Don't Suck: Life, Family & Softball
Don’t Suck: Life, Family & Softball is a father-daughter podcast where passion meets the grind. Hosted by Ronald and Madison Smith, we dive into the highs, lows, and lessons learned from the game of softball and how they apply to life beyond the field.
From early morning workouts to late-night tournaments, and road trips—we talk about the dedication, sacrifices, and unforgettable moments that come with chasing dreams. Expect real conversations, funny stories, competitive debates, and insights into the softball journey, plus a little family banter along the way.
Whether you’re a player, parent, coach, or just love the game, Don’t Suck is here to keep it real. No excuses, no regrets, just hustle.
Don't Suck: Life, Family & Softball
Let's Line Up and Be Friends: Lessons for the Alabama State Games
Ever wondered what happens when a talented softball player freezes at the sight of college coaches? In this revealing episode, Madison and Ronald Smith tackle the nerve-wracking world of college softball recruiting from both player and parent perspectives.
Madison opens up about her paralyzing anxiety when approaching coaches, sharing a particularly mortifying moment when she rehearsed a conversation for 15 minutes only to be immediately shut down. This father-daughter dynamic perfectly captures the tension many softball families experience—a determined parent encouraging their athlete to seize opportunities while the player navigates very real social fears.
We challenge the problematic mindset where young players are pressured about recruitment far too early, creating unnecessary anxiety during developmental years. With the evolution of NIL deals and transfer portals, we explore how the recruiting landscape continues to shift, potentially making high school recruitment less emphasized than in previous generations.
The episode takes an exciting turn as Ronald shares their transformative experience at the Alabama State Games—from Olympic-style opening ceremonies to heartwarming Miracle League baseball games where every contest ends with "Let's line up, shake hands and be friends." This multi-sport celebration offered a powerful reminder of sport's ability to build community beyond competition.
Whether you're a softball parent wondering how to support your athlete through recruitment, a player struggling with coach interactions, or simply love hearing authentic sports stories, this conversation offers valuable insights wrapped in genuine, unfiltered family moments. Tune in to discover why the mental game matters most and how finding your voice can be the biggest challenge in your athletic journey.
came up young. Glove in my hand, dirt on my cleats, yeah, way before I had a fan. Late nights, cage lights perfecting my stance, got a dream in my heart I ain't leaving the chance.
Speaker 2:Softball you're listening to the don't suck live family and softball podcast with your host ronald. Come on, just throw a strike. And madison smith, if only it was that easy it's that easy.
Speaker 3:What's up everybody. You're listening to the Don't Suck Podcast. I've got my daughter Madison.
Speaker 1:Hey guys and our producer Claudia, hey y'all.
Speaker 3:And we're ready to get it kicked off. We're in Season 2 now. As you see, we are in the studio and we are at the home of the Don't Suck Podcast at the Airport Schillinger Self Storage. So we're we're very thankful for them and you know they've kind of given us an opportunity to be able to go live, have a little studio and and and now be on YouTube. So thank you to them and look, if you're looking for a storage, check them out. Be very, very grateful if y'all did so. What y'all got? Y'all nervous. Y'all look a little nervous.
Speaker 1:No, you're just staring at us.
Speaker 3:Y'all want to go ahead and tell them our don't suck moment of the week, or do y'all want us just to act like it? Yes, let's tell them what is it the don't suck moment of the week, or is it?
Speaker 1:the sucky moment the you suck moment yeah, we videoed our whole entire podcast yesterday um start to finish everything and then turns out our video is buffering something was going on with the video so we couldn't get it like to line up.
Speaker 2:Like our voices weren't lining up with what we were saying at the time.
Speaker 3:Once we did line it up, as you got three minutes in the video, it started buffering and something happened.
Speaker 1:So it sucked, and here we are redoing it.
Speaker 3:But one good thing about it is maybe we're not so nervous today.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Something else I want to discuss with y'all is work sucks. I hate work I can smoke I I don't know if I want to ever go to work and then come shoot.
Speaker 2:It's like it's kind of stressful yeah, it is, because it's like work after work yeah, and claudia got on me last night because it's like 10 o'clock.
Speaker 3:I was like, hey, we need to do this, we need to.
Speaker 2:She's like dude quit calling me, quit bothering me about the podcast like this can wait till tomorrow, so oh yeah and then having to go to work eight hours.
Speaker 3:Nine hours. I've been up since like 3 30 this morning, so yeah and then madison had a pitching lesson today and, uh, claudia had work also. So, yeah, but hey, maybe one day, uh, someone, one of y'all could make us not have to go to work anymore. So if you were interested in having the y'all spot, we would really appreciate that too, for sure. Well, look, claudia, how about you go ahead and kick us off this week with our quick pitch questions?
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's get into it. How do you handle anxiety or stress?
Speaker 1:For me. When I feel anxious or stressed, I usually feel better when I talk to somebody about it. Sometimes that doesn't feel like the best thing to do, but once I do talk to somebody and they can help me to understand my own feelings, it makes me feel a lot better about myself and the situations.
Speaker 3:What about you, Claudia?
Speaker 2:I love to bottle it all in, but after a while I get tired of holding it in, so then I just splurge on somebody. So yeah, that's just how I handle it.
Speaker 3:I mean my anxiety or stress. I always most issues I've always kind of just dealt with it on my own. I've never went to somebody else. Typically, if I do go to someone else, I am very stressed. I should probably seek a doctor in that moment, like when I get that way, like in that moment I'd be panicking, yeah.
Speaker 2:How do?
Speaker 3:you stay motivated. Well, I mean you want me to answer, or do you want to go?
Speaker 1:You can go.
Speaker 3:I mean, for me it's just knowing what the big picture is. Yeah, no matter what's in the way, and for sure it's not. Uh, you know motivation, it is big picture. You know what. What's your drive, what's your reason.
Speaker 1:So yeah, knowing what the turnout is going to be. It really keeps me going. You know, knowing I'd have to say the same, no matter what it is. If it's something softball related or like cleaning or anything, just knowing what the end result is going to be makes me feel a lot more motivated.
Speaker 3:Or like podcasts. It's like what's the? Dream of this. I know it started off as like a dining room table which we're kind of still on, but you know, hey, let's talk about your game stats after a game or after a week. But now it's like, hey, what about if we get here and now we talk about the real big pictures? That's really the motivation.
Speaker 2:Yes, 100%, I agree. Have you ever pretended to text just to avoid talking to someone? Okay, I've done this, and it's always someone that I don't particularly want to talk to at the moment, so I'll just kind of go my own way I'll like text and walk away.
Speaker 1:I've done it plenty of times yeah I've never done that have you never like seen things where people are like? This is the equivalent to scrolling on the weather channel when you're in an uncomfortable situation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I mean I always I love people, like in general and you just let the talk I will you.
Speaker 3:Something happened today at work. I was. I was like kind of dead set. I'd been running all morning like I had things to get done and somebody had opened the door, like was coming out of a door. I was coming up the stairs and they held the door open for me, which generally like hey, thanks man, even though it still like that little ways away and I just walked by, my head was like so centered on, like I gotta get this done, I gotta get this. So I got like I don't know five foot in the doorway. I was like you idiot man, like why are you so rude? So I turned. I was like hey, thank you for opening the door, man, I apologize so much, but he's like I got it. He said as soon as I seen your eyes, I seen you were set on something.
Speaker 3:So yeah I've never done that, though I I, I definitely have, I have, I'm guilty.
Speaker 2:Would you do it to?
Speaker 3:somebody you care about.
Speaker 2:No, it wouldn't be anybody you care about. It's more so. Like, say, you're running in for a few groceries and you don't feel like talking to somebody for 30 minutes.
Speaker 3:Oh, like you see Leanne from third grade.
Speaker 2:Yes, and you don't want to catch up for those 15 years.
Speaker 1:Yes, or you know it not going to be an awkward situation.
Speaker 3:You're like I'm just going to pretend I don't even know you're here, Let me tell you all about an awkward situation, and that situation is when you see someone that you haven't talked to in 10 years but you'd be like, oh my God, how's Johnny doing? Because you see all their life on Facebook. So you feel, like you're still close with them, oh yeah like you still know them.
Speaker 2:I've done that before, like I'm. But I've seen multiple students of mine and I don't say anything to them. I see you all the time at school, like at work, so I just don't really interact, unless now if they come up to me I will, but I'm not going to go out of my way to say hey.
Speaker 1:What feels worse booting a ground ball or missing a sign? That's a tough one, because booting a ground ball sucks, but when you miss a sign, in like in really important situation and your coach calls you out or like they know about it, it really sucks um all right I'll, I can deal with missing I can't do internally like yeah deal with that, because nobody else, nobody else knows, nobody in knows. They do when they call you out.
Speaker 3:I get what you're saying, but then you I don't know If I boot a ball that feeling that goes over your body oh man, it's like gosh.
Speaker 2:what a fool.
Speaker 3:It's like cutting somebody off in traffic and it's your fault, and then you have to see them at the next red light.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the worst.
Speaker 3:And then you have to see them at the next red light yeah that's the worst.
Speaker 2:Everybody knows you're an idiot, yeah makes sense. I'd have to say booting ground ball for sure. That's so embarrassing because everybody out in the stands just saw what you did. You know what you did, your team knows what you did and it's like, oh, imagine that college coach watching.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, and that's what's important too is how do you handle it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, true.
Speaker 1:Because in your head you're like oh my gosh, you suck. I can't play this game anymore. I'm terrible. But then you've got to be like you know what it's okay.
Speaker 3:Well, I remember, like I don't know who it was I want to say somebody down in Florida but it was a girl who played softball. She had Like in her head and she said her dad was like chewing her out, like after the game, Like you had this coach here and la-da-da-da-da and you screwed it up and you're never going to get this. And then the coach talked to her like right after that and said we're so thankful, like to see how you reacted, Like we want to offer you a spot on the team.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:Because, like we knew, you were struggling, but it was like your attitude and how you carried yourself was still good.
Speaker 2:It matters. Yeah, I have to see if I can pull it up. It was cool. Yeah, what's the wildest excuse you've heard for missing practice?
Speaker 1:I've heard plenty of them.
Speaker 3:I'm not sure what the wildest would be, but I've heard lots and lots. I mean, I don't know about like wildest excuse, but I think the most embarrassing thing you could do is like have an excuse to not be at practice but then people there know that you're lying about or like you're posting on social media oh my gosh, that's so often.
Speaker 1:And like not even just practice, but just lying about little things, like hey, you want to go here, like oh no, I'm going to my grandmother's house, and then you're posting that you're like at the beach at the beach.
Speaker 2:You're doing something. Yeah, yeah, it's like okay, all right, what's your favorite thing to do on a day off?
Speaker 3:go to the beach tan go shopping well, my day starts like 3 30, so anytime I have a day off, I am sleeping in, and I love going to softball games too. I mean, that's yeah, our days off, and but if I don't have to be somewhere like soon, we are sleeping in. When we were at alabama state games like that was the thing. I was like I'm not getting up at seven.
Speaker 2:So my sleeping in is seven, so seven, seven thirty. I cannot sleep past that point, so I would have to say like sleeping in, which is my seven, seven thirty, um, and just chilling yeah, just I mean like if I have absolutely nothing to do, like I'm probably just gonna lay down and watch tv all day, but that never happens.
Speaker 1:So on the off chance and normally it's only on a sunday yeah, so I mean I've recently learned that I think because you're such like a homebody person that I've heard of being like that too, like I don't want to leave the house a lot of times, or like when, whenever we like, make decisions like do you want to eat at home or go somewhere to eat?
Speaker 3:I'm like, let's just eat at home you know I travel for 12 years and I hated like coming in town and then the next day like we're going to the beach, we're going to do this we're going to do that I just want to be home. I think that's what made me more of a homebody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. What legacy do you want to leave behind?
Speaker 3:Well, for me, I just want to be remembered as someone who always showed up, always was there when I could be, and then it has changed like I used to want to be known as, like a hard worker and this and that. But you know, I kind of thought about that a little bit more, even today. What really would it benefit me now, at my stage of somebody being like that dude's, a tough worker, like a hard worker?
Speaker 3:just in general so I think, being a hard worker, it says a lot about a person, though I don't disagree with that, but I don't want that to define like who I am. Yeah, you know I. I want like I read a billboard that said the only people who remember, uh, that you worked overtime, you know, was in 20 years as your kids or your family.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't want that to be me yeah, yeah, I'd have to say like hard worker for me, which obviously I'm single and don't have any kids, so I can't really say that that can't be my like legacy, I mean at the moment. I mean eventually I'll probably have a kid.
Speaker 3:It's like last night, like when I was texting you like hey, I want to do this, or I want to do that, or this pocket I took, like when you said, hey, yo, yo, it's like chill out, like at 10 o'clock at night but but then I and part of me was like I don't want to be that guy.
Speaker 3:But in my situation, as far as like, this is my, like this is our thing, right here, I do want to be known for that to my like team, you know, like, hey, I'm putting in everything I can, or you know and which we know, that you don't have to work at 10 o'clock at night we all know that we all work really hard on it, but it's still like that part of that legacy is fine, but
Speaker 3:being be my legacy, being that I worked hard for another man to to make to buy oh for sure, yeah, that's car and that's a lot different.
Speaker 2:I don't want to be that yeah for sure, when you're working for yourself, it's a lot more rewarding. So, absolutely, and uh, yeah, I think that would be my biggest thing is, I guess, hard worker right now, and maybe that like.
Speaker 3:I mean, we've talked about this, even like on your episode, but I mean who you've become like, what you've done to get where you're at in the last year and a half is yeah, it's incredible on its own, you know, yeah, like you now you and also like the people around me.
Speaker 2:They know that I love really hard. I don't show that to everybody.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't, but now you have your own identity.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And that's empowering.
Speaker 2:For sure. What's the most controversial thing you believe in?
Speaker 1:Well, for me, we've already talked about it, but definitely Helen Keller and I meant to look it up yesterday and I forgot.
Speaker 3:Well, I actually looked into a Helen Keller thing and Helen and I forgot. I actually looked into a Helen Keller thing and Helen Keller they said that what I? Because when y'all told me this it blew my mind but what I had seen was that her caretaker may have been the one behind all of the things that she did.
Speaker 2:And I don't doubt it. Yeah, for sure, and I don't doubt it Because it's very hard to believe.
Speaker 1:Yes, and they're saying she flew a plane and she lived her life. Like you're living your life in silence and this Like if you close your eyes right now I don't know what black people see.
Speaker 2:They see nothing. If you close your eyes right now and you're looking, they don't even see darkness, they see nothing.
Speaker 1:I see, like reddish black.
Speaker 3:I disagree with all of that, though, because the thing is like, when you lose, like, one of your senses, like you get stronger and something else but she's lost too. All she can do is smell, taste and yeah but think about this like I can't smell anymore because I have sinus issues. I haven't been smelling 10 years, but my taste buds are good they're working overtime, I guess working up for Tom, I guess Superb, I mean, can we agree Sure.
Speaker 1:If you want us to. But yes, I believe that either she was faking it.
Speaker 3:Alright for that. Then I want you, in the next, this season, I want you to bring in, I want you to do a real report on what you really believe. Okay, because we might get canceled I want you to do a real report on what you really believe, because we might get canceled.
Speaker 1:I can just sit here for a podcast and pretend to be here, but when you said that the first time people were like I'm totally on board with Madison.
Speaker 2:No, everybody agrees, Everybody agrees.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Okay, maybe you don't want to go on TikTok, but if you look it up on TikTok you'll find bunches of videos about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'll just check it out yeah, I feel like that's well I mean pretty passionate about it.
Speaker 3:My biggest thing is uh, something controversial for me, that that is, I don't believe anything. The news ever told me like I don't believe 9-11 happened the way it did.
Speaker 3:Like anything, I always think like it's inside jobs, yeah I don't know I, I mean I, they tell you not to talk about that stuff in public, but I just I refuse to believe it's on tv. I posted a video just a couple weeks ago on my personal facebook page of ai and it was like some news reporter and she's like we're reporting live from los angeles, like and behind her, it's like asteroids and spaceships. She's like I'm just kidding, I'm a yeah, no, the the AI these days are getting unreal.
Speaker 1:And they're of everything.
Speaker 2:No, the softball. Yes, they're softball AI.
Speaker 1:And it'll be like my mom told me, if I don't hit the ball, whatever, whatever. And then it's just, it's all over our Don't Slick TikTok.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's fake.
Speaker 2:That's fake. Yes, that's all fake. I'll have to show you some videos. We'll go through it, because I feel like you'd be the type to believe it.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, ai is scary. We use AI when we load our podcast up. We use AI to listen to the podcast and then kind of break it down, do transcripts and give us chapters and things like that, descriptions and stuff. Descriptions, and then we go in there and change some stuff. They tell you like, like, don't ever just stick there, so we'll go in there and change it.
Speaker 3:I use chat gpt a good bit, like when it comes don't tell everybody our secrets well, it's not like secrets, but like when it comes to um kind of like game planning, when, oh well, like llcs, like chat, gpt is a very good starting point. It kind of gave me like where do I need to go, go to with this? And then there's other stuff, like for graphics, like doing shirt graphics. By the way, if you're listening tonight I will post something, but we're going to do a shirt giveaway for our first season. I did the blackout with the drips.
Speaker 2:Yes, have you seen it, love it.
Speaker 3:But a lot of that stuff will start there and try to get not just chat, gpt but other AI things and then build off of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I use AI for school too. I mean not like just cheating, but to help me figure stuff out. Like is very helpful. But it is scary yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, I think you, I think as a tool it's fine in some instances, but you can't trust it, don't let it, don't let it be the final. You know, call like always, look over that stuff and don't be lazy with it.
Speaker 3:But it definitely helps with like trying to get your brain going yeah like the same thing, like when I, when we talk about like having like little business meetings and we're like, hey, bring 10 ideas here, do this like that's a good place to start because it just helps your brain, because most time, like, if you anybody out there, if you went and posted right now like give me 10 shirt ideas based off softball, it's going to give you 10 very, very poor ideas yeah but it gives you somewhere, like to kind of start and say, oh, I kind of like the idea of that or that layout there.
Speaker 2:So yeah, um what's the most challenging aspect of your sport?
Speaker 1:definitely just the mental side.
Speaker 1:I mean yes totally agree, you could you could be an amazing athlete physically and do all these crazy things, but if you're in your head or you just can't get over this thing mentally, like I mean, yeah, that's gonna stop you, you know, and it's really hard to get over things like that because nobody really can help you except for you, yeah, helping yourself, you know, I mean and again we talked about that, you know, last episode of to get over things like that because nobody really can help you except for you helping yourself.
Speaker 3:And again we talked about that last episode of season one was there's tons of hitting coaches, tons of pitching coaches, fielding coaches, none mindset. Yeah, I think Barb Coach Barb has probably mentioned that this past week to someone like Barb is your mindset coach, but it's still still a very nobody's advertising that yeah, and, and nobody else really can change your, your mind mentally, but yourself, like you have and you have to want to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, also like, if you don't want to and you can't fit, you know, it's just, there's a fine line there well, you know talking about, uh, like the yips yeah yeah, you know, we kind of talked about that earlier in the week.
Speaker 3:About uh like the aips. Yeah, yeah, you know, we kind of talked about that earlier in the week. About uh like the auburn catcher.
Speaker 1:I mean this girl's having to run the ball out of the pitcher every pitch yeah, it's like a mint, just like a mental block and so I've I never dealt with that.
Speaker 3:Did you say that you dealt with that? You knew someone who did I did.
Speaker 2:It was always when I would have to like it would always be in like warmups, like just tossing the ball. Like you know, when you first start throwing, you're like super close and I'm like I feel like I'm going to throw it over or I feel like I'm going to throw it at the ground. And then most times in practice, when I threw it, like short like that, it was either hitting the ground or going over their head. So I would like lob it to them because I'm like I'm trying so hard to not Roll Something, but other than that, if it was in a play or anything, it was straight to the chest.
Speaker 1:For a little point. I wouldn't necessarily call it the yips, but it was probably just something in my head. Do you remember this Dad? Maybe in like I was like 12, 13. Yeah, and we would be at practice and I would be standing at first base, the catcher would be back there by home plate and we'd just be taking defense and I just could not throw it to her. I would about hit the coach or throw it overhead, I just could not throw it to her chest.
Speaker 3:It's a real thing. Aiming is the worst thing you can do, and that's what you were trying to do then.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I feel like when we don't think biggest risk, but like in this situation now.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:This was never meant to be like a financial gain or nothing like that, but it is very financially putting. We got 600 microphones, thousands of dollars with the computers, cameras, lights, studios like things like that. Like it all adds up and there's a risk to like there's no reward to that, which now I think we're seeing that there there really is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3:But on top of all that, you're putting yourself out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like something that I may say that's wrong. You know, right now, could you know, make you the way you look at me the rest of your life? Yeah, be incredibly. You know, taxing to who I am? Or you know we're open up to youtube now and yeah I mean you know how many people went to the youtube comment section and just read what people say. I mean people can be mean on the internet. I jokingly tell madison all the time you're ugly.
Speaker 2:But let me look at her.
Speaker 3:We look just alike. She just doesn't have a beard. That's my daughter. That's my love language. I love to pick and play, but when one of y'all say it, I don't know how I'm going to handle that. It's not so much me you can call me fat skinny know how I'm gonna handle that, but it's not so much me. Like you call me fat skinny, I don't really care now, but I don't want my daughter to read something about her and it break her down. But yeah, you got to be tough, you got to be like you're in the circle. Actually, do me a favor roaster, roaster. Well, remember that. What was?
Speaker 1:that good character again.
Speaker 3:Yeah what's that talk show where they make those celebrities come on and read me and tweets about them?
Speaker 2:No, I don't know, but I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 3:I always thought that was pretty funny.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the biggest risk I've ever taken was February 2024, if you know, you know. Yeah, and that is it for our quick pitch.
Speaker 1:You know, oh, I know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I wish I could have had something cool like that to say.
Speaker 2:Was. I could have had something cool like that to say Was that cool? Yeah, that was cool, that was like, that was like another level. Oh, maybe we should clip it. February 2024.
Speaker 3:What year were you born?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Wow, I'm not telling you.
Speaker 2:No, don't tell them Okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, do you even know the day? It's very special.
Speaker 3:It's a day in December. It's very special. It's a day in December. It's the last day. Yeah, you were a $3,000 reward. I think that's what we made in taxes that year.
Speaker 1:Do you make money?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was like some. I mean, you know, if you have kids or something.
Speaker 1:When you have kids, you get money back. Okay, guys, I've never had a kid before, so I haven't either.
Speaker 3:And the cool thing is for you, we didn't have to pay for you nothing the year, so it was like you were born the last day, so I got to use you as a tax credit.
Speaker 1:Wow, you're welcome.
Speaker 3:I think I bought a ping pong table that year with your money. Well, look, that does it for the quick pitch questions, claudia. Yes, thank you so much, ma'am. Madison kind of getting into this season like season two. Season two will go all the way until next school ball season ends, so it's basically a whole year. We wanted to break it down that way. That way we could kind of track where it's. At One day Madison won't be here with us anymore. She'll be off in college and I'll have to bring up my next one.
Speaker 1:That's going to be wild.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then I'll be trying to like adopt a kid just for the podcast I hope to make this a career. I don't have to, you know well, after college I'll come back. No, the ultimate. Should I tell like a little bit of the ultimate goal or just leave it be? Probably not. I say leave it be, leave it be, but you're supposed to between us, just to speak stuff into existence okay, well then tell them don't no, we'll do it off air.
Speaker 2:Don't jinx but you know there's.
Speaker 3:I agree I don't want to jinx nothing, but you know where we're headed to, like this past week, alabama State games and things and I mean it's awesome, you know it really is. But we won't be discussing week to week of Madison's like stats, madison's stats during travel ball season, because there's no benefit. We might go play five, six games and she might pitch four innings. I mean, up to this point you've had an outstanding travel ball season.
Speaker 3:I mean, we don't play every single week, so it wouldn't really line up with our podcast anyways, and you don't pitch every game and things like that. It's the way it switches around, but I think up to this point you're probably hitting 500 or better. You've pitched pretty great. I didn't get to make it to last week's games, but up in.
Speaker 1:Oxford. We're about to go to Colorado.
Speaker 3:I miss that tournament every year in. Oxford. I really want to go up there for that and, like you said, you're about to go to Colorado.
Speaker 1:You want to come. It's not too late, you can drive.
Speaker 3:How many hours of driving is that Like 27?
Speaker 1:A day, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:If somebody listening?
Speaker 3:right now will rent me a camper, rent me the gas money and pay my salary for one week, I'll go. So you better start begging, oh gosh Please.
Speaker 1:This is a in a lifetime opportunity and you're not taking it. You're deciding to stay home. I don't fly, I don't fly either.
Speaker 3:I never flew in my life or flown or flied whatever. Take a horse tranquilizer, knock me down to get me on a plane I don't get why it's so scary.
Speaker 2:It's not scary it's really not do it that, oh, that's even worse. Stick to the, you're scared I'm scared that's so stupid?
Speaker 3:I don't want to fly. I've always been terrified of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, one of our friends that's on our bombers team, her sister was in um, I don't know what country, but she was across the world, in like asia or something not like asia. Well, maybe it was asia, it probably it was one of those continents over there, you know, and she was in some country for some studying abroad thing, I think, and her mom was checking because she was on the way home when we were, I think, leaving. She was going like 500 and something miles an hour on the plane and I was like, oh my gosh, how even does?
Speaker 2:that work.
Speaker 3:It's so smooth though, yeah, but that's when you hit turbulence but it's fine hopefully that won't happen well, since we're not really going to talk about that, there's some things I do want to cover and, like this week I really want to talk about, kind of like, this whole college recruiting situation you're kind of going through right now. Mad's not one to ever just go out and talk to these coaches and chase them down, like it's just it's not her personality and truthfully I don't think like for her she doesn't feel like most coaches are approachable anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they don't seem scary, but they really seem like royalty I think that's more or less in your mind too, probably, but I feel like that's not really how we've been taught, but that's kind of the way they've been portrayed to us is you don't act like this. Around them, you be, you act like this when they're there, you don't talk like this.
Speaker 3:And so then it's like, oh gosh, like I gotta be proper and have the best attitude and smile and you know, and to that one problem is you know, when these girls are 11, 12, 13 years old, you have coaches who act as if these college coaches are out there watching them. They're out there to recruit them, watch them I've heard it from a lot of y'all, to be honest and so change that mindset. They've got to quit losing their mind and things at 12, 13. That's so much pressure on a kid.
Speaker 1:I don't think I've like when I was that age. I don't think I've like when I was that age. I don't think I'd ever even seen what a college coach looked like in person.
Speaker 3:Well, I remember a story of a girl who thought that somebody's grandfather was Oklahoma's head coach because they had the hat on, you know. But that was a pressure that a coach and parent had put on this kid, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so for Madison, we've just never always kind of identified that early on from having some you know mentors and parents above me who said, hey, this doesn't matter at this stage, like get off these teams who are like chasing most team, most play most teams, now travel teams. They don't develop, they recruit, that, that's what they do. And it's the same thing going like on in, like college softball or college football, all these different college anybody who's like giving these uh, big nil deals and stuff now like that's kind of what they're doing. They're they're no longer like building, they're no longer, you know, teaching you how to be a better pitcher, they're just going to recruit the next biggest one, so to say. Say all that it's mostly like with Madison. Now, our catch-22 to that is where Madison has never really had that exposure to go on a deal with coaches and talk to them.
Speaker 1:And now I have to.
Speaker 3:And now she has to. And, Mad, you said it last weekend to me your biggest problem is when you went to a certain coach last season.
Speaker 1:Well, tell us how that went okay so our I guess you would say like our coach that talks to all the colleges at tournaments and stuff his name's coach David and he had told me that there was this coach who had been watching and he was like I think you need to talk to him. And I was like okay, well, maybe in a more shaky voice because I was a little nervous about that. And so I sat there for about 10, 15 minutes and talked to Coach David and we went over the exact way this conversation was going to go. I knew exactly what that coach was going to say. Whenever I talked to him I had it all down, almost like we were acting out this play. And so I was sitting there pretending.
Speaker 1:I was like I'm Madison Smith and I was going back and forth with Coach David and he was like going back and forth, coach david, and he was like okay, I think he should go. And I was like okay, because he was sitting by himself. So I finally work up the courage and I walk over there and I'm like, um, hey, coach, I'm madison smith, I'm a 2027, and he turns around and looks at me, he goes are you done for the day?
Speaker 1:I was like no, sir, and he's like okay, well, I can't talk to you until you're done. And my heart dropped and like I feel my face just like get red because all these people around here and he just told me no, like he told me I couldn't talk to him. So I turned around and I like looked at him and I was like and I'm talking about he's like what happened? And I was like he said I couldn't talk to him. I was like you just set me up for failure, like what is going on?
Speaker 1:these coaches are old school yeah, and yeah he was like well, um, he's probably a little more old school and that's like an old rule. So I wasn't expecting to say that Sorry, and I was like you better be sorry because I'm embarrassed. So ever since then I've kind of had this thought in the back of my mind like what if they reject me? It's like somebody just saying no, and so that's what's kind of worried me up until this point.
Speaker 3:Well, and that takes us. We were in Tupelo two weeks ago and Mad was pitching. It was drizzling a little bit and I think the score was like 3-0. And Mad was kind of on fire. At this point she might have had seven to eight strikeouts. She's hitting her spots and a coach comes up and asks Kelly and said hey, do you all have any player sheets? And so she said Well, it's been raining so we didn't put any out. Let me get one from the coach player sheets. And so she said well, it's been raining so we didn't put any out, let me get one from the coach. So she went and got one and gave it to the coach.
Speaker 3:Being someone who, like, comes from the game, I thought he's probably wanting to know who Madison is. I mean, here she is, she's pitching, she looks great. And so the game finally ends. The coach, coach Gary takes y'all to the side and Coach to have a sermon over there with y'all. The coach sits like over on the side and he's like waiting, waiting, waiting, and then he looks down, he looks up and then he just walks off to the next fields and it's like a mile from us. So Madison comes out and said hey, that coach wants to talk to you and I said I think we need to go over there. You need to practice, you need to learn, you need to get over this, all right. All right, so we walked.
Speaker 3:A mile walk, yeah she's like Dad, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what? I'm like, just say hello, You're probably never going to go to this college anyway. Use it as practice, Go learn how to talk to these coaches. So we get over there and this coach, we come around the corner. He's just standing there. He's literally waiting for her to come say something. She does this.
Speaker 1:Complete other way.
Speaker 3:Get over there right now.
Speaker 1:Go talk, go talk he didn't stop for like two hours. He told me to go talk to this coach.
Speaker 3:Y'all hear that Two hours and that is not, and that's like no exaggeration.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it was like a two-game break and so we walked up there and we're like, okay, we're going to go talk to this coach and then we'll go sit in the car or something.
Speaker 3:We didn't make it to the car, we sat out there the whole entire time because I wouldn't go talk to this dude, yeah. And then when she finally got the courage to come up, almost her mom walks up and says oh, I don't blame her, I wouldn't go over there and talk to him either. And I was like don't enable this, you know. So here we are. It's like in the middle of the park, we're all having like a group powwow trying to let anything get out.
Speaker 1:And we're all like kind of frustrated with each other because one person's saying one thing and you don't want to do that.
Speaker 3:But then the other person's saying this and it's Madison's recruiting season, Like this is the time for her to get recruited. So you end up going to talk to another coach with your other coach like one of your coaches, yeah. And then this one coach, when she finally gets the courage back up to do it, like, go talk to him again. It is, he's talking to other coaches, yeah. And so I'm like Madison, just go over there and kind of stand on the side.
Speaker 1:He'll eventually see you and say hey, what's going on?
Speaker 3:Yeah, which is so awkward? I agree, it is awkward. I don't want to see, I don't. I just want to talk to all four of them.
Speaker 1:Yes, but that's you. You're a guy, you're grown.
Speaker 3:You talk girl and there's a bunch of male way older coaches like that's intimidating.
Speaker 2:She could have used, uh, aubrey's, uh hey, y'all want to see my talent? No, it's talent, not skill. We're not saying that on here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're not doing that but uh, so the coach finally did.
Speaker 1:Everybody's laid around like 14 hours yeah, I think it was raining or something, and so the coach has one moment of where there's no one around him I said, hey, he's alone.
Speaker 3:And she's like, oh God, I say, go talk to this kid.
Speaker 1:And he was standing by a trash can and one of my friends on my team, Savannah. She had an empty Sonic cup in her hand and I was like, okay, so I took her cup and I walked over there and threw it away, and then I turned and looked at it as.
Speaker 3:I threw it away. How are you, man? I didn't even see you there.
Speaker 1:But yeah.
Speaker 3:It turned out to be like a 15-minute conversation. Y'all both laughed. He shared with you some good stuff. I'm curious how other girls deal with this. I know Addison Russell. I talked with her dad a couple weeks ago and he was like man, they're the same kid. I don't know as a coach. I wonder what does a coach look for in that?
Speaker 3:You want a kid who's real confident. I'm sure some coaches probably want a kid who's real bolstering and loud and stuff. Me personally, I probably want a mixture of both. Yeah, I'd hate to have someone who's very, very cocky too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and come on really strong.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I mean, I'm not in the situation. It's also kind of intimidating whenever you see, like when you're at these tournaments and a coach that you are interested in talking to and there's players going up to them and like giving them a hug, like they really know them, and then it's like I don't even know your name yeah like yeah, hi, I'm madison and you know I see girls who I mean truthfully, like.
Speaker 3:I know a girl right now who doesn't have the skill she's aware of this, you know, but the coaches love her and to me that's probably a girl who gets on there. I remember someone last year like they they were talking about, like her one job, like on that team, was like basically be like the team captain, the dugout, and she was looking for a pitcher to show her pitches. Y'all remember this.
Speaker 1:I think she played for oklahoma a pitcher to show her pitches like to show like if she's about to throw a curveball, or oh, like to read them and so like, and she picked up on one of them.
Speaker 3:She's like I, I did my job.
Speaker 3:So I mean, you want those kind of kids too yeah but again, I am curious how girls out there and like as parents too, like what do you do? Are you, do you get frustrated with me because I am, I'm like mass and go go. How girls out there and like as parents too, like what do you do? Are you, do you get frustrated with me Because I am? I'm like Madison, go, go, put yourself out there, go, I mean, go, give it all you've got. This is your opportunity.
Speaker 1:Go say it.
Speaker 3:And then I'm just like, if you don't stop talking to me right now, I'm going to punch you in the nose and then for me I'm like hey, if you don't and we do have a coach who's going to be coming on soon, who gave you some advice last year about ways to kind of communicate through email some tips, because most of these emails are so repetitive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and especially like last year or a few months ago or whatever, when coaches really can't talk to you back. It's like I'm just emailing a wall. I mean, I really hope they see it and I'm going to have the mindset that they did see it and enjoyed my email. But who knows if they saw it.
Speaker 3:You know, and I wonder too, like with the we'll talk about this like the NIL deals now, like these coaches, like D1 level, d2, they may not even be looking at girls in high school anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean, why would I want a kid in high school who hasn't really proven me nothing besides playing against high school talent, when I could go out to the portal?
Speaker 1:and get a kid who's played two years. I don't understand how all that stuff works.
Speaker 3:I wish we didn't have to worry about it. And then the girl from Texas tech Um she's like a millionaire. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Nigel Kennedy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and worth it Every bit of it.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, she's so good. I love watching that.
Speaker 3:You know, I I do think NIO is killing sports, like because now I'm just gotten getting a kid I want.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And these kids are flopping and flopping but there's no development. You know Papa Jim was talking about that. Like the NFL is actually looking at how some of these kids coming to them now are not as talented as what they were 10 years ago, because there's nobody who is taking that player and saying oh, you're a spin pitcher, I want to make you the best spin pitcher there is, or oh, you've got this rise ball.
Speaker 3:Let me, let me really tune that in, because you're going to jump from stanford to texas tech and it's no pen to her. I mean, I wanted to go make her money. That's your opportunity. I mean, here we are, we're about to have an opportunity for you to be having. You know, I'm not saying you're going to, but there's an opportunity that is out there.
Speaker 1:You know, if you become one of these top dogs, yeah, I mean, who wouldn't see a million something dollars and not want to take it?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, I'll spend $800 of yours, you know. I mean I got podcast dreams dude and my neck, who knows who knows who. I have to go out there and hire once. I fire you when you go to college.
Speaker 1:You're not firing me, I'm just going to take a small little leave, a vacation, a small little leave.
Speaker 2:A few seasons leave, you have to give me part of your percentages back.
Speaker 1:I don't know about that one.
Speaker 3:So let me ask you this If we really made it like one day and we're like just say we're like gazillionaires, not millionaires, gazillionaires.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, that's wild.
Speaker 3:In two years, when it's time to go to college, are you going to stay and be a podcaster?
Speaker 1:Okay, actually. So I have thought about this, about me going to college.
Speaker 3:It's not funny guys, I'm all ears.
Speaker 1:Yes, okay. So me going to college and the podcast will be the thing, because I can't just miss out. So hopefully, okay. So in my mind I do not want to go super far away for college. I mean I know you want me to go somewhere that's like not over the street.
Speaker 3:I've always told Madison to go as far as you can, because you'll find out who loves you.
Speaker 1:Yes, but also like I can't do that.
Speaker 3:So so like, and what I mean by that is when you have someone. If you're 10 hours away from home and it's Thanksgiving and you can't come home, the people who invite you to come eat Thanksgiving. They really care about you. Yeah home, the people who invite you to come eat thanksgiving, they really care about you. Yeah, like if you, if you live in mobile and I say, hey, we dinners at or, you know, lunches at 11 on thanksgiving day, I don't have a choice but to invite you like you're my kid not that I don't love you.
Speaker 3:But I'm saying like, some of your friends around here may not love you.
Speaker 1:At that point you'll find out what that means one day but hopefully, when I I do go to college, it's like not more than like three hours away Four maybe, I don't know, it just depends. But I can come home, you know, like on the weekend or something, and we'll just do our podcast.
Speaker 3:Well, if the podcast is that big, I'll probably have the private jet pick you up.
Speaker 2:Okay, private jet we're flying.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm not flying okay, I'm driving everywhere.
Speaker 2:No, let's just drive. Look, we can go, we can go, scoop her up yeah, we can.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I have a great idea. How about we? Because we'll be rich by then. So we just get a studio for where I go to college and y'all just make the drive up there, and then that, what's that face for?
Speaker 3:Bro, if I'm rich, you think I'm going to come watch you play. Every weekend. I'm going to watch everybody play.
Speaker 1:Okay, no, but you're going to come watch me play because I'm your daughter. When I get a time off, that's when we'll all travel together and go watch somebody else. Yeah. Well, unfortunately, we're not going to be rich by then.
Speaker 3:Yes, we will, but you would still go to college, you wouldn't be like your old man, you wouldn't drop out of high school.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm already doing better than you, aren't I?
Speaker 2:Please go to college.
Speaker 3:Those airways will always know that. You said that to me. That was recorded at 47.34. Okay, moving on. Tough. Well, look, that's gonna do it for that section. Like I said, we're not gonna talk madison stats every week. And oh, one thing too the pitcher from old miss the senior.
Speaker 1:Oh, alia benford yes, walking in the winning run her senior season or the, the losing run for her and a 10th inning, too.
Speaker 3:It was a good game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember watching it and it was so long too, but yeah, and her just like the amount of pressure that she probably felt on that pitch before when I watched the game that night.
Speaker 3:I just got home. I was watching it, it was late and I remember thinking like here's Madison, like this was Madison, like in that moment. But I thought like I'm sure she's been there a hundred times.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Which tells me like look, I mean, you can judge failure how you want to, but you may face that again one day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and when I saw it I was thinking about me meeting seventh grade and I was like it's not the same stage, but it sure probably.
Speaker 3:I bet that stage, I bet the pressure on that too, and that's back to the mental thing like yep, it's all mental because she's in her head.
Speaker 1:I've got to hit my spot or she's gonna hit it over, or I've got a third strike, or the game's over yeah, so and then what about, like, if you're the hitter there?
Speaker 3:I think think it was a 3-1 count.
Speaker 1:I thought it was 3-2. Maybe it was, I don't remember.
Speaker 3:I thought it was 3-1. I don't know either, but just say it's 3-1 count in that moment. Are you watching one or are you going to swing for the fences Like do you have any intention to swing?
Speaker 2:No, I'm going to be honest. If three one count bases loaded In that situation?
Speaker 1:imagine the pressure on that pitcher. Probably not.
Speaker 2:No, because as a hitter you know that that pitcher has a ton of pressure on her. It's almost like you're betting on she's not going to throw me a strike. Or in my head I'm saying if it's like me, maybe, and swinging me. But if it's three, two, then obviously, whatever's close, I would swing it.
Speaker 3:I just wonder because I mean in my head I'm like I'd want I don't know man, I'd want to be a hero.
Speaker 2:You'd want to hit the grand slam. You'd want to smash it.
Speaker 3:I'd want to smash one, I mean hopefully the coach is giving me like this, which means take Like you are not swinging here, and that's going to be where I miss the sign that my coach gave me. Yeah, yeah, I know 3-1 count.
Speaker 2:Base is loaded. I'm watching it all day.
Speaker 3:So, Matt, we'll talk about this a little bit. You didn't get to make it to us or make it with us this past week to the Alabama State games.
Speaker 1:I was so sad.
Speaker 3:And we try not to tell you too much because we want to share with you, mostly on there.
Speaker 1:And now you're all about it yeah, well, it was fun, so that'll be no day one you shouldn't tell me about it, because then maybe I'll be jealous that I didn't get to go well, next year I don't care.
Speaker 3:I mean truthfully, I'll tell you all this right now every softball team should be trying to get in that tournament next year it was. It was that much fun and like, give griffin them a real problem. Make them find out where to put 500 softball teams.
Speaker 2:Literally yes.
Speaker 3:Because the environment and stuff like, and the gold medals, like it was so much fun, so much fun.
Speaker 2:But before we get ahead of ourselves, let's go ahead and start out by day one, like day by day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know All right, so I don't want to give too much. So day one we had, I want to say the event started around like 3, yeah, 3 or 4, so we left Mobile. We went up Friday Almost killed Claudia Like maybe 9 times.
Speaker 2:Traffic was horrible. I thought I was going to die.
Speaker 3:I took Madison's car. I didn't want to have my stick shift in the traffic, so the brakes were a little bit, just a little soft.
Speaker 1:Talk about you trying to put your car in gear, but you're in a normal car.
Speaker 3:Well, Claudia learned what that felt like.
Speaker 2:I wanted to kill you. I was like, let me out of this car right now.
Speaker 3:She's like can you pull over to this next rest area? I was like sure.
Speaker 2:We pulled over all right.
Speaker 3:I pull out the front. It was so embarrassing and I used my left foot on the brake as a clutch.
Speaker 2:And I mean just Slid like that far. And everybody was looking at us. It was packed.
Speaker 3:I was like what's up?
Speaker 2:guys, we're doing the Don't Suck podcast.
Speaker 1:That's hilarious. Y'all want to get interviewed.
Speaker 3:I only did it once, though that week, so we finally get up there. We got to the hotel we changed, we went down, we stayed. The hotel we changed, we went down, we stayed north in gardendale.
Speaker 2:Yeah something like that, and then we went down. It was at legacy arena, the legacy arena, but since we were media, media crew, we had a separate entrance and had to get our bags checked and stuff and bougie yeah, it was awesome passcode yeah and then I got.
Speaker 3:Well, they didn't even make us put the passcode in because when we got there I was like the gates were up, so I went up to the. Hey, I need to make sure I do this or it's gonna charge you 40 bucks yeah no, you don't need it. I'm like I kind of need to do that. I don't want to get charged 40 dollars for this, but yeah so we got to the door we had to get our bags checked.
Speaker 3:We got little media stamps on there yeah, that's so cool we walk into this arena and it's massive, huge, and it's like fox uh, like fox is there working it, yeah, and like they got their shirts on their polo and actually we talked to one of the uh news guys and he was actually from my bill he used to work for.
Speaker 2:Yes, he did.
Speaker 3:Yep, it was awesome yeah and uh, but we walk in, like I was like there's like maybe 20 people there, like a couple over couple over here. Nobody's like kind of mixed, they're all like working, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we walk in Working hard too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're like dang, where are all the kids at? Because we've seen kids coming into another door.
Speaker 2:But we had to go to another entrance.
Speaker 3:So we just started like we walked in there, like we owned it.
Speaker 2:Actually, yes, Let me. So I look at Ronald and I'm like I was like do you know if Griff is there, or Griff, what did I say If Griff is here?
Speaker 3:Hey, hey, hey, Is Griff here? Is he here? And I said I don't know. But we are.
Speaker 2:And I got it on video too. I can put the clip in.
Speaker 3:And so we get up there, like the stage was also this big like where they lit the torch and stuff. They had all the drum things. I'm like dang, what are we going to do for four hours?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we had to wait for the main event, which was at 7 or 8.
Speaker 3:We had no clue where they were.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we saw all the kids.
Speaker 3:So we thought they were in private rooms and Griff wouldn't answer the phone because Griff's a celebrity.
Speaker 2:I mean, he was busy, he's a celebrity.
Speaker 3:He has no reason to answer my phone. Let me tell you how. Just pulled up, hey, we're at the softball park man where you at, he's. Like bro, I got 27 sports to be, so we were starving.
Speaker 3:We hadn't eaten all day, so we said hey, let's go to the subway which is. We went out this lady and it looked like it was like right here. So we walked the lady right here. Hey, how do we get there? She's like you got to go like this to get there. So then we walk out. It was started sprinkling. We're like we got computers and gear and all and I'm like this is what are we doing?
Speaker 3:so when we come through, we went the wrong way it's like started raining, so we come back to like get underneath something, this guy's like guys, like the security guy, like over the road he's like where y'all trying to get to us like subway, he goes, man, go through there yeah, so we did, and then we found all the all the people it was yeah they're like in a completely different place yep and walk in there, they give us. Uh, we had our bags. I was like, oh, we're part of the media, you know, crew, we're crew yeah uh, and it was packed.
Speaker 3:It was like tons of people had all the vendors like giving out you know stuff, and we'll have to do that next year. That it was yeah, we will. We were like a little jealous, you know yeah, so then we went eight subway come back and kind of talked to like the u-triple-sa guy, the uh, the new adult softball league, you know the pro league, and then they did 10 call outs for the sponsorships, thousand dollars apiece, and I watched this eight-year-old kid win. I thought it was like a little eight-year-old girl or something. I wasn't sure.
Speaker 2:Girl, not a girl, it was a boy.
Speaker 3:I wasn't sure, man.
Speaker 2:You're so mean, he's going to laugh. They were funny.
Speaker 3:So all that gets done and then they're like you know, we wanted to walk through. We really didn't want to just be in there like snapping pictures and video, we wanted to kind of be around everybody. So we go in there. It's like where do we need to go? And Griff said just go to the south side, because you know we're from the south. South region, yeah, south region. Well, south region was like the smallest division, let's change that. And so they had the out-of-state teams in there team and the little eight-year-old girl was actually a 15 or 16-year-old boy.
Speaker 2:They were the funniest people ever. They were hilarious.
Speaker 3:Which kind of led us to go on a watcher, and I'm thankful we met them.
Speaker 2:Yes, because we would have never experienced that. I never would have thought wrestling was fun.
Speaker 3:We'll get into that in a second, so then we come through. Oh, I got to tell you about this one, karen.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:We've got to talk about the messy stuff. Everybody's loud in there. Everybody's having a good time. I'm not saying they're screaming. Everybody's excited If there's 3,000 people in here talking. It's going to be loud.
Speaker 2:It's going to be loud.
Speaker 3:Nobody is directing it, nobody's saying like hey, y'all don't do this or y'all don't yeah, calm down, they're just kind of coming. There was a hey, uh, y'all excited for this.
Speaker 2:I was like yeah kind of like pumping us up and then they come, there's a hey y'all.
Speaker 3:You know, when this happens we'll direct y'all. Nothing crazy. Well then, some like guy like whistles like really loud, so you like turn around, like okay, must be something important. He's like I can't hear.
Speaker 2:There's nothing to hear.
Speaker 3:We're all having a good time. Well then, a few minutes goes by and I have these folks on video, because I was like I mean I was walking around video and everything, so they're clearly on video.
Speaker 2:So the whole time they're talking Just like everybody else. Like to each other. Just like everybody else.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like everybody else they're ho and they're laughing and they're screaming. Well then, the people down there on the other side of the meg like doing megaphones probably be like if you're getting hyped, throw your hands up or raise your flags, and then she's like, hey, everybody shut up, I can't hear them.
Speaker 1:Are these like parents?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it killed the whole vibe.
Speaker 2:And I was like ma killed the whole vibe and I was like, ma'am, I've got you on video.
Speaker 3:I think they go back to talking like after she yells, but like there's people like around her that were embarrassed too. It'd be like somebody like going to a restaurant and be like, uh, this isn't good. Like yeah, like doing too much so they were like look like man, this is kind of awkward. Well then they got done when everybody was like all right, lady, she's like what? I mean, I can't hear what they're saying. It's like they're telling to pump it up, like get out of here with that.
Speaker 2:So we, anyway, we go through the thing it's called athletes march so that's what essentially what they were doing is walking from the area that we were in straight to the legacy arena, which was where we started out in and it was like it was you would like go, and then it would be like a big break.
Speaker 3:Yeah, uh, I mean the whole thing, I can't explain. It was just so everybody's having a good time. So then finally, we kind of got to where we're like all kind of like in this little tunnel and like, hey, let's go get out in front of them for weekend video. I'm coming in. Well, that whole tunnel led us back to the main legacy arena where we started at. Yeah, madison, we come in there. There's camera like these lights just doom so y'all are on on tv.
Speaker 1:I mean probably we are. I mean they play zendon. Y'all are like famous ronald and claudio walking in here.
Speaker 2:I did like this and, and here we are, I have my iphone media crew I have my dji, so I looked a little bit cooler than you, but it's still like holding that, it's like hold this remote. It's like this yeah, but it's compact.
Speaker 3:It's made for a reason yeah, but then there's like some guy who's got this big old thing that he's comparison he's got a segue thing. He's like riding around the arena doing this and me and claudia like this see, you're the only one that cared about that.
Speaker 2:Comparison is a thief of joy.
Speaker 3:Okay, that's one of my favorite quotes too, but don't take it.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, I like that quote. I'm just being serious.
Speaker 3:But I will tell you all, next year I'm going to have a cool game.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, he's going to have the best thing ever.
Speaker 3:No, I don't need the best I want to have like somebody else. I want somebody else to hold it for me and I just like click it oh my gosh that's bougie. Yeah, very, it was awesome. I mean these teams are coming in there, everybody's cheering. You had the drums. These people had these like masks on and you could see where the torch was going to be at. It was amazing we come in. I'm like man, let me get out. But then I realize they're in our way.
Speaker 3:Oh man Look we come around to the middle and then you can hear like Y'all talk about me, Brian. Look, we come around to the middle and then you hear like live from the Legacy Arena. It's like you're on TV, on live TV, and they're sitting right there and then I'm like, hey, claudia, probably need to get up there before we get some imaging.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's like sending me to, and let me keep this in mind. This was not there whenever we got there in the beginning. So, you should have known it was a prop.
Speaker 3:Well, I didn't remember that.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:So when I put my hand up, I said whoo whoo, and I hear him live from the Legacy Arena. It's the Alli I'm like whoo, don't fall, don't fall.
Speaker 2:And there's people around like just staring. I don't know if anybody's seen it.
Speaker 3:They did. I can feel that it's like booting the ball when everybody's watching yeah, and so the blood get to your face, hey I'm gonna, I'm gonna go over here in this corner like get out for like an hour and, if you don't mind, go get some good video imaging and then and I did and after like 30 minutes, griff come over.
Speaker 3:He's like hey, uh, in like 15 seconds, every mascot that's within 1,000 miles is going to bust through that door. You might want to move to the next corner, so I did, and then they come right out of there.
Speaker 2:They sure did.
Speaker 3:The show was awesome. It was so cool because then they had like the hype songs going on and then there was someone who sang that song like Believer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they had a. It was like a whole concert after.
Speaker 3:I want to say it was like the 1996, like actual torch they used, like during the Olympics. It was cool.
Speaker 2:It was awesome.
Speaker 3:Because they had the Alabama State Games or the Alabama Player of the Year, baseball ants, or male and female.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Who, like, walked around the circle and that was you know, really cool.
Speaker 2:It was so beautiful Then.
Speaker 3:Then they lit it up and fireworks went off. It was awesome. Everybody come down to the floor.
Speaker 2:And then it was a concert. It was a concert, yeah.
Speaker 3:And they gave away like 20 more scholarships that night $1,000.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And it's all random, it was. Everybody needs to go back to that next year. And there was only a few softball teams there for that. And then, like the next day, we found, like when I was talking, to them so much more they were like oh, we didn't even know that was going on. Yeah, or maybe they didn't realize how big that was, yeah. I think, that's probably more it, because you know how, like we've had that, where they have like some type of thing, Opening ceremony and you're like no we don't need to go.
Speaker 3:I'm not going to that. Yeah, this you should have Once that was going on. We tried beating the traffic. Just a hair got out. Do we even eat? I don't think so.
Speaker 2:We were like I don't even know. We were already kind of whipped.
Speaker 3:Got in the hotel and about 1230 that night there was a.
Speaker 2:I'm dead asleep at this point.
Speaker 3:There was a bed bug in the hotel, so we had to burn the hotel and run. We didn't and so we were like in the parking parking lot, had to get our money back and everything in birmingham's like booked, yeah. So like what are we gonna do? And so we were like calling, calling, calling everybody. It was either 900 a night or they had no vacancy.
Speaker 3:So then yeah mom found one in besessemer which was fine, the finest hotel I've ever been at. It was a Candlewood Suites and a Holiday Inn Express together, so you could have like extended stay because obviously Birmingham has been doing road traffic for like 400 years now, so then those people need places to stay. And then the next day we started off we went to Fulton Hill High School. We went and seen the wrestling team wrestle and it was like hey, we're gonna be like 15 minutes.
Speaker 3:I just want to let them know. Hey, man, we appreciate y'all being nice to us last night. Nope, we were there for like two hours.
Speaker 2:We couldn't leave couldn't leave because, first of all, I've never experienced wrestling, I've never even watched it. Um, so to be in that type of intense environment was crazy, like it was awesome. My adrenaline, like their adrenaline, had my adrenaline pumping, so like I'm able to get on the mats and stuff and get low and get footage and stuff, and it was just incredible.
Speaker 3:I got low on the mat one time and you didn't get back up. I had to roll off.
Speaker 1:Is it like just one little mat at once? No, there's like multiple mats. Six mats.
Speaker 2:So think of like a basketball Gym.
Speaker 3:Gym like a gym basically with just mats set up everywhere, and each mat was probably like 20 by 20.
Speaker 2:And it had a circle around it, so obviously I had to stay outside of that. You had to be very careful too, because all of the mats are connected. I had to be aware if there were three other matches behind me. I was constantly watching, making sure I'm not about to get tackled by some kids.
Speaker 3:One thing cool, that we learned was that female wrestling is the number one growing sport right now.
Speaker 2:That's awesome.
Speaker 3:It was fun. I want to go back.
Speaker 2:I do too.
Speaker 3:I've actually been watching YouTube videos of wrestling yeah, but the team we went and kind of watched, just because they were there, we didn't watch them. They face a tough team.
Speaker 2:Did they win? They didn't win.
Speaker 3:I don't know how, Because the first day was like a team's thing, I don't think they medaled there. But the next day a lot of those guys did medal.
Speaker 1:You know when they had individuals, that's what it's called. I was wondering, because those people I guess people we all met were talking about saying something, how they medaled or something, and I'm like, what does this mean?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so that was cool. I got a video of the little eight-year-old girl you know winning his match and what was his name again? I don't know. I mean, I know what, I know what his fake name is on instagram, but uh, so we left there. Well, he, that's what he kept saying. He's like oh, that's not my real name on instagram, kids probably like they were funny, he's probably catfishing girls or something probably but, uh, we left it.
Speaker 3:Oh, what about the? Uh, the guy who slammed the other guy on his head like four?
Speaker 2:times. Oh yeah Y'all. It was crazy Like I really want to go watch it again and the thing is it's not rough like that.
Speaker 3:None of this was like. It's not like watching UFC or anything like that. It's very.
Speaker 2:It just gets your heart pumping because you're like, oh my gosh, who's gonna win this?
Speaker 3:because it's just so like up in the air before, when we got there and it was like a fight, not like they're all fine until they realize three more matches, it's my turn, yeah, you know. And at that point it's like air pods in don't talk to me and I'm like you nervous. I asked, I asked, I said you nervous? He's like yes, sir. But then I remember, like mike tyson saying that like if you ain't nervous, you should be in that ring but it was a lot of fun yeah and then we left there.
Speaker 3:This is still day two. We left there went to the moody miracle league oh, it was wonderful that was. I want to find a way to to support that in any way I can. Going for me too because that you know it, it's kids who you know are less fortunate like in in, you know are less fortunate like in in, or you know special needs special needs and but are the happiest people I've ever met.
Speaker 2:I posted a little TikTok of the one guy hit a home run. There were several home runs. That's so cute. He come around, he's so happy, so happy and we come in there.
Speaker 3:You know I did my little stupid, let me. I hear people tell me like oh, you do good, you have a radio voice, you do this and I do appreciate that. It makes you feel like a little bit good. When you got that mic you're like what's up? Everybody, it's Ron, I'm day one. It was the first couple of times it was awkward.
Speaker 3:So we do that. And then we start walking into it and this guy I mean dude, like I'm only outside the fence, he's like this boy can hit you better back up. So then they brought like the little thing out and he's like go to the center field and he smokes one like 30 foot over my head, yeah and uh. But I mean they can play some sports, they can. And then we ran into the guy didn't tell this, but the night before at the uh, when they were getting, when it was like the hype time, like the concert was going on obby the tiger was there and this guy like comes up to me and like hugs me.
Speaker 3:He's like obby, I'm not obby.
Speaker 2:He was so excited over there.
Speaker 3:It was so cute but the next day when we got there, when I walked up, it was his mom was like you're the guy I thought you were his caretaker last night. You know, last night I was like uh-uh, he's like I'm so sorry. I said it didn't bother me, you know, but yeah, it was cute, his name was mitchell yeah and he loved like mario, like bowser or something like that.
Speaker 3:So when he hit the ball he throw them hands up. I have to see if I can't find it, but he run around we have the video bowser oh my gosh, but I mean they were so much fun and and it kind of made me feel we kind of get into this a little bit later, but I remember the announcer.
Speaker 3:They're all very encouraging, like yeah they got really good help out there, and that's one thing I did here too. Is there's not a lot of help? Yeah, so that's somewhere that we need to put our time and try to figure out how we can do that, even if it's something locally here. But, um, or team up with them and find out. You know something that we could do. I'm sure there's something, but yeah, uh, I don't think my heart's ever felt as happy.
Speaker 2:No, Like in that moment.
Speaker 3:They had so much fun, and then talking to like some of the parents like they don't do enough of it, and then talking to like some of the people who help. It's because they don't have enough help. So but one thing they say at the very end of those games is you know, every game kind of ends like in a tie. But they said uh let's line up, let's shake hands and let's be friends.
Speaker 1:And I thought myself I love that quote man, we could any softball game I've ever been to especially like 12.
Speaker 3:You and under could really really yeah, yeah, and it wasn't. A few hours later we're like come on, let's line up, shake hands and be friends. It got wild at the eight.
Speaker 2:It was the eight and nine, you that did it for me, is it it not, dude?
Speaker 3:the nine. You kids are good.
Speaker 2:They can throw the ball. That's insane.
Speaker 3:I have never seen nine you like that, so we end up going to-.
Speaker 2:Bill Noble Park.
Speaker 3:Bill Noble Park, which is the softball parks, which were the softball field we didn't get to make there were so many things we wanted to go to. We just didn't have enough time, so and then we get there absolutely beautiful park the best park I've ever been to hands down the layout, the parking, like I'm sure, if I had like 18 wagons because remember those stairs went down. Did they have a like a? Nope I don't know how you had just go down you had to go down the stairs.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm saying you had like a wagon.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I don't know yeah, but it was, it was beautiful. I mean, there's a picture of us at the Gardendale. It says Gardendale of Big Cloud. Like the whole park, like the landscape, all this construction, like why do we not have that around here?
Speaker 1:It looked really nice in the picture, I mean we're so big.
Speaker 3:I don't get why Mobile like this area gets no support like that in any sport. No support like that in any sport. You know we have like the Daphne sports complex, but this place, I mean there's more, I'd say.
Speaker 3:The fields are nicer, probably in general, but the layout at that place blows um that Daphne sportsplex out of the water yeah, really yeah, and so we set up that day we we took like pictures, we went and took a lot of video and for us, you know, we grew 15, 20 percent in growth from like our podcast and social medias and stuff. We didn't really do anything to advertise. It was every now and then somebody would be like hey, what are y'all here like, who are y'all?
Speaker 2:because we had our media passes and like cameras out and like filming and stuff. People would ask us like here and there, like what are y'all here for? And we just tell them a little bit about the podcast. I heck, I even met some people from sarah land yeah, so yeah from sarah.
Speaker 3:Hey, we didn't get like recognized, recognized, but somebody did. We were like talking. Somebody was like, oh yeah, we're part of the don't suck podcast. Well, he goes. Oh yeah, I follow y'all. Yeah, oh yeah. And then the second day we were videoing these girls called some of the sweetest kids. There was two 11-year-old girls there that were playing like 15, 16 years old, really good, really good kids. First of all, you would have never known it.
Speaker 2:They were so tall. They were about my height.
Speaker 3:But one of them's sister played, which was a pitcher at Florida, and then the other one's dad was an assistant coach at Auburn.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:They kind of know the direction of where they're headed to. Yeah, uh, that was a lot of fun. And then at one point somebody's like asked me, I had that little gimbal thing of claudia's out. She, they said, are you vlogging? I was like I'm a lot more important than that. And she's like claudia said we own this. You know we have this podcast a lot. And she's like you should follow us within the girl scanning. She's like I like I already do. That was cool.
Speaker 2:That was cool.
Speaker 3:So, but outside of that, I mean, you know, we stayed at the ballpark from that day, day two and day three. We didn't get to watch anybody medal in that aspect because the games got so late. But next year will be a lot different. You will definitely be there, whether you're playing softball or you're working that event.
Speaker 2:Because she's going to be working there. Yeah, playing softball.
Speaker 3:You're working that event because she's going to be working there. Yeah, because what we want to do is go for, like we want to have our tent set up, a table set up and we want to have mics and stands set up and then we can bring players in, because girls I mean I'm sure the boys do, but the girls love to come on and like interview and so our quick pitch questions that we do. Now we're going to have those all all scaped out and so players can sit down with us, come on for two, three minutes and but have it like really planned out because they absolutely love it, you know, and uh, outside of that, like the weekend was like a 10 to 10 there was.
Speaker 1:It sucked that you weren't there yeah, I was sad I couldn't go yeah, I mean that and I was like I text you and I was like, hey, let me know how it goes. You're like I'm sure you're gonna see posts about it, because in bunch then I'm just sitting here and there's like not, I mean, I know y'all are really busy but there wasn't a lot of place to look from, so slammed, no time to do anything look, claudia had to quit on me one, the second night dude, I was done for because we just did this all day, all day.
Speaker 2:She said okay, let me. We forgot to tell the people this I forgot my noble shoes, which is my shoes that I wear everywhere and I can stand on them all day long and my feet won't hurt, my legs won't hurt, my knees won't hurt. I forgot them, so we had to go. I had to go buy some shoes that were not as comfortable, brand new because you know you really have to break shoes in I was miserable, like my feet were hurting, which made my knees hurt like everything was hurting yeah so I was done for checked out I fought through the pain.
Speaker 1:I took some advil and just dug deep because you told me about how rough your day was not your day, but your, your body was oh, the next day, like there was nothing but sleeping in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but when? We were there she's like we were there. She's like I'd go here, I'd come back. I'd go here, I'd come back.
Speaker 2:And she's like man I was sitting down. She said I was hanging out.
Speaker 3:She said hey, where are you about to move to now? I'm like over here. She's like I'm going to stay right here. All right, I would have been better off I don't know if you would have been better off or not because we had never stopped. It was like from the time we got up. It was just going, going, going. And let me tell you the breakfast at the Holiday Inn Express.
Speaker 1:So, good. Well, I can't wait to eat there whenever we get Like three weeks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, them cinnamon rolls Gosh dog and the omelets, everything there. Y'all that, uh, we are giving away a shirt this week. Did I already tell?
Speaker 2:them that I remember. Well, I'm tell them again yep, I have a, we have a couple different graphic design shirts.
Speaker 3:That we did. Did I say graphic design, a couple graphic tees? They are drip edition that that sounds weird.
Speaker 1:Graphic tees and that was graphic's what they're called.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to get cool man, Just take a teeshirt.
Speaker 3:The graphics and we went with a drip scheme like the Miami Vice, the pink and the blue Beautiful. So all you have to do is go follow us on YouTube and then share our link on YouTube and tag us in it and that will put you in for it. I think we're going to give away like two or three of these shirts, so y'all do that go like, go follow share with your friends.
Speaker 1:Ladies, thank y'all so much. Y'all have anything for them, don't suck.