Stories They Don’t Tell Anymore | Dave Barnett | Ep 211

Nobody would have thought that I would be the one.
Ryder?
Sports talk?
Baseball, baseball, baseball, baseball, baseball, baseball, baseball.
Oh, it's a big mic.
Oh, OK.
Yeah, OK.
Now I get it.
We're going to have a lightning strike, boys.
What happened over there, Grego?
We had a little lightning strike right outside the window.
All right, all right.
Here's a tip for all these Americano league teams.
You said tip.
Yeah, tell me, OK.
Here's a piece.
I would keep jamming.
To take a colon, nothing but a big Gen X jerk off say.
This is a little light or what?
Although somebody would hear that.
Oh, shit.
I'm back.
Isn't the nose that you'll see?
Well, who knows it?
Me.
I mean, if somebody in here knows it, who knows it?
I want to know who knows it.
Does anyone know anything anymore?
Well, somebody knows that, apparently.
And I don't.
So what is it anyway?
What are we talking about?
North Texas.
OK.
And you know about that?
A little bit.
OK.
We know someone in here who knows more.
Fair enough.
Man, I had to go put on pants and I'm sorry I did.
Take them off.
I can't now.
I mean, we can go grab a pair of shorts.
We're at your house.
Yeah.
What's your pants committed?
That's it.
Yeah.
I am.
I am.
I am.
But you're at the bank.
Yeah.
That's it.
As soon as I hit my eight hours, those pants are off,
whether I'm at the bank or not.
Don't they know who you are?
I know.
Do you tell them you're chupy?
Yeah, I try to say what you want.
I try to stay under the radar there.
You try to stay what?
Under the radar.
You don't have to get anywhere.
Stay under the radar.
That's true.
So on social media, they've been commenting.
Pretty much it didn't.
He might not.
He was wearing some short shorts, never known.
But he had some ties to back it up.
God, I didn't even notice.
He was wearing really short shorts.
His shorts being kind of consumed everything else for you, I think.
Yeah, it did.
It did.
Like, he was a ball of energy.
Like, we think he was clean, but he acknowledged that he listened to Pantera
and drink like three monster energies on the way here.
Matt Howard didn't have fun here.
That's what we like.
He's the morning host of a day break on Charlie.
Yeah.
Okay, I thought you might know, but he used to be a news guy and they moved him.
And now he has to go to bed at 6.30 at night.
Yeah.
He literally stayed with us till his bedtime.
Yes, he did.
Wow.
He did till it was time for him to crash.
You're welcome to do that too.
I don't know what time you got a bed anymore, but just whenever.
Come here.
Anytime.
Yeah, just drop in.
Might be at 5.15.
Well, actually, it's provided you go to bed at 6.30.
Then you can stay here.
There you go.
Okay.
Well, I'm out there.
Okay.
Fair enough.
Does anybody know who this is?
I do.
I do too.
Absolutely.
And I'm very glad to have him on here because it's been a hot minute.
Since I have connected with this guy, this is the great Dave Barnett.
Yeah.
Who has done college football, college basketball, Rangers baseball, Maverick's basketball.
I know I'm skimming the top here, but I'm not leaving anything notable.
Well, locally, I had a few years at Cowboys Preseason TV.
So that's all the majors, except for the stars.
Yeah.
Spurs.
Yes.
Nine years.
Yes.
Nine years in San Antonio.
Leaving the Mavericks go to San Antonio for nine years.
And you know what?
For me, those were nine long years.
Because I used to love seeing him at Mavericks games.
But what I love more was seeing him after Mavericks games.
When we were known to, we had a crew.
Yeah.
And any point after in the Metroplex might have been our destination after a game.
But there was going to be pretty much every broadcast journalist.
Some of the Mavericks front office people, Rick Sunds, director of player personnel,
which I'll up and contribute to the revelry.
You just never knew who was going to show up.
But the night was not complete until our post-game revelry.
That's right.
And it was consistent.
And it was usually pretty thick, if you follow.
I don't.
I think you do.
I do.
You're just not letting off.
You're trying to be cool.
Yeah.
That's what I do.
I try to be cool.
This is probably 20 years before he was born.
So maybe.
Yeah.
I consider you exempt.
Thank you.
You can't be blamed for what you weren't around to participate in.
I was born in 85 for the record.
So I don't think you're that well.
Someone would have had to bring you as a toddler.
Yes.
Hey, my parents might have partnered with you all.
Yeah.
I mean, this we're going to see where big Mike would have been a fit.
Mike and Diane would have had a good time with you.
They would.
Yeah.
They would for sure.
They're fun people.
How are you, man?
Uh, I'm good.
I mean, what is there to complain about?
Nothing.
It's 70 degrees.
Yeah.
And we're here in the leafy M streets.
Is this considered M streets?
Uh, it is.
Although we're not on an M street per se, but it is in the hood.
I don't want to blow your cover.
If you want to keep anonymous here, because who needs your fans knowing where you live?
Not you.
So we'll just leave it at that.
Yes.
That's right.
They already know anybody who wants to know.
They already know both of them.
So yeah.
Are you doing North Texas still?
Uh, this was my 11th season.
Mm hmm.
Broadcasting from my all modern football basketball and best football season in school history.
Um, basketball ended a little earlier than most have lately, but this has been.
And I'm speaking to somebody who saw Joe Green play in Fouts field.
You talk about somebody with North Texas cred.
Here he is.
And this last, I would say, seven, eight years or so has been the best time to be a North Texas fan since I was an undergrad.
And Hayden Fry was the football coach on his way to Hall of Fame and winning nine and ten a year.
And Bill Blakely was the basketball coach and had one of the top offenses in college basketball when he 20 plus every year.
And I thought, well, this is how it's going to be now.
This is awesome.
We're always going to win tenant football and 22 and basketball.
And then you find out how immediately that can change.
It always happens when you start thinking, this is how it's always going to be.
It's never always going to be, but it can come back.
And so now, um, the Eric Morris years, you know, earned him Oklahoma State job.
Two basketball coaches have moved on to the big 12 gram.
It has let Texas tech, Ross Hodge at West Virginia.
And the replacement so far is stepping in and, you know, not letting the thing fall apart.
So yeah, this is, it's been a nice seven eight year run for UNT fans.
How do schools like North Texas really feel as a collective about that kind of thing?
Where guys come to get a better job or get a bigger job?
Well, maybe not better, but bigger.
The longest standing fans never understand that.
They always think we want somebody who's going to come here and stay.
Well, you really don't want that because if they come and stay,
um, either they're not succeeding at a level that a big 12 school is going to come calling.
Uh, and you're probably just good enough to keep the job.
And so, you know, that's, that's a treadmill that no so-called mid major wants to get on to.
Uh, and so, you know, the, the hires come and the, the old garden will always be asking,
well, how long are you going to keep him?
Where are you going to go? Well, that's who you want to hire.
You want to hire somebody who's, I mean, the, the Florida Atlantic worry about how long
they're going to keep Dusty May.
He got him to a final four and immediately went, you know, to Michigan.
That's what's supposed to happen. Yeah, that's the process.
Um, as it is now, anyway.
So, you know, that, that is, it's not just at mid major level.
I mean, Michigan was worthy. We're going to lose Dusty made a North Carolina on the cusp of coaching in the national championship game.
That, that's one of about 1,500 shows we could do about the current state of, of all sports, not just pro, not just college and,
and the adjustments that fans have to make.
I guess for the North Texas alum in the North Texas fan base, people realize that this is just the way it is.
It's a process and that's, they're, they're part of the process.
And that's just how it, where they are.
Yeah. And, and that's not a terrible place to be.
I mean, no, no, Boise State has kept it going out 25 years on.
Gonzaga's done the same thing in basketball.
Yeah.
It can be done.
Um, with, you know, the right, um, administration.
Now you got to have a few billionaire fans.
If you don't have billionaire fans, you can't be SMU and buy your way into the ACC.
Factors we never considered.
No, when we're watching a North Texas state play Wichita State at Foutsfield.
Yes.
I mean, I for one am confused by your NIL.
And all these other things that go on in college sports these days, these things, these things frighten me.
And I have not come to grips with them yet.
I don't know that anybody has.
And I don't know, um, if in 10 years, what we're talking about today, or even in two years, if, if the status of NIL.
And the transfer portal will be the same, will be figured out.
Will be even more of the Wild West.
I kind of doubt it will be figured out because, um, I don't see the mechanism for college sports to be figured out at this point.
It seems like there are people out there who like it that way.
Viewers like it ratings through the roof record ratings college football and college basketball.
Uh, so that's the number one gauge for the powers to be if you're running the school or a league or a franchise.
Is the public interest of the public has never been more interested.
Based on TV ratings in college football and college basketball is that just the initial flush of the current system where everybody's a free agent every year.
Or is this now the way it's going to always be?
Uh, impossible to say.
Is NIL in high school yet in the high school ranks legal NIL?
No, I don't know what the legal ramifications of minors would be.
I don't know.
But, uh, you know, there's been high school recruiting.
Now, you know, what inducements were involved, you know, who knows on a case by case basis, but I mean, there's still high school recruiting.
So I think you'd probably say NIL for the parents.
Find the parents a nice job and move over here.
Yeah, you know, move to Odessa.
We'll find something for your dad to do out in the oil fields, but we want you to play for Permian that type of thing.
That's always been there.
That's right.
That's now.
Let's turn back the clock a little bit on you.
Um, what year did you get out of North Texas?
1979.
That was about the time that I was breaking into the game as well.
And, um, our paths crossed initially somewhere around there.
I know that you landed at KRLD.
And I think that's where I first became aware of you would have been.
Yeah, after my junior year, um, KRLD had just switched from a beautiful music format with some news to all news.
They still are.
Yes.
Almost 50 years later.
And I salute them for it.
Yeah.
Um, and back then it was not as revolutionary as all sports.
Um, no one thought, well, how is all news going to work like they did with the ticket, but it was happening and, um, a professor I had had for a couple of classes.
And North Texas went to radio news director's convention and, um, met the news director just been hired at KRLD and named Ken Fairchild.
And asked him if he had, uh, completely finished hiring all his newsroom slots.
They said, no, I've got one for a news writer and tape editor.
Professor Clay Kisler told him about me.
And Ken Fairchild said, uh, well, great.
I'm calling me.
And I had just accepted a job and, and just a backup a little bit.
This is the end of my junior year.
And a lot of my classmates are starting to line up internships and part-time jobs, you know, not at 7-11, but, yeah, the beginning of what was going to be a broadcast career.
And then I had a few calls and it looked like, you know, I'm a little bit late on that game.
And then I had accepted a job at a department store owned by our neighbors.
Because I knew you'd hire me for the summer, not take it personally when I quit in September.
But, uh, the phone's ringing and Dr. Kisler says I just met the news director at KRLD.
I think he may hire you.
So I just turned 20 and in every class, at some point, every professor was telling us,
look, don't think you're going to graduate and walk out of here and go right to a job in Dallas or Houston.
You know, look for something in Amarillo.
If you can do all nights at a country station in Amarillo back, that's probably a more realistic foothold in the business.
You got to pay your dues told you can start.
And I didn't care what the job was.
It would have been janitor I would have taken it.
Does this care?
Yeah, just to get in.
Cowboys flagship.
And they were still desperate.
I drove up the next day, met him.
I guess that was my interview.
And he basically said, well, when can you start?
And I think I started the next day, went through the first week.
And my hours at first week were nine to five, I think.
And so came up to me at about 455 on Friday and said,
they have a good news and bad news.
And I thought, oh, great.
I've already gotten myself fired somehow.
This is going to be the shortest career.
I guess history.
What have I done?
It's all over.
And I'm sure he knew that's probably my first thought.
So I said, all right, first of all, good news.
Good news is you're doing a fine job.
We certainly plan on keeping it around.
Okay.
What's the bad news?
Bad news is Monday.
Your new shift is 4 a.m. to them.
Good morning.
That is not good news.
That indeed was, that was almost fatal news as it turned out,
because I never adjusted to the hours.
Never.
I would get home about one o'clock and tell myself don't take an app.
Try and sleep eight straight hours trying, you know,
go to about 6 p.m. or something.
Impossible.
I take a three hour nap out of sure exhaustion.
And then I'd wake up and you don't really feel rested.
And you know, I'm not going to get back to sleep in three more hours.
That's not going to happen.
So every day was sleeping in basically two disconnected naps.
Yeah.
And every day.
I'm not exaggerating.
Every day driving back over the bridge.
Over Lake Lewisville.
I would almost fall asleep and drive into the water.
Slapping my face.
Keeping awake.
So four of them did not work out that well for me,
but then my senior year started.
And so that was full time student again.
And by then Brad Sham is helping start my sports career,
because he needed a producer for sports central talk show.
He needed someone to cover stuff he couldn't get to.
And that was me.
And so, yeah, that was my one brush with morning drive radio.
And I barely survived there.
It's difficult.
It's something you never get used to.
I remember when I first started.
That's the first thing John LeBella told me.
Don't think you're ever going to get used to it.
I've been doing this for, for, I don't know, 20 years or whatever.
I've been doing it for and you don't ever get used to it.
It's a, it's just a massive, massive shock to the system.
Yeah, because it goes against everything you've done in your entire life.
Yes.
Your circadian rhythm is completely 180 degrees angry at you
for what you're trying to do to it.
And the rebellion is, okay, keep this shift.
What do you say you may drive off into like Louisville?
That will wake you up.
Or let you sleep.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The nice long.
Sweet, sweet rest.
The big one.
Yeah.
The big sleep.
So, so back to Carol Lee.
Yeah.
So, I think when I probably first encountered you
would have been covering something at night.
Yeah.
And I think, and I've been trying to think about this,
I think it was a close circuit boxing heavyweight match.
That we weren't there covering it.
We were just there because we got in free.
I want to say it might have been the no-moss Leonard Durand fight.
And our mutual former roommate Scott Volpe was there.
Yes.
From K104 back then.
And then later worked with me at WBAP.
And I remember that I got to know you through him
because were you his roommate at that point?
I was probably pretty close to it.
Okay.
Yeah, the house over on Hawthorne.
No air conditioning.
No air crush.
Yeah.
In the summer of 1980, the hottest summer on record.
And we lived in a place upstairs, no less, with no AC.
But you had a box fan blowing that 120 degree error.
Yeah, you did.
You had that.
There was that.
Yeah, that was my first encounters with Mike.
We're always at events that we were both covering.
But then you had to get up and do your morning drive report.
Yeah.
I couldn't really hang or anything.
I had to go produce that Zoom morning show.
But somehow you survived too.
Yeah.
You never drove off into any lakes.
Hey, you make it through.
You just learn how to put up with whatever you have to put up with
and make it through.
You probably realized at the time that you were on the best show
for that format in the country.
I mean, was the morning zoo in Dallas, the original morning zoo
that became copy it all over?
Because you were KZEW.
It wasn't a plan.
Or as you actually were.
I don't think so.
There must have been a morning zoo somewhere else.
But it could have been.
It could have been.
It could have been that the zoo in Dallas is what started the so-called
morning zoo radio brand.
And you had everybody, you know, in Dubuque trying to be a LeBellan
Rody, just like everybody in Dubuque has tried to be, you know,
Dunham Miller or Reiner, you know.
And as you have always said properly, we can do what they can do.
They can't do what we did.
Yes.
Yes.
That was our rallying cry.
It's still true to this day.
To this day it is.
So when did things start taking a turn for the better for you there?
When you got out of mornings?
Yeah.
When I went back, I was actually preferring to be in an eight o'clock
class, then waking up at 230.
Through that senior year, Brad Chan was giving me a little bit more
to do here and there.
And then I graduated, then went full time.
But by that time, Keraldi had added midday sports.
15 and 45.
So the late Frank Lieber would anchor the morning sports for Keraldi
from his home.
He had the first home studio.
He was everywhere.
And then I would do midday.
Spitting.
And then Brad would take over after him drive.
I would produce the talk show Sports Central.
And then if it was a Ranger game to cover,
I would be the one to go and do the interviews and bring them back
and cut up the tape for Frank Lieber's in the morning.
So that was going on for two years after I graduated.
And at that point, the Dallas Mavericks have arrived on the scene.
And lots of things changed for a lot of people at that point.
And I had done every North Texas game that I could do.
You know, I could work into my schedule as we all did.
And the student broadcasters that came to you,
the student station.
And then two SMU games on Keraldi that Brad couldn't make.
Probably cowboy conflicts against Houston and Vanderbilt.
And that was my professional resume.
And Mavericks.
And what did you think when he comes up to you and says,
hey, you want to do SMU game?
At that point, he knew I wasn't a kneel fight at play by play.
Yeah.
Because I'd done three years on K&TU.
And he knew that I would not let down the station standard or anything.
You know, would be able to do it solo.
And I think he also knew that that was my ultimate career goal
to get to a point where that's all I could do.
All I had to do was play by play, which at that time was much harder than now.
Because hardly any games were televised back then.
Yeah.
If you did play by play your radio, you might do Sunday road games on TV.
So, you know, Brad and Bill Mercer when I was in undergrad,
still the two mentors that I would not have a career without them
or certainly not the career I've had.
So then, 1981, the Mavericks first season, they bring Mark Holstown from Denver.
The Rangers immediately hire Mark away.
He was mostly a baseball guy, although he did everything great.
And this was about six weeks or so before the second Mavericks season.
And all of a sudden, the broadcaster they thought they had hired for however long
was gone after one year.
They were limited in their search to local people who had done basketball
and were not under contract to anyone.
I was local.
I had done basketball.
I was far too unimportant to be under contract at CARELD,
but Brad Jam was under contract.
Or I think they would have probably made a strong push for him.
And so, you know, right place, right time, right guy, right stuff.
Preparation is the, you know, luck is preparation meets opportunity
and all that came together at age 23.
Do you remember your first game?
I do, because my first Maverick broadcast was actually at the Super Pit at North Texas
because it was a preseason game there.
Do you don't remember the Mavericks playing preseason games at the Super Pit?
No, I don't.
I'd forgotten that.
The Utah Jazz were the opponent in their Adrienne Danliero.
And what I remember about it is about three or four possessions into the game thinking.
I can't call the game as fast as it's being played at the NBA level.
The fastest pace college game I had done was about 30 or 40 percent the pace of the NBA game.
And so, that was like a real slap in the face.
Okay, well, you've got to make some adjustments.
And so my main adjustment entire first year was just adjusting to the pace of the game
and figuring out how to say instead of 10 or 12 words, two or three words
and make it understandable what just happened.
So, you know, the Mavericks gave me basically my first year to figure it out, you know, on the air.
And a few years ago, it was at a Mavericks reunion and Norm Sanju was there, the original general manager.
And I got a chance to tell him, pull them aside and I said,
or I just want to thank you for my career.
Who would have put a 23-year-old with two S&U games on his professional resume?
Who would have installed that kid as an NBA broadcaster?
And he said, well, you know what, I wanted someone young at every position in our front office
because I didn't want to have to retrain people.
I didn't want to have someone say, well, that's not how we did it with the rockets.
So, he hired people, you know, early 20s, mostly straight out of school.
And all we knew was how he wanted us to do our jobs.
Which was brilliant management, I think.
Yeah.
And the young people he hired were incredibly great hires.
A couple of them went on to run their own NBA franchises.
One of them hired me in San Antonio, Russ Bookminder,
had started out in marketing with the Mavers.
And then 1988, he's taken over the Spurs and hires me down there.
Kevin Sullivan, assistant PR, becomes head of PR for NBC
and White House Communications Director.
Did anyone think of that when we looked at Sully?
Young Sully, fresh out of Purdue.
But now that we know him, we're not shocked at any of that happened.
So, I mean, that was the ability of Norm to recognize potential in young recent college graduates.
Huge part of whatever my story is.
Did you enjoy your time in San Antonio?
Because I remember being, I mean, I didn't know anything that that was in the works or in the mill
or anything like that.
And I remember being really, really surprised when I found out you were going down there.
Well, yeah, everybody was.
Because for one thing, you're going from a top 10 market to whatever San Antonio was.
30s back then, something.
But that wasn't the factor.
The factor was it was going to be TV.
And back then, they did simul casts, one broadcast for radio and TV.
And I was doing only 15 Maverick telecasts.
And I loved doing radio, but it was obvious that the business was going more toward TV for the emphasis and less on radio.
And that was one factor.
And the other one was they had drafted David Robinson.
The year before he did his two-year naval commitment.
And the second year of that was my first year with the Spurs.
It was a terrible year anyway.
And then they had hired Larry Brown.
Fresh off one of the National Championship at Kansas.
So, they had been down and it was obvious they were going to be a power really quickly.
So, I wasn't worried about having to do 20 win San Antonio team.
My first year, that's exactly what the Spurs were.
And then the next year, David arrived.
And Sean Elliott and Terry Cummings.
That was the biggest one-year turnaround at NBA history.
That point from 21 wins to 56 wins.
And doing TV for that first initial period of Spurs dominance.
I never regretted leaving Dallas even less.
I'm from here.
I always loved visiting San Antonio.
I knew I loved to live there.
I knew what the franchise was going to do.
And it was a chance to advance and expand my toolbox, basically,
to add nightly TV, which is occasional TV to radio.
And this was about the time you started doing baseball, too.
Right?
Let's say I had done two years of the Spurs and then the Rangers in 1990 had home and road crews.
And for HSE,
the high greatness of HSE,
home's fourth center, David, did the home games.
And they hired myself, Brad Sham, and Greg Lucas from Houston.
Jim Sunberg was our analyst most of the time, I think.
So, yeah, I'd done two Spurs years,
and then that was the first year of baseball, 1999.
And you were double-tracked with both teams?
Yeah, they weren't into conflicts.
Wow.
Just by sheer luck.
Okay.
Spurs are still playing in early April,
but I didn't have to miss any Spurs games.
The conflicts came when I was doing Southwest Conference football and basketball,
and then getting to a Spurs game.
There were some hair-raising rides down I-10 from being 11 a.m. University of Houston football kickoff
to get to a 730 Spurs game.
And can only imagine.
Well, I only once almost missed a game doing the day night two different cities thing.
And it was a basketball game in Lubbock,
which was going to afford me time,
believe it or not, to fly Southwest from Lubbock to love then to San Antonio
and still make the Spurs game a 730.
Holy crap.
Except Baylor hits a shot at forces overtime,
which becomes double overtime,
which becomes triple overtime.
And now I'm panicking.
Every commercial.
I'm on the truck.
I'm going to miss my flight.
What am I going to do?
What am I going to do?
And one of our cameraman thought he had solved my dilemma.
And he lines up a policeman, a Lubbock PD officer who's going to rush me to the airport
so I can make my flight.
Game finally ends after triple overtime.
Getting the cop car I'm thinking,
here come the lights.
I'm going to do the siren and everything.
No, that was not his understanding of the agreement.
He was going to drop me off at the airport as he did his rounds
through that section of Lubbock at about 20 miles an hour.
So what I'm going to say is we'll Lubbock cop giving me a free ride to the airport.
Well, by the time we finally pull up,
I see my flight backing away from the gate.
And I'm thinking the spurs are going to fire me.
I mean, this is basically a moon lighting job here.
And now it's going to cost me a game.
It's going to be a disaster.
I've ruined my life.
What am I going to do?
I go to some counter and someone knows about a private pilot service in Lubbock.
Call the guy.
He had a two-seater.
He was available.
He was a blue-mean director in San Antonio.
And I kid you not.
As we are taxing the flight,
I would have been on from love to San Antonio past in front of us.
I mean, it's almost like the pilot was, you know,
sticking his tongue out of the window.
Oh, you made it.
I made it.
So obviously I did not expense the private jet.
Wish man, I basically did two games that day and broke even.
But I can cut my job.
Oh, man.
Yeah.
Featured.
You know what you got to do.
All right.
This is the great Dave Barnett here with us.
He has done Mavericks.
He has done College Football, College Basketball.
He has done Rangers.
He has done just about everything.
Has me.
And we'll be back with Dave in just a bit.
But right now, you can kick back a little bit if you want to chill out
because it is time for the dreaded and feared mid-show read.
All right.
What's up for a shoot?
House of healing.
I think.
Oh, the house of healing.
You mean the CBD house of healing?
Or maybe it's just a house of healing.
Oh, CBD house of healing.
It is.
I was just trying to be cash.
Okay.
Well, yeah, you're very cash.
But that's your nature.
Right.
And if you like to get cash, but you have trouble doing it
because maybe you're not sleeping real well at night,
or maybe you're walking around this world in a little bit of pain.
You're not feeling too good.
You don't know what to do about it.
You tried this.
You tried that.
You tried a lot of stuff.
None of it works.
Have you been to the CBD house of healing yet?
If you haven't, you need to get over there.
The reason I know this is because I went through such a scenario,
not too terribly long ago myself,
where I had a pinched nerve in my neck.
And it was really, really hurting.
I went over there.
I talked to the owner who's also a registered nurse.
And at the CBD house of healing,
they approach everything from a medicinal standpoint anyway.
You know, they look at that first,
and everything else kind of takes a back seat.
Anyway, she gave me this.
She gave me the full spectrum of satvstick
and said, put this on it for a couple of nights
and see how you do.
And I don't know that it got rid of it,
but it certainly made it feel better.
Today, I'm not bothered by it one bit.
So if that worked for me,
it'll probably work for you.
And if they'll do that for me, they will do it for you.
So look, there's no reason to walk around this world
and pain like that.
Go to the CBD house of healing,
whatever's going on, tell them about it,
and let them go to work for you.
They are located at the intersection of Northwest Highway
and Plano Road in the eastern quadrant
of that burgeoning intersection.
Stop by, tell them you heard about it from us.
Here on YDC,
and start your healing at the CBD house of healing.
Anything else?
Yep, Eric Nadal.
Oh, yes.
The Eric Nadal birthday benefit concert.
It's celebrating its 14th edition.
It features two of Eric's favorite bands this year.
It's Brooklyn-based semi-ray and friends
and the Bay Area favorite Chuck prophet and the Kumbia shoes.
It is May 14th.
The doors open at 6.30,
Showtime is at 7.30,
the place at the Longhorn Ballroom.
The fabled Longhorn Ballroom here in Dallas,
on Corinth Street down there,
or maybe it's Corinth, I've never really known.
It supports the work of the Grand Halliburton Foundation.
That's a local nonprofit
that provides mental health, education,
training and support to teens and families.
If you want to find out more and purchase tickets,
go to grandhaliburton.org slash Eric Nadal.
Sponsor tables and suites are also available.
Come see the YDC gang on the purple carpet
and Eric Nadal's birthday benefit,
presented by Haines Boone and KXT 91.7,
featuring semi-ray and the friends
with special guest Chuck prophet.
Is that it?
That's all we got?
Hell yeah, let's talk to Dave some more.
All right.
Back here with the great Dave Barnett.
You've had Eric on the show, right?
Quite a few times.
He might be getting it.
Jack is here.
Yeah.
Does he talk anything but music?
He'll talk baseball.
He likes baseball.
I know he likes baseball.
He had to clarify.
But if you're going to get into an interesting long discussion with Eric,
it's probably not going to be about baseball.
No, it's probably not.
Because he likes a lot of other things too.
And he gets to talk baseball all the time.
This other stuff?
That's a little less frequently for him.
And he does like to get into music and some other stuff.
He's a fascinating guy.
I consider him a musical talent scout.
Yeah.
I do too.
These bands that he finds for his birthday bash every year.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, he finds really, really good ones that are not very well known.
I can't remember one band that I've seen at one of his bashes that I knew anything about.
And I wound up lacking all of them.
They're all great.
Yeah.
Impeccable taste.
Very eclectic.
Oh yeah.
If you throw out a style, he will find someone that he likes playing that style.
Which, my vistas are not quite that wide musically.
But...
Nor are mine.
Yeah, but there is no limit to what he can scout out and find something interesting
and something worth listening to about all these bands.
Yeah.
And another thing is, he doesn't like to wallow around in the mainstream.
Boring.
If he's going to be looking for music, he's going to be working the fringes.
But the ultimate Eric musical anecdote is Daphne Willis.
You know the name Daphne Willis?
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
The same way David Crosby discovered Joni Mitchell out of nowhere, coffee shop in Florida.
Eric discovered Daphne Willis.
At some Dallas venue, I can't remember where.
But completely unknown, he happens to be there.
And here is this songwriting talent.
And goes up, introduces himself, says, I want to do whatever I can to further your career.
And part of that was getting her in front of people like you and me.
And getting her on the birthday bash.
And he had a home party where she was the entertainment.
And then she's co-writing with, who is the, is it Megan trainer?
Yeah, Megan trainer.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And last I heard Daphne is a staff writer.
I can't remember which record company, but he basically helped her conjure a music career.
Yeah.
Out of being a solo act in a coffee shop.
That's what he does.
That's the great Eric Nadell for you.
Yep.
He's an awesome guy if there ever was one.
All right.
Back into the Dave Barnett story.
I don't know how to bring this up.
I don't know if I want to bring this up.
But did you ever find out what happened that night?
You talked about the Ranger game.
Yeah.
No.
Six months of tests.
And one doctor at Parkland, actually.
The series of tests they did was for seizures.
And I was going to be 72 hours with electrodes and measuring all my brain waves.
And after 24 hours, this one doctor came in and said, you don't have seizures.
We're going to let you go.
He said, I've seen this.
We don't know what causes it.
It's some sort of temporary rewiring in the speech area of the brain.
We don't know what causes it.
All we do know is it never seems to recur.
So that was good news.
That was bad news.
It's good news.
Well, it's never going to recur.
Bad news.
They'll never know what it is because you can't study something that only happens once.
Yeah.
I think I did five more months of tests.
They tested me even for a brain tumor for blood class.
They tested me.
The last test I did was for, believe it or not, thoracic outlet syndrome.
Really?
Really?
Because theoretically, that could cause a blood clot that could go up to the brain and cause an episode like that.
So everything was tested negative.
So we'll never know.
Did everything feel like it normally did that night?
Well, actually, I have no memory of it.
It's 20 seconds or so.
That's one of the things that this rewiring does in your brain is it doesn't imprint in your memory.
Wow.
And I didn't know anything about anything until the next morning.
In fact, I walked back to the hotel in San Diego with Tom Green.
He never mentioned it.
But next morning, I get waked up about 7 a.m. San Diego time call from home.
And, you know, at that point, you know, I'm sure the clip is all over.
In fact, I know it was because then I turned on the TV and I was the third story on Good Morning America.
And they played the clip and that's the first I heard.
Oh, that's what they're talking about.
Well, I have no memory of that.
And so then it became well, is this a stroke?
Is this a TIA, you know, kind of a mini-stroke?
What could it be?
And so that started the testing and it turned into literally six months of negative.
So we'll never know.
Wow.
One of the most bizarre stories that anybody has ever heard.
Fortunately, you've bounced back.
Well, fortunately, as that doctor at Parkland said, it has not recurred.
Yeah.
And I do not expect it to.
So, yeah.
How's doing North Texas?
It's been a blast partly because as we discussed, these last years have been banner years for football and men's basketball, the sports they do.
It's been fun because I also got my master's, the Dean of Journalism at the time, asked if I'd like to teach for.
And I said, well, that'd be great.
I have half as many degrees as I need to teach for you.
And I don't worry about that.
We'll get you masters.
Cool.
And I'm free, right?
Well, it was.
It was a room in North.
I was in the board scholar.
Nice.
For two years.
Yeah.
Got my master's.
You party at Cool Beans and Lucky Loos and stuff.
I love the student.
I think it would be too shocking for the students if they're perfect.
I think we all have them.
I know that would have ruined my night.
And everyone has an undergrad.
Okay.
So.
So, yeah.
And it's, you know, it's nice, you know, living a 10-minute walk from campus.
The thing that is I think now of the conditions of being a team broadcaster
are now as compared to when I first started.
The people that I know that are doing what I used to do in the NBA
are not really digging it that much because, especially radio,
because it's just not the emphasis.
Yeah.
Even local TV is not considered the emphasis.
I've found out that the current arrangement for the Spurs
with their broadcasting people,
they allow them to fly on the charter,
not to interact with anyone except themselves.
Instead of the backup charter, do not speak to the players or coaches.
Now, that's a long way from the team charters that I was ever on.
It's definitely what the Spurs, Rangers, you know,
so the players are now at a point where they don't need media.
They can do their own media.
Yeah.
They do their own this.
Yeah.
And so they look at local media as well you guys are here to tell my story.
But I'm not really here to interact with you much unless I absolutely have to.
I would not have reacted very well to that.
Coming from the time where think of this today,
the Mavericks bus and traveling party used to include the beat riders.
Then you imagine that today.
But it was partly for convenience.
You know, the newspapers paid the Mavericks.
They weren't giving literally free rides,
but they're included in the traveling party.
Because at that point, that's all the covers was.
It was your local beer riders, your local broadcast.
Maybe you get on occasionally nationally.
And so there was a lot of interaction.
It was like, you know, I've never considered myself on the level of the players.
You always have to respect that, you know, you're here because of them.
They're not here because of you.
But with that in mind, they were more like fellow employees.
Yeah.
And for me, you were a long, everything that they do.
Yeah, and yeah, you're around them all the time.
Yeah.
They see you, you know, every time there, every time there's a game, you're there.
Exactly.
And there's just fewer people working and employed and all that.
Like you said, the traveling parties had to be way smaller back in the day.
People working at the arena for the team had to be smaller group than it is today.
That's something I was thinking about today is the mom and pop era.
We didn't consider it that then, but compared to now, that was mom and pop.
Every pro franchise, basically, have it to survive on ticket sales.
Yeah.
You know, broadcast income negligible.
They were nervous about putting local games on TV.
Because you're given away the product.
What's that?
They won't come to the game and think just watch it on TV.
And of course, it became the opposite.
No, you're advertising the product and you're showing them a scene that they want to buy a ticket to be part of.
Did you recognize that transition and thought going on at the time?
Oh, yeah.
Because I mean, it had to be kind of a paradigm shift of sorts away from the way
that always thought of it to seeing it as, hey, this is good on TV.
This is good.
Well, the shift was cable number one.
So, you know, when you and I are growing up, the only baseball available in this market was,
besides the NBC Saturday game of the week, Sunday afternoon astro road games.
Yeah.
And it's amazing how much we learned about those players.
And, you know, we could imitate their batting stances.
And all we barely ever saw them.
Yeah.
We might see them two or three times a season.
So that was the paradigm.
And then a national telecast is one thing.
But now you're going to show home regional telecast really.
Well, why are those people going to come to the game?
Immediately, they started coming to the game.
Because this is the place to be.
Bob Bass was the general manager of the Spurs when they hired me.
And he was very not negative, but very, very skeptical about this idea of televised in every game.
Even if simulcast, you know, it's the same broadcast on WAI then as it was on the Spurs pay-per-view.
But that mode of thinking got pushed aside very quickly.
Because then it became a fan expectation of a certain number of games should be on TV.
Yeah.
And why isn't this game on TV?
Well, now we're to the point where every, you know, weekday afternoon volleyball matches on TV,
somewhere streaming somewhere.
I know I freak on the rare occasions when the Rangers aren't on TV.
I mean, most of the time they are.
And I will do what I have to do to get them.
But when they're not, it's like I'm really missing something, you know?
It's crazy how that whole thought pattern has changed.
And you have to have how many subscriptions now for streaming?
Yeah.
And that's going to do nothing but continue to go up.
So, you know, the 10-year-old fan of today may look at this as the good old days in 20 years.
Because who knows?
I don't know if I've got another 20 years in me, but I'll be looking at it that way too.
Probably both be looking at it from below ground level.
Right.
Right.
Looking for the ground up.
That's dark.
I mean, that's dark.
I don't want y'all to die.
That's reality, shoot me.
We're all going to die.
You're going to live forever.
Yeah.
Yeah, you're going to live forever.
We want the we're here for decades.
I don't want to live forever.
Sure you do.
I just want to live as long as you do.
I want you to live forever.
Okay.
I'm going to too.
Hell yeah.
Let's go.
That settled.
Yeah.
We did get that settled.
Yeah.
I'm marking off the list.
Well, you got anything else here you'd like to touch on?
Anything else that we need to know about the life of Davey?
About me or would I like to touch on?
Those are two different things.
Well, either or both.
Okay.
You visited Dick Mata up in Fish Haven, Idaho.
Yes.
Was it last year or two years?
A couple of years back.
And I wish you'd taken me.
Why didn't you take me on that trip?
Because I haven't seen Dick since the night Rolando Blackman's number was retired.
I would have loved to have had you along.
You do believe he belongs to the whole thing.
You know, it's getting to the point of a Drew Pearson scandal to me this year after you're
snubbing.
It went on for decades for Drew Pearson.
I made no sense whatsoever.
He had every qualification kept getting passed over and finally five years ago made it.
It's longer than that now for this wait for Dick.
Oh, yeah.
Doc River has just got in.
His resume as a coach is very similar to Dick's.
Number of wins.
Each have one championship.
And I think what's working against Dick is that most of his successes were before this
era that we're talking about where every game was on TV and everybody saw it.
That's right.
His Bulls teams.
I first knew about him.
Probably the same you did because there'd be a Sunday afternoon ABC game.
And the, you know, Chris Schinkel and Jack Twymand are talking up this fiery Bulls coach,
Dick Mata, from Weber State.
And how hard they play.
I love those Bulls teams of his too.
Still do.
I love Norm Van Lear, Jerry Sloan, those guys.
Yeah.
They were the first team I remember being noted for their hard core defense.
Yes.
And disciplined offense.
It wasn't just up and down the court and we're going to outscrew you.
So it makes his mark.
Chicago gets hired by the Bull.
It's wins the championship.
And gets crossways with the owner.
A poem.
I don't know if you're aware of this.
Dick and Elvin has did not get along.
At all.
I don't know if I was aware of that either, but I can't say I'm totally surprised.
Okay.
Well, Dick, I think his problem in Washington with Elvin was very similar to his problem
with Mark and wire and downs.
Yeah.
So he's won a championship and then suddenly he's no longer the head coach of the Bulls.
And the Mavericks are brand new and looking for a coach.
And I remember thinking at the time, why are they not ending interviews right now?
The third winningest coach in NBA history, two years removed from a championship is available.
And you're talking to who?
Not Dick Mata, not even an interview.
Why?
And I think pressure from the beatwriters forced Norm into because it was a daily drum beat.
Yeah.
Okay.
They're talking to this guy today.
Still not talking to the third winningest coach.
So finally they did.
And then, you know, he met Don Carter and got hired.
And I would say probably 95% of what I now know about the NBA was just from being around Dick.
At that young age, everything's brand new.
And he was and still to this day thinks of himself as a teacher much more than a coach.
So, you know, I was just part of the class and watching him run a practice.
He and Larry Brown, I've never seen practices run the way they run them.
And they would take it personally when you would get off of what they wanted you to be doing.
Yeah.
At four or five times in a practice, you'd hear Dick yelling, hey, run the stuff.
Meaning he knew how good his system was.
What are you doing, Mark?
That plays not designed for a 30 footer from you.
The crazy thing about it all is, is I don't know.
I always perceived him as being a real hard ass on those guys.
Because that's how we looked on the sideline.
That's how I looked on the sideline.
But it must not have been that way.
Because today, every one of those guys to a man, including Mark Aguire,
mostly Mark Aguire.
Yeah.
They were famously did not do well back then together.
But every one of those guys will tell you that he wouldn't be wherever he is in his career
if it weren't for Dick Mata.
That he learned more from Dick Mata than he ever had before.
And he just learned how to be an NBA player, a professional from Dick Mata.
Yeah.
It's a lot like what John Wooden's players say about him.
Yeah.
Given years removed from what it was like playing those UCLA teams.
They didn't realize everything he was giving them at the time.
Yeah.
And things would pop into their minds years later.
Oh, that's what Coach meant.
Now I'm in a situation and okay, now I get it.
That was Dick.
I think there were not that many players at the time, I think, who would say,
oh, I love playing for Dick.
He didn't want you necessarily to love playing for you.
Yeah.
You two win games.
Yeah.
And he had the system.
If you did what he said, we were going to win.
Yeah.
I agree with that.
I think, you know, I mean, just judging from a real distance like I was.
It didn't seem like the players were really that crazy about him at the time.
But it's one of those things that, you know, the older they get over time,
they as things progress, that golden bubble flight comes off over their hands and go,
oh, that's what he meant.
Yeah.
That's what he was trying to get at.
Dick is one of those coaches.
Yeah.
He is.
So those are the coaches who get players from 40 years previous showing up at their door to pay him a visit, right?
Yeah.
And that happens regularly.
Were any players there when you were?
James Dawson was.
He was there while you were there.
Yeah.
Yeah, he was.
I would love to catch up with James.
He's a great guy too.
So from what I gathered from the great story in the national last week about Dick,
is he has made his peace with not being voted into the hall
because he never relied on outside opinions to determine his self-worth.
Having said that, he still needs to be in.
If for no other reason, that, okay, he's got the Doc Rivers Comparable NBA Resume.
Doc Rivers did not start coaching in junior high.
Then move up to high school, then junior college, then Weber State.
I'd never heard of Weber State.
I think still the only references I've ever heard nationally were as Dick Modos was there
and then hired by the Bulls in the NBA.
So I think he's.
I think he believes what he says when he says it doesn't matter deep down.
I can't imagine that that's really true.
No, I can't imagine either, especially at this stage of the game.
Yeah.
He's getting up there in years for sure.
But man, what a time that was when the team was new and everything.
You know, the way he would bring me along was great one-on-one instruction
without me even realizing it.
Before every game, home game would tape his pre-game show in his office.
And there was one game where they had won.
We're talking about the previous game.
They'd won, but they had survived 27 turnovers or so.
So that was kind of the lead in all the stories this day.
Yeah.
And I made that part of my first question for the following game.
Where it coming off the win, I think it was over and walking.
And over came 27 turnovers.
And Dick let that sit for about two seconds.
And said, yeah, I think we had 27 turnovers.
That was his way of saying, ask a better first question than that.
What a sucky first question.
Especially after a win.
And he was right.
He didn't, you know, reach over and stop the recording and get in my face,
which I probably deserved.
That was his subtle way of redirecting me.
And so I started to approach this pre-game interview differently.
And, you know, the, I mean, it was called the dick mod a show.
And it was to bring out his thoughts.
And where did his philosophies come from?
Why did this work?
Why did you try that?
And then he lit up.
He loves talking about that stuff.
So I was just asking him bad 23 year old questions.
And he let me, you know, kind of figure it out on my own.
And every once in a while, you know, you lay out on me with appropriate.
But for better or worse, maybe the broadcaster I became at the NBA level.
So I was jealous that you got to go up because we always heard about the summer cabin and fish haven.
It's pretty nice.
And Norm would say Dick needs that.
Dick's an artist.
He needs to get away and recharge.
And he's still there.
Tell us a good norm story.
Oh, man.
Every day with Norm, you might get a story.
The single most energetic person I've ever been around.
I couldn't imagine him sleeping.
I just couldn't picture.
We're taking eight hours out of his day.
It seemed like he was always on.
Always on.
And for purpose.
Yeah.
And not just to worry out because he was always thinking about it.
He saw you.
It wasn't going to be, you know, hi, how's your day?
It was going to be whatever pertinent piece of information.
What do I need to talk to this person about?
Yeah, exactly.
We didn't, I think, appreciate it at the time.
Even though we knew the facts of how hard it was for the Mavericks
to be approved as an expansion franchise.
I went through lots of different versions of what that was going to turn into.
Yeah.
And that was all Norm's doing too.
Yes.
He had moved here.
He was committed.
He does not get credit for that.
No, not enough.
He should get all the credit for it.
Well, and Mr. Carter too.
Yeah.
Because Mr. Carter too.
The original plan was to have, I think it was 24 equal investors.
Each put in the same amount of money Norm would run the show.
And the economy was terrible back then and investors started dropping out.
And the NBA was changing the terms.
And now you're not going to get as good a draft pick.
And you're going to, we're going to charge you even more money.
Yeah.
For the expansion fee.
And I don't know many people who have persevered through that.
And I also, you cannot discount the fact that Don Carter was the only one
of those original 24 to say, you know, Norm, I'll, I'll take care of this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Whatever way I'm sold, I'll get it.
You've gotten this this far.
We can't let this turn into nothing.
Yeah.
So yeah, young Maverick fans, if you don't know those names,
you need to study up on them because there would be no Mavericks otherwise.
That's right.
There is no you without them.
There's no question about that.
Davey, this has been a trip, man.
We're out of time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's your bedtime, right?
I didn't do our dirty merkins versus petty theft, raid the bins.
There is that.
Okay.
Next time.
Yeah.
Next time.
That's all we're going to talk to you about next time.
See, this is how I have all my image of my back from the early days and, you know,
the blue box at Arthur Stadium is even his 20s.
He came across as the neighborhood sage, who would be rocking on his front porch in the
cool of the evening.
And the neighbors would drift by and, well, what do you think about this bike?
And he was going to weigh in and put everything in perspective.
The neighborhood sage.
I like it.
So that's what you have here now.
An old soul.
Now a literal old soul.
Let's do this again soon.
Okay.
We'll make it all about music next time.
All right.
The great Dave Barnett there.
Thank you, Shupi.
Thank you, Ashley.
Thank you out there for being by the channel.
If you like what we're doing here, what you need to do is get us out there.
Share us on that social media, viewers, and make us known out there.
We're preparing to take over the world.
And we will, but we need your help.
All right.
That is it for YDC for today.
Until next time.
Bye.
All right.
I'll go to pants.
Go off.
Your dark companion is a stolen water media presentation.