmons:You've really concealed that. No, I'm just trying to get in trouble. But you see, USC is your big rival now. Yes, yes. I'm ready for it to come back. I don't feel like it's ever fully been cooking. Yeah. The entire time I've lived there, since 2002, where it was like, this is... Because the USC, all of those, everybody who went there, all the alumni, they all hate UCLA and vice versa. And yet we don't really get a chance to battle that much. Yeah, that's healthy, I guess, right? We got to change it. It's an underrated rivalry though. Cause people think about like Duke UNC and, you know, just in general, like for the schools.

2:13:33Bill Simmons:But I don't think people realize there's a lot of animosity between the two colleges. You know, we got to get it back. It's got to be a lot more competitive. You want to say something mean about Lincoln Riley or not? Nothing, nothing. I enjoyed meeting him. Seems like a great guy. Why do you think you got underestimated over and over again with these coaching searches? I think that you got to, it's going to be, it's easy. It's lazy to do, right? And lazy to say is, hey, he never coached there. That's easy, right? Like it's a very easy thing for anybody to say. And I think for me, again, from D3 to D2 to FCS.

2:14:04You wrote a yeah, but. Yeah, but. That's right. And I think that's always what it's going to be till you prove it. So I don't, there's not a minute that I worry about, you know, what anybody on the outside says because I've lived it so many times over, you know? And to me, it's not -

2:14:18Bill Simmons:We've had a lot of winning in the last 10 years. Yeah, and it's not about any of that. It's about what do we believe in this room? Forget about everybody else, right? And that's the other thing that I try to make sure our guys know is that don't read the good, right? Because then if you read the good right now, because we're great right now, right? We haven't played a game. Like everybody loves us. It's unbelievable. It's phenomenal. Undefeated, like it is all what it is. It's when the tough times show up, you're not gonna wanna hear what they have to say on the outside. And those that were your biggest supporters sometimes become your biggest opposition.

2:14:47And for me, I want to know that we're doing it right in this room. Yeah, that's true.

2:14:50Bill Simmons:This is like the perfect time right now. Yes. It's like you're on the second date with somebody you might date for like three years. That's right. This is awesome. Yeah, no flaws. Let's go to the movies and get some ice cream. That's right. You're perfect right now. That's perfect. What's the number one thing you're getting from UCLA fans? When people meet you and they talk to you, what do they say? They have energy, man. They got energy. They got some juice right now. They're desperate. I don't feel desperation. I feel hope. And I feel like gratitude. And I feel like excitement. You know, I feel like there's a belief and, and what is, you got to believe it long before you ever see it.

2:15:21Right. And it takes all of them. And there's a village of people that we need to support this and they're doing an unbelievable job. But we just had an event on the, over there at the hotel. And I think last year there was a hundred people there was close to 400, you know, in this donor dinner that we had the other day. And just, you know, the, the energy they got for this, the excitement they have for this, um, you know, this time around, they feel like it's going to be different and it will be.

2:15:43Bill Simmons:Well, it's like Louis K has done, helped us with PR at the Ringer and me personally for a year. I haven't seen him in 10 years. And then he showed up today for this. Yeah. And I just thought that he's locked in. He's a UCLA fan. But it was great to finally meet him in person again and see him, talk to him. When's the first game? September 5th. Who are you playing? Cal. That Cal. I think I'm going to the Michigan game. Yeah, do it. Do it. I got a lot of girls soccer. This is my daughter's last season. So I have a packed schedule, but I'm coming to at least two. I'm coming to a couple of home games too.

2:16:19Bill Simmons:This is my new team. Yes, you have to. You have to support it. I have a lot at stake here. You got to come through for me. I know you do. We will do that. And we expect a lot from you too, though. Don't forget. Yeah, you got to tell me what else you expect. Yeah. I'm happy to be like, I'm trying to think of like the positive adult in the college sports movie. I don't want to be like the JT Walsh blue chips character that just comes in and screams at you. No, no, no. We'll talk about it. We'll carve that role. Let's talk about it a little bit more. I want to be like the guy in Hoosiers who's just in the stands rooting for everybody.

2:16:50Bill Simmons:Everybody. Just like happy. Just positive and happy. That's you. Yeah. Not shooter. Not the drunk guy. That fits your personality. Yeah. Just want to be the happy guy. All right. Good luck. I'm glad you're here. Yeah, man. Thanks for hopefully turning around UCLA football. Yeah. Well, thanks for being here. And honestly, thanks from the beginning. You know, I remember talking to Casey about the whole thing and he said he had a conversation with you and, and, uh, he sent me the list. Yeah. They had some preliminary list and I'm like, where's Chesney? The hell is going on? Right. Right. And then you just kept winning.

2:17:19Right.

2:17:19Bill Simmons:Right. So it all worked out. I wouldn't be here without you, brother. So I appreciate it. Well, you'd be, you'd be here either way, but I was happy to play a small, small, tiny part. I appreciate it. Good luck this season. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to house. Thanks to Bob Chesney and everybody at UCLA for helping out. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. Thanks to Jesse, who somehow joined the pod today, even though the Dodgers are in semi-freefall. I'm glad he was here. I am going to be back on this feed on Tuesday. Fantasy time. Fantasy football.

2:17:52Bill Simmons:We're doing it. The big preview is going to be on Tuesday. And rewatchable is Monday at Paul 13th. So see you later in the week.

2:18:02on the wayside. I don't have feelings with him on the wayside.

2:18:32Bill Simmons:99-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York for Louisiana. Call 877-770-7867. Have no fear. Chosen Foods is here to defend your favorite foods from the forces of seedy oils and sketchy ingredients. with cooking oils, salad dressings, and mayo, all powered by the good fats from 100 % pure avocado oil and simple, delicious ingredients. Chosen Foods. You matched on Hinge. You're vibing. Then her energy completely changes.

2:19:15Bill Simmons:What do you do? I'm Raven Smith, and I wrote and read a real love story about this exact sitch. Listen to the free audiobook now.