Foster and Friends Vol 133 "Tangled Up in Red, White and Blue"

This week Bud and Mac cover UVA's and Virginia Tech's Spring Football weekends...plus a candid reflection with Pasha Palanker, the skydiver who avoided major injury when crashing into the Hokies video board prior to the Spring game.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

This is Foster and Friends with former coach Bud Foster and his co-host Mac McDonald.

SPEAKER_02 0:11

Yeah, I just I it and it took me a second to realize where I was and what was going on. The wind was knocked out of me, my back, uh my neck, everything was was feeling the pain and and something happened in my left shoulder.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Foster and friends is presented by Envision. Locations are in Christiansburg in Salem, Virginia. For the best in eye care and fashion, it's envisioned. By the River City Distillery in Radford, makers of Win Vodka. It's a good day to enjoy a win. And by Brick House Pizza. Visit our Radford location in the Brick House Garden, featuring live music and the best in comfort food. Brick House Pizza means good times.

SPEAKER_02 0:55

And then also been a tremendous sense of pride flying an American flag into a packed stadium.

SPEAKER_06 1:03

Welcome in. It is Foster and Friends for another weekend and a post-spring uh football report. And maybe the biggest story in quite some time, the skydiver, who uh got attached to the video board. So I've titled today's show, Thank You Bob Dylan, tangled up in red, white, and blue. And uh it's it's quite the story. We're gonna feature. I saw the interview this week, and and uh Pasha Palanker is gonna be uh with us actually from a earlier recording. But with all that being said, Bud, where were you when all this happened? Were you on the field? What happened and where were you? Were you surprised?

SPEAKER_07 1:41

Yeah, well, no, yeah, it was a bit surprised. I mean, number one, but I was on the field. Actually, Jesse and I were on the field. Uh, we were hosting one of our former players, Wyatt Teller, who uh you know, long time sure guy who's now just he's down at camp with uh uh the Houston Texans. But uh we were on the field getting ready to walk up towards the tunnel because everybody's getting the teams coming down the tunnel, uh, and they had three skydivers. So the first one came down, and you know, when you're on the field, you didn't notice really any wind or anything of that nature, right? But I guess obviously a little higher, there was quite the um the wind current. But the first pilot or the first parachuter came in and landed in the middle of the field, which is what you want to do. Right. I tell you what, he came in hot, man. I remember telling I was standing right there with Jesse and Wyatt, and uh, there was another donor we were standing with, and that pilot, his body was parallel to the ground. I mean, he's coming in here hot, and that he's trying to whip that thing around where he can land, you know. But it was like, oh my God. And then I guess I didn't see the second uh paratrooper. He ended up landing in the practice field, which is just behind the stadium, behind the jumbotron, actually.

SPEAKER_06 2:59

Right, behind the video board.

SPEAKER_07 3:00

And then, but uh, as I watched this guy come in and land, um, you hear the crowd and everybody's amping up because the team's getting ready to come out and they're they're the band's playing and they're getting ready to start inner sand, man. Yeah, and you look up and here's this guy coming down, he's right over top of the jumbotron. And I'm thinking, okay, oh my gosh, that's close. And you're thinking he's gonna go past it because that flag has this giant weight on.

SPEAKER_06 3:27

There's no telling how much that's 26-pound weight, 1,100 square feet of flag.

SPEAKER_07 3:33

Oh, I mean, that's so hard. That total to have that thing hanging straight down and the uh you saw him, that part missed it, but then the wind grabbed him, and the crowds going, you know, you it's just this excitement, and then yeah, well, he slams into the the jumbotron, and you could have heard just the whole stadium go, oh, you know, it was just uh but that's just crazy. Well, a couple things. Thank goodness, number one, he wasn't hurt, right? And uh and I'm I know he's banged and bruised and and um beat up, and you know, his uh, you know, I know his ego's bruised, you know, a little bit, but it could have been so much worse. And um, but in and thank you for our to our first responders. And but if he would have fallen, there was nothing between him, everybody looked like he was gonna fall into the crowd. He wouldn't have done that. Now he was concerned about landing in the crowd, because I think he could have hurt several people right there. But um luckily the the the the parachute caught a hold of him because he probably had I mean it was every bit of four or five stories that he would have dropped uh you know, right into you know onto an asphalt pavement below him. But uh thank goodness it was looking. But you talk about some uh an anticlimactic start of uh you know of a spring game, which we had forty plus thousand people there. Yeah, you know, it was a great, but yeah, I will say this. I know we're running long on this first segment. No, we're not.

SPEAKER_06 5:00

We're fine, we're good.

SPEAKER_07 5:01

But James, just the the guy that he is, he took this as a teaching moment, not someone.

SPEAKER_06 5:09

That's what he said in the press conference.

SPEAKER_07 5:10

Yeah, I mean, there's gonna be a rain delay or a lightning delay, there's gonna be some something that's gonna be out of our control. And uh so, you know, it's it's kind of one of those you can't prepare for moments like that, just like you don't with uh rain delays or lightning delays or you know, anything anything that can kind of uh change the effect of a game. But uh anyway, it was quite the uh opening. I hit James and said, What a way to start your career at Virginia Tech, bro.

SPEAKER_06 5:40

Yeah, it was it was crazy. And all the pictures, of course, everybody uh not everybody, uh, but so many people use their phones, so they want to get a parachute shot with their phones, and that's why uh social media was flooded with pictures of this and uh showed him dangling and hanging from the video board, you know, just hanging there. Oh, yeah. And then uh it was a company out of Blacksburg, a fire company that that got the ladder up to him and got the the platform up to him and everything. And it's uh, but anyway, we've got a little piece of his story because his his pre-story is pretty amazing. And so we'll get into that as far as today's show. We're gonna uh talk spring football with Bud, especially in the portal era and how things were handled at uh and have been handled at Virginia and Virginia Tech. We'll get into that. And as I said, uh tangled up in red, white, and blue. This is Foster and Friends on your Saturday in your weekend, and this is the NSB Radio Network. We'll continue right after this.

SPEAKER_07 6:48

Hi, this is Bud Foster for Envision. For over 30 years, my good friends, Dr. Scott and Becky Mann, have built a practice that truly cares about their patients.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

I can just remember being pregnant with my first son over 30 years ago, and we bought the practice from Dr. Henry Stewart, who'd had it for 50 years. Was scary, but we moved forward and we're actually in the same location, and now we're up to seven doctors and over 25 staff in the two locations.

SPEAKER_03 7:14

The technology is amazing. Uh we used to take pictures on literally Polaroids, and now we went to digital, and now we have widescreens, and um, we can do things today. 10 years ago were only images you could only generate maybe at a teaching hospital. And now we can do those chair side when our patients come in.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

We joke about it, it's been an overnight success in 30 years.

SPEAKER_07 7:35

Go see your award-winning Envision team. They have two locations, Salem and Christiansburg. They will meet all your eye care needs.

SPEAKER_05 7:47

Do we have to adapt to the acquisition and how you build a roster? Absolutely. But once we have our roster in place, how we approach developing them is is going to be, you know, what we uh what we claim are our core values.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Foster and Friends is brought to you in part by Envision with locations in Christiansburg in Salem, Virginia. For the best in eye care, it's Envision.

SPEAKER_06 8:12

Welcome back. It is Foster and Friends, NSB Radio Network, and a recap of uh a couple of spring games and the big incident with the video board and a guy by the name of Pasha Palanker, who is a 17-year Army vet. We'll talk more about that uh a little later. So uh, bud wanted to talk to you about not only Virginia, Virginia Tech's uh spring games, they were both held on the same day, but uh a couple of coaches managing things with the portal, spring football, the recruiting and the portal thing. My first question to you before we hear from Tony Elliott uh at UVA, and we'll have James Franklin on today's show as well. How different is spring football now, and especially with the the portal windows and and what football coaches are going through?

SPEAKER_07 8:56

Well, I don't know if spring practice is different. Um it's it's the where it's different is the new players that come in mid-semester. And and I'm saying that the portal is a big part of that, but also now that the signing period is earlier, majority, particularly the power four schools, the majority of the freshman class will come in mid-semester and be ready for spring practice. And uh and will go through spring practice. So what that really means is like for James Franklin, and it may not have been as much for for Tony this year. I don't know exactly all their numbers and what they had transfer N-Wise and what they had freshmen uh in, but we had almost 50 players. I think we had like 22 freshmen came in mid-semester, uh, and then we had around 27 or 28 uh portal guys.

SPEAKER_09 9:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 9:49

And so you know you're talking about 50 people, 50 new players coming in, new people coming in. So spring is really a time. Um I mean to evaluate your personnel. I think the one thing in the portal era is that you you're you're not as familiar maybe with the the the players that you had on your roster because they're new. Usually those are guys that were here in the fall, you know what you're looking for, what they need to improve on, what you're looking for them to do in the spring. Uh and this is kind of you're almost uh getting to know each other, but also at the same time being able to um uh you know install your offense, defense, kind of create your culture, get them in the weight room, that type of thing. But I will say this the one thing that's helpful in this day and age is where it was different than when I was coaching is that the staff can now meet with those players sooner. Uh they can do more with them than what we were capable of doing before.

SPEAKER_06 10:48

Good point.

SPEAKER_07 10:48

What we were able to do, and they're going to be able to do that. And I know we'll talk about summer and things of that later, a little later in the show. But uh they're just it's it you're able to do a lot more meet and be on the field and do some different things with these the student athletes than what you were able to before. But spring is still critical to determine, you know, you're trying to evaluate your peace, your people, and put them in a position to, you know, who's gonna who you who you can you think is gonna be your key performers and develop that depth chart and that type of thing leading into fall camp and and then things of what you need to work on and improve on in the summer, too.

SPEAKER_09 11:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 11:24

Well, summer is a big, big part of the development part of not just your football team, but particularly getting some of these new players caught up to speed to uh, you know, with your you know, with your system and with your culture and that type of thing.

SPEAKER_06 11:38

During the tech spring game, uh you guys played four quarterbacks, Virginia played six. And uh, you know, so it's it to me, and just looking at the numbers, and uh you by the way, the the numbers were uh UVA had 16 freshmen, seven defensive backs of the 13 transfers, 29 total transfers. So you're talking about the same numbers almost between uh the two programs. This isn't about comparing programs, it just shows you that I think if you went across the board to you know 135 of the D1 schools, you'd see these numbers be relative to almost every program.

SPEAKER_07 12:14

I mean, I you know, I I do think that and I was fortunate to go to a meeting on Friday uh about the business of college football now. And I it's interesting, like at University of Georgia, they only had nine transfer portal people, you know. And uh um, and at at at Colorado, they had like 43. At uh in at Ohio State, they had I can't remember 16 or 18. But point being is some of those programs still believe in the high school model and then fitting in the right pieces. And and I don't know at the end of the day, I still think in the end of the day, let me say this. I think doing that, building that foundation through high school recruiting and development is still the more sustainable model than going through and trying to just live off the portal alone. Uh, I think that is a hard way to go and prove that, I think, with uh Colorado already. I think any new coach, particularly, is probably gonna bring in uh that'll be a big window of of opportunity for you'll see bigger numbers. But I do know this a guy like James Franklin, and that's where I'm kind of interested and surprised about Tony, how many people they brought in, because I do think that James, when he was at Penn State, there was not a lot of turnover, and uh meaning they didn't lose a lot of guys and they didn't have to bring a lot of guys in. And that that would be the model that he would like to bring in, kind of more towards he'd like to be somewhere between Ohio State and Georgia, I think, in the in the big picture. You know, you might want to bring in some needs, but you still want to build your program from within, and that creates the culture and and and that type of thing. And I do think this, I think he wants to bring in multi-year potential transfers and people that they know or they were involved in recruiting and that type of thing. I think that's important. Yeah, because it is about a culture a little bit.

SPEAKER_06 14:03

Yeah, or they can hang on to it for two or three years. It's a great point. And by the way, next segment when when James Frank, you'll hear about what exactly what Bud's talking about because Coach Franklin says there is a risk. Okay, uh back to Tony Elliott and UVA and uh the me and we season. I thought this was pretty interesting and how Elliott and his staff break things down.

SPEAKER_05 14:23

There's a me season and a we season. And the me season is the time the season ends until the sign, time they sign whatever their agreement is. That's the me season. And so you focus on what you feel like's best for you. But once you sign and we're back together as a team, it's the we it's the we season.

SPEAKER_06 14:39

Yeah, so in other words, once you get all your paperwork done and all your nil money and everything's done, it's all about the football team. I think that's great. So as far as challenging the staff, Tony Elliott talked about in his postgame after the spring game that he had some he had some plans for his staff.

SPEAKER_05 14:54

I challenge the staff to to approach it like they're their own sons, right? I think about AJ and Ace, my two boys, and how I want them to be coached. I want them to be coached hard. They get coached hard by uh by their dad, uh, but I want them to be loved harder. I want them to be told the truth. I want them to be treated fairly, uh, given an opportunity, and and then be held accountable for for whatever their their actions are. So that's the approach that we that we take.

SPEAKER_06 15:18

You know what? And so, bud, to your point, you know, when you bring in all these guys, it's not like you've had uh, you know, you've had a kid in a program for four and five years, you know, and you know them inside and out, and you know their parents, you're actually, you know, put and you're trying to get to know them right away. I know Michael Vick in in his interview with with Josh Pate, Michael Vick said, I'm trying to learn as much about them as they are learning about me. And and so, you know, it's uh so it's an interesting dynamic. So that was my thought process, and with you, that springs now in college football have changed just a little bit.

SPEAKER_07 15:53

Yeah, I love the approach how how Tony's taken that. You know, there is two seasons.

SPEAKER_06 15:58

I I like that me and we yeah, I I love that.

SPEAKER_07 16:02

I really, really do. Um, you know, but I do think this, you know, we spent so much time our ourselves in the off-season meeting with our players and and um getting to know them. And I ask them a lot of questions, you know, from more of how can I help them be a better person, a better football player, a better student, you know, student athlete. What can I do to help them? And that gave me information on a lot of things on how they want to be coach, how they want to be treated, and you know, what they thought was important. That so I could, and each each player is different. Yeah, you you've got a goal and uh and a standard for a team, and there's a way to you approach things, but also and you can't treat individuals differently, but you can also maybe learn what their hot buttons are, what how they want to be coached, how they want to be treated. You know, maybe one guy you can you can really encourage hard or uh in front of people. And there's some guys you, if you want to encourage them, you've got to bring them into your office and hey, talk to them, you know, and you learn some different things, but when they're on the field, you know, it's all about, you know, we're we're all as one. But I think that's that's important. I think in this day and age, more than ever, you've got to get to know these kids, and you know, and and they need to trust you. It's all about trust. And when you and we've talked about that before on previous shows, but if you get to that where kids can trust you and you trust them, then that loyalty comes in together. And then that's when you can have a great season like what Virginia had last year.

SPEAKER_06 17:26

Yeah, yeah, 11-win season. That was a record. All right. Uh, we'll go to break, we'll come back. James Franklin talks about the Indiana model and what uh Bud was talking about, and he explains how the Hoosiers did it, but that can be risky. That's coming up next. Foster and Friends NSB Radio Network. When you walk into a restaurant, say your favorite pizza place, what's the first thing you notice? The way it smells, the vibe, maybe the party atmosphere. If you're traveling in Southwest Virginia or lucky enough to live in the Radford area, hopefully you have visited Brickhouse Pizza, a staple since 1972. Brickhouse Pizza has become a legendary stop. Jeff and Diane's Main Street attraction features artisanal wood-fired pizza with fresh ingredients prepped every day. Brickhouse's pizzas are made with flour imported from Italy. Throw in the recipe for their homemade brew, and you have the recipe for fun. Brickhouse Pizza is open Tuesday through Friday at 3:30. Saturdays at 11:30, and the Sunday brunch begins at 10. Fresh food, cold beer, great times. That's Brickhouse Pizza, 311 West Main Street in Radford. Title of the show, Tangled Up in Red, White, and Blue, we will get to the uh to uh Pasha Pelanker, who uh whose life was was spared, I think. Uh the parachuter came in Saturday, and really it was a pretty big story. Anyway, you just heard James Franklin talking about managing the risk. And I'm gonna play this for Bud first so he can because because Bud was just explaining that if you do count on too many portal guys, there is going to be a not only a challenge, but a risk. And so here's uh James Franklin talking about the Indiana model and what happened with Kurt Signetti.

SPEAKER_04 19:52

The challenge is the media, the ADs, the administration, they used the Indiana example. There's been one Indiana in the last hundred years, right? Um, and give them a ton of credit, credit. Give Coach Signetti a ton of credit, right? But it's also created this feeling that everybody can do that now. And to your point, there's so many more that have failed trying to do it that way than the one that has succeeded.

SPEAKER_06 20:20

So, what Franklin did then in breaking this down with uh Josh Payne in the interview, this is how the Hoosiers did it.

SPEAKER_04 20:27

One of the big advantages that Indiana had is they brought a ton of players with them that they knew type of people they were, they knew the type of players they were. I think even last year they still had a number of those players on their roster that still had significant roles, right? So I think that played a major part in that. And if you're a coach who can bring some players with you that you know, there's a ton of value in it. But I don't think you can be going to the portal and getting 40 to 60 players that you don't really know off a two-week speed dating process. That's a lot of risk that you're taking on. And as much as you got to take some risks, you're trying to eliminate risk as well that you have to take on as a program or in any business uh to make sure that you're not putting the program in jeopardy.

SPEAKER_06 21:16

Yeah, and you know, we're throwing out some pretty good terms too, Franklin, the speed dating process. Yeah, I love that, huh, bud?

SPEAKER_07 21:23

Well, it is. That's what it is nowadays with the portal. You know, it's not like you know, you bring high school kids in and it's you wine and dine them and their families for the whole weekend. You know, you bring in on Friday, leave on Sunday. With the portal visits, it might be a guy's flying in on you know Tuesday morning. Here he's showing up at the office at 8 30. Uh, you know, he's leaving by 2 30, you know, in the afternoon. He's got other places to go. I mean, he's speed dating too, some other, you know, doing some other options as well. But uh it is, it's a total different um experience. And I think that the cool thing is about Coach Franklin and what I've learned with him is. They're they're really targeting people that they know and have a a pass with. Where they whether they were recruiting and got the kid went elsewhere, but they've invested time in this individual and their family and they know this group. And and it kinda and that's what happened with James Madison. Yeah. You know, uh Coach Signet was able to take a lot of guys from JMU that he knew and uh had experiences with and who he trusted and and knew the system. But I will say this, and we talked about it. Tom Allen, the cupboard was not bare at Indiana. Tom Allen was like the Big Ten coach of the year about two years prior to that. And there was a group, there was a significant core of players that stayed at Indiana that helped Indiana win the national championship from that regime, besides uh you know, Coach Signati, you know, filtering in some of the folks that he brought in as well.

SPEAKER_06 22:52

Yeah. Um, one of the and then one of the things uh uh Franklin needed, and he said he knew that Virginia Tech needed, he said, if you want to win a national title and you're gonna be playing those 15, 16 games, you know, uh a 16-game season, Virginia Tech and all schools, if they're gonna do that, need depth. I think there was talent here.

SPEAKER_04 23:10

What there wasn't was depth. And the players didn't really understand that because they'd never experienced that. And I was trying to explain to them look, I just came from a place that six games earlier, we were a game away from the national championship. And the depth that you have to have to play a 16-game season and win 13 games, the most games ever won, how challenging that is, the depth that you have to have to get through that type of a season, let alone all the way to the national championship game. So getting them to embrace that and understand that, and we were able to again retain the right players, go out to the portal and create the depth that we needed. So right now, I think we're in a really, really good place.

SPEAKER_06 23:51

But as we have talked about probably a thousand times on the show, is that since the new era of trying to win a championship and that college seasons are longer, you just gotta have you got to have second and third guys that can play. I mean, they can they can't be, you know, a freshman, you know, on the offensive line at 215 pounds. I mean, you got to have great quality, quality depth to win.

SPEAKER_07 24:17

Yes, you do. And you know, when we had it rolling here, that's what we had. You know, we were able to um, you know, we had a a second team guy and then a third team guy in the weighting. You know, you wanted that, you wanted to develop that. And uh, and kind of what coach said, the last couple years, we had some first line guys. I don't know what our our you know how our quality of our depth was, but I will say that's that's where James has changed the DNA of our roster. I mean, right now, with uh that's the one thing we were able to split this quote this squad up uh completely and really made it a competitive game. And that's what we were able to do at times too. And that you know, that that make that shows signs that you have quality depth, and that's what you do need in the to make the long run, to have a uh a successful season, and just not long, let alone go to the national championship, but to win a championship. I mean, you know, attrition is a big factor in success of football. Well, you know, if you if you can stay healthy, that gives you a better chance. But by the same token, those guys are a play away, meaning that backup guy or that third, that third guy in the rotation, you know, they're a play away from being the guy. So you've got to create that depth and that everybody has a significant role and a big role. And and um, you know, if you can get that and buy into that, then that's a great culture to have.

SPEAKER_06 25:34

Correct me if I'm wrong. And I'm gonna go back, you know, several years. Um, when actually when I just started to get to know uh the ins and outs of both the Virginia program and Virginia Tech program and my second go-around with UVA, and then studying why, you know, why was Virginia Tech not only was Frank Beamer a genius, not only did he have a defensive coordinator, it was pretty damn good. Uh, but there was a way that you guys were building it through your redshirt program, getting people in January, you got them in, and so it was, you know, they were pretty mature by the time they hit the field, and you guys established that year after year after year. Didn't am I am I wrong in that evaluation? You guys had a you guys had a program, you had it. I mean, you had it set.

SPEAKER_07 26:17

Yeah, and we and we we developed that you know, the the the system. Yeah, there was, yeah, could you find some guys that stepped in and played for four years or started four years, four years? Yeah, but you know, football, we've said this several times, football is really a developmental sport for the most part. And the closer you get to the line of scrimmage, those players, you know, your D linemen, offensive linemen, tight ends, linebackers, those guys need a year or two of maturity physically and mentally, uh, because the game is so fast and physical. Um, but we were able to do that and and build depth. And then we created a oh, you know, there people wanted to come play for us. They knew we were gonna play dynamic defense and play great special teams and be an explosive offense. Um, you know, but so guys wanted to come play for us, but they also knew that we we explained that and through, you know, our recruiting process, and while their time here, you got to trust there's a process, you know, and and that's where we we want, you know, it was about performance and winning, and were guys ready to go out there and do that, and and just being honest with our guys and being up front. But that we did, we established that where we had a good two deep, and then we had that third guy, you know, he was helping on special teams or playing a role, but you know, he was also getting better every day in practice and developing and growing and then getting some experience. But then when it was his time, he was going to be ready to play. And we really tried to create that multi-tier level so you didn't have a bunch of juniors or seniors together. You had a senior, you had a junior, you had a sophomore, you had some, you know, some distance between some folks, you know, so you could just keep this thing rolling.

SPEAKER_06 28:00

Yeah, made a and it made a big difference. So you you guys, you know, and plus some kid coming in said, You mean I have a chance to carry a lunch pail? Uh, I want to play for Bud Foster. So, of course. All right, we'll go to break when we come back. It was uh an incident that I don't think I've ever seen. But I mean, yeah, I've seen parachute guys, you know, but not at a spring game, not on a video board and not being saved. But on top of that, Pasha Palanker has a great story to tell about his army career. So all that's coming up. This is Foster and Friends, and this is the NSB Radio Network. Here's what the visitors of the River City Distillery are saying. Good atmosphere. It's a fantastic place with a very knowledgeable owner. It's Radford's unique gym. Cheers to Charlie Cosmato. Well, Charlie, owner and master distiller, took his years of experience and began producing Wynn vodka. It was then he knew he had something special. Gentleman's Journey bourbon and rye whiskey followed, and not to mention Rusty Rabbit, a cinnamon-flavored vodka that deserves your attention. River City Distillery is the first legal distillery in the Radford City limits. Charlie and his staff welcome you for a tasting, a pre-dinner visit, or post-party celebration. There's often live music and plenty of good conversation. If you're traveling the Commonwealth, make a point to stop in Radford and visit River City Distillery. 94 Harvey Street, downtown.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

I mean, we train for a lot of things, but there's not much you can do once uh nature takes its uh its course.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

Foster and Friends is brought to you by Brickhouse Pizza in Radford, Virginia. Brickhouse means great times.

SPEAKER_06 30:04

Welcome back. It's Foster and Friends, NSV Radio Network, and we uh titled the show Tangled Up in Red, White, and Blue. Okay, thank you, Bob Dylan. Uh, because what I saw over the weekend, and then I, you know, I texted Bud and I said, What on earth? You know, I didn't even have any explanation for it. And when it happened, if you just if you missed the top of our show today, Bud was talking about being on the on the field, the sideline prior to the game. There was an hour delay at Virginia Tech because Pasha Pelunker was the skydiver, a 17-year army veteran, retired immigrant. He suffered PTSD and mental health. Well, why? Well, he was standing over an IED made from five 155 millimeter artillery shells. When it detonated, it launched him 20 feet into the air. And he writes in this in the story, by the grace of God, I walked away. Since that day, I've been blessed with two decades of life. I could have lost. But he found paratrooping, parachuting. He found a parachute club. He had multiple deployments in Iraq and Africa, two Purple Hearts, a bronze star with Valor, and he went face to face with a suicide bomber. If that wasn't enough, his first quote when uh a writer or somebody got to him after the video board incident, Polanker said, Quote, I felt I got hit by a train. I mean, I've I've never wanted to jump out of a plane.

SPEAKER_07 31:32

If you I take it you've never parachuted or never I never have, or do I or do I want to? And then after witnessing this, I can tell you for sure that's not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_06 31:45

Yeah, what was the uh the far side? The loneliest job in the world is the uh parachute complaint department at a parachute factory. So that's uh uh but as far as Polanka was concerned, as I said, his story was so good that uh he just had to handle this.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

I'm doing really well. I mean, it's it's all relative, could have gone a lot worse, but I'm just I'm grateful to be here. I feel I feel blessed. It's not the first time that I walked away from something that I shouldn't have. And uh, you know, my my family and friends keep telling me that I should stop pushing that luck.

SPEAKER_06 32:18

Yeah, and by the way, he was in a a shoulder harness and he did have a uh he did have a shoulder strain, I guess. But the jump Saturday, last Saturday, he said, was nothing new, but he didn't predict a weather change.

SPEAKER_02 32:32

We do this all the time. I I have dozens and dozens uh jumps into stadiums, hundreds of uh demonstration jumps. We as a team are are pride uh prideful in our in the safety. And uh our our normal normal uh wind limit is 14 knots. The winds on the ground were at seven. And uh so everything looked really, really well. But then as as we were coming in for the for the final for me to land, there were unexpected crosswind shear that gusted up to 27 knots. It was not in a forecast. That's what you see happening on the screen.

SPEAKER_06 33:06

Now, but here's here's my question, too, for these guys that okay, I know they got to understand the weather, but how can you predict a wind shear uh an hour or two hours before you go? I mean, maybe they can see it, they look at it, they got the way. I mean, that's going deeper than than I can understand. But he did not realize there would be this wind shear that knocked him off course.

SPEAKER_07 33:25

Yeah, and you know, I don't know, I'm not a weather man, and and you know, I do know this that they were predicting some weather to change uh towards the end of the day because we had a beautiful day. It was 80 some odd degrees, but Sunday was is 50 degrees, and they knew there was gonna be uh some weather coming, but do you and with that there's gonna be some wind, but I don't know, you know, when does when do you time that and that type of thing? But like I told you, you couldn't feel the the wind on the field. Um like you said, it was seven knots on the field, but just you know, several hundred yards or feet above us. Obviously, you had that that wind shear of 26 knots, and it it showed. I mean, that that took those guys and changed their their direction instantly.

SPEAKER_06 34:14

Yeah. And uh as Polanker explained in an interview with Channel 9 out of Washington, DC, you just can't train for a moment like last Saturday.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

You can't train for a moment like this. Uh I mean we train for a lot of things, but there's not much you can do once uh nature takes takes its uh its course. Because the wind picked up a lot more than than what it was supposed to be. I was gonna land in the stands just short of the field. And that flag, you can't tell, that flag is 1100 square feet and it's anchored by 26-pound weight. So I I was gonna hurt myself and in the uh fence in attendance. So I decided to uh uh land off the stadium. Uh there was an open field right near there. But then as I was making the turn, another wind gust came in, and that's what you see slamming me into the uh jumbo trunk. Yeah, it just uh took me a second to realize where I was and what was going on. The wind was knocked out of me, my back, uh, my neck, everything was was feeling the pain, and and and something happened in my left shoulder. I I am just grateful to be here. All of this will heal. Uh it's not my first time being in this thing, it's probably not my last.

SPEAKER_06 35:23

All right, let's put let's put this in perspective. He's made over a hundred jumps, he's done NASCAR tracks, football games, you know, he's he's done this all the time. Done it in combat. Right. He has to make the decision. Either I crash into the board or I fall into the stands, and the last thing I want to do with it with a 26-pound weight and 1,100 square foot flag is go into the stand and hurt fans. Yeah, so he has to make the decision. So I guess I'll try to land on the video board, which you know is not a good place to land. But you know, as I said, this guy had to think really, really quick. Pasha was knew what he was doing.

SPEAKER_07 36:04

Yeah, and you know, uh, it's kind of probably like a game scenario, and and uh I want to talk about this if we get at the moment, but sure, sure. We got all kinds of you can go over a variety of situations, but until it actually happens, you just don't know how you're and but for him to have that thought process though, as he's coming down, and you know he's they're moving at the pretty good bay or pretty good pace. Yeah. And um for him to think that he's gonna make that decision to go, because the second trooper, paratrooper landed on the practice field as well. And to him, for him to follow in that trajectory, but then the wind to catch him. But uh, I'll say this, he hit that thing. I mean, it shared that the the nameplate of the like the the the C and the H in that area and the glass line and and uh I'm just thankful that number one, he he he could have got really, really hurt. And number two, um, you know, that the the parachute held on to the uh oh yeah to probably for him to to break what he broke, that probably allowed the the straps and the and the chute itself to probably grab a hold of and hold him in place uh until uh you know the first responders were able to you know retrieve him and and bring him to safety.

SPEAKER_06 37:25

Yeah, I want to go back to the before his last comment here. I want to go back to the the opening um uh segment today when you were talking about so when it happened, your football trainers were on there. I mean, there were trainers on the field that they rushed and grabbed go ahead.

SPEAKER_07 37:42

Yeah, no, we had I'm up in the pr I I finally went up into the press box, you know, and uh and it didn't take long to get up there, but I'm seeing, you know, we couldn't, they the first truck came and it wasn't tall enough to get up in there, and so but they at the same time, we were taking our our equipment staff and everybody available on the ground was grabbing all of our dummies and our donuts, those are rolls you know, and tackled with everything that we could possibly do because he wasn't gonna the way it looked on TV, it looked like he might have fallen into the you know, into a uh a fence that held around stadium, but there was a big space that he was gonna fall several stories, you know, to a and pavement, right?

SPEAKER_06 38:26

Is there pavement?

SPEAKER_07 38:27

So yeah, they put as many padding and cushions and things of that nature so that if he did fall prior to us being able to retrieve him, that at least that would uh you know soften his fall if that was gonna be the case. So there were a lot of people that came to uh you know his rescue. Uh but I know for him it didn't come soon enough because I'm sure he was sitting up there just uh you know, just hoping that nothing that that that those ropes would not give.

SPEAKER_06 38:57

Well, I'm telling you, it just it interested me up one side and down the other. And so that's why uh I bring this interview to the table today. Anyway, to Pasha and all that he's been through, uh he's got a wonderful family. Uh I think he's got four kids, and you know, he's an immigrant, and uh, you know, coming to the United States, he speaks really good English and then fighting through PTSD. Skydiving to him means absolutely everything.

SPEAKER_02 39:22

Skydiving has played a huge role in my life, and especially doing these demonstration jumps. So I'm an immigrant. I came here as a kid. Uh I joined the military out of gratitude to this nation while serving. I've been wounded twice in combat. I've recovered physically from all bad. But when I retired, I struggled uh badly with PTSD and mental health. And skydiving became one of my lifelines. And then once I discovered my my parents routine, it it filled that void left by uh doing uh dangerous missions in the military and also the brotherhood that I get with my teammates. Uh that's how I got into it. And then also there's a tremendous sense of pride flying an American flag into a packed stadium.

SPEAKER_06 40:03

How good is that? So, but if I if I start to go a little haywire in my old age, uh and a lifeline, I tell you I'm gonna start parachuting. Uh, just make sure you call somebody and talk me out of it.

SPEAKER_07 40:18

I I don't have to call somebody, it'll be me. Uh calling, what the hell are you doing? Uh I will say this. I hope we got a minute, but I you know.

SPEAKER_06 40:25

No, we got all kinds of time, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 40:27

I'll say this. James took this opportunity to turn this into a teaching moment to the football team. Yeah, uh, and we in myself in my career experienced, I think it was, I know for sure three, maybe it could have been four uh lightning situations of game delays, that we had an hour or so, anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and a half delay. And uh those are things that are out of your control. And James took this as a moment uh, you know, to teach and talk about this with his his team, you know, that there's gonna be situations that may come up. There are several during the course of a season. We you know, where's games throughout the year that were delayed because of it's not something you're gonna rehearse? No, it's not. And and it's it's kind of like sudden change. How do you practice that? You know, and then this is one of those situations. How do you practice that? You don't. And this is a this was a uh a situation who I'm thankful. Um, you know, that um the gentleman's okay and appreciate his service to duty and what he does, but it's also that was a that was a great learning experience and a teaching uh opportunity for the team and for the staff. And uh, you know, then we had to show patience as a as a fan base, you know.

SPEAKER_03 41:44

So for sure.

SPEAKER_07 41:45

Uh but I I appreciate our fans the way they hung in there and and stayed the course and uh uh because it it it was it was slow it was slow there for a while because of everybody, but everybody was anxious too to make sure that you know he was going to be safe when it was all said and done.

SPEAKER_06 42:01

Yeah, well I again the story interested me to no end and and uh to hear this guy talk and then to to go into his background. And uh by the way, I can tell our listeners, if you go to YouTube and just um uh search Pasha Palanker, uh you will find uh a couple of videos, and they have a there's a series for veterans, and it's called Tri uh From Trauma to Triumph, and it's uh really, really good, and it's inside his life, and just you know, um, it doesn't have the Virginia Tech Landing in that video, but it's got about his life and about what he uh you know went through and stuff. So really good stuff. All right. Thank you, bud. We'll go to break. We'll come back. Bud's Lunch Pale Defense Foundation doing it again. We'll uh have that story and wrap up when we come back. Foster and Friends, NSB Radio Network.

SPEAKER_07 42:50

Hi, this is Bud Foster for Envision. For over 30 years, my good friends, Dr. Scott and Becky Mann, have built a practice that truly cares about their patients.

SPEAKER_03 43:00

Yeah, we just try to do everything with the patients in mind. Everything we do is from the patient's point of view, and we try to put them first and really have state-of-the-art equipment and technology and then old-fashioned personal care and attention.

SPEAKER_00 43:11

Oh, well, I think it's mainly about the relationship and that we care. We care for them and they become family. Women we've been in that office now for over 30 years. So it's it's more like a family environment and that we do care about providing the best vision care available.

SPEAKER_03 43:27

Over 30 years ago, we started with one office, one staff member, one doctor, and we've just kind of grown from there. The community's been great in supporting us, and now we have two locations. Uh, we're getting ready to add our six and seventh doctors and about 25 staff.

SPEAKER_07 43:42

Go see your award winning Envision team. They have two locations Salem and Christiansburg. They will meet all your eye care needs.

SPEAKER_06 44:00

Foster and friends, NSB Radio Network is uh God, I can't believe where April has gone as we get close to May Day and May Flowers. Buds Foundation at it again. Yeah, you uh you guys just keep doing great things. So uh you've got something coming up, don't you?

SPEAKER_07 44:18

Yeah, we're we're actually going on today, we're the day we're recording. I'm going um this afternoon. We are presenting um a check of our hundred thousand dollars. We're committing that to uh it's called the community health center of the New River Valley. It used to be called the Free Clinic. Um but basically it's uh they're building a new facility. They've just outgrown their facility here. It supports, you know, people in the area that have needs, you know, that may not have the insurance or you know, families that are um you know have um uh insecurities financials and different things like that. So again, it just aligns with what we're trying to do as an organization as far as help this help the New River Valley, help Southwest Virginia, uh help people. And uh so we're real excited to to partner uh and help this group uh towards um their goal of creating something special for the you know, which are which are people, which are our friends, our neighbors, family, uh uh those kind of folks that uh that that have some needs. But we're excited to be able to partner with them and and and do something special.

SPEAKER_06 45:25

That's great. But what about let's um what about your foundation process? And if somebody would like to uh at least a get involved or b, you know, find out maybe how the the foundation could help them and their family or their organization or whatever, what's uh what's the process to do that?

SPEAKER_07 45:41

Yeah, you know, number one, uh they can go at lunchpale defense.org. I mean, we've got a web page there, and and there's a a a section on how you can get involved. And then, you know, we will respond back to you. We've got several members of my board, and it may be me even just uh you know touching the base with you, but uh, but there's a way that you can then can give. Uh but also if if you you want more information, uh there's ways that you can reach out to us and we'll follow up with you. But yeah, lunchpailedefense.org is the is our website, and that can direct you to uh getting involved. And and we want you to. You know, we've been we've been able to do some really good things. We've the last two years with a new board and new uh new leadership we've had. We've given them over three hundred thousand dollars to donations and and and um and so we're real excited and and pleased with uh enthusiasm from people around the community to see what we're doing and and have a lot of people get involved. And and it's a win-win all the way around. It's a it's a feel good for them, but also it really makes an impact on people around uh this area.

SPEAKER_06 46:48

Please tell me James Franklin's gonna keep the lunch pail on the sideline. Oh, he does.

SPEAKER_07 46:53

He does. He is, and they've given they gave it to a guy halfway through the spring ball. I love it. And so we're we're keeping the we're keeping the pail alive in the Virginia Tech program.

SPEAKER_06 47:04

Gotta keep the pail alive. Come on, that's good. Have a good weekend. Um, any big plans?

SPEAKER_07 47:09

No, no big plans. So it's just a good thing. This is gonna be the first weekend I don't I don't think I've done anything in a while.

SPEAKER_06 47:16

So such a good thing. All right, for Bud Foster, I'm Mac McDonald. That's Foster and Friends, and this is the NSB Radio Network.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

Foster and Friends is presented by Envision. Locations are in Christiansburg in Salem, Virginia. For the best in eye care and fashion, it's Envision. By the River City Distillery in Radford, makers of Win Vodka. It's a good day to enjoy a win. And by Brick House Pizza. Brickhouse Pizza means good times!