Ep 65 - Parker Long - From Sikeston Standout To College Coach At Three Rivers

A lot of basketball stories sound clean when you tell them later. Parker Long doesn’t tell it that way. He’s a former Sikeston Bulldog standout who’s now coaching at Three Rivers College, and he walks with us through the real stuff: the pressure of arriving from Alabama, the shock of Sikeston’s standards, the joy of a town that shows up for you, and the moments when you realize you’ll never get that exact kind of support again.

We talk recruiting and the messy middle between “big dreams” and real opportunities. Parker breaks down elite camps, Division II respect, Division I expectations, transfer rules, and the transfer portal reality where your phone blows up while the business side stays cold. He’s honest about times he lost focus, what injuries did to his confidence, and why opportunity and fit matter as much as talent. If you care about high school basketball recruiting, college hoops development, or what it takes to earn minutes, you’ll hear the parts most people skip.

Then the story turns toward coaching. Parker explains the shift from player ego to serving the team, how to build trust with athletes, why culture starts with who you recruit, and what he’s learning as he helps rebuild a JUCO roster. We also hit quick hitters on the best players he’s played with and against, the toughest practices, and the Sikeston memories that still stick.

Subscribe to The Doghouse, leave a review, and share this with a friend who loves Sikeston basketball and real coaching talk. What’s one lesson sports taught you the hard way?

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Transcript

Bulldog Nation Cold Open

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Alright, Bulldog Nation, it's time to get in the dog house. This is where Sykes and Pride lives, where we tell the stories that make this town special. From the legends of the past to the faces shaping our future. Whether it's basketball, community, or just that good old Bulldog grit, we've got you covered. You're listening to the dog house, the voice of Sykes. What is up, Bulldog Nation? Coming back to you for episode 65, season two, episode 23, Micah. Man. That's unbelievable. We have we are now on since you and I've been here, I think we've now had 50 episodes. Yeah, because we started with 15. 15. Yeah. So I guess technically this would be 51 if you want to look at it that way. Yeah. Because we would count 15. But you are Micah Harris. I'm Matt Tanner. Thank you again for listening. We have a great show for you this week. We have former Bulldog standout, Mr. Parker Long. I think you guys are going to love this episode. It was fun. We've we've recorded it actually since we're we've we've we kind of got so much stuff going. We recorded it when Parker was able to come over. We'll get into his journey a little bit, but Parker is now. Oh, you got it. Parker is now with three rivers. Three rivers. And so we'll get into all of that. I swear.

SPEAKER_03 1:41

Well, I guess it's right. I mean, like, we'll go with that. We're checking out something on Misha's website. So kind of junior high. Junior High Baseball is what we're checking out.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

So yeah, we lost to Kenneth. There we go. Okay. I don't know why they put it junior high than eight.

SPEAKER_03 1:56

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

So we're that would be seven seven and one now. Yeah. Okay. There you go. Okay. I I thought we did. Okay. Okay. Anyway, we'll we'll get to that anyway. Parker, again, Parker's at Three Rivers. We appreciate his time. We'll get into his journey. And and I appreciated his candidness.

SPEAKER_03 2:14

I do too. He was very open and honest and just genuine.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

It was very genuine.

SPEAKER_03 2:21

It was. About some things that probably most people wouldn't talk to. I mean, not saying he's nothing bad. Nothing bad.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Nothing bad. He just said, hey, I made some mistakes. I I should have done this different. I should have done this different when I was playing ball kind of thing. And he owned up to him like a man and and said, hey. But he's he's he's he's nothing egregious or anything like that. Nothing bad. But he just said I I should have done some things differently. And that was that takes that's being a young man. He's growing into a man and accepting some responsibility for some things that you should have done differently. And that's I think it's great. That's great. But anyway, we won't we won't spoil a surprise. You guys listen to it. It's fantastic. One of the one of the just an outstanding player from an outstanding time. And we've had just hosts of great players over through we've been blessed to have that that level of player play here and

Sponsors And Community Partners

SPEAKER_00 3:15

play for Coach Hollyfield and be part of Bulldog Nation. So we're we're blessed. And speaking of that, we're blessed to have two terrific partners with us. Mercy Phoenix, Jody Cheney. Saw Jody today, by the way. Did you? He is something else. I'm gonna tell you.

SPEAKER_03 3:29

He is a Well, that's one way to describe him.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

That's the best way I know how to describe him. Jody is something else. He's something. He is something. He's gonna have a new his first grandson in June. Tucker, who we talk about Tucker a lot, helps me with the video editing and things like that. Tucker will have his first child, which is a son, but his He's got like He's got three, I think four, five, or six granddaughters. Yeah. This is the first grandson. And uh his other two sons have kids already. And so he will have this will I actually I think they got four. Four shoot. Shoot me. And then but this will be the first grandson. So we talked about that today. But we are blessed to have Mercy Phoenix as a partner with us. They are healthcare staffing solutions, EMT EMS. Again, we talked about it before.

SPEAKER_03 4:22

They are looking to hire even CNAs and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

CNAs and stuff like that. That's right. And we've Micah and I have shared some posts that Mercy Phoenix has put out. They're looking for some employees to fill some spots. If that is you, give them a shout. Mercy Phoenix, and it's Mercy's spelled with an I-M-E-R-C-I. And you can find them at Mercyphoenix.com or on their Facebook page, and there'll be an ad for them coming up in this episode, and you can reach out to them and hear more of what they got to talk about. And we're also blessed to have Greengrass Guys as our other sponsor, our other partner, David Bizzle, D Bizzle. They do a terrific job of making your yard look unbelievable. And they've got an announcement. Did you see their podcast I did? I didn't know what it was, but I mean I I meant to talk to D today, but that literally the day just got away from me. I was gonna call him and say, hey, what's the what's the surprise? But they've got a big announcement coming, so stay tuned for that.

SPEAKER_03 5:18

Be on the watch out, like their Facebook page.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Yeah, just just like here, right? Like their page. Same thing for Mercy Phoenix, like their page, follow them, and you can send them messages, DMs, or or even if you got relatives that live out of out of the area for Mercy Phoenix, let them know, you know, like they're that do that type of work, you know? Yep, yep, because they're looking not just here in different parts of the Midwest, so to speak. Yeah, yeah. They're looking to hire some folks. And D will speaking about go back to Greengrass Guys, D and them will get your yard looking right. They've got the baseball field looking right, the junior high field at the junior Babe Ruth field at the complex. They've done that. They've done the soccer field, the football field, I think I said the baseball field, I mean the practice football field, they did that. It just looks amazing. Man. And they do great work. They're unbelievable. And so again, we're proud that they are partners with us, and they're our visions align with what we're trying to do with our community. And again, we say it all the time, but a rising tide lifts all boats, and that's what we're we're about, and that's what they're about. So very happy that that that they have the same thing. Our weekly shout-outs, shout out to Luke for our graphics that you see on here. Shout out to my wife, Erin, for she's under the weather a little bit, but she did allow us to come down here. Probably better that we're out of her hair. Probably kind of been feeling a little under the weather, so we'll get out of her way. And our general nuisance, Justin, our my Actually, I shouldn't talk too bad about him. He did go to the Masters Sunday.

SPEAKER_03 7:00

Have you talked to him since? I haven't talked to him.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Yeah, I talked to him. He called me Monday when he was driving back when he got back in Memphis and was driving home. I was just I was checking in to make sure he got my swag. And he said he did. So that's what matters. Exactly. Oh, I I'll share this because he can't, he's not on here. He said he met Caitlin Clark.

SPEAKER_03 7:20

Really?

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Mm-hmm. He met Caitlin Clark. At the Masters? He did. He said he was on number two T-Box and there's a tree, and you can kind of go on one side of the tree and one side of the other, and then he tried to figure out where to go. So he went, I think he said went to the left, and she was standing there with Lexi Hull, who is he he said he said or error. See who that I can't remember who she who somebody told. Maybe she's she's an MMA fighter. No. Or am I coming up with her name? Lexi Hull. Maybe an MMA fighter. But he said, Oh, are you Sophie Cunningham? She goes, No. He told Caitlin, he said, Well, you're you're the reason I watched the MBA, WMBA at all.

SPEAKER_03 8:07

She's a basketball player, Lexi Hull.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Lexi Hull is? Yep. Okay. Oh no, I thought she was a golfer. Lexi Hull. Is that not right? That's what they said, not MMA. Oh, okay. I stand corrected. Somebody told me that's right, not MMA.

SPEAKER_03 8:20

She's actually a teammate of Caitlin Clark.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Well, there you go. So so but he was going to say if it was Sophie Cunningham, who is a teammate of Caitlin Clark, so he was going to get M I Z. She's from the zoo, but wasn't her, but that was his. He's always meeting in the city.

SPEAKER_03 8:35

I know.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Again, that's why he's a general.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

Didn't he ride an elevator once with like Adam Sandler or something like that?

SPEAKER_00 8:42

I don't know. Let's stop giving him that much credit. He's at least he tells a story like that. Well he does, but he didn't take me with him.

SPEAKER_03 8:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

That's the problem. He has no proof of this. True. And that's what he said. I was reaching for the phone, and he goes, Well, I guess I'll just have to remember this. That's what he told him. Because you can't take your phones into Augusta. So yeah. You know what? He may be lying.

SPEAKER_03 9:05

We'll take him at his word.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

We'll give him Ben. Or we'll take it up. Or we'll take it up in grievances. That's when we'll take it up. We'll take it up in grievances at our annual festivist. We need to do that this year. I know. We missed it last year.

SPEAKER_03 9:16

We kind of missed it the last two years, really.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Yeah, it was.

SPEAKER_03 9:19

It's tough, but we'll get it. We'll get it going. We gotta get some of those traditions going back.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

We do, we do, we do. Let's move on from the general nuisance. Again, shout out to Tucker for his help with my video video editing. Derek James, Brian James. And speaking of them, Brian gave me access, and I got a new phone today, and Micah, I'll have to show you when we get done. If it's uploaded. Yeah. He yeah. He gave me, he being Brian gave me access to a Google Doc of all kinds of statistics from Bulldog. He said, You will go crazy over this. So he says, he goes, have access to it. It's a proverbial. If I get hit by a bus, somebody needs to know where this is, kind of thing. I'm not the only other one that has access to it, but Deege does and some others. So he said you can get a lot of stats on there. So I will be putting that in Chat GPT and tell me tell me some cool stats out of there. So but anyway, thank you to Brian and Deege for Derek James for the history, the stats, the knowledge. The knowledge, the lore, as we say, the stories.

SPEAKER_03 10:29

I still think we need to probably bring them both on its own. I agree at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

I totally agree.

SPEAKER_03 10:34

That might be a summer episode.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Agreed. Totally agree. A hundred percent. We'll I'll twist our arm. I think Derek would be up.

SPEAKER_03 10:41

Brian is the like who beat who in the driveway at basketball.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Those are the questions Bulldog Nation wants to know.

SPEAKER_03 10:52

Who beat who at chess? I bet that was probably a good match.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Yes, and if it's music trivia, Derek would be the winner. I can just about tell you. I don't even have to ask. I know music trivia, trivia kind of in general, is Derek's deal. Because he and Jenkins and Voorhees and

Community News And Trivia Nights

SPEAKER_00 11:10

those guys win all the trivia things.

SPEAKER_03 11:12

Speaking of trivia, we're doing trivia next Friday night in in Dexter. It's Boot Hill Behavioral Health's 50th anniversary this year. And we're doing a trivia night as one of the celebrations of that next Friday night at the Catholic Church some uh somewhere over in Dexter. In Dexter. Okay. But also also do at the same time, I also know that there is a a trivia night here next week too at the JC Barn for Montgomery Bank for three or Kenny Rogers.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Oh okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 11:46

Well they weren't planned on purpose, but right.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

If you like trivia, sounds like you got two good opportunities. So both of them great community great reasons to be involved. Kenny Rogers, certainly, and with Boot Hill.

SPEAKER_03 12:03

I do know that the money like raised for this uh the Boot Hill Behavioral Health, this trivia night is going to be given to CIT, which is a program of crisis intervention team, uh which law enforcement they'll be giving money for scholarships for to go to CIT training. Okay. And uh that is in in memory of Angela Lutner, which was a boot hill employee. Boot hill employee that was a big part of CIT. Yep, and and everything. So that's kind of we're looking forward to that.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Yeah, no, she's I I I rem I remember that, and we talked about that with Charlie and Scott when they were on here. They talked about CIT. Right. Yeah, so no, I uh that that's great. And obviously, Boot Hill's an unbelievable community resource to have. I know Micah obviously Micah works there, and they're just an unbelievable organization led by an unbelievable person who is David Terrell. Again, we've had him on here and speaking of that.

SPEAKER_03 13:08

I mean, like the founder of of uh like the head director at one time, uh Ron Steinmanz passed away this not his wife, his wife passed away. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

His wife, his wife, his wife passed away last week. Ron was a very nice or is a very nice man. We've had fortunately we've had some death this week. I don't want to go into mention all of them on here, but yeah, yeah, it's it's kind of a tough time right now, but the good Lord is faithful, he will give us grace and strength when we ask, and we'll continue to pray for those families as well. So and finally, our last but certainly not least, shout out Mr. Tyler Anderson, a Twisted Arrow woodworking for a cool sign on the wall. He made that for us. And if you need something like that, I he puts on Instagram all the time, Facebook, makes some cool stuff, and he is uh he is a magician and artist with wood to make all those things. And why if he can make me a tabletop? Oh, probably. Yes, yes, yeah, there's a whole long story to that. We won't get you involved in all that one, but yes. I I don't want to speak for Tyler.

SPEAKER_03 14:16

I think I'm gonna try it myself.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_03 14:19

I do, I think I'm gonna try it.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Okay. Well, if if you don't leave now, you have another. I might call him up for expertise

Where To Listen And Follow

SPEAKER_00 14:25

or something. There we go. There we go. Please like and follow, share, review the doghouse on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Please be part of our community. That's what keeps pushing us. Man, I wish we have really had Mike a couple of really good weeks with numbers of, I mean, it's 30, 40, 50 downloads a day, which is really, really spiking for us. Yes. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 14:53

I wonder if some of that's got to do with the more YouTube we're getting out there kind of.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Possibly.

SPEAKER_03 14:58

I mean, yeah, I mean I I I I can't say either that or we just had some really good guests.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

We've I I think it's a combination of it, really. We're closing in on thousand followers on Facebook, TikTok numbers are picking up. I mean, Will for last or well, I guess this week's guest technically that's running. He had over six thousand views on his Facebook that picture was like sixty close to sixty five hundred. And so all of that together is starting to drive people to go back and and it's older, you know, it's the new stuff, but some of the older episodes like some people that just now get enough just now figuring out who we are. And so again, thank you very much. We appreciate that. That it just solidifies what we're doing, right? I was gonna use validate. Validates. That's a that's even a better word. It validates kind of what we're doing, and we appreciate it very, very much. So again, continue, like and share and follow, uh, review. You can give us you can review us on all of the uh podcast uh channels, which are Amazon or Apple, Spotify, Amazon, iHeartRadio. There's just a there's a host probably 20 of them that we're on, and you can catch us on all of them. There's FM or something player, I can't think of all of them now.

SPEAKER_03 16:24

Buzz this comes from Buzz Buzz Sprout.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

Buzz Sprout is our our podcast hosting site, and we have an embedded so we have a website, the doghouse.buzzsprout.com. You can go on there and find all of our old episodes or our previous episodes, not old previous. You can listen to them on there, or you can listen to them on those other podcast channels. There's an embedded player on our website, and it tells there's bios about all of us, all the other episodes. You can rate them, you can you know send us messages on there, you can do a whole host of things on there, and it it's just it's a really cool thing to have, and we're we're blessed to have that as well. So again, thank you for listening to that. Check out all check out all the episodes on on all those different channels. If you need to send us an email, doghouse.sy ston at gmail.com. Yeah, I get it right on my phone. So if you email us, we're gonna get it. You can send us a message, a private message or or an instant message, whatever, on Facebook or anything on any of our other social media. Yep. Anywhere you want to reach us. Yep. Still got our still got some swag available if you uh need some sweatshirts. I'm still waiting on some folks to get back to me on some other gear and swag that we're thinking about, and uh hopefully that'll be soon. And before we go, before we cut everybody loose and get into our guests this week, I want to give a shout

Listener Shoutout And Local Sports

SPEAKER_00 17:52

out to Mr. Kale Meyer. He I know his mother and Megan. And last Friday night, Aaron and I and Brian and Emily James, we went to El Cerrito after the baseball game. Well, it got yeah, early uh got after the 15 inning or sixth inning or something. It started raining. That was against St. Genevieve. St. Genevieve, yeah. Yeah. And so we ended up going to El Cerrito to eat Mexican later that or that night, and Kale and his mom are in there, and she sent me a message and she said, My son was starstruck, and I was like, by me? Send him over. Yeah, yeah. And she said, Oh, he listens to all your podcasts, he watches them and all that stuff. And I was like, it's awesome. So tell him thank you. Kale from Matt and Micah, we thank you very much for listening and watching our podcast. And we just want to give you a shout out this week. Thanks for being a loyal listener.

SPEAKER_03 18:49

Amen to that. I was gonna kind of bring up a maybe a future guest that we're trying to work on. Yeah. They're they actually have a kind of event coming up. They're doing like, I guess, soft launches this next couple weekends on Saturday at 6 a.m. It's called uh F3. Uh-huh. Um and it's uh basically faith, family. Faith, faith, fitness, and faith, fitness, and family, I think. Fellowship. No, it's faith, fitness, and fellowship is what it is.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Are you sure?

SPEAKER_03 19:26

Yes, I am. I'm positive. Faith. And anyway, we're gonna try to get them on soon to kind of explain their program, but it's like exercise type program, along with like some fellowship with men and also like to to do a little bit of devotional type type thing. So uh I'm actually gonna try to go Saturday morning at six to to check it out.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

That's why they call it oh 600, because oh my gosh, it's early.

SPEAKER_03 19:54

The other the other options are because they've got this going on like in Dexter, and I think maybe somewhere further west, is like 6 a.m. or 5 a.m. on a Tuesday and Thursday. So I'm gonna go so I'm gonna go Saturday morning at six.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Get after it. Let me know. Gummit, Mike. We I just we're gonna give a quick shout out, real quick. The junior high baseball team is seven and one. They had one loss to Malden. That's what we're looking at here. I'm fiddling with his phone. I left mine upstairs. Like I said, I got a new one. They lost uh 21 to 16 in a uh uh slow pitch softball game, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 20:33

I was like, man, that's like that is a slow pitch softball score.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Mm-hmm. And so they've had their seven and one. Shout out to them. Shout out to the girls' soccer team as well. I know that they beat a good, actually, we're gonna pull them up here. They beat a good Farmington team, they beat them one to nothing.

SPEAKER_03 20:49

Girls soccer team is they beat Cape yesterday or something. Uh one day this week or something.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

They beat Cape three to nothing. They are four and four on the season. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 21:00

Wasn't one of them like on a last, I don't know, like a last minute kick or something.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

They lost in Carbondale to Collinsville. They lost one to nothing on penalty kicks and lost to Marion two to one on penalty kicks. And then they beat Saxony in overtime, it said one to nothing.

SPEAKER_03 21:15

And I think that was on like a like a throw-in. I've seen a video of like where they did the flip, the flip. No, Sykes didn't do it. Flip throw-in.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

No, against Saxony.

SPEAKER_03 21:26

Against Saxony, I think. I think it was against Saxony. Okay. And they did a flip throw-in and it hit like they were able to kick it in for a go. Really I mean, like I've I've seen the video, but I I I don't know enough about soccer to really know they're it looked pretty impressive to me, though. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

They're four and four, and I know uh Kenny Sims is a next level division one soccer player, so I know she's uh she's a standout for them. So I know they've had a really good year, and actually uh Coach Dement's daughter made the goal to beat maybe that game again. In Saxony, I saw it on on social media. Jennifer, Coach Dement's wife, and we've had Coach Dement on. She said peep the hug between the coach and his daughter.

SPEAKER_03 22:10

And I think I think I think the person that threw it in was maybe Mia Sip Slippus. Slippus? Slippus. Mia Slippus, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Okay. I think she's very athletic. If she did a flip, she pro I mean she's a she's a cheerleader. She's all she's been a gymnast her whole life. So she probably did do that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

So I I think that was the one I seen with because I think her mom, Jennifer, actually shared it.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 22:32

And uh it was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

If I'd been over that far, I'd probably just fall over.

SPEAKER_03 22:37

Oh, me too. Pass out.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

I don't know how they they just go They bend down and do a flip, and then when they come up, they get all their momentum and sling an inbounds. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:46

It's pretty impressive.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Agreed. Agreed. Well, again, give shout-outs to Bulldog Nation whenever we can. We appreciate it. And thanks for listening to the Bulldog, excuse me, the Dog House once again, episode 65, Mr. Parker Long coming right up.

Parker Long Joins The Show

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Hey, thanks for sticking with us after the break. We're moving on to our VIP, what are we going to call him? Illustrious or infamous, maybe? Did we say infamous? He got a bunch of T's in high school. He might have been infamous.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

So we don't he may be a record setter for T's.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

And not get kicked off. But he he got in trouble. So we'll maybe maybe we'll dive into that a little bit. Anyway, let's let's without further ado, let's move on to our to our guest and I will introduce him. Our next guest is a former Bulldog standout who knows exactly what it means to wear Sykston across your chest. Parker Long built his name in Bulldog Nation with toughness, competitiveness, and a love for the game. And now he's carrying those same qualities into coaching as an assistant at Three Rivers College. From his days making an impact on the floor at Sykston to now helping develop college players from the bench, Parker's basketball journey has come full circle in a big way. We're fired up to catch up with one of our own talk hoops, growth, coaching, and what it means to keep representing Sykeson at the next level. Parker Long.

SPEAKER_03 24:13

Welcome to the Doghouse. I'm happy to be here. Welcome to the Doghouse. Yeah, absolutely. We've been Well, I know I'd like whenever I seen one he I guess you posted or something that you were going to through. I was like, I text Matt, I was like, we gotta get him on.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Yeah. We had been talking and trying to figure out when we can do it, and of course we'll get into your journey, but he was mostly recently at Rolla.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

S Talla S T Missouri S T. Yeah, yeah. It should still be Missouri Rolla. Right. Right. It used to be UMR. UMR.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

S T what's S like Science and Science and Technology. Yeah, that's right. And so it he was most recently there, and we can do a virtual thing, and you you kind of said I might be doing some stuff, and you were kind of real like mysterious about it and didn't tell me.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

This is the best time and now.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

Right, right, right. He was kind of mysterious when you were getting ready to take this job, I guess, as it turns out. And so I was like, okay, well, we'll we'll figure it out. We'll get a date. And so it worked out, and we're we're just very proud to have you here. Thanks for taking some time coming over. He's he's now in in in the bluff, as we say, and back to the flatlands. Yep. I love it. He's not in flat close to flat, but that's true. Popper Bluff's not, it's not super. Well, that's the foothills of the Ozarks.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

Well, they say well the beginning of the Ozarks, they have a sign when you're getting out. Like it's the foothills of the Ozark.

SPEAKER_03 25:44

Yeah. Actually, actually, it's not too far from the highest point in Missouri. I think is just a little bit north of Popper Bluff, actually. I did not know that. I didn't know that either.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

You're just full of like useless novels.

SPEAKER_03 25:55

It's at Boy Scout camp, the Boy Scout, like Mount Llewellyn over there or something like that. Really?

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Okay. Well, I thought the arch was the highest point in Missouri.

SPEAKER_03 26:03

That may be, but I mean, but I'm talking about actual like I'm learning right now. I'm talking about I'm talking about elevation. And I I just know what's in that area. I couldn't tell you exactly where it's at, but I know it's over now.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Okay. And as as Brian James says, in the general vasectomy. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So Parker graduated high school 29. You're here 2018. Yeah. Or I'm sorry, 2017, 2018. 2018, 2019. Tell us about

Alabama Roots And Competitive Start

SPEAKER_00 26:34

your career here. Tell us kind of about how how things went. Ended on a sour note, basically.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Well, first, you know, we started in Alabama as as little dudes in the driveway, Owen and I playing one-on-one. My dad, you know, coaching us up. You played you played eighth grade.

SPEAKER_03 26:53

That's high school. That's what I was at.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

You played varsity as an eighth grade. Is that right? Which is in Alabama. Is that still good? Did you lose a year of eligibility? And they said no because you that's the rule in Alabama.

SPEAKER_03 27:12

They just had an eighth-grade quarterback win state a couple years ago at Thompson. Really?

SPEAKER_01 27:17

Probably to his brother. It's probably him.

SPEAKER_03 27:19

No, I think it was just it's he's still playing.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

Oh, he's still playing? Holy cow.

SPEAKER_00 27:24

So anyway, sorry, I cut you off. No, you're good.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Yeah. You're good. So we we started out as little dudes and kind of trying everything baseball, football, basketball, and you know, we we kind of decided basketball was our thing and we loved it. And you know, we started out just one-on-one and competing and fighting, fighting, and you know, we kind of got into the AEU things in Birmingham and played with some really good players and just kept on just working and working and working and we had big dreams.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

And and your dad, for those that don't know, played at UAB. He was a Division I basketball player, so that's he kind of blazed a path for you guys and knew kind of the work and the things to do to get there. And that was a big help, I'm confident, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

Yes. And and I mean being in Jasper, there were still good athletes and good competition. Yeah. You know, we more football guys, but you know, some of those guys could play basketball too, just right. It's more of a football area, football town, and the state of Alabama, y'all know, roll tide in the shaving. So here we go. You know, but you know, we we when we were in Jasper, we learned, like, you know, that you don't back down from anybody.

SPEAKER_03 28:38

You know, you go at whoever, whoever it is, wherever they're from, you know, you don't Jasper is a suburb of like a subdivision of Birmingham, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 28:47

Kinda. I mean it's about 40 minutes. Yeah, it's 45 minutes. Yeah, 45 minutes. It's about like Festus. Uh yeah, kind of that's more Cordova, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

Something like Festus to St. Louis. Yeah, I would say Cordova. Yeah, kinda.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

But we we were playing all the, so we were 6A, so we were playing the big dogs in Inner City Birmingham, Jackson Olin, Minor, Carver. So there were some dudes, you know, you gotta be ready to go. So that got us prepared. And then, you know, we're fortunate enough to we were we were thinking, you know, just the way, you know, it was going at Jasper. We had two years left, and my dad was kind of thinking, like, is this the best situation for for y'all? And you know, Coach James had always they had always talked about, man, wonder if they were bulldogs and all that. And I remember Owen and I came up here and visited with dad in seventh grade, and I remember I remember see there was a guy over there shooting on a on a on over on the on the goal at the fifth and sixth outside on the court. It was Trey Jenkins. Oh, was it really? Me and Owen and Trey all three, we were just we were shooting together, and we never knew in the future we would all be teammates. So that's crazy. It's pretty crazy that how that worked out. That is. That is. So we uh we were fortunate. We got over to Sykston and you know moved to town and got settled in, and I don't think Owen and I knew what was we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into, but and Owen is your twin brother.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

For those that don't know, uh Parker has a twin, Owen, that played basketball. He's a great basketball player as well.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

The first time at rodeo, I was like, whoa, this is it's pretty different.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

Yeah, because that's about the time y'all got here, July, August, whatever. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

That's late July.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

Yeah, and I was I was kind of nervous and you know Aaron and Emily tried to make y'all feel at home, bringing y'all candy and shirts and swag, and all and y'all thinking, who are these crazy people?

SPEAKER_01 30:40

I was just standing against the wall like a little scared puppy. I was shy and scared, but yeah, we the people here were great, and we got selled in quickly. And once basketball started, we were ready to go to work. And I remember, you know, practice going up to it, you know, just the way we worked with Coach Halfield, and just, you know, we were like soldiers just working and and you know, having us running. I we had never run like that before, and just the way routinely how he had everything set up, and it was just it was big time. So I remember we were standing out before the first game, and oh and I were standing there and we were like, whoa. Like we had never seen anything like that before, too.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

I think it was was it was Confluence the first game we played?

SPEAKER_01 31:25

My senior year was yeah, let's see. I can't remember. It was St. Louis school, it was a it was a city school out of St. Louis. I don't know if it was Carnac's Carnahan? Carnahan. Yeah. It was Carnahan.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

Was it here?

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Yep. We beat the brakes off them. Yeah, we won. Yeah by lot.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

But yeah, yeah, because that because your senior year, we scored like 72 points in the first half. Remember up there against Confluence?

SPEAKER_02 31:49

Yeah. Oh no, no, no. It was at home.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

That was Carnahan.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

That was my senior junior, it was at home against Carnahan. That's what it was. So that's right. That was a fun game. Fred played well. Owen hit like five or six threes. Kevin did his thing. Yep. Uh Don, Peyton, and I were up, you know, pressing full court. I mean, it was it was a great first game and got our feet wet, and just like, hey, this is what it is. Like, this is a serious thing, and you know, if we want to win and it was fun and everything, and then you know, we ended up making it to the Final Four and you know, get beat by Grandview, which they had a bunch of dudes. So shout out to my teammate Campo Easy, who uh I played with at Meryville. He was on that team. That's right. And Jordan Lathan, Sorrells, they had the Kansas State big old football dude, and they had the guy who was committed to Air Force. I mean, they had a lot of players too. The coach's son, who lit us up, so they were a really good team.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

But matter of fact, I don't know if you knew this. The head coach at Grandview was a head coach at Raytown South who we just beat.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Reggie Morris, is that his name?

SPEAKER_01 32:52

Something like that. And and his two assistants were former Grandview, at least one of them, the main assistant, was Jordan. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

And he, yeah, he talked, they both talked to Coach Hollyfield. He told me that he talked to them after the game. That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

Yeah. So I actually I was sitting with the oppositions. I was sitting with Camp Though Easy and Sorell was on that side for a little bit on the Raytown.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

At Raytown game?

SPEAKER_02 33:12

At the Raytown game this year. And I was like, I was sitting there and I was sitting with them talking to him. I was like, I don't feel right sitting over here with y'all. So I was over there for a good 10 minutes. I was ready to get back over on the Sykeson side.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

But it's it's good seeing those guys in Camp though. He's a good guy. And yeah, you know, he didn't, he he he made sure to let me know he flex his two rings at me when we got to bear view.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

Here we go. You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

That was a good game. It was a tough game. We should have won, but it's part of it. We had a really good team, and it took a lot, you know. We had a lot of egos and personalities on that team, and you know, I think we did a you know, it's sometimes hard. And shout out to Coach Halfield and Coach James and the staff for for handling all the different personalities and talent levels and putting it all together. And we we want to probably look at that different now, being on the coaching side of it.

SPEAKER_03 33:57

Yes, 100%. Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

It's a coach says that he's he's as much psychiatrist as he is, coach, too, dealing with all the the oh yeah, craziness of the of the kids, or not craziness, just the personalities, egos, yes, up and down, temper. You know, Parker was always right.

SPEAKER_03 34:18

He was just an inch away from being a fused.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

Well, you know, you want coach loves that aggressiveness. That's what he wants. Parker would go right there, maybe his toe over, and he's like, okay, I gotta dial this one, you know.

SPEAKER_02 34:34

You know, you'd stab him. Hey, go get go get him.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

Yeah, you stab him with a stick, you know, and you're poking him and poking him, and then he goes a little bit too far, and you gotta pull him back in a little bit. That happens. That happens. Nothing nothing egregious, but just got a little very ultra aggressive. How about that? He was very invested. Yes, yes, and there was no question he was gonna play hard and play to the max effort every possession. And that's that's what it takes to win. That's the and you know that's the kind of effort that you have to have.

SPEAKER_03 35:06

Yeah, well, I remember watching like Huddle from like when they were down in when they were coming from Alabama to get out of here. Oh, see, I've never even watched that. And I I remember watching some other, I was like, your brother Owen was the shooter. I mean, like and then when I started watching, I was like, this guy's got handles and you can shoot too.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

And he yeah, Parker could shoot. It wasn't yeah, it wasn't like you were had a broke jumper or nothing.

SPEAKER_03 35:27

But I mean, like Owen was the like the supposed

Sikeston Runs And Big Games

SPEAKER_03 35:30

shooter.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Yeah, so yeah, you were the gritty, fight somebody, rip their head off. Yeah, theoretically rip their head off. Not not really.

SPEAKER_02 35:40

I really did want to rip somebody. Both of them's head off sometimes. Hey, I was right somebody's head off sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 35:45

Both of them were great players, though. No, of course, of course they were. It was just like kind of a pleasure, because all you heard about was the shooter, you know, kind of leading up to coming, and then like, oh he could play too. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 35:57

Like I I remember your breakout game scoring wise was against Notre Dame. Fred was hurt, and we had to have somebody step up and get some buckets, and you had like 21 that night or 22.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

It was 20, 20 something. Yeah, but yeah, that was a fun game.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

Stepped up and beat they were a good team.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Yeah, yeah. I mean, Dohan that game, always good Trey Jenkins, you know, stuff about that. Did he get some buckets? Uh Dohan had like 36 or something, right? He made sure to let me know that when I was at SEMO and he was a pike or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

He always let me know, oh yeah, gave you about 36. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

But hey, also we still play and we didn't have Fred Thatch. So we still won at y'all's place. I mean, they had it jump in that that game. It was a solid team, too. Yeah, they had a good team.

SPEAKER_00 36:43

Young guys with Dohan and they were were they class four? They weren't in our district that year, were they, or were they? I can't recall.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

I don't think so. I can't remember. Maybe I know Oh no, they were.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

Yeah, they should have beat freaking Kate. Yeah. Oh, well, that's senior year.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

Yeah, I'm sorry. I don't remember what they were junior year. They might have been lower. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

Yeah, I can't recall. I can't recall that year.

SPEAKER_03 37:07

But anyway, he had a great junior year. I mean, they're because they're for a while. They were in our district. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

We were like um 27 and 4 or 26 and 4 or something like that that year.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

Junior year. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. He had a great year. Uh two Shamanod, who's a really good team with a lot of really good players. The Charleston game was a rough one. Just not healthy, but you can't make excuses. They had a lot of good players too, including DeMarcus Sharp, who was you know a really good player. Still playing, still playing playing overseas, had a great career. Mardarion Clark. You had Farmer, or not Farmer. There was another football guy, Tucker. Oh, yeah. It was uh Jeremy Tucker's brother. Oh no, it was Jeremy Tucker. Who's his brother that played at Jacksonville State? Was a good player, really good player for Charleston. Delfinko?

SPEAKER_00 37:59

No, Delfinko was not just before that.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Jeremy Tucker. Greg. Greg. Oh, yeah, Greg Tucker.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:07

Oh, they had some dudes. They had some dudes. They could hoop. Yeah, they can hoop. Just got you know, got us at a bad night, you know. But they were good, and so you got it. Shamnaud, Charleston. Who else beat us? Oh, Gran View, and then the third place games at Jennings.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

Which as it turned out, the head coach of MICDS now was the head coach of Jennings then. Yeah. I didn't know that till Will said it on our podcast that we've recorded. He said that last night, yeah. Yeah, yeah. We've recorded Woman Will and he was telling us that. We were trying to get the I didn't either. We were trying to get the revenge tour this year, but uh didn't work out exactly like we wanted, but that's okay. Yeah. And then so graduated Fred, Don Larry, Don Larry, Dela Mills. Yeah, I forgot about Dylan.

SPEAKER_01 38:53

Jaquan Ray, Keith Lissett, BJ Hill, Austin Branch. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

I think that's the seniors, yeah. And so coming into that next year, there was a there was a I felt like a lot of hype. I mean, I felt like we were gonna be really good. Yeah. I mean, we had you and Owen, Trey, Kevin, Peyton, Peyton, the other senior was Trey Ransom, Clark, Nick, Nick, Kenyon. Right?

SPEAKER_01 39:24

So the young yeah, the the uh juniors and the biggest thing I would say our senior year, we had a totally different team and a very unique team compared to the past Siteson teams when it came to just style play and just kind of a different look of, you know, but from a basketball perspective, I thought we all played well together. Like I say again, Coach Hall, film coach James, you know, and the rest of the staff did a great job of you know balancing all our personalities and egos and all our different, you know, we had four guards who could all, you know, pretty much crate pass and kick and shoot, could and then you had Trey Jenkins.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

So you guys had could get 20 any night. Yes. You two, Kevin, Peyton, could any of you could get 20. Yeah. Or whatever any night.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

Everybody, everybody needed to eat. So and and you know, I I think we all kind of decide our roles too. You know, Owen was kind of the score shooter, Kevin was a scoring shooter, Peyton was a score shooter. Trey was our big guy that kind of did everything when it came to getting rebounds and dump downs, and he was up to upsketch and shoot threes. He wanted to shoot more.

SPEAKER_00 40:34

Oh, I know he did.

SPEAKER_01 40:35

And uh I loved creating for those guys and passing to them and getting all of the assists too. So that made me feel good. I I I liked when I had 10 assists more than I had 20 points. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 40:44

Yeah, well, 10 assists is at least 20 points. Well, I remember when you first came, like uh maybe even like the first couple weeks you were here, you would get to the basket and almost dish it out to somebody and I got caught up too much.

SPEAKER_02 40:55

I mean sometimes I should lay it up. I always wanted to, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

I love the I love the pass and all that.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

Create, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Get your teammates involved and make sure, yeah, everybody as everybody's eating, just like you said.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

And that's how we needed to be that everyone need to eat for our team to progress and be as good as we wanted to be. And I think we did that for the moment. We had a couple of down games where we still won, but I didn't I felt like maybe I did a bad job and maybe wanting to, you know, we got in a little kind of not selfish tendencies, but not everyone was eating. But when everyone was, you know, kind of we had our own roles and we were trying to just our main goal is to win and our heart was in the right place. I felt like our team was was really good. Yeah, for sure. For sure. That was a fun, fun year. And it was bad game, Cape Central, and shout out to Cape Central, though. They had a lot of really good players too.

SPEAKER_03 41:47

They were a great team. We were gonna beat up that at by that time in the season. I think we had some.

SPEAKER_00 41:52

But Clark hurt his knee that year.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Clark hurt yes, Clark towards ACL. Yeah, Peyton messed up his hamstring. So they were both down.

SPEAKER_00 42:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:01

And we had had battles, especially the second game with them already. So at their place, they barely got by Notre Dame on a controversial call, which I think it it did count going back and looking at the recording. Yeah, I wish it wouldn't have counted, but I didn't want to see those guys again.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

Oh, not at all.

SPEAKER_03 42:20

That was when we were playing them like three or four times a year.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Yeah, no, I'm with you. I did not want to see them. I didn't want to see those guys. I did not want to see them.

SPEAKER_01 42:27

I wasn't scared. I was just like, we we all knew in our gut feeling, you got a gut feeling. It's hard to beat a team twice. Those dudes can play athletic, just good. You don't want to play them three times. It's hard, like you said, it's hard to you know hard to beat a team twice and then throw another one in there.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

Yes. Yeah, though they say beating a team three times is is is really tough. Yes. That's the that's the hard part.

SPEAKER_03 42:48

Especially a good team. I mean, my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 42:52

No, you just need to make sure it's closer to you. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:54

If you if you lean back, hey Donnie made my voice deeper a little bit thicker. No, you can lean back.

SPEAKER_00 43:00

You can lean back, just pull it back to you. Yeah, yeah, it's all right.

SPEAKER_02 43:02

I'm telling you I can't lean back. I'm telling you, I'm always hunched over, always like everything. I can't.

SPEAKER_00 43:08

So tell us a little bit, kind of walk us through the season's over. We get you say upset. I mean, we were the one seed, we were the higher seed in state.

Recruiting Pressure And Choosing Maryville

SPEAKER_00 43:20

So I I I would I still say it was an upset. I mean, it was that was our district. They were really, really good.

SPEAKER_04 43:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

But at the end of the day, you maybe call it maybe a slight upset. So then you're looking to what you you and Owen are going to do or you, let's just talk about you right now, what what you were going to do after college. What what did that process look like?

SPEAKER_01 43:41

Well, we had I wanna say going into our senior year, especially Owen had picked up a little some interest. And then that summer I remember just was in the gym a lot 'cause I knew I had to get better. I knew there were some things like the toughness and and and giving everything to the team and Coach Halfield and staff, uh, you know, from an effort and, you know, just get after it perspective. I, you know, I was gonna do that. But I was like, if I want to play college basketball at a high level, I gotta work on my game. You know, and that that came with, you know, me maturing and and mom was great with us. Shout out to mom. She had us in that at the condo in the weight room just lifted. She had us protein shakes. I mean she had us spoiled when it came to all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

But their mother is a like a dietitian basically. So she knew the fuel that they needed.

SPEAKER_01 44:32

Yes and but just I remember like talking to Texan coach and I mean I was in there like twice a twice a day every day in the summer working on my pull up working on just coming down cross between pull up like just working on my game. So I was and then with that came the development of my body I I felt like maturity wise you know puberty wise I was developing too because Owen and I were late bloomers and we were like we looked like we were 13 when we were Jeers in high school so we were just slow to develop and everything. But with all that and just me working on my game individually I think that prepared me for call so we had some elite camps Missouri State and Central Michigan. Yep I remember those and I remember Owen and I being on the bubble of getting offers going into that Central Michigan camp after the we got done that second day.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

I mean we won every game and Owen didn't your dad know somebody there too no oh okay Gerterman coach Gerterman who's the head coach at Lindenwood was assisted there. There we go.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

And Hollyfield had that connection with him I'm pretty sure so and we we oh they put oh and I together on the same team so we won like every game and we did our thing and all that and Gerterman talked to us and they were like you know you know they wanted to pull the trigger but you know how these college coach including me it's hard they're like why hadn't Simo offered y'all why isn't any other division one offer y'all so they want to be the first one to pull the trigger yeah it's so weird it's kind of like it's so weird.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

I know I've I've I've I've heard even gets a little worse now that money's involved yeah yeah we can we can get into that but yeah that's um I I remember that now how did you you had those two did you go to Maryville or did they reach out? How did all how did all that come about?

SPEAKER_01 46:20

So after the Missouri State one in Central Michigan and and the Missouri State was pretty good too that that one went well no stricker was on you guys from the beginning wasn't he did he come to a bunch of your guys I think Stricker was on Owen first maybe and then yeah he's on Owen first I don't know I was so like not in the recruit like because I remember this too like Fair State the head coach at the elite camp at Central Michigan was the assistant at Ferris State who had just won a division two national championship. Yep and they wanted us to fly out there after that camp and like come on a visit I think they like they wanted us and we're like nah we didn't understand how big a you know how big of a deal that was back then. We were just little dudes and we were like we want to go division one still so um anyways we had the D1 dreams like just like everyone does. Everybody does everybody's has them so I get it going into the season we had pretty much JUCO offers and then like Lindenwood and Merryville had offered or recruiting and Sherker just I want to say the game at Carnahan I remember he and Buzzy uh crullers were sitting up there and we won by we had that like you said we had like 70 something in the first half maybe it was a confluence game but anyways we we scored a lot of points and everybody was eating and Sherker called and offered us you know to Maryville on a full ride and all that stuff. I'd say a couple days called dad and we were we were like okay like that's cool and everything and you know we were grateful but like I say I and I look at it now I'm like I should have been more grateful for that because but we were still D1 chasing but that's part of it but Stricker was at every game every game everywhere every game Final four when we were over there at Bluff at Charleston at the district championship I mean every game yeah and he recruited us like crazy and spent a lot of time mark mark stricker right mark stricker yes so after the season you know we still were like okay what do we have and I kinda coach nutt was at Stetson so I was kind of waiting around on that situation. I forgot about that because you know division one again and had the JUKO's but we weren't crazy if we wanted to go JUCO just because if you already have four year schools want you and all that. So we ended up kind of just thinking about everything and talking about it and we're like who really wants us so we we went up you know to the vision to Maryville and which is we've talked about this before division two and that GLVC div but division two is good basketball.

SPEAKER_00 49:08

People think well it's not Kentucky or Duke or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 49:11

Yeah it's good friggin' basketball yes it is really good basketball we didn't know that either until we uh yeah until we went up went up there and went on the visit and everything and Coach Sherker just kind of was like all right look I've done all this work for y'all and put out the papers like you know I I want y'all to sign soon like in the next couple of days or so he he gave us the papers I'm pretty sure and we signed them next couple of days and I I feel good about I don't know Owen was still like man I want to go division one but anyways but we ended up going to Maryville and all that so it yeah we I and Coach Shirker was a a great guy and you were in Maryville for one year or two years.

SPEAKER_00 49:55

Just one year one year Owen was two right yeah so on the back yeah so I I actually it was so of course Parker and Owen and his family and my my family and Brian James his family were all close Carter his dad and Brian and I all were in school together when when Carter lived here and I it just made me think of this every time I hear Stricker I think of that quote he told you because were you one of y'all had a girlfriend and I'm it doesn't matter who it was he tried to act like he didn't know no but I'm saying but I remember his quote was you don't have to bring sand to the beach oh I know that was my because he had to deal with me and my drunk he had to deal with me and me and my my girlfriend problems at Maryville a little bit we don't have to get too much no no no no I mean she might be listening on the podcast I'm not trying to throw shade at anybody I'll just I just remember that quote when he said you don't have to bring sand to a beach I was too immature to understand that I was too immature meaning there's plenty of women in college you don't you know St.

SPEAKER_02 50:59

Louis too it's unlike we're in some small towns in St.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

Louis you know right anyways I just want to sometimes like dang I was a fool back then well but you you just gotta we're all you gotta learn.

SPEAKER_00 51:12

We all do foolish things when we're young Parker it's okay that's part of that's part of growing up it is that's part of growing up I mean you don't set out to do foolish things but they can teach you things and you learn from them.

SPEAKER_03 51:23

And if you're doing the same foolish things at 30.

SPEAKER_01 51:26

Right right that's right. I think I've learned not to do it at 30 I think so you're not you're not quite 30 yet yeah I still got four and a half that's right kind of that's right that's right so you're still learning

Transfer Rules And SEMO Reality

SPEAKER_01 51:40

who you are yeah so you played one year at Maryville. Tell us what happened after that so rough year very tough conference shout out to the GLVC and how good of a conference especially back then before the transfer portal got big yeah and you had just four or five teams made the NCA tournament for Division II in that conference that year and we had you know and we had kind of triggered that year went the division one route so we had a lot of division one at a Duchy Bradley the big dude and all that stuff yeah so we had D1 transfers and I would say a talented team but we started a lot. Yes you and Owen both played a lot so anyways bad bad bad year from winning and you know wins and losses standpoint but from an individual standpoint I knew there was a chance to go division one. I just knew because of this the season and how the slew game went in the Bradley game. Then you had COVID at the same time so you know situation happens with Sherker where you know all that happens and he got you know let go and once that happened I knew it was it was a done deal I'm getting up I'm getting out of here because it that that was our guy that was especially my guy you know he and I were were super close and I was kind of he was I was under his wing by then and once that happened I was like all right like I'm gonna hit the portal. So kind of saw what was out there and I want to say keep picking sat SEMO reached out maybe a a week after that because you got so many schools and JUCOs and high level D tubes and D1s and oh it gets your ego going now. It gets you feeling good. I mean your tail's wagging all day because you got these these you got these coaches that's texting calling blowing you up like making you feel like everything by at the end of the day it's a business and they're gonna do what they're gonna do to try to get you out their school. So once Key Pickens hit me up and everything I was like ooh because it was SEMO and that was Division one and it was the local it's here yeah yeah it was here so he hit me up and as the process went you know we were back in Alabama because of COVID. Yep and corn corn gets a job yep as his first year and I remember watching interview because everyone was kind of interested to see how you know the new coach was going to be at at SEMO and I want to say two days later a Manhattan Kansas number called and I was like that that might be corn because he had come from Kansas State. Right. And I answered and it was him and he called and we talked for a good 20 or 30 minutes and then I want to say a couple days went on and he offered me after that after I guess he did his research and film and whatever and because it was COVID you couldn't go there couldn't go visit and all that which I I wish I would have done that. That's that's you know that would have been helpful and all that just for him to see me for him to see him for everybody. Exactly. But you know it was different situation back then. Right. So he offered me and I told him I was committed like that because I wasn't going to wait around for another division one and I didn't want to you know no offense I'm working at JUCO now but I didn't want to go to JUCO right and I didn't want to go D2 again I was just like I don't want to go division one. Yeah so told Korn let's go I'm ready to go and it was exciting to think about comeback to the area and representing the red and black yeah red and black again Maryville red and black Sykes in red and black and SEMO red and black so exactly I forgot about I forgot about Maryville.

SPEAKER_00 55:15

That's right they were red and black yeah that was uh were you there two years yeah is that right I was there two years at SEMO two years you were hurt now you got a COVID year too kind of didn't you so with the rules back then it was if you went D2 to D1 you had to sit out still.

SPEAKER_01 55:32

Oh that C I forgot about it that's what it was Manny Paris and I both we were transfers and we had to sit out well I know that you that grinded on you. Yeah because and I was spoiled too because I had played so much I had gotten to start in college as a true freshman on a high level division two team in a great conference and felt like you know I wanted to play. I I was used to that I was used to being the guy with the ball in my hands making plays and shout out to Sherker you know he believed in me and that's what it at the end of the day we talk about all this stuff your head coach has to believe in you. It's all about your head coach believing you and give you the opportunity it's all about opportunity because there's a fine line between you know who's more talented who's this who's that you need the opportunity to go out there and play. So you know that's that's what I learned a lot too after all this was is like it's all about opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 56:25

Yeah you know so I forgot you had to sit out a year.

SPEAKER_01 56:29

I totally forgot that I sat out but the way this runoff waiver got popular during that I want to say halfway through that year that a that they started giving out to division two guys who had transferred in and I want to even say for division one transfers. Okay. Division one to division one yeah division one to division one so Manny came from Green Bay and I came from Maryville. So we got the waiver or I got the runoff waiver finally because I wanted to play not knowing that we were 75% to the season we already had our rotation going but I wanted to go and play anyways and all that so got to play a little bit um and shout out to the OVC especially during that time you still had Jackson State Eastern Kentucky Austin Purray did I say Murray State already? No Murray State Belmont I mean dudes in there we got some dudes at this conference did Jaw was he there?

SPEAKER_00 57:27

No so that was a year after Jaw.

SPEAKER_01 57:29

Okay yeah I was I was trying to remember I couldn't remember what year Jaw was that's right so there was there was some dudes Ja Morant who we're talking about who's in the the association now yes yeah so well Murray was putting out a bunch of players back there Cannon and a bunch of them yeah and that year they weren't very good but if that next year that Murray State team I want to say was top 25 in the country almost a whole year with KJ Williams and Trey Hannibal and Juice Hill I mean just dudes I mean eight nine guys I mean just when I was out there playing with them I was like this is a different level there's a now that's a there was a level there. Yep they ended up going to the tournament win the first round game and then want to say they were they got upset by St. Peter's who ended up upsetting everybody almost so that was that Murray State team was the best team I've ever played against in college basketball by far. Just from an athleticism I think it was one of the questions wasn't it it's something similar to that yeah yeah my far yes that's what we want we'd rather do this than we'd rather do this than something read those questions no no no this is what we want yeah so that that Murray State team that was I just I remember who was their coach then Mc McMahon who got the LSU job right there we go I remember and you remember big Sammy Thompson your buddy from the seven footer or six eleven six eleven six yeah I remember there was a ghost screen coming Trey Hannibal did South Carolina transfer and I'm guarding him and there's a ghost and so I guess I was like try I was like oh because it this was going into halftime there's like 15 seconds left so the clock he didn't call the screen out oh it's a ghost screen so it kind of is tricky so the guy ghost Trey Hannibal blows by it looks like he's gonna screen but he doesn't and he doesn't say screen so Trey Hannibal blows by me he tomahawk and dunks it on Sam and I'm gonna say I want to say we're down by 28 this is not good. And if Korn's listening and Simo Staff's listen don't be mad but it was just it was bad. And I looked at him I was like hey man you just got dunked on going into halftime I was like he did he did not make the proper business decision then did he no he jumped and he shouldn't have jumped with Trey Hampbold so but that guy was playing for LSU the next year so where did he play?

SPEAKER_00 59:46

Where did Sammy play in high school was he like uh like Lafayette or something somewhere in St.

SPEAKER_01 59:52

Louis or no I I know this I know his school he lived in St. Charles okay kind of technically in St. Charles Francis Howe.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:02

Oh yeah that's right that's right that's right that's right yeah and I I remember him because you brought him down yeah to the rodeo and we played golf one time.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:10

Oh yeah we played golf big old rascal trying to swing these little bitty clubs oh he loved him some golf so yeah but yeah he I remember him when he when you brought him down so yeah that yeah that was that first year and then second year you battled some injuries right yeah so second year and I'll say this first year it was on me just from a maturity standpoint again off the court stuff you know just first year being on my own brother not with me covet sitting out never have done that before kind of you know got tasted a little partying I mean I just was enjoying the off court stuff like I never had before uh you know single there we go yeah single just and I and I was having a great time but basketball you know was slowly kind of just you know going away from me and I kind of lost you know that not love yeah but focus and and and I blame myself that year and I was not locked in for for half of it and I and and you can make excuses and say well that's because you know you weren't it wasn't the same thing as you know Maryville when you didn't get the opportunity and all that and I started off I was I was working everything but once some of that stuff happened I feel like for for me to to kind of get my mind off to stuff that wasn't going well in basketball you know I just wanted to have a good time and and enjoy myself you know so that's that's on me that first year and then that second year you know I and I had my hair all dang long I just was not locked in. I mean I just that first year was a learning year. Second year I I just remember I mean that was the strongest I had ever been I got in the weight room I was probably 180 to 183 or something.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:56

They probably made you get in the weight room there.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:59

I mean you're gonna lift at that level and they they were trying to bulk me up and everything and got my hair cut just ready to go was in the gym a lot and was trying to you know do the best role I could for corn what he wanted me to be was a shooter and right and all that. And now that was hard for me too going from point guard to shooting guard and I was like a catch and shoot guy because I'd always had the ball in my hands but just with and shout out to all the SEMO guards Phil Russell DQ Nicholas Eric Reed Chris Harris I mean some really good guards really good guards really pro guards pro overseas guards like all of them.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:32

Yes so those dudes are really good so and even Jay Love Jordan Love who was there who was 6'5 and athlete in the NBA right no no no no no no no I'm thinking of the he had the he had the talent potential to be an NBA I'm thinking of Jordan what's the Jordan dude that played with Fred Jordan Goodwin goodwin Jay good right there yes he was a dog we Aaron and I when we went down to a Grizzlies game saw him he was with the the Wizards yeah we saw him down there yeah he's yeah he's a dane dog because I was a dog too yes he was at Slew yeah he about gotten a scrap at Slough I asked James Hargrove yeah he's 6'9 and he would have he's St. Louis I knew I I knew I was gonna have my hands full we actually gonna start scrapping that in that moment I remember seeing we talked to you all after the game we stayed around and then we talked to Fred and I said Fred what'd you tell them and he said man those two are good players but that the one the point guard is crazy he said he will fight he will do whatever he's crazy and I was like you hit it right on the head you hit the nail on the head Fred that was funny I got money's birth that game I'll tell you that was at Maryville though at Maryville when he was at Meryville but they played actually almost beat him you did I mean you went you went blow for blow basically with I mean we it was who's the point guard that we played was at St.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:53

Mary's uh you went blow to blow with him yeah it was I remember that game yeah it was it was a good game and yeah I want to say if we would have had some size in there but that two three zone kind of hurt them because you know Gibson was out. Yep and if they had Gibson maybe it's a different story because they had a really good team they made the NC tournament that year. Yep that just shows the fine line between division two and division one too that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:17

And we were a bad division two team you guys were right there. Yeah yeah and that's that's why I we try to stress it when we talk about it or or when kids are on here or just in general is look there's no there's no shade going division two and exactly what you're talking about size is the biggest difference.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:37

Yes 100% a lot of size and athleticism yeah there's a million guards like Coach Kirby says you can shake a tree and get guards but bigs and just the body athletics athletic bigs and the six five wings that can rip and dunk it and gets their pull up and all that there's levels to that but guards I mean you gotta be just it's hard as a you know as as guards there's just a million of them and there's just a fine line I saw so many good really good guards you know especially in MIAA including Trevor Hudgins Bennett Sturz who's been on Dang you know with the MIAA so we're kind of jumping that's when you went to Missouri Missouri Southern Southern that's in Joplin and you played your final year

Injuries And The Missouri Southern Years

SPEAKER_01 1:05:20

there.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:20

Oh no you played two years there yeah that's right you had two years there. Because the COVID year didn't didn't count so there we go thankful for that I got to play two years at Southern right so the Lions was that the Lions and Owen was at Emporia in the same conference Stingers up is that what they're called yeah Stinger the Stingers yeah like some goofies I don't know why they did that you're an Emporia State fan I'm sorry hey send all your letters to Parkerlong at parkerlong at gmail dot com or whatever I don't know. No why were they called the Stingers? Is that their nickname? Yeah Emporio State Stingers who's the gorillas Pittsate. Pit State. Okay. I mean Pitts are they in that conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:06

That was our rival at Missouri Southern.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:07

Yeah. I knew there was a Kansas Emporia in Pittsburgh, Kansas. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:13

And yeah, jumping from SIMO. It just didn't work out. Injuries. Yeah. And Missouri State game at Missouri State, and there were some glimpses, you know, of some good accolades I could think of that I got to play and hit shots and all that. But just again, shout out to the guards that I played with Phil Russell, DQ, Eric Reed, Chris Harris. I mean, just really good players. And even I didn't get to play a whole lot and just you know tore up my thigh in San Antonio and all that. It still learned a lot. You can look back at that and say those guys may be better. And hopefully I made those guys better too. Just us competing every day. Right. And all that. So get to my assistant coach gets the head coaching job at Missouri Southern. McMahon. That's what I followed him and Big Sammy T came with us too. That took some recruiting right there. Did you and I both, you know, McMahon and I both, you know, once Sammy hit the portal, we we got him and all that. So I was familiar with Division II, and I knew the MIAA was the best D2 conference in the country. And Missouri Southern, from a gym perspective, from the rest of the conference. I mean, you're talking about money and football. I mean, it's a Division I conference.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:20

I'm trying to think who played at Missouri Southern. There was a football player that played. I'm trying it's been years ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:25

Jerry Rice was the Webbs, TJ Britton and the Webb. What's the Webb at Popper Bluff? One of the Webs played at Missouri Southern. Tony or Tony, Tony played at Missouri Southern. So those two.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:37

The MIAA is what SEMO used to be in when they were before they went to Division One. That was a conference they ran. Yep. They were Division Two when I was in college. Yes. So it was yeah, that was had some high-level games there. Yeah. Well, that didn't that have Central Missouri? Central Missouri. They won like two or three national titles. I mean, they were balling up there.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:58

It's a it's a legit conference. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:01

Very, very good conference. Very, very good coaches. I would say the coaching in that conference is I might be a little biased, but I mean, y'all have seen how good Ben McCollum's done at Iowa and Drake, but Iowa this year, taking him to the Elite Eight and just shows. And his point guard was a MIAA Division II point guard. And he was at Central Missouri. At Northwest. I mean Northwest, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So and all those guys that he had on his Drake team, four of those guys were Northwest Missouri guys. So it just shows you again, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:30

Division two is no there's just no joke.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:32

Especially MIAA, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:35

Yeah. So anyways, I agree. That was so you graduated from there. Was there a point when you're playing at some point we all whether whatever level you play, I mean basketball, baseball, football, whatever? At some point you're like this is probably gonna be my last competitive. And I mean you're still play ball and you still hoop with guys and whatever, but I mean this is gonna be my last organized game. Was there a point when you said this is it, but what am I gonna do? Obviously, your life's not over. I mean, you're a young man. What do you do now? What was there a point when you're like I still want to be involved in the past?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:14

Has coaching always been on the on the Yeah, I would say that, but I mean I would say every I mean I w I don't want to say like SIMO, but I mean there were times at CEMO and my first year at Missouri Southern when I broke my foot just being in down and it just when you get punched and you just keep getting punched, you know, every time, you know, when something happens and I finally got it going again at Missouri Southern for my junior year. Yep. And I was, you know, starting, playing well, you know, doing my thing. We're winning, which was good. And we're about to play Northwest Missouri with Ben McCollum's team. And it's two two days before that game, and I my foot snaps.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:54

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:55

I told my mom, I like, I'm I might be done. I can't, because all the CMO two years were were brutal, and I got all that, and that made me mentally tougher, just looking at myself like you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:05

Yep. But I can do this kind of thing. I can yes, but did you want to do it, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:09

Again, yeah. And once that happened, that was tough. But my mom, she's just and she still puts up with my crazy self today, just ah, but she is such a you know that's what your mom does. She's just great, she's just great, and yeah, she was there for me when I had my surgery, and she was there for me the on crutches and all that the first three or four days when I was, you know, my junior year, and or you know, basically my junior year, my COVID junior year or whatever you want to call it. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:37

Um, and she kind of got me all that, and you know, so but did you think about okay, if this is it, what do I want to do after basketball?

Turning Pain Into A Coaching Purpose

SPEAKER_01 1:10:45

Well, yeah, so yeah, that's that's where I started thinking about like I'm not gonna do this thing much longer, like overseas and all that. So we'll say kind of like following my senior year, I didn't know what I was gonna say. I might because my boy Jacoda, he was selling trailers up in Richmond, Kentucky. I was like, I might just move up to Kentucky and sell trailers. He sounds like he's making some good money or something. But once the C once my senior ended, and and going back to just the injuries and all that, all that stuff that I had been through individually made me want to help players do their ups and downs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:21

There's nothing better, Micah, than somebody that's you've lived that, done that. Let me help you learn from my mistakes, kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:32

I think even like some of the time like when you were leaving CMO and kind of you were talking about even like getting into counseling school counseling and different stuff like that. Yeah, you were talking about psychology and stuff, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:42

Yeah. You're like I said, you're gonna be part psychologist when you're coaching too. 100%.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:47

So yeah, but I I even at that point you could see that in your mind, like I want to help people.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:52

Yes, yeah, yeah. I I knew I knew after after my senior year, you know, because I I you know, and we'll get into I'm sure I don't want to go for four hours, but Hollyfield was always, always, always the key of being that role model of uh, you know, just someone that he got the best out of me and inspired me. And I was thinking about this before I came on the podcast, like what Hollyfield, I mean, I remember like having like one game my junior year, I had four fouls, maybe two points, and I was just out there, but I was playing super hard, and he just told me how much he appreciated that, and like and like you I'm gonna pay you more. Like, just he loved he made me un he embraced who I was and made me unleash and like took pride in that stuff. And yeah, just the way he carried himself, and you know, he's got the swagger, he's got the gear, you know, he's got it, he's got the it factor, but you know, he knows how to just get it. He psycho from a psychological perspective, yeah. He get he can he has the gift to get people to be the best of themselves and the best version of themselves. Yeah, I agree with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:02

And a lot of that's experience, just I mean, he's been doing it a long time. I'm sure he would tell you he's better now at doing that than he was. Even 28 years ago when he came back. Right. When he came. Right, right, yeah, right, right. He'll tell you he was a little crazy. Yeah. I've heard that story like I like I did some crazy stuff. Not crazy, like, but just crazy things that he did. Yeah. Not sort of bad decisions that he said. He looked back on him like, ah, why'd I do that? I shouldn't have done something else, kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:32

And I'm sure you'll have those two.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:33

Yes. Oh, yeah. Oh, I've already talked about I've already admitted to yeah, and you still learn.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:39

There's gonna be stuff. Absolutely. You all you continue.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:42

I'll tell you what we call it where I work. We call it you're either winning or learning. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:49

So if you're not winning, you're not losing, but you're learning. Yeah, that's what we call it. And so it can be applicable to any industry, coaching, banking, healthcare or counseling, whatever. All that.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:04

You're like, oh I I figure, I mean, like there's not like no behavioral therapy. The thought is that are you over there cursing? No, no, no. DV DVT therapy. There's a thought of like you're doing the best that you can, but you can always gain skills. Yes. Yeah, right. I mean, like, that's just the basis of where you gotta start at and and you go go from there. So um and I believe that. I I do believe that that we can we're all do all doing the best that we can with what we have, but we can always gain skills and get better.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:37

Sure. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:39

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:40

100% you so at some at some point you're like, okay, I want to pursue this, I want to coach. Yeah, so you you you and so your first year you came here.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:51

Yeah, so and I want to say, even at the end of the year, I started kind of giving words. Coach James, I think Will and I talked a little bit about coming potentially coming back to Sykes after season was over. Because and and Coach Hallfield and I had had conversations throughout my college career um and about me potentially him just saying, Hey, I would love for you to come back and be on the staff and coach with me. Yeah. So I didn't really necessarily want to get into college at that time, just be in from a from a not a bitter perspective, but just I just didn't want I just didn't want to I want to get out of the college game. Sure. I and I wasn't a hundred percent in yet to pull the trigger on being a college coach. Okay. So that's okay. And I loved this area. Yeah. And Sykeson have been great to me, including y'all who's great supporters and and embrace Owen and I. And I I'm still thankful for that. Absolutely. But I it's just a special place. So I wanted to come back to Sykeson and and just see how the teaching and coaching thing would go. And I start subbing some, and that kind of got my feet wet. And and shout out to y'all letting me stay here for three months, live here, and get my feet wet. We did, we did.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:02

Uh it's all good. Yeah, so still owe me a bunch back then. No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:08

But yeah, I that was you know, that was a learning year too. And I really, I I really want to say this too. Like, I still miss it sometimes, like waking up every day, you know, going to the junior high, and those kids would light me up. You know, the kids loved you.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:23

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean, like I I talked to a lot of kids, and at that time I was talking to a lot of kids, they liked you. Yeah, the junior high kids liked you.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:30

Yeah, and I it's a tough that's a tough ask. Yeah. You wanted to coach, not teach necessarily. I mean, you I I could see that and I get it. That's okay. Yeah, that's and I yeah, yeah. I wanted to But unfortunately in high school, you're an educator first, so to speak, and then a coach. Yeah, that's just the way it's just the game.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:49

Those yeah, they they catch you watching film on TV or some games or whatever. Yeah, but you're supposed to be helping us or whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:56

Like you said, Micah, like I I really like those love those kids too. And yeah, you know, I maybe I didn't know anything about world history, and that was way out of my, you know, I I just couldn't way out of, you know, you know, I wasn't built for that at all. Right, right. But at the end of the day, there were days, and maybe every single day, there was one or two kids that I tried to help, not with world history, but with like, hey, hey dude, like you still have a chance to don't do this. Like, you don't need to go down this path, you don't need to go down that path.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:30

You can tell that's who you are, that's your personality. No, of helping kids, it really is.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:34

Yeah, so I mean, like even coming, you went to Tennessee with us, and you were still playing basketball at CEMO then and and it looked like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:43

Oh yeah, coaching when we were coached in the spring. Yeah, you yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:48

I mean one game, where are we? Martin almost got ticked. It was like Parker Jill.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:54

That's hey. You can't take the dog out of him. You just gotta tame him a little bit. Don't don't break yeah, don't break their spirit. Yeah, don't don't take it out. Just just got to rein them in a little. No, it's all good. Yeah, I'd and you know most of those well those boys graduate this year.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:10

Yeah. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:11

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:12

That was it's like Kobe and Ben's like freshman years.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:16

That there we had to stop before we got into the battery.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:18

Oh, I wasn't gonna bring that up. But you remember that in that band where you in there? Yeah, Parker was there because he was in the bathroom with me.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:25

We had to stop before we got to Dyersburg. Micah couldn't make it. I remember that. It was a rest stop on the side of the road about five or ten miles. Yeah, we had to stop. Micah kept looking. He's like, You gotta stop. You gotta stop. So we stopped. We'll move on. We may even cut this up.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:41

No, no, no. We're living in his face is red. I had just had my gallbladder out. Yeah. I don't remember that.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:47

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, we got some we got some stories, and it might be Kentucky as a player in a fight over there. You and me.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:56

Yes. We want the chick filet and they followed us in. And then that riff you got.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:03

That riff was trying to be a trying to be a punk to my dad, too. My dad was just like, here we go. I know. So I might, yeah. Kentucky, yeah, yeah. Kentucky hasn't been great. I know there's some ballers over in Paducah in that area.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:17

I need to get familiar with that area. I don't know it a whole lot, but I need to.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:21

Yes, that's right. Oh Lord. You'd probably be in Jonesboro and Paducah there. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:28

But yeah. Well, what were you talking about? My fault, uh, Sykes tonight.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:31

No, no, no. No, you you you're here in your here a year and decided that it wasn't how what

Missouri S&T To Three Rivers

SPEAKER_00 1:19:38

you want to do. Yeah. And that's okay. Yeah. You listen, you're young, you gotta figure out what you want to do. Then you went to how'd you get on at Rolla? How'd that kind of how'd that work?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:48

Well, first I thought I was, and you know this, like, I thought I was gonna do the go work for dad at the restaurant. Oh yeah, that's right. A couple weeks or three weeks with that spatula in my hand on that girl. I was like, yeah, I don't know if this was for me, though. But I just had I couldn't get basketball out of my dang system, out of my blood. I I I was always just and my brother was doing who's he, he's working for the recruiting company. Oh yeah, cold calling all day, and he was doing really good at that. But I I just remember constantly, he's like, dude, like you gotta go coach, man. Like, yeah because I just constantly kept talking about basketball, coaching, and like this player and that player, and like just could not stop. And then finally, I just it's like I gotta go chase this thing. I feel him, it's time. I I can and if it don't work out, don't work out, but it's time. I'm young, single, yeah, I can be selfish. Let's go chase this thing. So started networking, started calling. Shout out to Coach Stricker again. You know, he got really he was connected to Coach Walker who was at you know Missouri S T.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:48

So Okay, that that's how things happen. That's how that's the connection. There's connections in business, it's the same thing. Yep. Nice. Okay, I wasn't aware Stricker was part of that.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:00

So like as a as a at Missouri S T, you're assistant, like I guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:05

Yeah, like yes, assistant main role was player development. And I did recruit, but at that school, it was it was different recruiting-wise, because you don't actually you can call it old school, you can call it whatever, but like guys don't leave there because they're there for engineering. Yeah, you know, they're there for school first, and you got a couple of kids that are there for for ball, yeah. But for the 75% of the team, they're not leaving, so you really aren't on the road a lot. You're not really recruiting a whole lot. So, you know, just the way I'm wired, my personality. I want to be out there with people and be recruiting to hit the road and going in the gyms and and and meeting players and and developing relationships. And and I love those guys, great guys, great kids, of course, super great kids. And like again, I learned a lot this year. And I got the I did scouting reports and film and all this stuff to get me prepared, hopefully, for three years.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:57

Do you guys just random question? Do you guys use synergy? Yes. Okay. We we learned about that from Lane Balou. You know Lane, he played at Advance, he's older than you. Yeah, he's a head coach down at Gulf Coast.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:09

He's got rolling right now. He's got it rolling. But it's the semifinals.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:12

Yeah, I mean, he's got some dudes.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:14

We gotta get some dudes like he's got some dudes over there.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:16

Exactly. Yeah, they came up here last year and beat Three Rivers and Mac by I mean, it was like overtime. Double OT or something. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:22

He's got some really good players. Yeah, he's done a great job. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:25

And he played at Three Rivers. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, sorry, when you're talking about scouting, every time I hear that, I'm like, I was thinking the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:35

Synergy's what everyone uses now. That's what he said.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:37

That's what he was telling us too. I'd never heard of it, but he he said all the stuff is like broken down for you. Basically, when you wake up overnight, it gets done. That's crazy. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. So is that AI?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:51

No. It's not, it's like somebody else.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:53

Fast Scout is a type of is another type of synergy type app, whatever you want to call it. It is AI. Okay. And that's used more for like scouting reports and stuff like that. So Fast Scout. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:06

So I like looking at that stuff. I'm Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:09

It'll it'll like yeah, it it does it for you. The AI does it for you on their statistics.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:14

So is Synergy like an actual firm like consultants that go do and break it down?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:18

Or yeah, I would say so. I think so. Yeah. It's I what I just know I go on there and I can watch any game. And right now it's division two and division one. I need to once keep getting my feet wet through rivers, I'll probably have junior college stuff on there. But right now it's just D two and D one stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:36

But you can watch any game. So if you're like, you want to watch Yar Mizzo guys, you want to watch Mizzo versus Auburn or Alabama a couple weeks ago. You literally just put that in there and you can watch the whole game on your laptop or TV or whatever. Nice. So it's it's pretty it's pretty pretty.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:51

Is it the is it the broadcast? Like the actual broadcast. Or is it just a film? Or is it film? Meaning, is it like if it's on ESPN? Do you watch the ESPN game? It can be it's it can it's sometimes it could be either one.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:04

Yeah. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:05

It's I didn't know if it was like a huddle camp. You know, like a lot of high school has like huddle.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:10

Yeah, sometimes yes, like at Missouri Southern, it was our huddle cam that got it right in ST as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:16

Okay, so you how how did this all come about coming out of Three Rivers? So whatever you can say, how about that?

SPEAKER_01 1:24:27

Missouri S T year is over, and I knew in this business you're always trying to look to progress and get a better role, have a bigger role. I want to recruit a lot more and do all that. And just kind of told Coach, like, thank you, appreciate you letting me, you know, get my foot in the door in the college game, especially at a division two school right away. Didn't have to be a GA, didn't have to do any of that stuff, you know. Fortunately, just you know, you know, because of playing and all that, which a lot of other guys gotta do that other stuff. So I'm very thankful that I didn't have to, you know, pay my dues in that way. So, anyways, start calling around, hustling, kind of got my foot in the door at some, you know, just trying to figure it out. There's some other opportunities out there, and I kind of had three or four opportunities and and Coach Kirby called me and said, Let's have lunch. And I was like, I'll be there tomorrow at eleven o'clock. And you dro you drove from Joe from Ralla to meet him for lunch, lunch slash interview, and we sat down and had about a two-hour lunch and talked about everything. And and shout out again to Coach Hollifield and my former head coach, Coach Walker, or my former boss, Coach Walker, who were my references when I, you know, needed someone because Kirby didn't know me.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:48

Coach Kirby, he's he's he's into he's new to I mean he didn't he play there years ago. 79. Yes won the national championship. Right. So that's what I'm saying. So he's been gone from here and then he comes back and he doesn't know here or from White, he's from Memphis.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:03

Oh, okay. So okay he and how and y'all know this, and you know, Coach Hallfield has his his his you know, they call it uh what do they call it?

SPEAKER_00 1:26:12

Where the coaching his coaching tree tree.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:14

Uh-huh. Every coach has their tree, and uh and and coach Coach Kirby he he didn't know me. He knew of me, but didn't know me. Sure. So Coach Hallfield calling him and Coach Walker calling him.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:27

Who was where was Walker? S T.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:29

Oh yeah, yeah. So basically guys who I've worked for in the past two years who knew me and kind of what I could bring to the table. And Coach Kirby, I think, really liked that and liked what he heard and liked, you know, based off our in, you know, our interview slash lunch at Big Whiskey's in Popper Bluff, I think he enjoyed that too.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:48

Ate the big whiskeys not all that long ago. Yeah, sure it is that big old burger. I thought they were supposed to get one at Cape. Uh don't know. They're actually building one in Columbia by where we stayed. Oh, really? Yeah, with the team this year at fine in Final Four. Yeah, it's a big whiskey.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:03

Well, it's got some dang restaurants. They do. The Taco Taco. I mean, they got a whole bunch. I need to go try that. I haven't even seen that one yet. Taco Taco's good. Fizzoli's. That's mine. Coach Olifield got you on that.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:18

Is the Lemonade House grill still? Is the Lemonade House grill still there? Uh I don't know. I I I did check that one out too.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:25

It was good. Sure. Not sure about that one. Yeah. But yeah, it's and so that is you you had connections. Yes. Which helped you there. Yeah. Awesome. So and so Coach Kirby. Did they have somebody leave that hadn't left them? Yes. Somebody? Okay. Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:41

So that just kind of all happened. It it was the craziest time. And we don't have to get into it, but my foot was leaning towards another school, and I was going to fly down there. And you know, mom, dad, and I were all talking about like, man, three rivers. Like, you get to go home, you know the area, you know the south. You just that's home to you. And if they ever opened up, that would be an awesome set situation. And literally three days, Kirby's calling me. And I had networked and hustled. Like I had been in contact with Kirby to come watch his own.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:12

You knew they were opening.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:13

Yeah. I will and and how this works, you're always trying to network and and and hustle. So in the fall time, when I got at ST, I was hitting the road trying to recruit a lot of JUCOs. And while you're shaking hands with the coaches, recruiting their players, you're building that network. Yeah. You know, and you want to have good relationships with guys. So when you're looking for another job, they remember you and all that. You know, or that's the goal at least.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:33

That's that's the game in college athletics. It just is. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:36

So uh that's right. So it's not like uh Kirby just oh, but but Parker Long guy, you know, he just he he we have been in contact a little bit, and I, you know, Merry Christmas coach, I'm keeping up three rivers, blah blah, you know what I'm saying? So right, yeah. So that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:51

Yeah, so I so you're you're there

JUCO Recruiting And Roster Turnover

SPEAKER_00 1:28:54

now. What what do you guys do now at this time of the year? I mean, obviously that's the first time.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:57

Right now, it's a little so JUCO's unique. I'm still learning, you know. So there's uh we have five sophomores, you know, and once you're sophomore in JUCO, you're gone. You're looking to go to the four-year D1, D2 and AI. So those guys are looking for that, and then we got some guys wanting to leave. So it looks like we're gonna have a pretty much brand new team. We got some big, big, big guys from overseas, a couple of them that are staying maybe a guard or two. But wow, we'll just see how that's gonna be. So you've got to go get a curtain right now, then yeah, we're I'm trying to learn how because hey, I'll tell you this Coach Kirby has been at a high level, and y'all know his resume with Georgetown. His eye and how picky he is on on players is very important, and he wants the best players you can get possible at the rivers. So I'm still learning what he likes and what he wants and and all that. So I'm in the process of of trying to bring him the best players, but also, you know, just just make sure you go, will you be recruiting by yourself or will you go with him? He can go with yeah, like yeah, you can go with him. Like we've gone to to high school, and like you know, like I said, it's my it's about a week and a half since I've been down there. So yeah, I'm still kind of just getting my at this time of year. I mean, are you just looking at film and then like going and talking to kids? Twitter's such a big I mean staying Twitter, you got highlight and any highlight, I mean, highlights are so you know misleading because they make it. Well they're gonna put their best stuff out there, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:20

They're not gonna put a air ball or turning it over or dribbling it off their foot.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:24

You get caught up in watching that. Then you go to synergy and they see and then but you bring them into play, you you just don't really know. So is that what they just come in and start hooping? Just come in and play, and they're like someone a coach told me when I was on they're on trial, like they're on that on trial to I mean they got an hour and a half of pickup ball to you know do enough or show enough, you know, the coach that he's good enough to play with our guys. Well, Coach Balloon talked about that.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:52

So like when when he was on here, yeah, talked about his opportunity to do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's at Three Rivers. Yeah. And he played for Andy Kennedy down in the old miss, which was a teammate of your dad's. Yep. Small world, didn't it? So you're obviously you're just now getting your feet wet, like you said, and get get get rolling, but you're gonna be out on the road soon, I assume, trying to get kids and yeah, but yeah, I've already been on yeah, I've already been, you know, on the road, yeah, road running, but hopefully, hopefully, you know, we just start bringing in some studs and kind of building this team.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:28

You know, it just takes one or two guys to commit, which you know, don't want to get too much into three rivers business because whoever's listening, I don't want the opposite. No, no, no. Yeah, no, no, no. I'm not don't don't do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:38

No, that's exactly right. Don't but who knows at the least, you know, we don't want to do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:42

You know, we we had a kid commit yesterday from Earl, Arkansas, who's a a really good player.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:47

Earl, Arkansas.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:49

Okay, yeah. Hopefully we get a couple others, you know, soon. So we'll we'll start our team will start, you know, building and we'll we'll see.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:56

Uh what is the what is the summer look like with in JUCO? Is it different than Division 1?

SPEAKER_01 1:32:02

Well it depends. I think it depends. I asked that question as well, like because D1, you gotta be there in the summertime, division two. It depends too, if you got enough money to have those guys in for the summer. Okay. But JUCO, I think our guys get to go home, but they come back, I want to say maybe early late June or early July or something. Because we'll do some Jamboree stuff, I think.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:22

And okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:23

So yeah, I'm excited for that. I'm glad we our guys will be there in the summer because I'm I'll, you know, as long as I I want to get to work, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:31

Well, sure. Our and I was just talking with uh we have Will on. He will is our podcast for Saturday. We'll have yours out here soon. But the last couple of years they've done that Rib City. It's actually been at the Libela Center, which is a really nice facility for junior college for anybody. That's a really nice facility. So it's been over there, so we may have our squad over there hooping this summer.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:56

Not the junior college do they do like a showcase thing, don't they? Like in the season, like where they have about are they used to.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:03

Yeah, they still have the showcases.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:05

Yeah, like whether where division like NCAA coaches come in and look at coaches. Like probably like 10 games in a day or uh they still have those, I'm pretty sure. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:14

I gotta, like I said, I gotta keep on learning the JUCO thing just because it's you know, it's still like anywhere else, but there's always something you know, it's a level you never really expect. Yeah, I didn't ever have to, yeah. So I'm I'm learning it, but I it's just like any other level when it comes to there's still players, it's about them, you're serving them. And and at the end of the day, regardless if you're at Division One, you're at NAI, you're at D3, JUCO, it's about them at the end of the day. Players make good coaches, and that's what people don't understand sometimes. Is you know, the players are the ones who get it done. Yeah, you know, that's what players.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:46

It's not the X's and those, it's Jimmy's and Joes.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:49

Jimmy's in the Joe's. So hopefully we get some Jimmies and Joes at three rivers. Which Coach Kirby's done a great job. His first two years, he's especially first year, he won championship, second year. They got beat last year in the championship by Mental Area. So he's had But he went to Hutch this year, though, right? Or no, no, no, Mac did. Mac did the year before he went to Hutch. So he's already done a great job, and hopefully we can keep on doing I

What Makes Sykeston Basketball Different

SPEAKER_01 1:34:10

can help with that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:11

Yeah, absolutely. When you look back from your days here, what what is there one thing that stands out? Like what do you when you look back on your time like hooping here in Sykeston, like for the Bulldogs, what what stands out to you?

SPEAKER_01 1:34:27

I would say the support, just the the people embracing you. Um I don't think at the time I realized how great it was here to play basketball. And Coach Hoff had always told us this, like, you're not gonna get this forever. And even if you go play Division One, Division Two, JUCO, NAI, wherever you go after this, i unless you're playing at Dang Duke, Mizzou, Blue Blood, or some some Murray state that's got a great tradition already built in with fans and everything, you're not you're not, I mean, every once in a while maybe, but you're not gonna get this ever again from from a support standpoint, yeah. And and you know, just a town who's behind their players and all that. So that that that's the thing is, and you get spoiled and and and you know, you you know, you get to these you get to college wherever you're at, and it's not like that, and it can get kind of dicey where you're like, man, like this is this is not what I expect it to be, and that's really where you know if you really love it or not, and you want to keep on playing. But yeah, going back to the sites and dangers' support.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:35

So along that line, kind of what what knowledge would you like to pret give a young bulldog up and coming player what knowledge would you want to share with them today?

SPEAKER_01 1:35:48

That it's not about you, it's about the team, you know. It's winning is always first, and if your heart's in the right place and you're wanting to win first for for your team, you know, for your family, for all for all the right reasons, you know, the rest will take care of itself. Play as hard as you can possibly can. I don't care if you're not athletic, if you are athletic, if you're tall, you're small, whatever you want to call it, it's about winning and playing as hard as you can. And I wish more players had that mindset. And it's natural, it's in your blood, it's natural, but there's still you can still get out of there even if it's not natural, you know, it's not in your blood.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:28

Coach Olifield, I've heard him say this a jillion times, is the only thing you can control is your attitude and your efforts. You can't control if the shots going in that night or how the officials are calling the game or whatever. Yeah. But you can control how hard you play.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:46

Yes, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:47

And that's uh that that's a great question, Micah. Yeah. What are what's the biggest difference from like you're hoping just like not many years ago, what's the biggest difference between that and coaching?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:01

That's not about you anymore. From an ego perspective. How's that? It's it's and it and you know, shout out to dad. He kind of got me ready already. Like, hey dude, you know, being a college basketball player gets you 50 cents in a in a coke. That's what grandpa used to tell him. Like, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you've done. That's right. You're in the real world now and you gotta work. It doesn't matter about any of that stuff, you know. Your your playing career is over, and now it's about, you know, if you're gonna be a coach, it's about serving and helping others and and trying to be a good person to them because it's about the players. So that was the biggest thing was going from being a player where you know it was about you, but also about your teammates and just being, you know, just being in that player mode, going to that to being a coach, where where it's it's not anything about you. And of course you want to get that tail wagon, you want to get some love a little bit, and you will, but what gets you what gets you going if your heart's really in it to be a coach is when your players do good and when you can see that you're helping your players, see their growth in the game or that's what that's what gets me going is when I when it's good for them. But that's a competition in you, that's a competitive in you. Yes, and and recruiting, uh you can get that competitive juice going in recruiting. Oh yeah. You know, I want to outwork any assistant in the region 16 or any whoever. I want to get the best players and Coach Kirby do I mean that's that's how that's com competing too. So there's still ways you can get that juice going, like you said.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:26

So yeah, and then every now and then you can shoot up and play against them.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:30

Yeah, do you scout you get the hoops on against them?

SPEAKER_01 1:38:33

I ST I was scout too, you know, Sykes and I was scout a little bit, so Scotty Atkinson.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:39

I tried my best to be Scotty Atkinson for the for the players to have some shoes there, but tried to all left hand for two days or three days, however long we we did that.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:48

So how would you how would you what what kind of coach are you, do you think? Do you know yet?

Trust Culture And Playing Hard

SPEAKER_01 1:38:55

I would say a player's coach. Okay, and that might be a new term in today's game, yeah, but it's about I I just go in, it's always about the players, but I still would say you can call it old school or whatever. I try to keep those old school traits of you know, toughness, hard nose, playing hard. Giving on loose balls, giving it everything you got. Because what guys don't understand, you get this is a short time in your life, and you know, not in in some schools, but like where we're at three rivers, and you know, thankfully we're oh now we're at, you're getting your whole dang school paid for to play basketball. Right. And don't take that for granted. Yep. So play your butt off. I mean, you only get a short time to do this thing. So so play hard and and win and be the best version of yourself every single day you go into practice, compete as hard as you can.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:48

How do you get a kid? Because you know you talked about it, you you said you look back and you go, Man, I really didn't I think you knew it, but you didn't know it like in your heart, right? You knew it in your head. How do you get a kid to really understand that to know like look, not everybody's going to the NBA. Yeah. Not everybody's going to play. Not everybody's at this level. Yeah. Right. Right. How do you get a kid? Your school is paid for. Yeah. How do you get them to really understand that buy-in? That to me, that's the tough part.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:21

Well, it's the standard first of what the culture, and that word's used a lot, yeah, and it's thrown thrown around like no other. But your standard in your culture that you want to have as a head coach, as the leader of the of the team, you know, you got to hold your players to the standard, but it's also based off, you know, who you recruit. You can't recruit a bunch of you know, smooth pre-pre Madonna's who want to come down and shoot hard pull-ups and and play, you know, in kind of freestyle. If you want a hard-nosed tough team, you gotta recruit hard-nosed tough guys. With that being said, you still got to have guys who can get a bucket and put the ball through the hoop because that's what wins games, you know. But you can't, you you can't expect to have guys that are gonna play hard and be tough if you don't if you're not recruiting those type of guys. You gotta recruit guys who are naturally tough and tough and mean. But you can coach it as hard as you can because you you can't coach talent and offense as much as you can recruit guys effort and defense and toughness. And Coach Hoffle does a great job of that and the Sykeson guys is he he coaches them as hard as he can on your effort and pressing and playing as hard as you can on defensive end. And he lets you kind of just he lets you have fun on offense as long as you're playing hard. Yeah, you know, and and all that.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:32

How do you how do you build trust with your guys?

SPEAKER_01 1:41:35

Well, they gotta know you care about them first. You know, that relationship, the genuine relationship of you caring about them.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:41

Roosevelt. Say it. People don't care what you know until they know you care. Yes, one hundred percent. That's a that's a Roosevelt call.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:48

I I knew you'd know it. I knew that I couldn't remember specifically what it was, but I knew he would know it. They don't care what you know until they know that you care. And that's what you said. That's just basically what you said.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:57

Yes, one hundred percent. So that's uh it's about them, always, always, always, always, always about the players.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:06

When you're when you're coaching, does it ever come up that you played ball at Sexton? Do people ask you about that, or does that ever happen sometimes?

SPEAKER_01 1:42:15

Or do they I bet it will the more you're around here and S T because we had a Borgia kid, Rickman, Adam Rickman. Really?

SPEAKER_00 1:42:25

That big kid, like six five.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:27

Yeah, tough.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:28

Good player, tough dang good player hard. You remember him? We played him up in Union, yeah. Good player.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:33

He's a competitor, and we had some other guys that knew about Sykes, and but those kids were mainly, you know, St. Louis and Chicago. They weren't real familiar with down here. Um but in Three Rivers, most of our guys right now are not even from the south or around this area, so I don't know if they know a whole lot about Sykes as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:52

I know Coach Kirby was bringing a couple some of them would come with him when it was.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:57

Oh, to some of the games when he was recruiting, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:59

Over this, and so they probably know I haven't really. It's it's a little it's a little different timing, right? I mean, these guys and these guys are getting out wanting to be gone. You know, it's just that time of year where school's almost school, yep, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:13

School's almost over, it's time to go, summertime, kind of that stuff. I get that. I get that. What do you what are you hoping to teach your kids? Obviously, you're wanting to teach them basketball, of course, but what what things are you wanting to instill in them to teach them as far as about being men too?

SPEAKER_01 1:43:29

Well, I would say as a young assistant, because Coach Kirby, more as the leader of our team and you know, so experienced in what he's done as a coach, that would be more of his in his playing field. But as a young assistant, just kind of the the things that you know, us young people as me, as a young guy, and and I don't want to say I'm an older brother role, but you still you gotta understand I'm only 20, I'm not even 26 yet, and these guys are still not much younger than me. So, how can you relate and connect to them without being their friend, but also almost like an older brother? Yeah, so just anything in that nature of just like I said, being an older brother, brother to them if it's off the court stuff, if it's girlfriend issues, which you know, you're an expert in it.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:15

I'm an expert in that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:20

So you got some experience in that. Come over here, let's talk for a minute. I could talk through that.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:26

Sure, yeah. I learned a lot from striker.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:29

Don't bring sand to a beach. That's what we're here in St. Louis, right? Pop and bluff, I understand. Syxtend, I kind of understand. St. Louis, no. He's at Gulf Shores and he's right. Yeah, you've been at the beach, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:42

You're not trying to bring some Mississippi River sand out. Yeah, you don't have to bring it down there. I already know who we're talking about. But I mean, like, and no, and I yeah, we it all everything happens for reasons.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:56

Agreed. Yeah, so we don't have to get into the relationship stuff, no, but it takes two people to make it work just like it takes two people for a not. Hold on, hold on, hold on.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:03

There's only one reason any any relationship ends. Somebody becomes selfish. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's exactly right.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:12

Yeah, and usually it ends up both of them becoming selfish. Yes, yeah. You think about yourself and not about the other.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:18

Yep, and uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:19

That happens. Well, that's what we're gonna do.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:22

No, no, no. We ain't gonna get but yes, you're 100% right. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:27

That's right. All right, Parker, we got some some lightning round questions

Lightning Round And Favorite Memories

SPEAKER_00 1:45:31

for you. Kind of kind of quick hitters. Best player you ever played with. Phil Russell. Good player, played of a Sean, good player. Best player you ever played against. I think you said this a while ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:45

Broderick Thomas, Trim and State, playing NBA for a couple years. Broderick? Broderick Thomas. Okay, yeah, okay. Terry Taylor, Austin P went to an NBA. I can I name more than one, is that okay? Yeah. All right, we'll go we'll go Broderick Thomas, Terry Taylor, the whole Murray State team. Those guys were really good. High school wise, I would say Watson, Torrance Watson. He was a good player. Good player. Uh Lathan at Grandview. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:19

Okay, yeah. I will keep going with those guys that were good. That's good. Probably throw Fred in there.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:24

Played with or against both. Oh, yeah. Fred played high school. Yeah. From a high school perspective, yeah. Fred was the most dominant I've ever seen played with from a rebounding, just physical standpoint.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:36

Practice or anything.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:39

He was a beast.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:40

He was a beast.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:41

He was a beast. Yeah. And he sweated like a like a pig. He'd fall and hit the floor and they'd have to change ends. Coach was like, nope, everybody down here now. He was he was a different, different. Yeah. Different. Yeah. He was a beast. He worked, man. He worked hard. He was such a good player. The hardest practice you remember from here in uh in Sykston. Is there a specific practice? He's thinking of something. He started smiling.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:06

There was one where I was like sick, like a dog, like super sick. And and he's getting so mad.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:15

I saw him over there. And I was kind of like, I was sick, but I was kind of showing my butt a little bit too. Like I did with him. And and he just kicked us all out. So I was fighting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:29

You deserved it. Yeah. I think he saved he spared me by just kicking us all out. Because it was just a bad practice. But I would say I was the leader of the bad practice because I was I was struggling. I was sick, but you know, I was being a little soft too. You can't be, you know, you can play through sickness, which I was trying, but I probably could have fought a little bit better.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:48

If it'd have been a game you'd been on. Yeah. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:51

What's a what's a coaching phrase you still hear in your head by any coach you've had? I'm sure you got some phrases from Hollyfield. Did you still fire? Hollowfield.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:59

Foot fire when you're doing football. Do we need to get into that one? The footfire day?

SPEAKER_00 1:48:08

Yeah, yeah. Footfire, and he wants your feet moving so you're ready to go.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:12

We're in PE and he wants me to foot fire. I'm like, and and and I'm not really doing it that hard. I'm like, well, Coach, I'm in the game. I've never seen someone just start foot firing.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:22

And he looked over at Coach James. He said, Did he just say what I think he said? And Coach Ames said, Parker, and just shook his head in disappointment.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:30

Oh, he lit me up so good in that locker room after PE eighth hour or seventh hour, whatever it was. And I learned my lesson that day. Hey, you foot fire when he says foot fire. So Coach Hobbes still brings that one up.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:42

So does he? Yeah. Oh, that's funny. That's funny. I bet yeah. When much more back talk after that, then was it?

SPEAKER_01 1:48:48

I took it on the chin. He lit me up good. So take it like a man.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:53

Yeah. That's right. Favorite gym atmosphere you've been a part of?

SPEAKER_01 1:48:58

Charleston, 2018. Or the fall, going in my senior year, that Charleston game at SEMO conference. Was it it was here, yeah. Just that was the game was fun because you know they'd be used here before. And the just the moments and the that that game was really, really fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:14

But the but the field house was field house.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:16

Yeah, I feel like that every game that year it was packed out. Like it didn't matter who we were playing, if it was 40 degrees out or 10 degrees out. I mean, it was going to be packed. Well, that one was bad because we couldn't make a dang shot. Shout out to Owen and Kevin, who got it going big time in the second half. Trey had some big buckets. That was that was a rough that was a rough one for a while. I mean, and we they were a good team. Yeah. And I'll be honest, we overlooked them a little bit because they're West Plains. We didn't know much about them, and we're kind of joking. Five and state. Rank five and state, and we thought we were gonna go out there and just kind of kill 'em. And if we make shots, we probably do, but we didn't make shots. So come back and beat them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:58

It was a great win. remember and we've talked about this before and I you coach Halfield that yeah tell it great he and Brian tell the story so good would have been was it the when you bounce the ball between your legs that's your senior year.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:13

Yeah that was at Charleston okay yeah so we're up big against Charleston I think I saw y'all on the huddle on the on the huddle camp going crazy I think I saw both of y'all up there.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:24

Oh yeah so Parker is if you all if you're a Sexton fan you'll remember he's we're up 30 or whatever a lot on on on our rival and he comes down and he turns and looks over his shoulder and Brian said he went to coach he goes uh oh like something crazy's gonna is it like request to fly by it's kind of one of those Parker jumps up a little bit bounces the ball between his legs tray Trey catches it and dunks it of course Sexton goes nuts crazy and of course Brian said he's looking over at like some Charleston fans just snatching kids and they're leaving just like nope that's all they're all going out Charleston that it it was the game was over but just to end like that and coach said he goes oh no they thought you were gonna throw it off the backboard or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:15

I thought I was trying yeah I was trying to think because you're going fast and the heat of moment you're like all right do I need to do this and just all of a sudden just right through the legs. Trey caught it you don't that that was that was a great yeah a memory that I that I had to that was a that was a that was a fun game fun time so that was great last question one word for Sykes and basketball special special tell us more about that what do you mean what what what do you mean by that well just that it's the most unique situation in a small town like you say in Southeast Missouri that have this just such lively love for their players and program and basketball and people just embrace you and we've already talked about this but it's just you don't get that anywhere not at Division I not anywhere and did you get anything like this at SEMO? Murray State but they it just wasn't the it's it's Murray State because they brought some of their fans it would be packed out I want to say we play on ESPN tour or something against Morehead State and there was a pretty good crowd but nothing like Syson games and even at Missouri southern we Pit State came in and was packed out 3000 or but it's just different when the whole town is is there well and just supports you.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:44

You could put a name with a lot of those faces in the crowd. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:47

I guess that's a different part too yeah and you they connect with you and you connect with them. Like everyone is embrace it's uh everyone's in it together.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:55

I think that's probably the biggest difference between college atmosphere like what you're looking for because it's family. You can talk about family here. You know the people's name in the crowd you know I mean you can look up and say oh there's such and such and you know there's Matt and there's Micah and there's yeah you know we're acting fools out there yelling and screaming I didn't try to ever look in the crowd I I can be up there glimpsed thinking he was in the crowd.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:21

Well I mean like even when you walk out and you know you know just before the game all I know everybody's it's uh it's awesome the truth is you probably knew when somebody wasn't there yeah yeah I mean you don't get that in college your your mom and dad always sat up in the corner away from everybody away from everybody and I want to say this first I want to

Gratitude Shout Outs And Sign Off

SPEAKER_01 1:53:40

thank my my parents yeah because we wouldn't be I wouldn't be sitting here doing this with y'all if it weren't for them and the older I've gotten the more I've seen how much they sacrificed for Owen and I to be here to be embraced by y'all you guys coach Hallfield the players the town everyone being small town Alabama kids not knowing anything about Sykes and or the basketball program or the town and and it just was such a huge welcoming and that's awesome it was it was I I want to say shout out to mom and dad for making it happen because I and and and all that and second of all I just want to shout to you guys and everyone else who listens and anybody in Sykes and like I'm I'm thankful for everyone because it's made me who I am the good and the bad and the highs and the lows it has right I'm thankful always and well or again I try to realize I I think I realize more you do you do you're just maturing that happens that happens that's awesome thank you for saying that that's we're you're eat you guys are we appreciate you yeah yeah absolutely you taking your time and come over here and hang out with a bunch of old dudes and talk about y'all could be talking forever I could do this for four more hours I know I know like Blake oh I know yeah we have Blake on like two and a half hours I'm like dude man we've been on we're we're we're an hour and a half I had to go back to work yeah he couldn't even stay I'm like but he goes well I gotta come back and talk about hunting and fishing I'm like we're gonna have to make part two then Blake well well we couldn't be prouder to have you you are representation obviously of of of who we are as a town you represent your family well you represent your town well your school well and I know you're gonna have success because you're willing to put in the effort the work the hustle as you say Mike and I are we're we're thrilled to have you on here and I know everybody see that you were coming to Three Rivers I mean like that and and you know we we always want to look for a reason to go support there.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:42

I mean it's it's only I mean you can be there in less than an hour.

SPEAKER_03 1:55:45

Oh yeah yeah it's close yeah I mean it's close close it's not I mean no it's easy like anything getting here no no it's an easy drive for us heck we're right here by 60 just get on the it is flat most of the way until you get there it is flat and just about the whole love the farmland I mean when I see a farmland the flat I'm like I'm home it's in my it's you are truly from southeast Missouri that's right that's right no he's there's nothing better than looking at a good straight cornrow you know what I mean like 100% or love it or or a cotton field or a rice field we've we've talked about it you I I remember when you were a little younger you're like I don't know Owen's he he's big time he wants to go to the big city because I'm a I'm I'm a I'm a hometown kind of guy yeah you're twins but you're still different you're your own men yeah you're you know and we love Owen too we don't we don't we don't throw shade at Owen.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:32

Shout out to Owen too he's one of the best players I've ever played with I mean he had a great college career and got to play pro basketball in Spain. So he was a great great player and even though he's my brother I'm biased he is one of the best players I've ever played against because I ended up playing against him.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:47

Yeah oh I've I've heard I've heard of the stories you guys fighting and your dad just have to go get the ball and say no we're not we're not doing this anymore.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:54

Yeah so you've been at the game against Emporia State that's yeah so I actually got to play against him in a collegiate game so and he was very hard guard even though I played against him my whole life so he he is a talented he was a talented great basketball so I want to put his name in there too guys I played against are really good because he ended up you know he had a great career great career he sure did he sure did he can flat shoot the rock yes he can you said there was last question a while ago are you not going to ask him three guests oh no well that was the last question but yeah yeah give me give me three names of guys when he gets on here all right Brent Worley he's one Brent Warley from Pauper Bluff he's one of my really good friends that's W O R L E Yep he's actually from Popper Bluff he is in the coaching game right now as well okay at Missouri Southern okay let's go with Kevin Jones because you know get Kevin on here I saw we saw Kevin in Columbia yeah yeah yeah he'll you know you can get him rolling you can get him rolling too and we can't get you two on here y'all be fighting or something I'm just kidding I'm kidding hey we're just hey we're some overtired dogs now we ain't we ain't trying to bite each other's heads off anymore hey we used to we talk about that all the time you know and that's that's what you see like you know we got through it and he went on if on his own way we won but you know and there was some there was some loaves there where Kevin I were going to go at it but yeah it's just what happens when you have two competitors and yep yeah and I if Owen if you want to you know go into the car and drive in more and talk about his playing career in Winfield and see what he's doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:28

And we can we can do his we can do it virtual yeah I can it's a essentially like a zoom call yeah and we can record it and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:35

Yeah awesome awesome awesome awesome thank you for those names I need to reach out to I man I didn't talk to Owen a minute you know he he's always doing his own thing he's that skater guy is he remember how we said I do have one I do have one question.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:49

Yeah shoot it's like at Three Rivers does Gene Bess still come around or I think they said so I was gone somewhere and I had just walked in to the office and they said 40 minutes ago Gene was sit or coach best was sitting on that couch or whatever. So he's still around gotta be is he 90 years old or close in his 80s at least you see the statue every time you pull up yeah you just yeah he's a legend oh absolutely isn't he one of the winningest collegiate coaches of all time is he the only junior college coach to ever be inducted to the actual Basketball Hall of Fame or something like that that'd be a good trivia question that's a really good question.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:29

He got inducted with like Dwayne Wade and all those guys May Smith Hall of Fame that's correct so that's correct yeah yeah that's a big deal had a lot of really good players yeah and he was Jimmy I'm sure he would tell you that he sure did he had a lot of great players coach Chad Allen played for him I remember Chad when he trail Spreewell Spreewell Autobio Sunday Autobio They think he played around your dad's time didn't he Sunday Autobio and he played at University of Alabama that's I think I think he played at Memphis too Arkansas somewhere was it I think it was Arkansas and Memphis okay yeah okay I think yeah dad played against him or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:10

Yeah yeah yeah awesome awesome well Parker we appreciate your time man I know you got probably other things that you you wanted to be doing and we appreciate you coming over here and spending time spending some time with us of course Aaron and Luke love to see you obviously when we we're down in the basement this was Parker stomping ground for a while yeah we're we're encroaching on your time on your spot down here now yeah well thank y'all absolutely thank you for letting me talk about myself and everything and talk about basketball and I love doing it we enjoy it appreciate it absolutely we absolutely we love it and uh we end all our broadcast we say go dogs so I'm I'm Matt Tanner thanks for listening to the doghouse go dog dogs that's gonna do it for this episode of the doghouse thanks for hanging with us and showing love to Sykston where small town pride runs deep and bulldog grit never quits. Don't forget to subscribe leave us a review and share this with anyone who bleeds red and black from the heart of the 573 this has been the doghouse where Sykston stories always have a home