bob-sabin_1_01-22-2026_140222 0:12

Welcome to Tracking the Cats. I'm Bob Saban, along with my co-host Steve White, and we're here every couple of weeks. Every two weeks. As a matter of fact. This week we are as always actually brought to you by Stanbury Insurance. It's located in Silva, Highlands, Waynesville and Clyde, and they can serve your insurance needs no matter where you are in the Southeast. They're licensed in most states across Southeast, commercial, residential, auto, whatever. But Stan Insurance, we appreciate them for helping us pay for the software to keep us on the air. First thing we'd like to do today is mention the fact that we are on the radio with our broadcast partners, WCU 95.3 FM in Jackson, Macon and Swane Counties. We appreciate Don Connolly, the professor of communications, as well as Ryan Creel, the station manager. They're putting us on the air every Saturday. At 9:00 AM and you'll be able to hear the broadcast over the radio if you wish. And of course, we're always on YouTube and other podcast audio outlets. Today we have a repeat guest, our athletic director up in Colory, Kyle Piper. Welcome to the program Kyle.

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 1:30

I appreciate being here. And I'll also say I wanna say thank you to Stan Insurance. They're a good sponsor of ours too. Appreciate those people and what they do for us.

bob-sabin_1_01-22-2026_140222 1:36

Great, Steve, I think we've got a pretty good list of questions. Hopefully Kyle, you won't feel like you're on the hot seat too badly today. But a lot of interesting things going on in the athletic department.

squadcaster-5d8g_1_01-22-2026_140221 1:50

Yeah, when you're at the athletic department, you're always on a hot seat Kyle? Sometimes it's just moderately warm, but of course Kyle's been with us now for, what, around eight months, and took over like that was me a year ago. Was it November? When was it exactly? I'm trying to remember now. When it, was it in the spring of

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 2:13

It was spring. Yeah, it was May. It was that week just of the baseball tournament.

squadcaster-5d8g_1_01-22-2026_140221 2:18

Kyle the last week was the NCAA convention up in Maryland, outside of DC. And I know it was a nice place to visit and so forth. I don't know. What the atmosphere was there. But what are your thoughts? Maybe on the emphasis of last week's NCAA convention, what seemed to be the pressing matters, the things that had to be dealt with the most interest as far as that convention was concerned? I.

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 2:43

This convention I'd say there was a lot of updates a lot of information sharing. So as far as a point of emphasis goes, there wasn't anything too significant there. There's still a lot of talk about there needs to be change and, the issues with college athletics today. But really wasn't, we didn't have a lot of answers. We didn't have a lot of conversation about that more or than anything. We made some changes around the units for the NCA basketball tournament. We voted on that. Great. talked about the transfer portal, just the history. It's been eight years of the transfer portal to date. And so just some of the trends and things that have happened recently. So I think we're not done seeing change within recruiting calendars or any of those things, but that's some of the talk. And then we also had a presentation from the CSC, the College Sports Commission and they gave an update on some of the things that they've seen and done, and they're still trying to build out what it means for. us who have opted into the house settlement with kind of processing all the different payments information that have come through. So there's some growing pains there, but I think they're starting to get a handle on what they're doing.

bob-sabin_1_01-22-2026_140222 3:44

Was there anything that you learned or talked about up there that would significantly have impact on Western Carolina athletics or any of the things that we do?

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 3:55

Not necessarily. In fact, the one thing that I was expecting them to talk about make a change with was, were some of the things around commercial sponsorship specifically, like the Jersey patches. Everyone's talking about putting the logos on jerseys, and they were set to have a conversation. They ended up not, so now they're gonna have a different session for that coming up. The condition is a very high level. Conversation if you will. You're not there to really necessarily make a ton of changes. It is informational. It's more forecasting, talking about things that could come down. So nothing was too changing for Western Carolina. Athletics, just more, more or less getting us prepared and understanding that. Where we are the transfer portal, the share, talking about some of the things that we currently have, talking about some of the court cases around eligibility specifically, people are looking for a sixth, seventh, even eighth year of eligibility. Those were some of the things we talked about and what we expect to come in the coming months.

squadcaster-5d8g_1_01-22-2026_140221 4:52

Maybe talk about a little bit about your experience over in Nashville. I know that was probably more

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 4:57

Yeah.

squadcaster-5d8g_1_01-22-2026_140221 4:58

the NCAA convention, even that for the FCS awards. Of course, tiger Dickens Walter Peyton Award. There was runner up at the FCS I guess equivalent of the Heisman Trophy. The Nashville's re Yeah. Talk maybe about the na, the reception that Nashville. Put up there for the FCA championship game in the weekend. I know a lot of people were very impressed with what was going on over there. Yeah.

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 5:24

Received the ban. Really well done. The location, it was the first time that they had been in Nashville, so all this was new to the people hosting. I feel like they maybe had a little bit venue that was too small, even though it was really nice, really well done. A couple of different floors and they opened it up for some mingling. And it was really interesting to see the athletes talk to one another. When the three quarterbacks that were up for the Walter Payton Award kind of were all together and taking pictures, it was just a nice way for us to connect. And the other athletic directors were there. A lot of head coaches were there for these teams. Coach Bell was there with us. So that was a, it was a great experience. Obviously he got second he had a great season and so good for him. Moving on to the next day Sunday, there wasn't FCS. Event for athletic directors. So they had invited as many people that could be there. And I heard a little bit of the same thing from the convention. But it was a very directed at FCS level schools. Some things are on broadcast and maybe it was things that we could do with the championship to get it more, that Montana State game had just as good if not better ratings and some of the CFP games that same weekend. And what can we do with that momentum of college football at our level, the FCSI, I think that there's. There's a thirst for it. I think that people are realizing, just. And I'm not mad, and this isn't a negative, with the college football playoff, it, it's becoming more professionalized. And that's what it is. That's where we're headed. And I think you're looking at FCS, yes, there's revenue share. Yes that's a thing, but it's just not so overwhelming. And I think that there's something about, it's still college football that I think people are drawn to. And the city of Nashville, I've never been to Frisco, so I can't have anything to compare it to where it's been before. But Nashville was fun. The Montana State people, I actually. Flew in from the west coast after Christmas and playing fulls of those people just coming in to watch this game. They had a great time in Nashville and the city did a good job of being prepared and made it fun for that weekend.

bob-sabin_1_01-22-2026_140222 7:12

Oh, that's good. That's good. And it's good that it's so close assuming that we're going to get there at some point down the road.

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 7:20

it.

bob-sabin_1_01-22-2026_140222 7:21

And now that, that we're talking a little bit about football, the thing that everybody loves to talk about and loves to hate, of course, is the portal, at least on the fan side, is concerned. Tell us from your vision at the top of the pecking order there at Colorway, how did Western turn out with the portal watching,

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 7:40

yeah. We had we had, I hope I get these numbers right. I think we had 33 football players go into the portal. Of those five actually came back to return to Western, and then of those five, two went back again. Again. I think there's a lot of people that our student athletes listen to. And so whether that's good or bad, I think that sometimes. They know that our agenda is for Western Carolina and we're trying to support them. There are student athletes and I think when they get some advice from other people, sometimes they listen to that. And, that's one of the things that I think that, like the convention Charlie Baker, they all talk about getting their hands around tampering and some of the things that happen because. We all know that they're having conversations well before the transfer portal opens up. That's everywhere. And so what can we really do to enforce some of those recruiting rules? I think that we need to think about that the same time. We just had our first football team meeting yesterday and. Bell asked me to come say a few words. So I did, we did a show of hands. How many people are new and roughly half the room is new. And so that's not just transfers. We also, from division one, we also had some division two people come in. High school players are, now, it's more common for them to come in midyear and four go. They're eighth semester of high school. So it was a, it's a new crew. And so what I wanna say about the transfer portal, Liz. That's where we are. had a room full of football players who are Western Carolina, and I'm ready to pour myself into the those new athletes. And maybe they won't graduate from us. Okay, that's fine. But I want them to end up in a good spot when they leave here, regardless of the situation. And so I wanna do a good job of really educating these student athletes, what it means to transfer, what it means to, to. Even have a little bit of money if you get an offer from us or someplace else for revenue share, like managing that and making good decisions around your future because you only get to do this once and I wanna make sure that, we are pouring into the current student athletes who say they wanna be cat mounts and I'm proud of that team, that room. It was a good day. I'm ready for the next season.

squadcaster-5d8g_1_01-22-2026_140221 9:33

One of the issues that, that I see, and of course I think Bob does too, is particularly for players. Who transfer more than once. Now, how's that translating maybe into what you could pick up on graduation rates? Know it hasn't been that much time, but our coaches have to be traditionally stressed about. And it's, I don't know about the graduation, about the educational process along with the actual football on the field How

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 10:03

Yeah.

squadcaster-5d8g_1_01-22-2026_140221 10:04

How's that impacting here right now?

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 10:09

Not, but everywhere. And so even before, those, once, that's just statistic history. I haven't seen that really change too much yet. Which is a little surprising to me. I thought that when you did have a two or three different transfers, you're gonna lose those credits. But what I think is happening is, and good or bad, when you do transfer, you get to a new place. You do lose credits. You only have so many options as a transfer for your degree. And I want student athletes out there to really make sure that your education is still foremost and then not to get a degree that you're not interested in. to not go towards your degree at all, just take classes. I think that's where we're finding ourselves. A couple years ago we all talked about academic clustering and how everyone, every student athlete was going into the same degree and, that was a problem, right? We needed some variety with our student athletes and now there's just no choice. Once you transfer a couple times, not many options left for the degrees that can take that many transfer credits and you still graduate on time with the NCA requirements for academics.

squadcaster-5d8g_1_01-22-2026_140221 11:14

Yeah.

bob-sabin_1_01-22-2026_140222 11:14

The thing about graduation, and I loved your comment, pour into the the portal as it is, the issues. Could, what's the coach's perspective on, on all this is it's, I guess it's probably similar to yours.

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 11:30

It's I would say that especially the coaches who have been around for more than five years, let's say before the transfer portal really. Took effect, like we all talk about it today. It's that relationship side. And I'm not saying we're, we don't have that, we obviously have relationships with our players, we have people who are here for four years and all that. But when you when you're in and out so quickly, it is tough to build that relationship. And also with the transfer portal. a relationship before the portal. If they're at another university and you haven't talked to someone for two or three years, maybe you recruited them outta high school, maybe you didn't. It's such a compressed amount of time to learn who they are as a person and what they're trying to accomplish. So it's just so accelerated in that. Week and a half, two weeks of time when the transfer portal prob probably or finally opened this year for them to be enrolled on Monday of the first day of spring. Man, that is so fast and it's really hard to know when you, when, especially when you're recruiting 50 plus people on a football team. I think that's what the coaches struggle with is that they don't know. about the person that they're about to bring to campus and be a part of their team. And so you just, you gotta do your best with that. And I think that's what the coaches are struggling with is that relationship is harder to build right now because you just don't feel like you have as much

bob-sabin_1_01-22-2026_140222 12:42

And one last thing on the portal yesterday, on your webinar which was great, by the way. I really enjoyed you talking to hook for that hour. But you talked about portal isn't just for football, it affects all of our sports.

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 12:59

It does. That's from last year, from 24, 25 to this year. Not entirely, but when we had someone who. won a so on award or, got some notoriety some national award. Like they, we were likely trying, we were recruiting them to stay you recruit your entire roster to stay for the most part. But, it's that's where we are when we have an athlete that, that excels here that becomes a risk that we lose them. So one of our sports, I'll use tennis as an example. We had a roster of 11. I think we have two graduates. So that's great. We had two re two returning players, and so from a roster of 11 down to two, like that's, that was maybe more extreme than some of our other sports, but that's the reality of every sport, not just football.

bob-sabin_1_01-22-2026_140222 13:40

Yep.

squadcaster-5d8g_1_01-22-2026_140221 13:42

Kyle, every day I ride by the sky box and examine it, from every angle and everything like this, and I'm really impressed with the progress that's being made and looks very impressive facility. A lot of people don't really know what's going to be in that building. There's three levels there with the elevators and so forth. Maybe just a little quick description of what's on, one level, the other level, the third level, and so forth about what is going to be housed in there what function is going to play as far as athletics is concerned.

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 14:16

Game days first. That first level, the bank of glass that you'll see just above the side seating on game day, that's press box. And what I mean by press box, that also means the coaching boxes that will be up there the replay, the officials, the clock like that will all be game day function on that first level of glass, right above the seats, above that is gonna be, it's an open air. It won't be enclosed open air. Calling it the sky box. That's where the chancellor will host her guest. She used to host that in that area underneath the press box on the east side, she's moving over to the west side with her guests. And then there will be space for donors to buy in and sit and watch the game from up there as well. There'll be approximately with the tables and some of the chairs, a little over a hundred seats up there. We're gonna try to. Limit that to about 200 people for this first year and see how it goes. We just wanna make sure we feel the space. We don't want it overcrowded for the first season. If we can add a few, if we need to make some changes from one year to the next, even after the first game that's where we are. And honestly, we don't have the furniture yet, so I can't tell you exactly how the flow is gonna look like up there. I actually, I'm excited I get to take my first tour of the facility since the steel went in the ground tomorrow. So if you ask me this next week, maybe I'd have a little bit better answer of what it's gonna feel like up there. But that's gonna be game day. And then on 300 and what is that? 345 other days of the year that's gonna be the coaches' offices on that same level as a press box. So it's gonna be deep. So if you think about facing the field, you know it's gonna go back. Several feet. The entire coaching staff for football will move up there, hopefully in August before the first game. I don't wanna have to do that dur to them during the season. Moving can be a hassle. But that's gonna be what that is. And then once they're out of Ramsey Center, there's gonna be some other shifting around of offices. Get some people into Ramsey that maybe are out in the camp lab gym or just within Ramsey, make some different changes. So it's gonna, it's gonna affect who we are and how we operate.

bob-sabin_1_01-22-2026_140222 16:03

If we're looking at the whole stadium area right now, we see four posts standing up in corners of the stadium. Tell us a little bit about that. That's exciting.

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 16:15

Those are exciting. So those were our light poles. The old lights have come down. Four new poles will be set this spring, and then we'll have eight poles with brand new lights. I'm so looking forward to that first touchdown in Whitmeyer Stadium. This.

bob-sabin_1_01-22-2026_140222 16:29

Oh yeah.

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 16:29

fall, we're gonna have that night game against EKU, and we're gonna it's gonna be a fun show and we'll probably look at more night games in the future just because we have this capacity now not every game can be a night game for various reasons, but that's gonna be something that I look forward to. Will be open. The completion date is August 7th. it's gonna be done by then. Our partners at ENO are doing a great job, and they insure me. They're working on that. We will have new lights the surface, the actual playing surface of the field since we are flipping, but we are going to replace the entire playing surface before next season. With a new, it's gonna, it's called Pivot. It's from geos surfaces. So they're gonna start right after our spring practices end. Then in front of Ramsey right now is that video board, right? And we're gonna replace the video board for next season. So if you think about that if that video board's run its life, like I'm proud that it lasted as long as it did, but it was well past its time. Below it's that fixed digit and we're just gonna go video all the way down. So it'll be, it's gonna change the, we'll be surprised at how bright that thing is, especially that first night game. We're gonna have to make sure we don't turn the brightness on and blind some players on the field.

bob-sabin_1_01-22-2026_140222 17:32

Yeah. I was noticing on the some of the ffc FBS playoff games how schools would manipulate their video boards behind the goal post. If their team was kicking, it went black and if the other team was kicking it lit up like the city of New York, it was pretty, it was fun to watch.

squadcaster-5d8g_1_01-22-2026_140221 17:56

Kyle, you touched on this morning the athletic step, and we've also heard some about yesterday we heard about this too, talking about the. The new strength and conditioning, the proposed strength and conditioning building, which would be located between the west side stands and the existing field house down at the corner there. And talk about that plan what that's all about and so forth. I think that's be very interesting to our viewers.

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 18:23

Yeah, we've circulated some plans, what we think it'll look like. It looks pretty on paper. The reality is, I, in my opinion, it came back a little too expensive for what we thought we could build. So we went back to the design team the construction team, and said, okay let's reimagine this a little bit. So we're trying to get the cost down. The first cost that came out was around$22 million, so I. wanna make it a bit more realistic for us to achieve. It is so important that our teams have a place to get bigger, stronger, faster. The current weight room is great. It's been with us for a long time, but we've just outgrown it. Modern day athletics doesn't really fit where we are right now. So ourselves a space that we can say, this is where we will get better, this is how we will become more competitive. I think it'll be a cornerstone of. Our recruiting it will be something that will affect every student athlete's life, even our staff members, because we are in our current space starting early 6:00 AM going sometimes to eight o'clock at night, and it's that's a wear and tear on, on people on the equipment. And so to get something new, a new, brighter, nicer space is something I'm really looking forward to for our student athletes. But as, as soon as I have that new design, guys, I'll let you know so that we can really start circulating and raising money. We've made some masks and we've gotta. A small start towards it, but I wanted to get something more finalized before we really make a big public splash and get out there and start asking.

bob-sabin_1_01-22-2026_140222 19:36

And speaking of funding I understand there's gonna be some changes to how the Catamount Club raises money this year. There's a new funding level and there's gonna be some tweaks to the other levels.

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 19:59

Space up in the. To do that, we are asking people, one, they've made a sizable contribution to facilities in the last few years. It's a three year commitment. It's$25,000 a year of donation, plus the cost of the tickets. And that will allow people to go up there and I'm surprised how quickly those are going. There's not many left.

bob-sabin_1_01-22-2026_140222 20:19

Right.

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 20:20

if you're interested, get in touch with us because those are gonna be prime seats and what that'll mean, there'll be people from the current catalog corner, maybe some Paul's porch people. They will want to go to the sky box. And so that'll open up some other opportunities for people who are interested as well. So let us know. We're we're open. I wanna sell this pla place out. Our last homecoming game was super fun. I wanna recreate that as much as I can every day.

squadcaster-5d8g_1_01-22-2026_140221 20:44

Kyle switching a little bit to, a little bit a different subject here. The Southern Conference has expanded for the first time in a very long time. with addition of schools and they've added Tennessee Tech

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 20:57

Yes.

squadcaster-5d8g_1_01-22-2026_140221 20:58

impact that's going to have on scheduling. Maybe something about future expansion, if there's any thought out there, maybe your personal thoughts or what you think the I guess the feelings are around the conference about future expansion, but maybe talking about also what Tennessee Tech's going to, how that's going to impact us.

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 21:17

Started the season of football. They're their current women's soccer champions for their conference. So they're gonna be a program we have to deal with across the board. I think they put up. Public article a few days ago that they're gonna, they're aiming for a million dollars for revenue share for their football team specifically. And so you trickle that down for the rest of their program, that it's gonna be a good component, a good opponent for us moving forward. So looking forward to it. I've met their athletic director. He's a great guy. He's vocal, got some ideas about the SoCon and how we can become better. So I'm looking forward to his addition into the room. And then, talking about the rest of conference expansion, Steve. I like where we are. I like adding Tennessee Tech. Could we add one more? Potentially. When you look at who could be interested and not within our region,'cause we obviously all wanna be able to drive. We don't wanna have to take a flight to a state, but I think there's an opportunity there. And what I also think we have to watch out for is just because of how much change is happening state to state, federally, all the things that are going on. There might be a, another school out there that might wanna leave the SoCon. So we have to be nimble enough to be prepared to, to do that. Nothing imminent. I'm not saying that something is happening one way or the other, but I do think we just need to be prepared, I think, and Commissioner Cross has thought about that and he's had some conversations. He's let the eighties in on that. I'm, unfortunately, I'm not privy to, to give you all the details on that, but I think he's had some conversations with some universities and, but where we are right now with. Joining Tennessee Tech, they will be full members starting, I believe it's July one for the first year football season. Football schedules are set so far in advance. We couldn't accommodate nine full games for this upcoming 26 years. So we're all still gonna play our eight. We'll, miss one, actually, we're not gonna play VMI this upcoming season, but then for the 27 season and beyond, we'll be a full round robin again.

bob-sabin_1_01-22-2026_140222 23:06

And speaking of scheduling with the changes that we're going to a permanent 12 game schedule with the FCS week zero, starting the week before. Labor Day so that we can get the first playoff games in over Thanksgiving weekend. Love that idea. Love the fact that it's happening. Also now that we will be having nine conference games instead of eight, still leaves us with three non-conference games, this coming schedule with Cincinnati and Eastern Kentucky. And is it Campbell is the third one. Okay.

squadcaster-5d8g_1_01-22-2026_140221 23:42

and

bob-sabin_1_01-22-2026_140222 23:43

Oh, that's right. At Presbyterian because we only have the eighth. Yeah. Future years. How is that looking? I know we've got Georgia on the schedule. Do you think that'll still happen? Do we have anything else to be announced? Anytime that you can talk about.

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 23:57

Yeah, so the games that are out there for the next couple of years have been signed in talking to Coach Bell. Revenue share's real. And so I think he'd like to look at a, maybe a second money game, maybe a group of five somebody close by that we can drive to. The problem is, so does everybody else. And the a CC going to nine games, Georgia has not made any contact with us at all. A game of Soul on the schedule, got a contract, so we're looking forward to playing them. I would like to start talking about 29, 30, 31, and beyond. else is in a holding pattern too right now, because they don't know what their schedules are gonna look like. And honestly, the SCFP and how they select teams with wins and losses there, there's still some question marks around that as well. So we're in some conversations we've got some verbal agreements, I think, but there's always this asterisk. It's yes, we'll play you as long as our conference schedule. Works out the way we think it's going to, so we're in a bit of a holding pattern, but we'll still continue to play at least one game that, that pays us pretty well for WCUA year and then play some non-conference schedules that we hopefully can win and make the playoff.

bob-sabin_1_01-22-2026_140222 25:01

The Montana game a couple years ago, that was great and. I would love to see some other power FCS teams on the schedule. Is that anything like that been talked about?

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 25:12

Nothing like that in the near future. We I have some contacts, in fact at the convention I talked to a few people about that we could there's also teams right here nearby that can play us just as well.

bob-sabin_1_01-22-2026_140222 25:25

No.

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 25:26

When you. An FCS game, like going to Montana. We competed, obviously that was a great game. Not many people go out to Montana and win, and so we also wanna make sure that we're we can get some games that we can be competitive in. I don't, I love South Dakotas and the South Dakota states, not that they've offered us, but man, those are tough places to travel to and get a win. And so I wanna put our team in the best position to be

bob-sabin_1_01-22-2026_140222 25:47

Great. Steve, you got anything else that we need to talk about?

squadcaster-5d8g_1_01-22-2026_140221 25:52

I just attended the athletic department meeting this morning and very impressed with talking about of course, athletes is what it's all about, and very impressed with the accomplishments of many of our student athletes that you. To the audience about the coaches and staff and so forth. And this was very impressive and an update on where we are as far as budget's concerned. And I, again I'm very very excited about and like I say, I go back about 65 years in this organization and I feel better now. I think about. What's going on at

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 26:26

Good.

squadcaster-5d8g_1_01-22-2026_140221 26:27

I have in a very long time. It was always, I know it's always a struggle for us, but. don't know struggle till you go back to the seventies and the eighties. And and I think you have us in a good place right now in our administration. So excited about having Dr. Brown as our chancellor. And I think the hierarchy of this university's in very good shape. And she had some good news too about enrollment and so forth today. A very positive time for Western Carolina.

kyle-pifer_1_01-22-2026_140217 26:54

I appreciate you saying that, and you're right. I think having the chancellor on our side and, other campus partners pulling for us it's, it is a good time. We're all in alignment right now. Maybe we don't agree on every small detail, but for the most part, this place supports athletics and so I'm very fortunate to be in this position right now in 2026. Steve got a good group of coaches that are all working hard, so I appreciate that. And it doesn't help to have people like you, Steve or it doesn't hurt to have people like you, Steve. Congratulations hall of Fame, the college sports communicators gonna happen in June. That, we mentioned the Sky Box. And the press box. Who, it's gonna be the Steve White Media Center. I believe that's the official name. But Steve, I just you'll, you helped us build this and so if I can ever get into a hall of Fame I'll be humble. But man, I'm still proud of you. I get to See you every day, so congratulations to you, Steve.

bob-sabin_1_01-22-2026_140222 27:38

yeah.

squadcaster-5d8g_1_01-22-2026_140221 27:39

we missed you yesterday. We played Springdale and I know we, we played together over there before, and I know you like it and we missed you over there yesterday, despite the frozen greens and so forth. But, that's what you do when you get a little older. You get a little more, brain dead and it, the weather doesn't affect you quite as much. But we.

bob-sabin_1_01-22-2026_140222 27:57

That's not what you told me yesterday. You said you were still cold half an hour after getting home.

squadcaster-5d8g_1_01-22-2026_140221 28:03

I actually had my pajamas on under my golf pants yesterday,

bob-sabin_1_01-22-2026_140222 28:07

I feel honored and blessed also to have this opportunity to do it work closely with you, Steve, having known you for 54 years now. And very happy for you to see this success and the honors that are being bestowed on you. And Kyle, we appreciate having you here for the last half hour. It's been good, informative, and we're gonna wrap up this session of tracking the cats. We will brought to you as always by Stanbury Insurance and we will see y'all again in two weeks on tracking the cats.