Jay Bilas: No Days Off - [Glue Guys, EP.15]

I played against John Ebeling my first year. Well, both years I played in Italy and he was an All American at, I think it was Division 2 at Florida Southern and older than I was, but he was a very similar player. Like, he wasn't this spectacular athlete. You know, he wasn't jumping out of the gym or anything. But when I played against him, everything, everything I had to do was hard against him. And when you finished playing against him, basically your thought was, I don't want to do that again. Like, I don't want to play against him again. And honestly, I started being a little introspective, going, is that what my opponents think about me? And I think the answer was no. Ebeling didn't do anything that I couldn't do. He was just relentless. And that was kind of one of the times where it hit me, man, like, relentless is really hard to deal with. And what's keeping me from being relentless?

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Welcome to Glue Guys. We're your hosts, Shane Battier, Ravi Gupta and Alex Smith.

And we're bringing you behind the scenes of the locker rooms, the boardrooms and the living rooms that taught us everything we know about what it takes to be great leaders and even better teammates and friends.

We hope the conversation helps you bring more ambition and more joy to your own work, life and relationships. It certainly has for us.

All right, Glue Guy listeners, brace yourself. Today we've got an extra special guest. We have a lot of special guests. This is an extra special guest who's not just a legend on the court, but a powerhouse off the court as well. We're talking about a guy who's seen every side of the game from a four year starter, Duke, where he stacked up over a thousand points. For those who don't know, if you score a thousand points, you're legit. Okay? He was a pro baller to an assistant coach to one of the sharpest minds on ESPN that we've ever seen in the game of basketball or any sport. Yes, it is the Jay Billis. The man isn't just a hoops analyst, he's also a hoops philosopher. Today we're going to get some nuggets, I'm sure, and be wowed by his knowledge. He's comfortable breaking down game tapes as he is dissecting legal briefs because, oh, yeah, he's also an attorney, boys and girls. That's what kind of man Jay Billis is. And of course, he's the author of the best selling book Toughness. Developing True Strengths on And off the court.

Jay.

It's still available on Amazon, right?

Christmas is coming. Yeah. Do I owe you money or something? That was. I must owe you a lot of money.

Well, that's what we do. We have our guests on and they pay us.

That's right.

More importantly, Jay is my, my friend. I've known Jay for, for many, many years. Obviously through our, our connections at Duke, he's been, become a, a close friend, a mentor. Now that I've, I've moved to Charlotte, I say I see him more often, which is always a great day. He, you know, his greatest claim to fame, his, his wife is way better than he is. So we actually probably should have got Wendy for this now in retrospect, but we'll take Jay for today. And you know, one of the things I want to start off with. Jay, thank you for joining blue guys. You know, you're a professional basketball player and much ballyhoon and like no one actually knows what your stats are in European basketball. And so I actually went to the intro web to try to find like, okay, what are J Bill's stats now with AI like, you know, the research capabilities are so deep. And when I went to my website, we actually couldn't find any stats for you. The website said during his time In Italy in 1987 and 1988, he was reportedly among amongst the top scorers in the league. And so, you know, I want you to use this glue guys episode as a mouthpiece for your European basketball career. So like no one knows how you did but you. So tell us points per game.

I actually have all the stats. Yeah, I averaged over, I averaged over 20 my, my first year playing in Verona and then over 10 rebounds and I didn't shoot the ball particularly well from three that year. I was under 40% but shot it well from the free throw line. I think I was up near 80 at 80. And, and I had a, I had a good year individually among the top scorers in the, in the Italian league. And then the next year I was even better. My percentages were way better. I shot like well over 40% from 3 and averaged over 20. So my time in Italy, I averaged well over, not well over, but I averaged over 20 and 10 each year.

So you're like the original stretch four. So basically what you're saying, shooting 40% from three, you were the original stretch four back in 87, 88.

I wouldn't say that. 86, 87. I'd never played with a three point line before it came in, in College the year after I graduated. So, you know, I was like, what the hell is this? And so the, the next year I got used to it and, and really enjoyed it. You didn't get it get beat up as much out there.

That's true. That's why I kept my ass out of the pain.

Right. Jay, I, I read your book. I thought it was awesome. I really enjoyed it. I have a copy of it I wanted to talk about. I talk about your book a lot with my kids. And the reason is you'd say that the toughest player you ever played against was not Michael Jordan. Right. It was John Eberling, if I recall correctly. And I talk about this all the time with my kids. Would you mind talking about why, who he was and why he was so hard to play against?

Yeah, I played against John Ebeling my first year. Well, both years I played in Italy and he was an All American at, I think it was Division 2 at Florida Southern, and older than I was, but he was a very similar player. Like, he wasn't this spectacular athlete. You know, he wasn't jumping out of the gym or anything. But when I played against him, everything, everything I had to do was hard against him. And when you finished playing against him, basically your thought was, I don't want to do that again. Like, I don't want to play against him again. And honestly, I started being a little introspective, going, is that what my opponents think about me? And I think the answer was no. And, you know, he. Every time, like, I had to bust my ass down the floor because he was sprinting down the floor. And every time a shot went up, like, he cracked me every time. And every screen he set was hard. And it was all stuff that I could do, but honestly, I don't think I was willing to do it. And he was. And so that was like a great lesson. It wasn't the first time that it ever happened, but he was the first one that ever. That I ever played against that did it ever, every single time. And there was never like a, There was never a break. And I honestly, I mean, Shane, Alex, you guys can all speak to it like, you know, when you meet that. And it wasn't like I had played against guys. Michael Jordan was just a superior being, you know, so it's not like you could compare yourself to him and go, well, if I work really hard, I could do that. You go, no, can't do that. That's not going to happen. But this guy didn't Ebileink didn't do anything that I couldn't do. He was just relentless. And, and that, that was kind of one of the times where it hit me, man, like, relentless is really hard to deal with. And, and what's keeping me from being relentless? And that, that was a, honestly, it was a great lesson. And, and, but finishing the game going, I don't want to, I don't want to play against that again. I know, don't, I don't want to do that again. And then, and then asking, hey, does anybody think that about me? When they play against me, they probably want another, they probably wanted to run it back again. It just was an awakening, really.

Is that coachable, you think?

JAY I do, yeah, I do. I mean, you know, it's like anything else. I think there are people that have an aptitude for things that are beyond the norm. But whether it's, it's toughness or concentration or, you know, your ability to handle certain situations, I think you can, you can improve when you're made aware of it. And, you know, it's kind of like when all of us were coming up the first time you really watched yourself on film, you had an image of yourself and then you saw it and you're like, well, that's not what I thought I was doing. And then it made you, you know, kind of look at yourself a little bit differently. And that was, it's not like that kind of thing had never happened before, but it never happened quite to that level with me where it was like, holy cow, you know, I need to, I need to start doing that and, and, and making my opponent feel that way. And, But I do think it's teachable. I think all these things are teachable, at least to elevate yourself. You may not be able to get to the level of a, an Alex Smith or a Shane Battier or something like that, but you can make yourself a hell of a lot better.

JAY so you, you go to Europe. What ultimately led to the decision to then jump into coaching?

Part of the reason I went to Europe, Alex, was I was, you know, I was a good, solid college player, and I thought I could have made an NBA team. But, you know, I was one of those guys where I was a really highly regarded high school player. Then I went to Duke and I got on a team with a lot of great players, and so I was a role player there, and I was really proud of that. But being a role player is different than what I was used to, which was being a star and the highest regarded player around. And when I went over to Europe, there was part of me that thinks, okay, well, maybe this is my level. But it was kind of cool to be a star again, and I. I liked it. But after a couple years of it, three years of it, Coach K. I got admitted to law school because I wanted to. I wanted to go to law school in the future. So I thought I'd. I'd apply, and then if I got in somewhere, I could defer it and keep playing. And when I got admitted to Duke, actually, I wasn't even sure I was admitted. Coach K called me and said, I've got a spot on my staff. If you get into law school, will you. Will you take this spot on my staff and go to law school? And I told him I wanted to keep playing, and Shane will relate to this really well. His response was like, okay, well, I just don't know that this is ever going to come around for you again.

I was like, coach K is very subtle like that.

Very subtle. I think I had to take this then. And I kind of proven to myself what I wanted to prove that I wasn't just a role player when I played over in Europe. So I took it and kind of decided, okay, well, maybe I'll go down the coaching road and the law degree will be a great thing to have in my back pocket. But that's the reason I quit. I wanted to play 10 or 12 years over there, but when that offer came along, it was kind of too good to turn down. Or maybe I was just too afraid to say no to Coach K. It might have been the latter.

What years were you coaching then, Jay?

My first year was 1990, so I was there 90, 91 and 92 those seasons. And in those three years, Duke went to the NCAA championship game. Championship game. Each of those years, we lost in 90 and then won it in 91 and 92. And then after I left the program, really went in the toilet. Never had that kind of success anymore.

Would you mind? So I mentioned that, you know, earlier I went to Duke. My dad went to duke for his PhD. So I'm, you know, lifelong. Right, right. You know, Shane has talked about how he didn't even like Duke before he went there until he turned around, so.

But I didn't like Duke. I didn't like Duke after Shane went there.

I've been a big fan forever. And so I. There's this story from 92 that since you were there, I would love to hear in the Kentucky game where, you know, Sean woods hits the shot duke is down 12 seconds left. What happens in the huddle there? I've, like, watched videos. I've heard about what supposedly Coach K says to the team. What happens in that huddle where you're down and everything looks like it's completely screwed.

What, what I remember from that was after Sean woods hit that shot and he banked it in, it was around the free throw line and he, he wound up banking that shot in and we had called the timeout. So there's what, 2.1 seconds left. And back then, you know, I don't, I just don't remember a lot of kind of long pass plays that were successful or half court shot type deals that were successful. I might have happened once in a while, but it's happened more often in the years since. So honestly, the feeling you had was kind of, you know, we're, we're screwed. And the players, when they walk back to the huddle from the other end of the floor where Kentucky's bucket was, they were kind of, you know, body language was kind of, you know, down. And Coach K got him in the huddle. And I was standing in the back with Mike Bray, who, you know, later became the coach at Notre Dame, and he's now with the Atlanta Hawks. And we had, Coach K had called a play that we had run earlier in the season against Wake Forest and didn't go very well. Like, Grant Hill threw this banana ball that led Leitner to the sideline. He wound up stepping out of bounds and we lost. So you're kind of thinking, okay, we're going to run a play that wasn't successful last time we ran it. And, you know, I've heard Coach K in a bunch of interviews saying, you know, he started asking the guys questions like, you know, grant, can you throw this pass? Laitner, can you catch it? All that stuff. I don't honestly remember hearing that, but because I was standing in the back and Coach Case back was to me, so, you know, it's harder for me to hear. But the one thing I do remember is they were really confident, the players really confident when they left the huddle. And the thing that, that I took from that is, you know, they might not have completed that play even being as confident as they were, because, you know, what are the chances of that? But if they didn't have that level of confidence that we're going to do this, then there was zero chance. Because the way I remember it, there was zero chance when they came to the huddle. And there was a chance when they left. And. And, you know, when. Honestly, when the ball went in and everybody started kind of jumping around, I ran into the locker room and I didn't know what to do, you know, so I went. I didn't run straight in there, but after. After a short period of watching the guys jump up and down, I kind of walked in. I didn't run. I kind of walked into the locker room, and then I realized, well, I'm all by myself in here, and. And nobody. Nobody else was there. So I went back out. But it was still one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. And it wasn't just that play. That game was off the charts good. The shots made. Both teams shot over 50%. It was one of the most memorable experiences in the game I've ever had. I was just kind of riveted to the whole thing, and there wasn't a minute of that game that it wasn't. It wasn't amazing.

Jay, you mentioned, obviously, being a highly touted high school player. Can you just take us back to, like, what was the state of Duke basketball at that time and what made you choose to go out there?

Well, the state of. It was not very good, and they were. They were losing program at the time. And Coach K was in his second year when he started recruiting me. And my first, you know, my. My freshman year at Duke was his third year there, and so he had not had much success at all. But that didn't. Maybe I was just too dumb as a teenager, but that didn't even resonate with me. And maybe I was too arrogant enough to think, well, we'll go in and fix it. And so when. When I went to watch, on my visit, watched him practice, and Coach K takes great pride in saying he never told anybody, anybody they would ever start. You know, like, he never promised that to anybody. That's true. He never promised it. But. But he did say to us, you know, I can't promise you I'll start, but I'll be shocked if you don't. It was that kind of. That kind of thing, but, you know, the team just wasn't very good. And. But it was. The thing that was the stunner for me was when we got there, you know, we were the number one recruiting class in the country, and you kind of thought, okay, well, we're going to go in there and win right away. And then you start playing against these older lottery picks at all these other. Other places, whether it's North Carolina or Maryland or Wake Forest, you name it, North Carolina State and you're going, okay. This is a little different. When we got to campus, we used to go over to North Carolina and they would come to our place before the official practice started and we'd play pickup games. And the first week of pickup games, I remember Mark Aller, my roommate, and I were kind of looking at each other going, this is a little different than we thought it was going to be. You know, you're playing against Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins and Brad Daugherty and going, holy. And they wound up being, you know, top four draft picks, all of them. It was a different world and we had to adjust to it.

Was it something about Coach K's confidence? How did he put that class together?

Just from my perspective at that time, like I had. Shane knows this, we've talked about it before, but I did not have a very good relationship with my high school coach. He was very difficult to deal with. And none of the players on our high school team, we were all friends from the time we were teammates from fourth grade all the way through high school. And none of us had a good experience in high school. We had a good experience with one another, but not with our coach. And at least I was smart enough at that time to realize like the only time I was going to get to choose who I played for was when I went to college. You know, I didn't get to choose any of my coaches before that. And I knew I wasn't going to get to choose if I had the chance to play after. So I got to choose and I was not going to screw that up. I really, honestly, Alex, I didn't look at schools, I was looking at coaches. And I figured the guy I wanted to play for would be at a school I wanted to go to. And I came down to Coach K at Duke, Jim Boeheim at Syracuse, Lute Olson who was at Iowa at that time, and then a man named Ted Owens who was the head coach at Kansas. And those were the four schools I came down to. And at the end of my, I mean, I'm sure this was similar for you guys. Every visit I came home from, that's where I was going. And then that wore off after a while and when the dust cleared to me, I kept going back to, I like Coach K the best. It wasn't that I didn't like the other guys and it wasn't like it was a no brainer, but I just liked him the best. And I was like, I want to play for him. And it didn't occur to me at the time that he had played for Bob knight, and maybe he'd scream at me, and it didn't occur to me that we would ever lose. That never crossed my mind. Or that he could get fired because he was. It turned out he was, like, reputed to be on thin ice at the time. None of that ever made a difference for me. The main thing was I just. I liked him the best.

Is that good advice? If you were telling young Jay billis today what you know now, is that sound advice to say, hey, you know what? Find the leader that you believe in the most? You know, I know Ravi deals with founders out in silicon Valley every single day who are charismatic, addict, and have an unbelievable skill. And, you know, when they're hiring first five employees, usually those people are buying into that person more so than the vehicle, you know, and so, like, hearing that story, Is that sound advice? Should people, you know, put stock into the leader? Should they put stock into, like, how their personal journey will be in that group or that. Or that team? You know? How do you feel about that?

I can say that it's worked for me beyond just the coach K decision. Like, look, if coach K. If coach K were the head coach at, you know, western Idaho college or something, I don't. I wouldn't have gone there. I think there was a limit to the guy, the leader, I wanted to play for. But when I, When I was making a decision, when, When Wendy and I decided we wanted to move to Charlotte, I had had a job out in Los Angeles, and we decided, okay, we want to live in Charlotte, North Carolina. So I need to find a job. And when I, When I was being recruited by law firms here in Charlotte, I chose the law firm that I ultimately wound up with. And I'm still, still there because I sat down with one of the lawyers there, and after I was with them for a couple hours, I go, I want to work where he works. Like, I, I, I thought so highly of him. His name's Ben Hoffield, and, And he still lives right near here, Older now, but he wasn't, at the time, the managing partner. He ultimately became that. But after I came home, I told Wendy, like, I'm going to work where that guy works. Like, I, I'm. I'm hitching myself to him. And so it's worked for me. But Shane, I also had. I was pretty lucky. Like, my parents, I think, made me, um, at least they gave me the. The thought that it was my decision, But I think they were kind of like bumpers in a bowling alley that, you know, if I ever went in the gutter, they'd push me back in.

That is an amazing analogy, by the way. Jay, not to interrupt, but I'm going to write. I wrote that one. I wrote that one down mentally, the bumpers in a bowling alley.

But I believe that. I think if I were going to go down a path they didn't approve of, I think they would have jumped in and made sure I didn't, I didn't roll into the gutter. But. But they, they kind of gave me the. The feeling that I was the one making the decision, even though they were right behind me, kind of looking over my shoulder to make sure I didn't screw it up.

That's your job, Ravi. Right. I mean, you're. You're buying. You're buying the leader, you're buying the founder, right?

I was just, I mean, while you were talking, Jay, I was truly thinking, like, when you're like, man, I just. The first. I think the insight of, you know, it's the only time I'm ever going to pick my coach, I think is a really good one. Right? And I think it's a good one as a teenager to have had. But yeah, the whole time you were talking, I was like, that's our business, you know, to figure out which people are going to lead you to a place you want to go. And we do get the luxury of picking every single person that we get to work with.

Right.

And I'll give you guys this example that somebody told me the other day. That's crazy. Like, you know, you mentioned that Coach K was in his third year when you went there. So you were like a venture capitalist in some way of, like, you have to figure out if he's going to become something different than what he had shown record wise. The crazy thing is if you get the person right, you can pick it even really late. Like, the stat that came up the other day was, you know, meta. Meta stock, okay? Meta stock in the last 10 years is up basically 8 times. Okay. It's an 8X. If you would have bought Meta stock 10 years ago, you would have made 8 times your money over the last 10 years. Was it controversial that Mark Zuckerberg was like, really smart and unique and a crazy good, like, you know, business person 10 years ago? No, you just had to buy it and put it under your pillow and not think about it anymore. You just have to get it right that the person's actually special. So you picked Coach K. And you were right. That he's special. So I'd say, Shane. Yeah, it's our business. You just have to, like, not get into the mental trap of thinking there are more quote unquote, special people than there are. You know what I'm saying? You gotta, like, actually find the person that deserves to get that treatment. And if they do, then you just hold on for as long as you can.

When is it worth to stick it out with a bad leader?

Right.

You know, we get a lot of feedback, Jay, from our listeners. Like, you know, I'm doing what I love. I'm in a job that, like, I've dreamt about this.

But my.

But my boss thinks sucks. I don't like.

I don't like her.

I don't like him, you know. And so what can we say to those people out there who say that's great for you guys? You guys found, you know, the perfect coach and leader for you and Ravi. You get to work with the people you want to work with. But, like, we don't get that luxury. What can we tell, you know, our friends, our listeners, who are maybe in a job they love, but just don't have the leadership inspiration that we were lucky to get.

I think it's got to be, in a lot of ways, a note. When you see a thing, look, if you don't have another option, I get it. But if you do have other options, you know, the point about sticking it out or moving to something different, I kind of look at it from a healthy versus unhealthy perspective. If you're in a difficult situation or one that's not ideal and it becomes unhealthy, then I think it's time to make a change. I didn't look at it like that years ago, but I do now. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I mean, your health, your mental health, all that is really important. And when I say mental health, I don't mean some kind of mental health problem. I mean putting yourself in the best possible position. You know, I see it a lot in my industry where people have worked in a certain job for a long time.

Which industry, Jay?

Broadcast industry. But I think. But I think it does apply to my job as a lawyer as well in big law firms. But when you've been in a certain place for a long time, I don't want to make it sound like the Shawshank Redemption and you've been institutionalized or something, but making that change brings in risk and insecurity, a feeling of insecurity. But Oftentimes when I've had colleagues that have made that change, they've been happier somewhere else because they didn't see a path somewhere else. They only saw the path that was in front of them at the place that they were. And whether the change was thrust upon them or they ultimately decided themselves, when they wound up in a different situation, they were happier. And there are things outside of where you are right now, although it might not seem like there are, because, you know, you tend to get a focus is more like a funnel looking down the. Down the end of it rather than out of it. There's a lot more out there than sometimes you think.

Shane, I know Jay is our guest, but, you know, I'm gonna give you an opinion on it too. On your question. I think the thing that you, like you said, you have to. You have to be honest with yourself about what the actual issue is, because, you know, there's a statement of like, you don't leave your company, you leave your manager, right? Like, that's a very real thing, right? People, they don't leave companies, they leave the person that's leading them. And I think that it's like that statement of like, you know, if you. You run into an asshole once every few years, you know, that stinks. If you run into an asshole every week, maybe you're the asshole. And so I think the point here would be, like, if you're constantly leaving things because, you know, you don't like the manager, like Jay talks about Coach K yelling at him all the time or whatever, like, you didn't leave, you know, you decided that person was worth worthy of yelling at you. So I think if you're a person who's leaving all the time, then you're not sticking with anything then, like, you know, maybe you got to look inside. I think if you are the person that loves it and is not somebody who leaves all the time, then I think Jay's point is probably pretty right of like, well, you know, don't be scared of, you know, checking out something new. Don't overestimate the risk of leaving. So I think you gotta first be introspective on like, kind of what is your demonstrated history? Are you someone that sticks things out too long or are you someone that gives up too quick and you got to solve whichever problem you actually have, in my opinion.

And hard is different than unhappy. You know, I think all of us went through really difficult scenarios throughout our careers in whatever endeavor it would be. And you know, there were times when, you know, you thought I'm sure each one of us, at the end of a difficult period, you know, might have thought, you know, maybe I should leave this place, you know, but that doesn't last very long. And, you know, like. But I was always happy at Duke, and I was always happy with Coach K. I might not have been, you know, happy in a particular moment when things were really difficult, but there was never a time I was like, well, I'm out of here, and meant it for real. Never one time. And. But that was because of. Not just because of him. He created the environment, but then the people you're with. It was an unbelievable group, and I wanted to be a part of it. And there wasn't anything that I wouldn't do or any task too small to be a part of that group.

Jay, one thing that has come up in your history is you've spoken pretty outspoken about the NCAA for a long time. Before it was, I would say, as consensus as it is now, I think it's more consensus that there was something really wrong. Right. And I gotta believe that that position made you unpopular with certain people that, you know, you cared about, or that there was some risk that came into doing that 10, 20 years ago. Can you talk about, you know, what was that like, why did you feel so strongly about it? What was your position? Did it have impacts on your relationship? Because I do think this idea of sort of independent thinking, being courageous, being public and taking that risk is something you did on this topic. And I don't know that it's super well understood from the folks that listen to glue guys.

When I was in College in the 80s, I was on an NCAA committee while I was a player, and I was on the NCAA's long range planning committee. I was an athlete representative on that committee. I did it for two full years, and I kind of got behind the curtain to see how policy was made. And I had the same viewpoints back then. I wasn't out there jonesing for athletes to get paid, but I didn't think we should be restricted from earning a little bit of money during the summer. And if we went to all of us did this, your coach would say, hey, after practice on Saturday, everybody's coming to my house and we'll watch football games. Well, you could eat whatever you wanted at your coach's house, but if you took anything back with you to your dorm room, it's an NCAA viol. Are you kidding? You know, stuff like that that I thought was unfair. The transfer rule, I thought was unfair. Stuff like that. And I'd bring it up in meetings and get shot down immediately in a very nice way. Like, the people, the administrators I was on the committee with were very charitable and very nice to me and great mentors. But, you know, my viewpoints didn't get very far in those meetings. But as a member of the committee, I felt like whatever decision the committee reached or whatever policy the NCAA had, if I was going to be a part of it, I needed to support it publicly, even though I disagreed with it, because that's what the, that's what the organization I was part of was, was putting out there. But when I got into broadcasting, I started thinking, wait a minute, I'm criticizing players here, I'm criticizing coaches, I'm pining on officials calls. Why am I on the sidelines on policy matters when I feel like I have some sort of expertise in it? And I didn't feel like, Robbie, there's any risk in it. Because one of the things that I think made my broadcast career a little bit easier for me is I was a lawyer. So if I screwed it up, I had a. I slide right back into my law practice. If I didn't, honestly, if I didn't have that, it might have changed my viewpoint on what I was willing to do, or if you call it risk, the risk I was willing to take. But that law degree and being a practicing attorney gave me a really nice kind of safety net for the broadcast stuff. You know, if I, if, if I reached an end of the career and they didn't want me anymore, if I got fired or whatever, I had something really good to do. So I was never afraid of that. But one of the things that law school taught me and being a lawyer taught me is, you know, before I went to law school, if I had a discussion, if we, if the four of us got in some heated discussion and heated debate and you guys kick my ass in the debate, I'd get my feelings hurt. After I went to law school, I realized it's not about us, it's about the debate points. And win or lose, even if you lose a discussion, you stress test your ideas on things and where your belief sets were. And that was a good thing. And so I felt like I could be critical of policy where it was warranted and not make it about the people making the policy. That was really important to me. And so I was able to kind of walk that line. So my relationships with people within the NCAA structure have always been really good. There would always be a person here or there, maybe an ad who would give you the cold shoulder. But I felt like they were kind of being unreasonable, so I didn't really worry about it. The reasonable people were the ones I was after, so I never really worried about it. I just said what I thought, made sure that whatever point I was making was well researched, and I was, I was right. If I felt I was right, I didn't feel any, any reticence to say what I thought. And, and then I was always open to people challenging me. Like, if somebody picked up the phone, said, hey, I don't agree, we talk about it, that never bothered me.

JAY what do you see the current landscape of college basketball? You know, certainly on the college football side, there's been a ton of movement, all the conference realignment. I think everybody's kind of in agreement that that's not over and that five years from now it probably looks very different. And certainly college basketball as being another big revenue sport. Like, what are you hearing on that front? What do you think it, where do you think we're headed?

You know, Alex, I think there are a lot of people within the structure that refer to it now as a mess or the wild, wild west or chaos, but it's really the wild, wild west that the rest of the rest of us live in. There's no salary cap for coaches. There's no, there's no spending control in any aspect of college sports, except they want a spending control with regard to players. And I think if they want that, they're going to have to bargain for it, whether they bargain for it collectively. So what, what's happening right now, you guys probably know this already, but for, for your listeners, what's happening right now is, is there's an antitrust suit that's been settled, and the settlement that the NCAA reached with the the plaintiffs in that case, it's, it's going before the ninth Circuit Court, District Court, Judge Claudia Wilkins. She has to basically say, okay, I bless this settlement. It's good once that happens, and I think it will may change a little bit. But once that happens, what I think is going to happen is the NCAA is going to take that settlement to Congress and say, please give us a federal law that reflects what we've agreed to in this settlement, because they know that trying to get spending controls on athletes is going to be really difficult for them. So they want Congress to do it and preempt all these state laws so that they've got, they've got a ceiling on what they have to pay players. And look, the ceilings right now at basically 20% of revenues, give or take, and that can be, right now, $20 million per school. So that's a lot of money. But after you. It depends on how they want to dole it out. So from my perspective, it's a hell of a lot better than where we were five years ago, which was zero, but it's still trading one illegal wage cap for another. It's just a much bigger wage gap. But I think there's a fair. There's a fair chance. I don't think it's a good chance, but I think it's a fair chance that the NCAA is able to get that, especially with the results of the most recent election. I think it's possible now. I didn't think it was possible before that, but it's possible now.

How do you think that that money gets broken out then? Because I think there's a complexity here. I mean, is it even amongst all sports, when only three or four sports actually even create revenue? Right. The two big ones being football and basketball. Does that, Does Title nine become a part of this?

Do you any.

Any idea there on what that looks like?

I think it's going to be up to each school to determine what they want to do. And to some extent, it'll be up to each conference. But when you. When you start trying to figure that part of it out, then you're going, wait a minute. If the Big Ten decides, okay, here's how we're going to dole out the money, then the SEC is going to go. We're giving it all the football and basketball, and then you're going to have the market competing, which is how it should be, frankly. You know, every school has to make a decision. Like, you know, it may. May be even to when Shane was in school, but when I was in school in the, in the 80s, 1980s, Duke used to trot us out to, like, donor events and alumni events to speak, and unpaid. But if I had gone to an event in 1986 and told all the Duke alums, hey, listen, I don't think you guys realize how good Coach K is. We've been to a Final Four and the championship game and everything, but I don't think you realize what you got here. Like, someday you're going to pay him $10 million a year, they would have said, no way. That's not what we are about. We will never do that. They all would have. They would have thrown things at me for saying that. And they did it, and they were happy to do it, and they would have paid him even more to stay an extra year. You know, things changed drastically. But other schools look at their coach and say, look, we're not going to pay you coach K money. We've got this. And they compete against each other. You know, it works out just fine. So I think we'll see different schools approach it differently. And then, and then I think it all is going to come down to what is Congress willing to do? But, but the players are going to. The money is going to start flowing where it belongs, and that's on the floor and in the field. And when we see private equity come in and they're. They're coming in, one of the things that I think is going to happen is when private equity decides they're going to put some capital into this and then they're buying revenue streams, they're going to say, you don't need all these people. Like, you don't need. You don't need 27 athletic directors, and you don't need 15 people doing analytics for your lacrosse program. You need to start trimming some fat here because that's, that's, that's cutting into our profits. And you're going to see college sports lean up the way professional sports has.

Well, I think that it's also like a reallocation, like you said, Jay, which is like, you know, if we are going to have an analytics person, maybe we will put it on the sport that makes us the money. Because the incremental value there of moving up is worth it. Right? Because I think I, I totally agree with that. I also think that. I suspect this is true. But if you look at, like, the rise of administrative positions and hospitals, right. Versus, like, doctors and nurses, it's crazy.

It.

It's crazy. And the same thing in education, and I would presume the same thing is true in sports, and it's like, yeah, we need to do less administrating and more playing. Right. And I think that, like, when you have the profit motive, I do think that that will. That same thing will happen, you know?

Yeah. I mean, it's. It's just. To me, it's been simple economics. And I believe this from. From day one in this thing. Like the NCAA has been telling us for all these years that they, you know, had this amateurism principle ruling the day that the. The athletes really aren't worth anything. There might be a few of them, but, you know, all the money is going to go to the quarterback, and we're going. It's going to go to the quarterback until you need somebody to protect the quarterback and then it's going to go to some offensive linemen and some wide rece. Somebody's got to catch the ball. You know, it's not. Even though the quarterback is the most important position in the NFL and makes, makes the most money, it's not like the other guys are playing for free. There's value there and we're seeing that now and we're going to see it in other sports. And it's going to depend on what these schools value most. And all of them value football most and then basketball after that. But, but the SEC is making money in baseball now. That's going to continue to grow and there are all kinds of revenue streams in college athletics that haven't been tapped into yet. And then they're going to figure out a way to tap into them.

Do you think the gambling is going to come in the same way that it's come in the pros? I think so too. And then, you know what's interesting is I'm like a very much like a markets person. I will tell you. I feel kind of conflicted on the gambling thing because I intellectually like you look, you should make it available and everyone is an adult and we have rules and all of that stuff. I do think that like, but not intellectually, just sort of like behaviorally it, it's so addicting. And I do think there was some value to having some friction in it at some point. And so I'm curious from your standpoint, like, where do you land on the, on like its role in sports and particularly as we go to college sports generally.

I don't care for the idea of, of gambling being part of that space. But if the colleges who claim to be in loco parentis to all these students, if they're willing to do deals with these sort of gambling entities, it really tells you kind of what they're about first and foremost. And so I kind of look at it the way I do alcohol. Like, I think alcohol sales are fine and, but, but it needs to be controlled in a certain way. The one thing I'll tell you, Robbie, that I think is really interesting is, is the NCAA is, is planning a flag with prop betting right now. And Charlie Baker, the, the new NCAA president gave a presentation to our ESPN basketball group recently and he was very passionate about wanting to get prop betting out of college sports. That it. It. He. He sees it as being really dangerous and really unhealthy for athletes and that, that they get, you know, they get so much vitriol through social media and threats and all that. And I think that's a fair point, and I actually am supportive of, of that, that initiative. I hope he's successful. You know, I think, I think they have a very good opportunity of being successful with that, especially with, with state and state governments and the federal government. I do think it's a larger hill to climb to think that you're going to eliminate gambling on college sports. That's not going to happen. Yeah. You know, heck, I mean, I'm sure we all do certain things with fantasy leagues and, you know, football pool with your buddies or stuff like that that I would not call unhealthy, but I'm not as worried about sort of the point shaving thing that the NCAA has been talking about for decades now, because, you know, Vegas is so good at sniffing that stuff out.

Jay Shane talks a lot about, you know, obviously the, the culture of Duke basketball and what it was, and I think the upperclassmen that kind of showed him the ropes when he came in. And I'm just so interested. You obviously were there when this kind of at the ground floor, like when this all got built and started. And it's one thing, I think, when, you know, they've already got a bunch of national championships on the wall and Coach K's. Coach K. But like, when he's not and he's, you know, he's, you mentioned he's on thin ice and you're coming in and you guys have this number one class. Like, can you talk about that environment? How you. I mean, I think what was, I guess, essential in building that, even. Even to you personally, going from, I mean, you have aspirations for yourself on a basketball standpoint. And mentioned, like, well, I got to take a different role here at Duke. I think just, just kind of how that all, how that all came to be, I guess.

I think first and foremost, and I'd be interested to hear if Shane agrees with this, but the first thing that comes to mind was it was insanely competitive. It wasn't like Coach K said, okay, here's your role. You had to fight for everything. And so my, my goal as a freshman was I got to find my way onto the floor. And I don't know how it's going to be, but I'm going to. I'm going to get on the floor. And. And so we had to compete for everything. And it was not seashells and balloons every day. And it wasn't for you. It wasn't for any of us. I know that But. But it was. It was at a level that I couldn't comprehend at first. We started all freshmen my freshman year, basically, and we had some older players, but they weren't. They weren't the guys playing the minutes. So they were really, really helpful to us. But in the basketball context, we had to figure it out and figure it out together. And, you know, Coach K was helpful to us, but he was still young as a coach. Like, my first NCAA Tournament game was his first. I had exactly as much, much experience in the NCAA Tournament.

I didn't realize that. Wow.

Yeah, that was his. That was his very first NCAA Tournament experience was with us. So there was part of it where we're kind of figuring it out together in a way. But as we got older, he was really good about consulting us on who he was recruiting and asking us, what do you think? Would this person fit in here? You know, we weren't helping him evaluate the talent or anything, but when they came on campus, came for a visit, he always asked us what we thought. And when they came into the fold, when they. Ultimately, we were. We felt responsible for helping them. Not necessarily conditioning them to how we did it, but really helping them. And you might be helping somebody take your job, but that's the way it goes. It's competition. And so I think we all fought like hell to get ours, if you will, to be valued in the rotation and a starter, whatever it was. But if somebody beat you out, that's your friend and teammate. And you were supportive of it and supportive of the team. And I think that built on itself over the years, like the guys that Danny Ferry and Quinn Snyder were freshmen when we were seniors, and we kind of put our arms around them and brought them in and helped them as best we could. And I know they did that. And then guys, now it's a lot more difficult because there are guys that have come in and out more, and with the transfer portal, you got guys leaving. Shane didn't deal with it quite as much, but that's about when it started at Duke, when the one and done thing started getting going. And you had guys that would leave after a year. And those were not easy, easy things to deal with. Now it's a lot harder. So you have to build a culture more intentionally. And I loved it, Jay.

I loved when those guys left. So for the record, I wasn't good enough to leave, but I was happy when Elton Brand, Corey McGetty and William Avery left. I was one of.

Imagine how many points I would have scored if Dawkins and Allerovin had gone early. There was no money back then to go to, so they stayed for four years. Totally screwed me.

So the super interesting. It is also, though, interesting that this culture existed, this thing you said. Like, I was really thinking about, it's competition if the person beats you out. Like, the purity of the competition is the. Is the thing that's worshiped there. It's like, it doesn't matter. They've earned it. They're still your teammate, whatever. Does that come from the types of people that were recruited at the time? So it's kind of like, you know, let's say born. Or is it like. No, that comes from the leadership that Coach K had because he. He wasn't, to your point, like, defined term Coach K at the time. Right. But that culture is still unique. That. That is a really positive culture where competition is prized above all else. Where do you think that came from in the program when you were there?

I think it's a combination of both. So Coach K was really intentional about building us individually and collectively. So to the point of we'd be in film session, he'd stop the film and say, look at your body language. Like, look at how you're standing there. What message are you sending to me and the rest of the team and your opponent? You know, stuff like that. And if there was a lineup change, somebody's coming into the lineup or out of it, whatever it is, he's like, all right, how are you going to handle this? Are you going to sit on the bench now and root for the guy in front of you to screw up so you can go in? Is that the way you're going to be? You know, so he would point it out to us, and that's one. I mean, that may be one of his greatest strengths, I think, is he would address stuff way before it became a problem. And, you know, like, going back to what you asked before, when I was a grad assistant, there were a couple things, like, a lot of coaches that I know wouldn't rock the boat when you're winning. Coach K rocked it because he. If he saw something that might lead to us losing 15 games from now, he addressed it right then. And. And there was a thing that happened in 1991. Both Duke and North Carolina were in the Final Four. And Duke, we hadn't won a championship yet. So we'd been to. You know, our team was my. My team was Coach Case, first Final Four team, and then he had one again in 88 and 89 and 90 and then 91 back in the Final Four again. But it was different this time because Carolina's there, and the whole Duke. Carolina thing hung over the whole Final Four, and everybody felt it, but nobody said anything. So North Carolina played Kansas in the first semifinal. We're supposed to play Vegas right after that, undefeated unlv. So Kansas winds up beating North Carolina. And we had TVs in the locker room. It was in Indianapolis at the Hoosier Dome, I think it was called a locker room, was a football locker. It was gigantic. So he's in a little room. Coach K is in a little room, like, watching film and all that stuff, and in a little Coach's Annie room. And honestly, I remember this really, really clearly. As soon as North Carolina lost, there was kind of a sigh, you know, I had it. You know, that now, okay, now we don't have to deal with that. And Coach K came out of that little room, and he kind of jumped everybody, and he goes, it is not okay for us to lose because they lost. It is not okay for us to lose because they lost. And because, you know, we're playing UNLV, everybody expected them to win. They beat us by 30. And the championship game the year before, and he jumped right on it. And I'm not sure, honestly. And I was thinking that, not that it was okay to lose. That wasn't my thought process. But that okay, like, at least we don't have to deal with that kind of thing. And he addressed it right away, and I think it kind of. I think it kind of shocked everybody. And then after that, so we wind up winning the game, and people called it greatest upset and tournament history, all that stuff. So the Sunday, in between the semis and the championship game, we go over to the Dome to practice, and the players were, you know, giddy, and it's a different vibe. And he did not like it. And. And he jumped everybody. And basically, we didn't practice until he. He kind of had his way saying, I don't like how you're walking. I don't like how you're talking. I don't like how you're acting, like we haven't done anything yet, you know, that kind of thing. And he just kind of shocked everybody back. And honestly, I wouldn't have thought to do that at that time. And I don't know how many coaches would. But he always kind of had his finger on the pulse of how everybody was feeling, and he didn't want to let any of that creep in or let it go and then regret it later. He had a real. I don't know whether you'd call that a knack or a skill or a feel, but he had it. And, I mean, Shane could tell 50 million stories about that kind of stuff.

I always tell people what made Coach K different is the time and the energies he spent on his team thinking about his team, thinking about every person on that team, from the assistant coaches to his staff in the office to the student managers to the players. Right. And he knew everybody intimately because that's all he thought about. And he didn't have hobbies, you know, his little garden. But aside from that, all he thought about was Duke basketball and his singular focus. Like that is the only way that you become so intimately aware and in tune with the people on your team. And that was a superpower. And it's frigging hard. It's so hard. And most leaders don't want to put in that effort or the energy. And so they don't. And so they don't know their teams like Coach K did. But, you know, that was, you know, 40 plus years of that attention and that energy, which, like that alone makes him one of one. And that. That was the difference in my mind between him and everybody else.

Yeah. I don't know how he ever made it to practice with all the handwritten notes he was writing to people. He still. Handwritten notes. And every year we all get a handwritten birthday card from. Yep. It's unbelievable.

You know what's so cool about that? Just in, like, some of the reason we started this was to tie together some stuff that comes from leadership or sports or business. George Roberts is a huge. From kkr, huge handwritten note guy. He would talk about it all the time. He's like, if you want to actually send a message to someone that you care about, write it down. Take. Write a handwritten note to him and same thing. It's. To this day, that's how he communicates, you know, when he really wants to, you know, talk to somebody. And it's so meaningful. I have every handwritten note that I've ever gotten. I still have them.

Right.

I have them in a little box right on the side of my office. And it just means something different than people. I think Coach K, George Roberts, these. They get it and they. They just really understand. And I think there is a knack of what you said, but there's also like a courage that comes along with calling it out because it's hard. It's hard to be disliked. It's hard to be you know, to, to be relentless in that moment. But it's very admirable.

Very few people in my experience are driven all the time, you know, that, that are going to. Are going to be their best self all the time. And one of the things that I think Coach K did for us was he, he drove us to be our best self all the time. And, and he was relentless in that. And never, never let you get away with anything of coasting or all that. He would call it out right away. And I always, I always really appreciated that. And the fact that when practice was over, if you weren't, you know, having a great week or maybe you had a bad game, you knew it in film session, you knew it on the floor. But as soon as that was over, you know, he didn't, he didn't hold it against you, if that makes any sense. And, you know, I think it was Emerson that said, you know, our chief one in life is someone who will make us do what we can. And that was Coach K. Like, he made us do what we could do every day, and he never, never took a day off that way. And he was, he was at his best all the time, and he expected the same out of us. And there, There were times, though, we, we kind of asked ourselves, like, again, Shane can correct me if I'm wrong if that wasn't his experience. But when we lost, our lives were freaking miserable. Like, miserable. And that was intentional. He didn't want us to be okay with living in that space. And I remember, you know, my teammates and I talking one time going, do we want to win or do we want to avoid? What comes with losing? Like, you always hear the question, like, like, do you. Do you want to win more or do you. Do you love to win or do you hate to lose? And I, you know, I don't know the right answer to that, but I did think about, like, am I doing all this to win or am I doing it just to avoid the shit that comes with losing? Because there's a lot of shit that comes with losing that I don't like.

We're called glue guys. And so if you could on your journey, it could be, you know, as a biddy baller or Duke Blue Devil or on your journey in espn, who are some of the glue guys and glue gals in your life that, you know, never got the credit, were behind the scenes in the shadows, but just made everything just work better on your teams?

Number one, it'd be Tommy Amaker at Duke. You know, I had nothing but Incredible teammates. Johnny Dawkins was. I can't imagine a more selfless star than him. Like when, you know, we got on the floor and he was. He was the guy and he knew it. Everybody knew it. But off the floor, and he never acted above any of us. It was unreal. But the truth is, Shane, we didn't start winning until Tommy Amaker got there. Like, he was the. He was the guy that. The sort of impeccable leader that that team needed, you know, to let Dawkins do his thing and everybody else do theirs. And he probably never got the credit for being the player that he was. And he, you know, he was national defensive player of the year. And you were. You were like three times, but he was the first one. And even to this day, with him being the head coach at Seton hall in Michigan and now Harvard, honestly, I've never been around a better leader than him, ever. He's been incredibly helpful to me. The other would be Ben Hoffield, the lawyer that I mentioned that I want to work where he works. I probably learned more about how to be a lawyer from watching Ben than anybody. And it went way beyond being a lawyer. Just an incredible mentor that. I can't put a price tag on it. Then in my broadcast life, it'd be Rhys Davis, who's the best teammate I've ever had. He's incredible. You know, he's incredibly skilled at what he does. I think he's the best in his. His. His job that I've ever, ever worked with or ever seen. But he's also the most selfless teammate you could imagine. Like, he. When you go. When you go into an endeavor with him, all he's trying to do is make you look the best you can. And. And he's incredibly prepared. But I've never been around a teammate like him.

He's.

He's incredible.

That's amazing. That's amazing. Well, Jay, we appreciate your wisdom and your candor and your humor, and personally thank you for being a great guy and a guy I've always looked up to. I would not be here today if it weren't for you taking a chance on duke and the 86 team and built something pretty. Pretty amazing. And. And so you've talked about how Duke has changed your life. It's obviously changed mine, but my life doesn't get changed if yours doesn't get changed. And so I want to say thank you. And so it's been a huge honor to have you on the glue guys. You are a glue guy, and we're proud to have you on, brother. Thank you.

That convinces me that I owe you money on the front end of the back end for you to lie to your listeners like that. I appreciate that. You guys are very kind. Thank you for having me.

Thanks for tuning in to Glue Guys. We're on social media at Glue Guys Underscore Podcast, and we'll be back next week.