bob-sabin_1_07-25-2025_144229: 0:12

Welcome to Tracking the Cats. I'm Bob Saban. Uh, a couple of notes before we start the show today, um, at about the 40 minute mark in the show, Steve White just disappears. He was there while we were recording, but when I downloaded from the cloud, he was no longer there, so we've had to edit him out of the last 10 minutes of the program. Also, if you are looking specifically for information about the football team and the the Southern Conference Media Day that was there. Week that shows up about 22 minutes into the program, so you can skip to that, but it's a very interesting show and I hope you all will join And here we go.

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 0:52

Welcome to Tracking the Cats. I'm your co-host Bob Saban, along with Steve White. We do this every couple of weeks and we follow all things Catamount. We're brought to you every time by Stanbury Insurance, your insurance headquarters in Silva, as well as Waynesville and Highlands multi-line insurance agency that'll cover all your insurance needs. So as we get started today, I think, Steve, you would agree we've got a, fantastic guest. We had the one voice of the cat mounts Gary ERs on a few months ago. We've got the other voice of the cat mounts, and I don't mean it by just the other voice because he can be primary for a a, a lot of of the broadcast you've been around, 30 years. And it doesn't seem that long to me. But we've had Daniel Hooker online since 30 years. The, the, the nineties, the eighties. What is it? When did you come to Colory? How did you get there? You've got a great story of getting from your hometown in Randolph County.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 2:02

Great to be with you guys. Obviously appreciate all that you do for the Catamounts. And, and this, this program obviously that, that highlights so many things that we do. It's tremendous. But, but yeah, no, it was 1996 basketball tournament in Greensboro. My hometown and one of those deals where I was looking, where do I want to go to college as a junior in high school. We'll go see Western on tour event. And Greg Duff sold us tickets in the back of the room at the end of the night. And we went to the Thursday night game. Of course, it happened to be against Appalachian State and, you know, my, my displeasure and distaste for the black and gold polyester started at that moment. But won that game obviously. And then I got to watch Ann Quell drop 40 plus on, on VMI in the second round. And you know. Come championship Sunday. I said, we gotta go back, right? We've gone with him this far and obviously the, the dethroning of the coronation party that was supposed to be held for Davidson there in the Greensboro Coliseum, we spoiled that party. And figured from that point forward, I was, I was stuck, you know, I was a cat out looking forward to, to coming up here and and being in Colory and like a bad penny. I just keep turning up, you know, like a, like a bad case of the Colory crud. You just can't shake me. You can't get rid of them.

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 3:11

Well, you couldn't have picked a better year to to see basketball.

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 3:14

Yeah. Yeah,

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 3:15

For sure,

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 3:15

yeah. Daniel, tell us about like your route to becoming the current associate AD for athletic media relations. We used to call it Sports Information Director back in my day. And what attracted you to your current career? What what got you started? What what was the motivation there? Yeah.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 3:36

probably my hind parts polishing the bench. For many, many times on many different sports. Now it's one of those things that e everybody finds that ceiling at some point in their athletic career from little League on up. And you know, it's not an easy thing when you go from being like an All star. Like I was in baseball coming up, moved to a different town and all of a sudden there was small town politics. Coaches that had their team picked out. And you know, I, I realized at some point my playing days were not gonna let me go any further. They were not gonna carry me on I wasn't gonna be suiting up in the NHL, the NBA, the the NNFL or MLB anytime soon. So I said, what can I do to stay involved? So in high school I started doing things like. Keeping hand stats for football. And that worked out well because I had a football coach that was my physics and trigonometry teacher. during trigonometry class or sometimes during physics, I gotta sit there and calculate football stats, which were, was much more entertaining and much more enjoyable. You know, but doing that and calling'em into the local TV stations on Friday nights, I mean the talking over the phone to give'em the stats started doing that. Started keeping baseball scorebook. For the team. And so I was involved and then started writing for the local newspaper, and that was a way to earn a little extra money, get a little extra notoriety, and came to Western and parlayed that into the, the Western Carolinian. Stumbled into John Moore's office one day over in Stillwell. And ended up getting a job with the newspaper and then went from that straight into stumbling into Steve White's office and Steve White said, yeah, we're always looking for suckers. I mean, people to come work for us, always looking for people that wanna, they wanna get into this and you know, follow'em in the great footsteps of people, you know, like like a Lindy Brown and, and people like that, that have come through a KC color who had come through and worked in sports information during their time. So was able to, to, to, to latch on there. So. It kind of was an a no brainer go to school for communication and sport management and work in that industry and I'm get to be one of the lucky people to do that.

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 5:28

So I guess that was around the year 2000, but and I'm not sure when you started doing baseball game. the Catamount Sports Network, but I've enjoyed listening for, for many years. Things like Goodbye Mr. Wilson. And seek for one with a view. You've got some catchphrases. I've always said, I think you could do this for pretty much any baseball team you wanted to, it's baseball team. Your first love as far as broadcasting.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 5:56

You know, I, I don't know. I'm so, I'm so cyclical. I'm so seasonal, maybe. know, I don't wanna talk about baseball during football season, you know, in basketball season I wanna talk basketball and in baseball season, don't talk to me about, don't tell Ker when I said this, but don't talk to me about spring football during baseball season. You know, I, I'm on the diamond. Baseball might be the favorite because as Steve can attest, you get to talk more. Baseball's just made for radio. It's made for

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 6:24

Right.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 6:24

to talk more. And sometimes I feel like it's just me sitting there talking to myself. We have a great fan base and we have a lot of folks that email in. And, and taking emails during the broadcast has been one of the best things. You know, you're able to answer questions and if somebody happened to miss something and they, what happened there, you can recap things for'em that sort of thing. And I, I love the interaction and that's the best part about it. But yeah, baseball, baseball might be up there as one of the favorites. I've, after I wrestled the microphone away from Steve White in the, the late nineties. I think after the Charleston incident, Steve decided he wanted to hang up the the headset. But you know, it's one of those things, the pleasure of working with the crew that we've had, the people we've had involved, and you look at the names that we've had involved in our network. I mean, it's, it's a veritable who's who, in my opinion, of, of folks in broadcasters and, and our league itself. We've just got a great league for broadcasting and I think it's an underrated league. When you look around at all the broadcasters across the board that we've had over the years, and, and you know, you look back a couple years ago when you had Gary Ayers, Steve White and, and Fred Goldsmith in the booth all at one time. Gary gotta say a couple things now and then, but other than that, it was, it was enjoyable to listen to, you know, and I've grown up listening, you know, you know, I grew up without cable TV a lot. And so every Sunday afternoon I was listening to MRN Radio and listening to how they called a race. That's how, you know, paint the picture for me without seeing it. You know, we would only get to watch maybe the Daytona 500 on CBS, the rest of them at the time we, we couldn't see. And so we listened to'em. And so that's where my appreciation came in. Appreciate listening to that. And, and the, the storytellers. There's nothing like a hometown voice. And that's what makes me, when I do the ESPN, it makes it so difficult.'cause they want you to be right down the middle, be excited for both teams. And that's probably the, might be the most difficult thing I've done in my career is trying to, to take off the purple colored glasses and just see things right down the middle.

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 8:12

Well, Daniel, you're you're probably the most va versatile person I've ever known in this position. And you're a lot more than your interest, even deeper than what I had and what I still have today. What's what's the favorite part of your job? I know we all have things that we like a little bit more than the other. What's your favorite part of being the. Sports Information director, athletic media relations director.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 8:38

I think, I think part of it has just been that there are no two days that are alike. There are a lot of similar days, there are new two, two days that are alike. You never know what you're gonna get when you come into the office every day, what you're gonna deal with, what you're gonna have thrown at you, what what you're gonna be able to do. And I think the, the abilities. The availability to do things here at Western to be able to, to do the radio and do television and do things along those lines, have all been huge. You know, they've all been things that I've thoroughly enjoyed. And again, it's just one more thing you know, that I get to do. It's not the things that I have to do. Those are things that I get to do. are some things I have to do, and those are those meetings that probably could be emails, but, you know, you do what you gotta do. You sit through those. But no, I, I, I, I think just the, the ability to have my hands at a lot of different things and, you know, I, I care so much about this place, you know, this place gave me an opportunity many, many years ago gave me that proverbial hand up. When I was looking to make a move and looking to get back involved, and, you know, I've had the chance to mentor under some outstanding sports information professionals. I'm still old school like Steve. I still wanna call it sports information, you know. But you know, I, I think it's just, that's the biggest thing for me is just the ability to be able to, to do so many different things and have my hands involved in so many different areas. Now, it does havoc a lot of times. And sometimes I wish I could clone myself to where I could be in three or four places at one time. But overall it's just, I think that's the biggest thing.

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 10:06

you Steve mentioned a, a minute ago the Charleston incident, and I'm thinking of, you know, you've, I'm sure over the years you've had some great either very scary moments or very extremely funny moments. Would you mind sharing one or two of those?

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 10:23

I'm not sure how many of those are gonna be able to be on air. There's so many. No, it's,

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 10:29

is a podcast. We could say anything and we don't get bad, but.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 10:33

yeah, we've had so many great moments over the years. The scariest moments. All you have to do is say, Hey, Gary Ears is driving. There you go. And, and he and he'll, he'll no. When he almost drove us into a median leaving Clemson one time, that was fun. We've had those, we, we've had the, we have stories we tell all the time. Some of those are Steve White stories that we've recycled. And I, I've turned into Steve White because every time we, every time we go past Irwin, Tennessee, you know what story I tell every time we go down and we head down through, you know, through the gap and we go down towards Atlanta. You know what story I tell when we go over the Tallulah, you know what story I tell. And so those are the recycled Steve White stories that we still drop in every now and then. And, and we've built our own, but traveling with the radio crew and with our SID crew probably the favorite thing about the job being able to be on the road with those guys. There's just memories. You can't, there's little stories, there's little quips, there's little things you know. Just that make the moment. We got so many that we could not share that one day we'll sit down and I think it's Steve White and I, I think I've talked to him about we need to sit down and write a book. Some of the things that you could share, many people might not find them funny, but we find'em doggone hilarious. But we've had, we've had plenty of moments like that losing luggage at Arkansas and, and we get back from Arkansas and then all of a sudden on TV broadcast, I see my suitcase sitting on the sidelines for some reason. It got taken off the bus and taken to the sidelines and we see it on the TV broadcast. We're like, wow. I mean, there's just so many different things. And being able to travel with teams is terrific. And that's one thing I miss a little bit here in the last handful of years is we don't travel with the teams as much as we used to. probably since COVID really?'cause I mean, it was always about keeping the bubble tight and not bringing outside people, blah, blah, blah. but being on the bus with teams sitting behind the late great Larry Hunter and, you know, watching him watch film and just getting an appreciation of that. And of course every time there was a foul that he thought should have been a foul that wasn't called. And he would hold the laptop over his shoulder and say, what do you think? You think that was a foul? Yeah. Coach. It was a foul. Three in the morning. Three in the morning. It's

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 12:34

Yeah.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 12:35

But no, it's have been some great moments, some just great travel times and, and I mean, we got some great stories ever asked me about the, the Greg Mcla sideline reporter

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 12:45

Yeah.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 12:45

asked me about the the Charleston trip with the. The, the, the amount of food that he consumed in one trip down, that one never gets old. That one never gets old. So that was two subway sandwiches. Then we went to the wreck in Charleston, then we went to Ander's Pizza and Krispy Kreme and a gallon of milk. And all of a sudden, he survived and made it to the next day. So

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 13:05

Yeah.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 13:06

be happy I got him in on the podcast too.

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 13:07

Yeah.

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 13:08

calls him Greg Mc sheep? I

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 13:10

Yeah.

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 13:11

That a few times.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 13:12

name. That's his, that's his I think it's his handle. He uses on our fantasy football, MC, baby sheep. It's like easier to say,

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 13:19

Yeah.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 13:19

mc.

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 13:20

Yeah. Hopefully you're gonna be operating out of a new press box for the 2026 season, a year from now. Plus like I did 52 years ago, hook when we moved out of our telephone booth at Memorial Stadium. It was a glorified telephone booth went over and what's that's still standing today in Whitmeyer Stadium. 50 plus years ago we moved into that. Thoughts about what you might be thinking or doing, what you might do that you'll always wanted to do when you do your last ball game in the press box at Wood Stadium. You thought about that yet?

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 13:58

Well, well, I hope when you said that this press box is still standing and I hope you knocked on wood and then you said you know, I've been told, you know, I've been told the end of July next year, they we're hoping to be ready to go with that ahead of next football season. That'll be, that'll be good. Of course, we'll give a little buffer there. It's a state project, you know how that goes. Weather, Western North Carolina know

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 14:17

Yeah.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 14:18

Just looking forward to seeing it. I, I've seen so many designs. We've had so many plans over the years. And things have just not worked out. I look back in 2008 with plans for a bunch of different things, and then the economy turns south and all of a sudden. You don't have the money to do things. And, and you know, the fundraisers here at Western and our fan base in in particular have just been tremendous in the raising the money and, and getting us to a point where we can even talk about this with all the changes in college athletics and what we're trying to do. And, you know, and, and it, it's a keeping up with the Joneses type thing, you know, you gotta have it, you gotta do it. And it's not just a press box, it's a whole facility upgrade in terms of football offices and, and just being able to have a better. Home environment to add to what is the best atmosphere on, on football in the Southern Conference? I mean, if we have the best game day atmosphere and you probably go one through nine one through nine of the head coaches and they would all agree across the conference. Coming to Colby is not an easy thing because of our fan base, because of our band, because of our cheerleaders and dance team, our students, because of that atmosphere. It's just a second to none in our conference, but you know, I'm looking forward to it. I think when we get the new press box, I'm still going to take the stairs just for old time sake. Not use the, the elevator that's gonna be there. I think I'm gonna keep the stairs going. I, I love looking back at old media guides and every year, Steve White, the the fledgling comedian that he is would always have in there 30 years Whitmeyer Stadium Press, Fox elevator's still broken every year that was in

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 15:41

Heard that one? Yes.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 15:42

Yeah. So yeah, it's one of those that it served its purpose and you know, and, and thanks to our facilities on campus, we've renovated it a little bit. It's amazing what a nice coat of of paint and a little bit of new carpeting can do for a, a, a building. And it's very functional. And you talk about some places we go that have better press boxes as far as appearance that aren't nearly as functional as ours is. So ours is. Basically it fits Western. I mean, we, we do more with less. That's kind of our mantra with a lot of areas. You know, Todd Rowley always talked about that with baseball, and we played our track and field does that, Jesse, his guys practicing indoors for indoor season in the middle of winter and colorway, and they're practicing outside. That's a chip on the shoulder. That gives us an edge and I think makes our Catamount student athletes just that much more special, quite honestly, for what we do. You know, and, and we spend more time talking about what we have and not what we don't have. And and I think that's the big thing. And you know, I'm looking forward to the new, new building. There's gonna be some changes, you know, no more, no more peanuts in cracker Jacks in the press box. You're gonna have to keep yourself, keep it clean. We're gonna. Put some rugs at the doors to make sure feet get cleaned. And we're, we're gonna, we're gonna take care of that thing for sure. And it'll be different. You know, I, I don't have to worry about the, are the fans working today? Do I have to go turn off all the breakers at the end of the game? Do I make sure all the windows are closed? I, it'll be a different experience, but I'm looking forward to the new one. And, i'm hoping we get to use this one, you know, seven, maybe eight times this year, not have to

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 17:09

Yeah.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 17:10

working through the regular season. I would love for the swan song of that press box to be one that, you know, instead of tearing the goalpost down at the end of the, going to the national championship, we tear the press box

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 17:20

Yeah, that's right. And and the biggest thing hook is not looking into the sun for

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 17:25

oh

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 17:26

blinding. That's, that's the reason my eyesight, that's what happened to my eyesight. Yeah.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 17:30

Well, I, I will say this, you know, people come out of the summertime with the world's best tan.

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 17:35

Yeah.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 17:35

come out of football season with the best tan. It does wonders for the complexion.

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 17:41

yeah, as a student there in the mid seventies when it first opened, there was no West stand, right? So everybody got a beautiful, sunny afternoon football game, which was exactly the opposite from Memorial Stadium, just the year before. You were always in the shade on that when you were down in the valley there, technology wise and position wise, how have things changed since you started in the media realm at Western Carolina? And we had technology problems 15 minutes ago. and we've seen them both over the live air as well as, you know Monday afternoon technology. Yes. But there have been other changes to your job as well.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 18:26

Yeah, for sure. Anybody that ever wants to complain about live feed and live broadcast I invite you to come down and take a, take a look behind the scenes and, you know, everything might look like the old duck on the pond, but I tell you underneath, he's paddling like hell. And we're doing the same thing a lot of times, trying to get these things on and. Always appreciate the patience, everybody.'cause again, we're dealing with a lot of student staff on some of those things that make it difficult. But yeah, technology, you know, I can remember when I first came in, you talk about the other side of the stadium, I remember the small bleachers and the, and the, the evergreens that also served as a bathroom at times for, for visiting teams back in the day there at Whitmeyer. But I think the biggest thing that's changed is just the instant gratification. want it now. It's not a matter of. I, I still remember getting the weekly press releases from the Southern Conference through the mail. I still remember calling sports systems on a fax machine, dialing in the codes to what reports you want, and it spitting out scores. And the only time you got to get a score update is if you did the fax machine and somebody's job, every game day was to go, you know, every five to 10, 15 minutes and print out the sports system. And it always reminds you, you have 20 reports left, you have 19 reports left, and then all of a sudden you get near the end of the year, you're like. print your scores at halftime and that's it, you know,'cause we don't have any more, more there. But so those are things now, and now your scoreboard update, you know, it's on your phone. I mean, it's, it's, you're walking around with a handheld computer and you can get that anytime you want. I mean, you get our broadcast over the, over the, know, over the, the phone. Whereas we used to use a phone for broadcast, but it was a phone line. Now we're all IP based. And, and all the stuff that's changed that way. So it's been, you know, I was fortunate enough, I learned to type on a typewriter. I am that old. At least when I got to college, it was all computers. And that's when I learned and learned old PageMaker that turned into InDesign. And then the addition of Photoshop and all the things we do to try to do graphic designs and, you know, and our, our position's now a catchall. It's not just write the stories for the website and keep the stats. It's update the social media. It's the, not just the Twitter and the Facebook, but also the Instagram. And keep those things up to date. And then keep your finger on the pulse of where people are getting stuff because you gotta reach out. And obviously we have so many different constituencies. We have the Steve White era that's looking for that. They're looking for that Sunday morning newspaper in the driveway.

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 20:46

Right.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 20:47

times may or may not send to you. Then we got those people that you say newspaper, they have no idea what you're talking about. You know, they want to get it on. They get their news through Twitter and if it's not 120 characters or whatever, they're not gonna read it. Or they wanna see a picture of it and that's all they want. So we're trying to capture that. We're also trying to capture the, you know, and keep in touch with our, and what they're looking at. So in our coaching staff leading sought us to help with that. So, you know, it's really changed that we're all in the same boat. We're all trying to row the same direction. The job that we do not only helps with keeping our fans up to date, but also keeps our Catamount Club involved to make sure they know the information when they're going to visit people. One of my favorite things is to sit down with our Oun Club staff and they tell me who they're going to visit and I tell'em about that individual so they can go talk to that individual and, and have a background on'em. You know, and it is just'cause we're so much about fundraising before we fundraise. I think that's the biggest thing we do here. And we've always said this place is about the people. I think that's, once we keep that in mind, from top to bottom, that's always gonna keep Western Carolina special. But yeah, technology, you never know what's gonna hit next. You know, we're, we're now talking. We're now talking about doing television over IP cameras and, and things like that, and, and trying to bring those in. And so that's the next wave. And we're trying to be proactive looking at this new building we're building sure we, we don't. Short ourselves on the front end. You know, make sure while we're pulling things like fiber, let's pull enough to where we can expand and so have the stuff we need for today, but also be thinking about tomorrow. And I think that's, you know, the strategic planning that goes into that. And I think that's the biggest part of athletics today is, is strategic planning. I don't know how much, you know, I don't know how much Bob Waters thought about. The next 10 years when he was coaching football and athletic director. But we gotta think about that. We gotta think about what's gonna look like, especially with the way things are changing about daily and athletics these days.

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 22:38

Yeah, I can imagine. And I'll let Steve, I'll let you go real quick, but when you were putting together the Whitmeyer stadium when we were not you number of phone lines they had to consider, right? That was basically phone lines and a few electrical outlets. Because if anybody was visiting, they needed multiple phone lines for broadcast. So that's wild.

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 23:00

Yeah. Yeah. Getting back to the present here, guys the Southern Conference football Media Day was held in Greenville last Tuesday. And about the nine head coaches, the media representatives from the different areas around the Southern Conference each, coach brought a couple of players, most of them brought a couple of players and then they had the voting, the preseason poll, ka mouses picked third one, vote outta second place and preseason poll. And what surprised me, 11 southern conference player picks from Western Carolina and the top two rounds there. That was a very, very great, that tells you what the other coaches think about the talent on this football team and, the hook. Maybe talk about something you saw there, a disappointment moving on into this what, what your thought was about the media polls of the, the all conference team so forth, but what it was all about.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 23:57

Yeah. You know, I think with the coaches poll, I think our players might have been a little disappointed. We finished. A year ago and you kind of figure you might finish there again, you bring back a lot of, the lot of talent, a lot of similar talent. You know, we did lose some good, good pieces the way things go, but I think that might've been a little disappointed, but we're only one point out of second place and you got a first place vote. I think that's the difference. Chattanooga got two. We got one with the all conference teams. Yeah, it's quite an accomplishment. I can remember the days when I got one or two and was happy, you know, we're like, wow.

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 24:27

Okay.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 24:27

miss those days when I have to write up a story that involves 11. I miss the days of the one or two. But, but no it, it's, it talks to the talent of this level, of this team. And I think that's the thing. Anybody that asks me about going into this year, what are my thoughts on this team? And I'm saying for me, quite honestly, it is a, a, the most talented group that I've seen in a while, top to bottom. So much talent. The difference is it's unproven talent. In terms of unproven here, we don't, they're not household names. You know, they're not the Ion Robinson that you see for four years. You know, it's not the Spearman Robinsons and the Kenoras Bensons and it's, it's not the Dere Newsome's that you know what you're gonna get each time out. It's new guys. A lot of new guys you have the Branson Adams who return, they give you that spark. You got some guys that are back like a Kaur Reed who was here two years ago. Didn't play last year in his back this year. Jalen Trudo, who I'm really looking forward to watch him play. A guy that came in a couple years ago as a freshman and then left, but has come home, back to colorway here, a kid outta Florida that wants to be involved in what we're doing offensively. And as an offensive player. Why would you not, school record passing yards a year ago? You're talking about putting up video game numbers. some teams that struggle to get a couple hundred yards a game. We had a game last year with 800 yards in one game, and there are teams that are barely getting that in a season. We had it in a game, so you know, I, I think from that day the guys really enjoyed it. I'll tell you what, Mike and Nelson and, and Caleb Buscher were media darlings. They were just unbelievable. To take two of those guys and it was a reward for those guys. To go ahead and take some upperclassmen, you talk about Michael, who's been around for, for nine since 2019, going into his, you know, sixth or seventh year in terms of being involved. He's like an internship shy of having his master's degree. I mean, that's the kind of kid he is a local product from Western North Carolina. people might have saw the picture of Gary Ays putting on his Swain County hat before he did the interview with the Murphy High kid. Trying to rub the old high school rivalry in his face there. But yeah, no, had a blast. Caleb Fisher actually won the bowling. They had did a bowling on a on Monday night, and Caleb Fisher had the highest score, so he won that. We won't say what Micah score was, but it wasn't, he did not win. Caleb won. And those guys enjoyed meeting him and they said, yeah, it's inter, it's interesting'cause you see these guys. They didn't go there to make friends. He said, we didn't go to make friends. We, we were cordial, we had fun with the guys. And so on game days now they'll be able to see those guys and recognize across the line of scrimmage, that sort of thing. So it's always fun to watch the interaction those guys have and, and being able, the conference is a great job with the event. I've always thought so. It's been, I always enjoyed those I missed the media hospitality room maybe. I

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 27:11

Yes.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 27:12

the highlights. I've had plenty of good stories with the, the John Cathys and the Rick Covingtons and the Steve Whites of the world. I, I've probably learned more about the business in those than I did actually doing the job listening to the, the, those cats talk. But, it's media Day was fun. I think it's gonna be a competitive year and I think there's so many unknowns. And I think that's the, the new, the new version of college football, especially at the FCS level, it's unknown'cause you have so many faces that are new. I think that also lends itself to the way the all conference team shook out because. Yeah, if you put up a couple guys who were not in the league a year ago, coaches don't recognize him. They look at numbers that may have been put up at a D two versus an FCS. How does that compare to what we have that may have shaken the votes? I don't know. I mean, it's hard to say, but I think the excitement's in the air, that's for sure. And like I told the guys down there, this is kinda the unofficial kickoff. Once from that point forward from Media Day on, it's, it's it's go time when it comes to getting ready for the season.

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 28:10

And you know, the thing that for me is, and I'm for all of us, is. Being disappointed that we weren't picked one or two. Right. We're picked third. You know, I, I, it's only been two or three years since I'd say to my wife, you know, gosh, I hope we don't end up last. And she goes, that would be nice, you know? I hope we can beat Citadel. That would be nice was her response because she had no hope whatsoever of anything, being optimistic and, and this is great, but stepping back into a coach and his comments, and I, I enjoyed listening to his talk. During the media day, he said his biggest disappointment last year was that of the five losses we had four of them, we were ahead in the fourth quarter including NC State and Montana. What's your opinion hook on how we will be able to change that mantra this year?

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 29:10

I think it's the development of depth being bigger, stronger, and faster. I look up front, for instance, and you look back at times where we're running the same first and second stringers out against second and third stringers in some of these places, especially when you go play FBSI. We wore down. I think Jerry Odom's got an outstanding system to be able to run the defensive side, but we're bigger upfront. And so again, it, it, it's all about X's and O's, but it comes down to Jimmy and Joe's. If you don't have the Jimmy and Joe's, I don't care how you walk off the X's and O's, that ain't gonna work out. If you've got a guy playing 80 snaps and he's already undersized and he's getting leaned on all day, all of a sudden that front is gonna, is gonna show, developing depth, developing size, you, you know, we're, we're probably tipping the scale at mostly 2 85 to 300, 3 10 or higher. J Michaal Wilson, big guy walks in a room and you know, it, he turns sideways to get through the door upfront on the line. So I think we're bigger there. We're bigger on offensive line. I tell you, I, I talked with our, our Serbian transfer from Boston College who was an outstanding, he is a delight to talk with. I'm already trying to think of what we could do with him through the year when he dropped the Yvonne Drago line from Rocky four on me yesterday. I almost lost it. again, Eastern European, but, but no he's just, he's just, he's a giant, he's so big. And, you know, his hand, he shook my hand and he just encompassed all the way to my wrist almost. I mean, he's, he's a big, big young man and, and mature, you know, and, and, and Vito, a guy from Spain who transferred in. We we're bigger, we're stronger, we're faster, and I think. got more depth. And I think that's where you look at it and you're not running the same guys out there. And I think that's the difference in my opinion. And just the knowing, the confidence in the system. I think especially defensively, year two under Coach Odom, you know, I talked with both Phish and Micah about it down at Media Day. I said, what's the difference in in year, year two? And they said, well, we're not, we're playing, we're not just thinking. Because with Coach Odom's system, there's, if this happens, you gotta do this. But if this happens, you do that. There's so many things and instead of going down the old proverbial checklist, those guys are just reacting. And I think that's gonna be what's key with a lot of those veterans on defense. I'm looking forward to watching that defensive side go to the ball. I did ask him if some of the yelling was down with Coach Odom and he said. Not so much. Coach Odom disagreed. He said he's been very calm this during the spring ball, so we'll see once we get spring ball to fall ball is a little different.

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 31:36

Yeah. Yeah.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 31:36

how that goes. I love the intensity that Coach Odom brings and, and you know, he's hard on the guys, but he loves them up and he respects them and, and they, they respect him. And that's great to see. And of course, you know. Coach Odom was talking about all the guys. We have all the coaches over on the offensive side of the ball. And I said, yeah, and your old head ball coach is an offensive minded guy too. So he's, he's gonna coach. Coach Bell thinks we have one of the most more talented, I mean, even after losing what we've lost the last couple of years to transfers Isaiah Johnson and, and Deandre Tamez from last year, you look at sincerely Raphael Williams, who Poppy, when we lost those guys, he still thinks the group we have in, in camp coming in next Tuesday or coming in on the 29th. He thinks those guys might be more talented. And so that's can be scary considering we broke the school record for passing yards a year ago to see that. So looking forward to, to all of that and seeing how it all comes together. You gotta play all three phases. I think that's the other thing. We can't have any breakdowns one phase or the other, which we've had a couple times in some of those closed losses.

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 32:36

I tell you guys I don't know if they talk about my conversation I had with coach Bell back in the spring to the coach. I said you know, I've been around. Western Carolina football for 64 years since 1961. Never won a conference championship. How I came so close so many times, only been to the playoffs twice 74 and 83. And gosh, I dismiss it. I, I just want that conference championship before I expire. And he said, well, well, how old are you? I said, well, I'll be 83 my next birthday. He says, dang, we better hurry.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 33:12

You know, thought we might get one last year. Thought we

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 33:15

Yeah.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 33:16

an opportunity. Obviously, you know, I think we had you, you go back and look at the resume we put together teams we beat that had wins over we, we beat Sanford who gave our automatic qualifier, their only lost during the year, and they only team to beat Mercer in conference and to go to Montana and not only face a very good Montana grizzly squad, but also a big sky officiating.

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 33:38

Yeah.

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 33:39

Yeah.

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 33:39

Yes,

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 33:40

say that

squadcaster-a8h4_1_07-24-2025_162454: 33:40

yes.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 33:42

you know, one of those things that it is what it is. But we gained some respect across the country with that game. And I will say this though, the, the folks in Montana were terrific, but then when their athletic director. Their department did some fundraising around Hurricane Helene and had that on their video board message board there at the stadium the week after all the the tragedies with the, with the hurricane and Montana went to bat and made some donations with that. That spoke volumes to me about the impact that we had as a program going out there to play'em, but also just the people of Montana, quite honestly. It was unbelievable to, to see that. So, was a tough time for everybody involved, but it was great to see everybody kind of pull together. I'd like to see more of that across the country and, and just in normal times pulling together like that.

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 34:28

Right. Well, we've got other sports going on in the fall, believe it or not, other than football. And wanted to see, have you been peeking in at particularly volleyball or soccer or any of that?

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 34:42

they're about to get cranked up. I know Chad Miller is pretty excited. He thinks he might have a more offensive minded team yet again, which is pretty impressive considering what they did a year ago. But what they did defensively was probably more impressive and the number of shutouts that they were able to put up on the board and defensive player of the year in the conference they were disappointed in, in coming up short there in the tournament. You know, being, having it hosted here at in Colory and, you know, and it's a different world when you go from being the hunter to being the hunted. And that's what they've been the last couple of years. We've been the standard bearers in the conference and. I don't expect them to miss a beat. I think winning can be get winning. Winning can help you win more because you're able to get better recruits. You're getting more notoriety, especially in the club world when it comes to soccer, recruiting. And I'm looking forward. We're gonna have, coming up in the middle part of August, our first coaches show. That'll be kind of the fall sports preview. We'll have Coach Miller on to talk more specifically about that, but he's got a great group returning. They love each other. They are. So that is one of the most closely knit teams. Them and volleyball, both of our fall sports teams that are very close knit volleyball, lost some outstanding players the last two years. Karen's in a rebuilding phase and turnings getting that back and, but I have the utmost confidence that she's gonna have that team going in the right direction. They've got some great leadership on that team and the way she works that with the, the players giving them. Input on things. Going to the seniors and the juniors and the upperclassmen to help shape the way things are going is, is huge. And of course she's one of our most tenured coaches here in Colby right now for the job that she's able to do. So I'm looking forward both of those Fall sports, of course we'll have basically a lot of new faces on our men's and women's golf team that do compete during the fall. And shoot, pretty soon we're gonna be talking about basketball being a fall, sports since they starting. Early November.

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 36:26

Yeah.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 36:26

soon we're gonna be talking about a week after Labor Day start talking basketball. The way they keep moving that season to almost year round. Remember the days when I look back in media guides and it's like, yeah, we started the season just after Thanksgiving. I'm like, that would be to start basketball that

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 36:40

For you guys.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 36:41

Not to take anything away from them, but just for, for, you know, the external staff of all the, the number of events. But you know, looking forward to that. Gonna have those schedules for basketball coming out probably sometime late summer, early fall to get those things geared up. And looking forward to year two under Coach Kraft and Coach Sippa new rosters. But I tell you what. We had some photos earlier this week with had some basketball players come in to take advantage of the football media day, football photo day we had on campus. And we have some size. I mean, we have some guys that have to duck to walk into the rooms. So when we renovated the basketball locker room, we didn't talk about raising the doorway. That might have been, should have been part of the conversation because we got guys that have to duck, get and out of the locker room now. So

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 37:22

Wow.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 37:23

getting that going. So looking forward to that. And, you know, it's, it's one of those things that. The, the, the analogy I use with my staff all the time, this time of year is we're standing at the bottom of the mountain and we're looking at the top. And by golly, we look up there and it looks like a long, long way to get to the end. But once you get going one foot in front of the other, pretty soon you're well on your way and you get to be the halfway point and it doesn't look nearly as daunting when you start walking that path. So that's what we're looking forward to. Looking forward to selling out the stadium this year. You know, we, we lose a couple of rows in the stadium to construction that are for safety purposes, but we're gonna have that thing ripped Aurora and ready to go. Stadium's gonna be ready to go for the first game. I have a few other additions. Kevin Stanbury and Stanbury Insurance. We'll get to enjoy one of our end zone pods. I think end zone seating. Looking forward to that. I think one of'em might still be up for sale. Nobody wants to purchase tickets down there. Get your season tickets'cause like I said. We're gonna get to single game tickets, and we're probably gonna be talking about a few hundred left instead of few thousands. So get in off the ground level. It's gonna be fun. Be.

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 38:25

Cool. Well, one last thing. You've either been a lead or secondary announcer for, with a lot of folks, including Yeah. That guy Steve who all have you really enjoyed being with? I, I remember I worked at WLOS for a couple years and I liked Stan, Pam Phyllis. He was, just weekend anchor when I was there. So it was a long time ago. But tell me your the guys you enjoy working with.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 38:52

Well, the only problem is it's really a small list because Gary Ris has dominated that for the last 30 years. I mean, hall of Fame career. It's hard, hard to say anybody else, but obviously when you get to work alongside the legend, Steve White, even though he called me Gary every time, hard habits to break. I know. And it was always well, Gary up, you not Gary. I'm like, I know, I'm just, I'll answer anything. Working along a legend like that. And Steve White, you know, he, he's forgotten more about Cata Mount Athletics than I probably will ever know. He is our historian for a reason, because he is I think he they, they laid the first brick in 1889 and Steve moved in in 1890. Ready to go. He built the house up on buzzard. Yeah. But no, I mean, obviously when you get to work without a Hall of Famer like Steve White or a Hall of Famer like Gary Years, a guy like Jeff Bryson who's been doing it around this parts for so many years former students that I've worked with, like a Kyle Rush who's been able to come up. A guy I went to school with and we did sports talk shows in college with, and Greg Mcla having him alongside along the way. I've been blessed to have the opportunity to. You know the ties with Justin Gray. We had Dino Gaudio come up and do games with us, and I'm like, wow, this is kind of cool. The guy that was literally sitting on an ES ESPN desk last year is sitting courtside in the Ramsey Center here now. You know, I enjoy everybody, everybody we worked with Pete Yann, I get to do TV with the time or two is fun. Dan Gibson, another guy, went to work with here in the department. I've had him along for tv. I had a good friend of mine that I worked with down in Charleston, did tv did TV with me alongside, did radio with Gary and Rick Richards, a former arena football coach. We've had our share, but again, it's hard pressed to be able to, to overtake the Hall of Famers and Steve White and Gary Ayers, those guys, and of course Jeff Rice in my opinions Hall of Fame. And, and keep hoping that maybe one day my name might be called. I don't think I'll have the same kind of jacket that Gary broke out at his, that he could still fit into from 1980, whatever. But but no, it, it's, it's, it's a world of fun and like I said I've never seen anything but through purple colored glasses. Gonna be tough for me a little bit because I grew up Wake Forest fan and we're going to play Wake this year. They've renamed that stadium. So it helps a little bit.'cause I've, up until last couple of years, probably had still seen more games down at Grove Stadium than I had here in Colorway. But I think I've surpassed that now. You know, I came to, came to COLORWAY and had my a CCC sends washed away by the, the, by the daddy of the Southern Conference, you know? So yeah, and I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking for, to all looking forward to all the games. Each one brings a different challenge. We've got a great conference. We've got some great coaches. I'm telling you. Watch out for the C Bulldogs. I think Maurice, Dre and I think the world of him, I worked with him in Charleston. believes what it takes. He knows what it takes to be a cadet athlete and he's gonna get them going in the right direction. Never looked past VMI at home. Obviously Mercer's gotta be the standard bearer. ETSU is reloaded with some great talent. Chattanooga's always got an outstanding team up and down. And of course our chromatic rival, we get Furman. Looking forward to that matchup with with those guys again. They may have a little bee in their bonded after last year's game. I.

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 41:59

I love.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 42:00

again, just the, the Sids in our league and, and guys, I think some of even Steve might have been working with, there's a couple of'em around still. So yeah, we've got some great ones in our league. Media Day is so much fun, not only for just getting to see the kids interact, but also being around those guys and, and gals in the league and, and the, the men and women of the Southern Conference. We have the best conference in this level, in my opinion. I'm sorry. I don't see the big south OBC connection being the better than us. I don't see the CAA being better than us. Top to bottom. We play everybody. We play. You can't hide from anybody on your schedule. You gotta play everybody in your league to win a conference championship and other leagues aren't like that. So I think that's what, you know mc Michael Cross, our commissioner brought up, you know, you can't hide from anybody. You gotta go play'em. Yeah, I agree. agree. Fifth, fifth, oldest conference in the nation, you know, in 1921 and. Again, being able to say that the SEC and the a CC got their start from our Southern Conference speaks volumes to me. And, and like I said, I really appreciate the job that our conference office does and, and trying to keep their, their, their fingers on the pulse of college athletics. And again here we are at the FCS level, division one obviously, but P four, we're not power four. We're not in the decision making seat, but we still have our, our place and, and our conference deserves more respect than I think we got a year ago with just one team getting in. In my opinion, because I think, you look at our, our conference the same with baseball conferences past year we were, you know, one of the, the top what, 5, 6, 7, 8 conferences in the country as far as baseball. So, I mean, it's one of those things that we've got a great league because of the people, and I think that's where it all starts.

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 43:56

Well, I'm gonna give you one more compliment because of what I have heard from, you know, when, when we're doing an away game and we're watching PN plus we're getting their announcers right? And. You said difficult not always to have the glasses on when you're doing, Most, maybe all of the other guys out there in the Southern Conference. I've heard'em all. And we're certainly at the top of the class as far as between you and Gary doing a, a professional job of announcing and, and keeping everybody who's listening and or watching. Very informed with what's going on, and we total, we appreciate it. And I think that's why you see the, the number of viewers that we get. I mean, you know, you, you're able to track some of that particularly online, and I think we do a pretty good job of that compared to some other schools in the conference. Oh, yeah.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 44:58

Well, if we didn't, Jeff would, Jeff would let us hear about it. If we didn't. We know that and he does. And what people don't realize is behind the scenes at at football. All the pushing of the buttons and all the, all the breaks and all everything, all the production work Jeff's doing behind the scenes.

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 45:13

Wow.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 45:13

I help with a lot of the setting it up and getting things going and getting things loaded interviews loaded to the computers and stuff like that. But we're one of the few, we don't send it off to a, a, a Grand Central Station or a an ISP or, or whatever. We don't send it to somebody else and let them do all the production. We do it all ourselves. And so that's what people don't realize a lot of times. And the same goes with our ESPN stuff. Our ESPN shows are all everything's in-house and then we send off and we've started running all the breaks and everything like that. So it's a lot, it's a lot of work that goes into it. And I always invite anybody that wants to come behind the scenes sometime just to get a gli, a glimpse. Like I said, it is controlled chaos. It's herding cats. Anything you can throw at it, that's kind of what it's like with these live broadcasts. But I do appreciate that. I know people sometimes get frustrated. I want be up there. I want a homer so hard. I wanna be the Homer guy. It's not easy, but I, I gotta get excited for both teams the way that's, but that's what ESPN has asked us to do, and that's what I'm gonna do. And that's why I prefer radio sometimes'cause I get to do, a little more a more Homer. Broadcasting than than otherwise, but I appreciate that Bob.

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 46:16

Yep. Well, it's been a great 45 minutes having you with us. I've enjoyed the stories. I enjoy your input and. Usual. I think it's been good.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 46:26

like I said I'm, I'm so, so thankful for this institution, for the opportunities that I had. That I might not have had any other place that I went, the opportunities I had as a student to come back, as an alum to be involved, the chance to get involved. And I, and I think that's something that I, that I preach to our students as well, the opportunities that are here to be able to do that. And, and I learned from the best, I mean, I had Steve White, I had Jody Jones, I had Mike Kaywood, I had Craig Wells, some of the best names we've had. And you look at the longevity we've had. I mean, you go back between just me, you, Mike Kaywood and Jody Jones and Craig Wells, and that's probably the last. 60, 70 years of information. I mean, if you think about it, I've been doing it for 20,

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 47:07

Yep.

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 47:08

enough. So again, it's, it's the longevity we've had. And, and it's a lot of, it's been homegrown and, and, and if it's not homegrown, we do a good job of transforming people and, and, and getting'em going in the right direction. I think Mike Kaywood still thinks himself as the cat mount, even though he is having fun out in Arkansas with Hunter Uche. But yeah. But I appreciate what you guys do. Of course, this is also, obviously we've got you linked on Cat about sports.com, trying to help push the, the tracking, the cats.'cause I really appreciate all the efforts you guys put in, in bringing this and kind of filling an extra void. This is an extra, extra piece to.

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 47:42

Thanks. You know, I was doing some research when we were putting this together a year ago, and found out that nobody else was doing a Catamount podcast, and most of the other schools have at least one. And so here we are. But speaking of cross-promotion you mentioned the coaches preseason special. When's that gonna be?

daniel_1_07-24-2025_162327: 48:01

I haven't set the date yet. We're working with cat Mount Jacks to get on their schedule, but we'll have a, a preseason show that'll have all, you know, all four of our, our fall sports with Kerwin Bell and Chad Miller. We'll have Jesse Norman and of course Karen Glover from volleyball all will be a part of that show. And then we'll have our cat Mount Football Weekly that'll kick off. And that'll be we're trying to add in listening to some of the fans. We're trying to add YouTube as well as Facebook Live, just to help hopefully help expand that viewing audience. We're working on that, trying to get that set up. But if all else fails, it'll at least be through our athletics Facebook page. Looking forward to that. That'll start before the first game.

_1_07-24-2025_162454: 48:37

Well, thanks again, hook. We appreciate it and hope to have you on again soon. Particularly if as. As we move in through a successful football season. But that'll do it for this track in the Katz episode. Brought to you as always by Stanbury Insurance with offices in Silva, Waynesville, and Highlands. And we will see y'all next time. I.