College Football’s Wild West & Fifty Years of Stories | Kevin Sherrington | Ep 265

Nobody would have thought that I would be the one. Ryder, sports talk. Baseball. Baseball. Baseball. Baseball. Baseball. With the big mic. Oh, okay. Alright. Yeah. Okay. Now I get it. We've had a lightning strike, boys. What happened over there, Grego? We had a little lightning strike right outside the window. The Texas Rangers win the world series. Alright. Alright. Here's a tip for all these Americano league teams. Don't... Wait. You said tip. Yeah. Tip. Okay. The p. I would Keep jamming. The the ticket, colon, nothing but a big Gen X jerk off the second. Is this a cool night or what? I know somebody would hear that go, bullshit. I'm back. I... They could stop. Look. I can't stop her. Oh. You know that. Yeah. We... That's fully true. I can't stop her. When she starts doing that, what am I gonna do? Bullying... Tag her or something? Yeah. No. Take my computer from... Yeah. That's that that would be the worst thing anybody could do to you. I don't know. There's way more. I don't know about that. We're Anyway And we're live. Yes. We are. We certainly are. Yes. We are on. We are live. It is another episode of your dark companion. Mhmm. We are here inside the nurturing biosphere of the mothership. It is Monday, the fifth. October 5 of Rocktober. When I was in the game, they told us, don't call it October. Call it Rocktober. That's true. I was there too. That's right. I can confirm. So I'm just going along with the prescribed methods for doing something like that or this. And this is episode number 265. Did I get that right? Yes. You did. Okay. It's pretty awesome. And I'm really looking forward to this today because I really enjoy the work that, this fellow has turned out for a number of years, but especially since he has been elevated to the loftier role of sports columnist for the Dallas Morning News. He is the great Kevin Sherrington. Kevin. Yay. How are you? I'm good, Mike. Thanks for that introduction. I appreciate it. Well, it's very deserved. I could go on and on about your fine work. I'm sure people would not appreciate that if you went on and on. Well, they might not might not agree, but they they could disagree and appreciate it, I guess. There you go. So you've been kind of... As I read your work here lately, you've kind of been on the path of tracking down what's going on with the Cowboys. And with the Cowboys, of course, there is always a there's always... No matter what's going on on the field, there is an unusual vibe around the thing. That's a nice way to put it. Yeah. And in the last week or so, the vibe surrounded the head coach. Now I am a shotty fan. Yeah. I like the guy. He seems like a really, really good guy. I'm... From what I can tell, I mean, he's been around football his whole life with his dad and everything. Sure. I don't think we can really question whether or not he knows the game. But knowing the game is one thing, and being able to know what to do when, you're in the middle of it is quite something else. And he's kinda bumped up against that in these last couple weeks or so. Yeah. He has. You know, there was kind of the fiasco down in Rio, which maybe how we'll know that from now on, the fiasco in Rio. At the end of that game, where there was somehow, Dak Prescott got the idea that they were going for the tie instead of the touchdown. They're at the end and threw So instead of... Because they didn't have any timeouts to stop the clock. So I think, in in that sense, Shadi took the the attitude and I and I agree with you what kind of person he is. He's a really fine person. Yeah. There's no question about that. Seems to be. Everybody likes him. Players all like him. They play hard for him. There's nothing fake or phony about him. He's he's everything he seems to be as a person. That doesn't always mean you're gonna be a great head coach. I know lots of fine people that I would not want coaching my football team. Hello. So, anyway, so... And he, took accounting for that as he should have, for the loss down there and saying that he probably overcoaches what he said, Dak Prescott. So we... And then and then the owner didn't disagree with that, and he called him out, on his radio show. Right? Mhmm. And so then, we go to Houston, and you get down there at the end of the first half, and the Cowboys have had a 62 yard field goal attempt blocked, which is the second blocked kick in the last two weeks. So that's not a good sign. Mhmm. So with thirty seconds left in the half, he sends Aubrey... Brandon Aubrey back out there for a 65 yard kick. And, it pulls it left. And at that point, they were down by seven points. The problem that I had and several of us in the press box had with the with the idea of of kicking a field goal there was not so much that Aubrey couldn't do it because we've seen him do it. Right? Many times. But it's the circumstances. You've already had one kick blocked. There's thirty seconds left in the half. If he misses this or he gets blocked again, then they're gonna have great field position with thirty seconds left. And instead of having a seven point lead, they're gonna have a chance to stretch that to 10, which is exactly what happened. Aubrey missed the kick, pulled it left, and then the, Texans went right down and kicked the field goal and made it a 10 lead instead of a seven point lead. When I asked Shadi about that after the game at the press conference, he just didn't seem to have a problem with it at all, that he... Anyone would even question it. It's like, well, sure, have faith in my guys to do this. It's like, having faith in your guys is a good thing. But every once in while, we need an adult in the room to make a decision and say, hey, we're not gonna do this. We're just gonna punt down here deep into Texans territory and and let them run out the clock, and then we'll just go into halftime with us only trailing seven points, and we get the ball back, you know, first in the second half. And that should have been what happened. Would have been logical. It would have been logical, but that's not what happened. You know, when something like that happens with with coaches or managers or anything, And you guys have to go in there and, you know, drill down on them. We've all all been in those rooms when seeing that happen. How does it affect the... I'm speaking in big generalities here Mhmm. Because everybody's different. But you guys have to deal with them a lot more than the rest of us used to have to. How does that affect the vibe the next time you see them? If they maybe didn't like the nature of your questioning or something like that? Well, most of the time they're pretty professional about it. You know, if you if you... And let's take Skip Schumacher, who's, you know, still relatively new in the market. And and as he pointed out, if when reporters bring up stuff, he knows that's part of our job to do that, he's not as happy about it when some of the employees are doing it. If one of the local broadcasters is bringing up bad stuff, Right? Right. And he gets a little short with that. But but he knows that that the people who do it, you know, mainstream media, this is this is part of our job. And so he handles it pretty well. I'm not around Shottie or I haven't been around Shottie as much as I have been around Schumacher. I've done a lot more college football in the last couple of years than I've done with the Cowboys. And so I haven't got to be around him as much. I don't know him personally as well, and he doesn't know me as well. So, that was... That'll be interesting to see going forward, what the reaction will be. I I thought that, you know, I was pretty fair with him in my column. I just pointed out that, you know, these are things that we're learning about him. Right? Right. And and we'll see where where it takes him going from here. You hate to complain too much about a win. Right? Galloway used to always say, you praise them when they win, you rip them when they lose. And and I think for the most part, that's probably a healthy outlook. But look, the Texans are better than o o and four, but they are o and four. And when you're just barely beating an o o and four team, and when it came down to a Hail Mary and your safety goes up in position to knock the pass down in the end zone, and instead he tries to catch it, and it flies between his hands and goes right to a tight end for the Texans who couldn't quite catch it, that's not good. It it it shouldn't come down to that at the very end of a game. There's just too much stuff like that that happens with the Cowboys and and has for a number of years now. They're just not always a smart team. And I and I, you know, you can be a lot of things, not be talented, you can not be good enough, but if you're not smart, to me, that's a real indictment. And that falls at the feet of the coaches in your view? Sure it does. Yeah. Well, that and personnel director, you know, the guy drafting. He's supposed to be drafting smart people. You can hope good and smart. You know, that was that was why I liked the drafting of Caleb Down so much, you know. Everybody talks about what not only was a really good impact player at Ohio State and in Alabama before that, but also really a smart guy. There wasn't there wasn't too much they could feed him, you know. The first day he got there, he understood almost all the stuff they wanted him to do. So that was really a good sign, and they just need more players like that. I've always associated you with college football Mhmm. More than anything else, and that's always seemed like more your bag than either way. I mean, you're great at all of them, but still, that seems to be the one you like the best. I I do, and and I like it because I'm a kind of a student of history. I like history. You know, I've always liked it. All kinds of history, you know. All the books I read growing up when I was a kid were all biographies. I always wanted to know what people did and why they did it, I always thought that was important to know. And so college football lends itself to that. Baseball baseball and college football and golf are probably the three sports that cherish their history the most. The rest of them couldn't care less. And so, I... That that is the fun part of covering college football. There's a lot of part... There's a lot of it that's not fun anymore, but, but it is the fun part. The fans go for that kind of stuff. Well, let's get into that a little bit because, you know, back when when, you know, your college football halcyon days, the Southwest Conference was around, and then that went away and it morphed once. And now, I mean, where's it going now, Kevin? Oh, I couldn't possibly predict that. It's a it's a mess. You know, you... You've got... It's it's so bad the government's trying to get involved. And you know you've hit rock bottom when that's happened. So you know, this Protect College Sports Act is, the chance of that getting passed are probably pretty slim, there are people out there who don't want it passed, there are people who feel like that I guess just the capitalism will just settle all this stuff at some point. Sorry, what is the goal with the Save College Sports Act? I'm not fully read up on that one. Well, it's a lot, It's It's dense. Yeah, but basically they wanna do things like limit you to a one time transfer, then if you transfer again, gotta sit out a year. Like it used to be? Yeah, like it used to be, right. And then they have a lot of other things too about how they can channel the money and all the rest of that kind of stuff. But in my mind, the NCAA spent a century trying to police all that kind of stuff and they couldn't do it and that was a full time job for them. I mean, how is anybody else gonna do that? So I just don't see that anybody has the appetite to do that either. I mean, you... Supposedly, the cap for the money you could give was $20,000,000. Well, the athletic reports that A and M and Texas both spent over $50,000,000 on this year's roster. $50,000,000. Who's gonna police this? Nobody is. Yeah. There... There's there's no way to police any of it, and it's just out of control. It's... And frankly, it's, you know, it it has scared some of the schools. You know, obviously, that's why Nick Saban got out. It was because he could see what this was gonna mean, you know. Alabama doesn't have those kind of boosters to pay that kind of money. So, that's why... And and it's already had a direct impact on on the rankings every year and who's making it back. You know, it's it's gonna be harder and harder for Alabama to do that. Frankly, it'll be harder for Georgia to do it in the long run. You know, these are... Texas and A and M they're... And Ohio State, they're the three with the big money. They have traditionally been the three biggest revenue producers in college football for decades, practically. What would you do to fix it? What would I do to, oh gosh. Yeah. You know, some of it is We have an hour. I think the thing about it to me, Groves, is it's just so hypocritical. I mean, you can't have coaches leaving at the drop of a hat, you know, like Lane Kiffin and walks out on the team before their bowl game, you If a coach can do that, why can't a player do that? I just don't see it, you know. And then you see all the money that they've spent on programs and on their football programs. I can remember when I covered college football as a regular thing back in the eighties, you would go to these campuses and at Texas, their practice field was a plot that kids threw Frisbees on. And so they'd go chase them off with their Frisbees and then they would say, Okay, now we're gonna have practice out here, if did want to practice on artificial turf. And now they've got, you know, five, six different places they can practice on, you know, air conditioned, un air conditioned, you know, whatever, and it's just ridiculous all the money they spent. One of the things that Tom Herman complained about when he came back to Texas as the head coach after he'd been a GA there a number of years before, was that they had the same wallpaper in the athletic offices. He got a head coach complaining about the wallpaper. I mean, you know, wouldn't a head coach ever consider that? When I covered it back in the eighties, nothing had basically changed in the previous thirty or forty years. That all the facilities were basically all the same, what they had been for decades. And now if you're not keeping up with that, if you're not putting in something new or or putting in new wallpaper or whatever, well then you're you're behind the times. You go out to Texas Tech and, you know, I've got relatives who live in Lubbock. I don't wanna offend anybody, but it's not the most beautiful place. You know, I remember Tommy Tuberville told me the first time I went out there to interview him, and he didn't even know me and I didn't really know him. And the first thing he said to me was, this place is like Beirut. And so that's what it's got going for out there. And yet, they have probably the finest athletic facilities, football facilities in the country. You know? When I played soccer at TCU, they'd just gotten the weight room downstairs, like overlooking. And now they just launched a new one. They didn't need a new one. No. No. But you gotta have a bigger one than than the next guy. Right? You know? So that's that's what everybody's doing now. And that's why that part of it's out of control. On the flip side, I don't think that the product on the field has ever been better. I I think it's it's so competitive now. There are so many teams that can play on the same footing with others. Like SMU back in the eighties, they could do it, but they hadn't been able to do it since. And when now now SMU is back. Now as they... As SMU calls NIL, it... Now it's legal. So they they can really play with anybody just about now. Now there there are teams that are always gonna have an advantage, but if you... You know, that's what the kind of the tragedy is, I guess, at A and M is that they spent all this money on their football team, and it looks like it's gonna be eight and four. Mhmm. So it's, you know, it's making people a lot it's exhausting the the patience of boosters. Let's put it that way. They're... If they're gonna pay all this money, they want some results automatically, and so that's what's gonna happen. So are these guys, these players, are they like under contract, under legally binding contract? Or how does that work? They're not legally binding, but... And and, you know, there are cases where, you know, you know, frankly, you know, they've got agents, and so they they are working things out, with them. But supposedly, you know, if a kid doesn't, you know, if he doesn't work out, supposedly, they can they can say, hey. You know, that's it. But I I don't know. I think that eventually what's gonna end up happening is is that is that's... That the boosters will say that's enough. You know, it's it's like the Saudis with, you know, lib golf. Right? Everybody said that was a bottomless pit of money. Right? Well, people are only willing to lose money for so long. Yeah. Even the Saudis. So, that's that's gonna be an issue I'm I'm sure here pretty soon. As I was told by at A and M a couple years ago, Booster said, you know, I can go and spend millions of dollars and get my name on a building and my name will be on that building forever, or I can take that same money and give it to a football player who's smoking pot in the locker room. He said, I think I'd rather put my name on the building. So Fair. That would, that could be the future of this as well. I mean, I'm not saying it'll stay like this forever, I think it'll be interesting to see if this Save College Sports Act doesn't do anything or doesn't get passed or nothing is done to rein all this in, who's left standing? Now what's the basic idea behind the Save College Sports Act? Well, it's just trying to... They're they're just trying to get a hold on everything. They're trying to Just trying to regulate it somewhere. Regulate them and keep the prices from the West right now. Right? Yeah. And and people are Wilder than Wild West. Well, it is Wilder than Wild West. You got... I mean, you know, Texas Tech has a kid, and and he's just now been declared ineligible, but he was on his fourth school at at... He's a quarterback, and there... And he was playing a little bit, not very much. He hadn't done very much, so I don't think they're gonna squawk too much if he can't play. But, four schools in four years. That's a lot. So... But, you know, I I... I've always been amazed because before all this happened, when Baker Mayfield was at Texas Tech. Remember that? And and then he wanted to leave because there were a lot of quarterbacks in front of him at Texas Tech. He he had played and won seven games and had done pretty well, for him. But then, you know, Cliff Kingsbury said, nah. I don't think so. You're not really my quarterback. But he wouldn't release him to go let him play at Oklahoma, which is where he wanted to go. He couldn't get on scholarship. He would he would just have to walk on in Oklahoma. And, you know, as it turned out, Cliff kinda knew what he was talking about because he he had a guy named Patrick Mahomes ready to go. So that worked out pretty well for him. But it was kinda, to me, crummy that you wouldn't just release release the kid. You're not gonna blame. Let him go. He just didn't want him to go to play at Oklahoma, a team in the big 12 at the time. And and to me, that's what's ridiculous about that is that Sonny Cumbie left, believe it was, he went from Texas Tech to TCU. And nobody said a word. So why is it okay for a coach who knows everything about what your... The last team did? Wouldn't Sonny Cumming just walk in there and say, here's their playbook? You know? Why wouldn't that happen? And yet, no one had a problem with that. But what if a kid wants to transfer to a school in the same conference, oh my gosh, we can't have that. So I don't want it to go back to those days either. I I think it's all such a mess and they deserve it. All the people who run college football, college sports, they deserve this mess because they had a chance to make it right. If they had provided things like, you know, long term insurance for healthcare for these guys, to look out for these kids, because I've done a lot of stories over the years about people who never played pro football and they ended up with dementia and long term physical debilitating things and nobody was just like, well we gave you free meals and a place to stay, Yeah, and a great education too. Wasn't your brain worth that? I think that they deserve a lot of this and it'll be after I'm done before they finally figure out where it all goes, but I'll be I'll be watching at least from afar. You think you're gonna miss it when you're done? No. No, I won't. You know, next year will be fifty years... No. You're telling me that when you're done Yeah. You're just gonna cut it off. That's it. Cut what off? And you're not gonna... Let's be careful about that. You're you're you're not gonna do your job. You're not gonna pay any attention to it. You're not gonna watch the game. Oh, no. No. No. No. I'll I'll watch it. I like, you know, I like watching. And I've I've... Listen. I've loved this career. It's been a great career. It's it's been a a dream for me, Mike. You know, I I was a zero in high school, and I had no idea what I was gonna do. I thought I was gonna be a forest ranger. That's how bad it was. I just wanted something that had nothing to do with math, you know? Oh yeah. Yeah, and then my younger brother told me my first year in college, Well, knew you were one of my guys. Well, for sure. That's why we're all in this business because we can't do math. My younger brother told me one day he thought he'd like to be a sports broadcaster. He was tall and good looking and I was neither, but I'd always done well in school and writing stuff and I thought, I could be a sports writer. So I became a sports writer and he became an accountant. If he hadn't said that, I never would have thought of it, and that's what he tells everybody, that he never would, and I wouldn't have, I never would have thought of it. But it's been great and it's been a lot of fun and I've got to, I was here for the golden era newspapers and everything that happened, especially the Dallas Morning News and the sports section there, the greatest sports section ever. So... Boy, you were, man. Yeah. I mean, you were right there in the big middle of all of that. I don't know if I would say you were necessarily there when it started, but... Close. It started... Dave Smith came in 1981. Yeah. And I got there in '85. Now here's what I... Here's what I've always heard about this, and you tell me how much of this is correct. Before Dave Smith got there... Dave Smith, a longtime sports editor at the Dallas Morning News. Before he got there, the Dallas Times Herald was around. Right. We were a two newspaper town then. Mhmm. And for me anyway, because my parents, when I was a kid, they subscribed to both. You could afford it back then. Yeah. Yeah. You could afford it back then. And they subs... They subscribed to both. Now they didn't really read much either one, but I did. I read them both. And so I I was kind of a a newspaper nerd. And the guy that I first, you know, jumped on board with and really got into was the great Blankie Sherrod Sure. Who was at the Times Herald then. Mhmm. And so that kind of put me, you know, in their corner. But I always heard that somewhere along the line, the ownership of the morning news got it through their heads that the thing that people read the newspaper for was business news and sports. Right. And they decided that what they should do is try and bulk up those two areas. And so they did. They brought in Dave Smith, and that was just the the biggest paradigm shift of a way of going about things that you could possibly imagine down there. Does that sound close to right? That's exactly what happened. And, you know, they hired Blackie from... They brought Blackie over from the Yep. Times Herald to the morning news and and I remember him sitting at his desk through the streets of downtown. One of the greatest promotional advertising Awesome. A newspaper ever did. Blackie... And then he he he wheels in there and he pulls up and there's David Cass Stevens and Randy Galloway standing there, and he he hands one of them a cup and says, go get me some coffee. Which is really great. We all love that. Yeah. Blackie got to the morning news a few months before I did. He he he was making a much greater splash than I was. When I went... When I got there in the fall of eighty five right after Texas OU, Dave had had Barry Horn and Mitch Lawrence take me to That's how important I was. A couple of of writers that took me to lunch. Those are good guys though. Well, good guys. Absolutely. Legends in my mind. And so anyway, yeah, you're exactly right. That's exactly what happened. It was a newspaper war. They hired Dave. As the word was, they wanted to hire the biggest son of a bitch they could find to win the newspaper war, and that's what they did. They got Dave from... He had been at the... He was at the Washington Times, but he had been at the Boston Globe and assembled a great sports staff at the Boston Globe. And I was talking to Jeremy Halbrich, who's a former president at the Morning News a few years ago, and he told me that Dave would always ask about his budget and I would have to remind him, Dave, you don't have a budget. Just whatever you wanna spend is okay. And that's what he did. And we spent a lot of money. We had... We... When the Cowboys were going to the Super Bowl in the early nineties, we would send 32 people to go to the Super Bowl. 32 people. And then at one point, we sent 16 people to the Summer Olympics. Oh, You know, that's we... It was production, and it was the biggest sports section in the country, and we did a lot of great things. We still do a lot of great things, but the newspaper business is not the same as it was back then. I did just read, I found an article from 1993 from D Magazine that Eric Celeste wrote, it looks like, and the first sentence is, Kevin Sheraton's first three months at the world's greatest sports section, Sports Day, had been peaceful, considering his boss was universally regarded as an asshole. Yeah, I didn't, I thought the one had called Dave an asshole, but I did talk to Eric for that story. Yeah, that was the, in that story I go on to tell him that I had just been hired at the morning, because I'd been there a few months, I was covering Southwest Conference basketball and there was an investigation at Baylor and the Times Herald, which was just killing us on investigations, NCAA stuff because of Danny Robbins who was a great investigative reporter, had just announced what the sanctions would be against Baylor. I got a call from the desk at 10:30 at night and they said the sanctions are out against Baylor. Dave wants you to go to Waco. And I said, now? And they said, yes, now. And I said, you know, they roll the sidewalks up at 09:00. And he said, they want you to go right now. So I went down there and I got a story, but then the Times Herald had another story that beat me, so I got my head handed to me two days in a row. And so I came back and I was sitting at my desk and Dave walked by and there was Tito Horford, was Al Horford's dad, who was playing at Houston at the time, a really talented center, but he was gonna transfer, and he asked me if I knew what Tito was gonna do, and I come from Houston where I covered the University of Houston those last three years. The last two years they went to final four and all of that, so I knew a lot of people down there and I said, yeah, I think I'm gonna get that, and he just looked at me and said, you get that story, Then he turned and walked off. I had never had anybody command me to get a scoop before, but yeah. So it was a little intimidating at times, but you know, it was all great, it was a great experience. Dave was he was a character and we still have periodic lunches with Dave. He's... Oh, really? He's 80... I think he's 86 years old. He looks like he's about 56. I told him he was like the portrait of Dorian Gray, you know. He's not getting any older, but all the people who worked for him have aged precipitously. So we're taking on all... We're living out all of Dave's sins. This is the great Kevin Sherrington of the Dallas Morning News here with us today. And we'll have more with Kevin in just a bit. You can sit over there and chill and relax or or the little boys' rooms right around the corner if you want. You know? I would've so far. We have a fine bathroom here. I like that. Yeah. Whatever whatever you might need to do because right now for us, it is time for that dreaded and feared mid show read. Alright. He's reading the paper. All that work. Yes. Yes. It's a tribute to Kevin. Yes. Reading the paper. On your your own. I know. I know. You don't have the same puppy as Oh, correct. I don't. No. Oh, this is embarrassing. This is a bit... This is awful. The world is gonna stop on account of this. Alright. Every Tuesday at 05:30, join the Sunset Lounge at Scout in The Statler. Now if you're one of the first five people to give the bartender the password, the password is football. Be one of the first five to say the word football to the bartender, and all kinds of good things are gonna come your way, such as a free drink or free valet service. Stick around afterward for Ziggy with Beer thirty Sports O'clock. He'll be doing his podcast from down there. You can watch three wide and then Ziggy. Half price to... Half price valet is available for everyone. It's every Tuesday, 05:30 at Scout at the Statler. Scout, let the adventure begin. Tomorrow, it's me, you, and Victor Violba That's right. Of Maximo. Alright. So come see us tomorrow. And then there's Wednesday, October 7. This Wednesday. This Wednesday, 06:00. Get to Dudley's for rhinestone cowgirls ladies night. Now this is Dolly style, they tell us. For custom tanks and tees, permanent jewelry, a cowboy hat, a trucker bar, along with Dudley's Darling dinner special, and, of course, pretty pink drinks because you've been killing that nine to five. Dudley's in Dallas, 2729 Henderson, Wednesday, October 7, 06:00. That is right just Southeast of Central Expressway. Yeah. We'll be there on the eighth with Grego. OG. Oh, we will. OG. Okay. We got the OG there. Party. Coming up too. Cowboy game, good food, hanging. Mhmm. So all kinds of good things coming up at Dudley's. Alright. Back here with the great Kevin Sherrington of the Dallas Morning News. I like your stories. I knew I would. I knew you'd have them. Oh, good. I'm glad. I'm glad. Because you you you just seem like a story kinda guy that would gravitate to stories and storytellers and be one yourself. Were were you always like this, or is this something you've acquired along the way? I was always making up stuff. No. I I... No. I like... Yeah. I consider myself a storyteller first and foremost. You know, When I was, I was a feature writer in the sports department and that was one of the great things about working at The Morning News is that we could afford to let somebody do that full time. You know, from 1988 until 2000, I wrote long stories. Yeah, I remember those. And I enjoyed them, it was fun. I got a lot of freedom to do the kind of stuff I wanted to do and that is closest to my heart probably is doing that kind of stuff, I like telling people stories. Today, as a matter of fact, I'm writing an obit about Jim Ray Smith, morbid as this sounds, I like writing obits, I think I do a good job at them, I think I capture them. Do a good job at everything, man. Well, I appreciate that, Mike, but I do feel like I capture people as they were, not wooden characters, I'd you like to tell the good and the bad about people. I wrote the obits for my mother and father-in-law, both, and and my wife liked them, so I think that tells you a little bit about that. That's pretty good. That's good to pass that grade. So... Have you written yours? I've not written my obit, I'm going to. I'm gonna write my obit because I don't wanna lead it to somebody else. I think it's a crime when you read... You know, it's like you go to a funeral and and someone starts talking and you think, oh my gosh. Especially when the preacher starts saying something and they and they clearly didn't know the person. Right. That's the worst. Loved by all. Oh my gosh. They just... It's like just just be quiet. Just let somebody who knew this person talk and let them say it. So that's what I like to do. I like to find stuff that kind of shows what these people were really like. Besides the great things they did, just the kind of person they were Yeah. And and how they handled all that. And so... I'm gonna have something that my seventh grade teacher wrote to describe me at my funeral. Yeah? And the reason the reason that... The reason I got this was because one day when school's out, I left something in the classroom and I had to go in there and get it and there was nobody in there. So, okay. Let's start taking a look around at stuff here and see what we can find. And I found her grades, and alongside her grades, she'd had a comment about each kid. And her comment for me was a little on the bumpy side, but rather likable. The bumpy side. I like that. Oh, that's good. Yeah. A few years ago when John Hart was still the general manager of the Rangers and and Evan Grant was temporarily not on the beat and Sean Horgan was on the beat and Sean was a great guy. And I was there and surprised, Sean said he was talking to John Hart and Hart had asked him, well what did you do last night? He goes, I had dinner with Sherrington and he goes, is that prick still in town? And I thought if I ever had a memoir, that's what I would call it. The prick is still in town. That's a good one too. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Definitely. If you ever have a memoir, roll with that. Yeah. That could be good. Boy, those were some weird days with John Hart and everything. Yeah. He was he was not good. You know, the first thing he told us when he got here was that, listen, all I ask is that you call me to get my side of it. Okay? Alright. So then the first stupid thing he did, I I called and they never returned my call. And that was the book on him was that he ran and hid from you when things were going south. And whatever you wanna say about the GMs that came after that, Doug Melvin or I guess Doug was before that, but then John Daniels, they were always available. They always answered your questions and they were professional about it and Chris Young too. So it's been a much better relationship with those people. Yeah, no other general manager has inspired Norm to rap. Do you remember the no heart rap? Oh, yeah. No heart. No heart. The Rangers have no heart. It was one of the best things I'd ever heard. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that is not one of Norm's proudest moments. I think he was definitely proud of it at the time. I can at least tell you that. He wrote it. He got background singers. Like, it was a whole thing. Wow. Like, it was produced. Background singers. Yeah. That's something. It was. Yeah. Alright. Not counting Jerry. Yeah. Because Jerry has gotta be at the top of anybody's list. Who are the most memorable characters that you've encountered during your time in the game? Oh gosh, you know, back when I was doing the features, I had some... Talked to some real characters. One of them was Dennis Rodman. When Dennis was in San Antonio playing for the Spurs, and this was really before... Certainly this is for Kim Jong Un, but it was before a lot of things. And and at that time, it was just... He was unusual just because, you know, tattoos. At that time, people didn't have as many tattoos as he did. And at that time, people weren't dying their hair, you know, every night like he was. And so I went down and decided to do a story on him and I went down to San Antonio and I talked to some people and he wouldn't come out after the games. He would just go back in the room and ride his exercise bike and then he would just think he could outlast me and it's like he couldn't. So I stayed and so he finally agreed to talk to me and we went to a restaurant and and his entourage, if you wanna call it that, was this family of four from Detroit, that their kids had gone to Dennis' camp when he played for the Pistons. And then there was, like, three girls from the St. Edward's volleyball team, and then his his mechanic. So it wasn't what you would call like a real posse, you know. Yeah. So we we have dinner and I'm asking questions and Dennis is liking the questions I'm asking and so he says, well, why don't we, you and I go to this bar and we'll just leave everybody else here. And so I said, okay. So we drive to this bar and, and, we're walking in. Dennis was walking in front of me and, and that right before we walk in the door, he turns over his shoulder and says, have you ever been in a gay bar before? And I said, not that I know of. But we went in and that, as far as I know, it's the only time professional athlete has ever been interviewed in a gay bar. And he was great. He was just terrific to talk to and after it was over, we walked out and Dennis was kind of giving me directions on how to get back, you know, where I was going. And as he was standing there and I was pulling my truck out, he looked over at me and was starting to wave, but he was waiting to see if I would wave back. And I waved and then he waved. And I thought that said everything about him, know. He's a very sensitive guy. His mother told me that, that, you know, she kicked him out of the house once and and he never forgave her for that. And so, she said, once you get on Dennis' bad side, you never get off it. And I think that was just kind of indicative of the kind of person he was. I liked him. He was great. But it was kind of a sad story in a way. Do you have any dealings with Tex Ram? A little bit. Not a lot. My favorite Tex Ram story was when Tim Kalashaw told him that he was leaving the beat to go cover, baseball, cover the Giants in San Jose. And Tex just looked at him and he goes, ball one. And there was a long silence, ball two. And of course, Tex's point was that you're leaving football to go watch the most boring sport you could possibly imagine. That's the way Tex thought. I'm not surprised by that. No. No. What about as far as Rangers managers go? Well, there's some real character. I missed Doug Raider. He was right before I got here in Eddie Farm. Everybody says that the best Doug Raider story was that everybody was afraid of him and was that Jim Reeves Rebo in Fort Worth was sitting there in Doug's office after the game and and they're waiting for Doug to come in and talk to him. And Doug is mad about something. He throws all his laundry up in the air and and the story was that his jockstrap fell on Revo's either his head or his shoulder. And he... And Jim was afraid to move it. Afraid that Ray would yell at So he proceeded to conduct a press conference with that on his head or his shoulder. So that was a good story. You know what, I covered I covered all of them since then and, you know, I liked Bobby. Bobby had a big ego, Bobby Ballantyne, but I liked him. I felt sorry for Bobby too. If he hadn't had that injury, he might've been a great player, you know, when he broke his leg and never got over that physically or mentally. The the biggest run-in I ever had with anybody or or the guy that was the most interesting to me in a way was Johnny Oates, you know, who was their course manager when they first made the playoffs and extremely sensitive guy, and I went to, when he was named manager, I went to his hometown and talked to him and his wife Gloria, and I tell you, just thought, oh my gosh, Gloria was curled up in a chair like a cat and I just thought, she is about to to run through this window or jump out a window any moment. I just... Thought this is really... They're sensitive people. And and it so Johnny really loved the story I did, he was always very complimentary and very helpful to me until I became a columnist and had to write about him and write about the problems they had. And it got so bad that when I would talk to Johnny after that, he would close his eyes while I was talking to him. Oh, wow. And I didn't know if was because he just didn't wanna look at me or if he was... I I don't know what the situation was, but it was very sensitive. And and I didn't have anything against Johnny, but I did write that, you know, I thought he should be fired. Well, and, of course, most people don't like that kind of thing said about So I I didn't have a problem with him not liking me after that. But he was he was a guy that, you know, he was kind of Ron Washington without the personality. You know, he he he kind of put the... Rolled the team out there in April and this is... He let his his players take over the team and they, you know, just pretty much on autopilot for the rest of the season. And that's what they needed. They had the kind team you could do that with and so did Ron Washington. But that's not always the case. Do you remember about what season it was that you said Johnny should be fired? It was after the play, I think it right there at the very end. Okay, so like the 2000, 2005, somewhere around there. When I was a columnist, yeah. And Eric Daydell told me we were having dinner and I guess the deal was I had called Johnny a liar about something and that just really sent Johnny around the bend. And then he had threatened to quit and then that's what Eric was told, and Eric looked at me and said, write that again. So, it was, yeah, it was a, they've had, you know, from purely a journalist standpoint, they haven't had very many managers that were good copy, you know, and people that are accessible and fun to talk to, that kind of thing. And that's why I was a little sad that Bruce Bochy got pushed out because he wasn't necessarily great copy, but he was always very pleasant. You know, he never he never took anything personally or seriously, and he was a great manager, you know. And I'm not saying that they... He... If he had stayed, they would have done any better this year. I've grown to like Skip Schumacher. I think he really knows what he's doing, and he's a really good guy, and he's very accessible and very professional, so those are all good things, and I think that they'll do well in the future just as long as, you know, Chris Young can put a roster around him. Which didn't happen this year. No, it didn't. And I don't blame Chris for that. Know, I know a lot of fans are upset with Chris for the way the team has, you know, they've only had one winning season in the last 10, right? Yeah. Yeah, that was a good one. Yeah, was a good one. It was pretty good. And obviously that was a little bit of a fluke, but Fluke's last forever. Fluke's last forever. Fluke's and flags. I will say, think what I like about Chris Young is that he he's a little impetuous, a little volatile, but he is not sitting around, you know. He's constantly trying to think of ways to improve that team. Yeah. He lives and dies with that. And and and you you know, any fan, you have to love that. Right? You want... Sure. You don't you don't wanna hear somebody say, no, just be patient. You know, he's not a patient guy at all. Yeah. And you for sure don't want a guy who's never around. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And and Chris is really, you know, he wants to be here. This is his market. I I would say the only thing that would drive Chris from this market is the owner. You know, if Ray Davis keeps pinching pennies Mhmm. Then, yeah, I think that could be an issue. Fall somewhere eventually. Yeah. You you you like to think so. I I would think, you know, now we got this labor issue, you know, in in baseball, and then that's gonna Yeah. Be... There's gonna be a lockout, and I don't know how long it'll last. It's coming at a terrible time because baseball is just really making a nice comeback Yeah. With the public, so it's really foolish. But the owners, and Ray Davis in particular, are very intent on getting a salary cap, And I I don't think they'll get one, but they'll probably get a soft cap of some kind, something that would kind of rein in some of the spending by people like the Dodgers. So, you know, and I think that they feel like that there's a appetite for that with the public because I think they're right. I think they're right and I think they are. And so I think that could possibly happen. But the thing I've always said about owners is that you can complain all you want about not making money, but just sell the team and you make a lot of money there. Yeah. There's never been... Only Harry Harry Frazee, who's the guy who sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees Mhmm. As far as I know, is the only own... Only owner who's ever lost money selling the team. And of course, none of their losses include what the land around the ballpark, the Texas lives and all So that sort of it's fuzzy math. It's just... Right. Yeah. It is right across the street. Yeah. Which is kind of difficult. That was what I I wrote when the... When you looked through those windows out there and you could see the old ballpark sitting right there. I said, this is a little like hanging a portrait of your ex wife in your living room, isn't I mean, is this really a good idea to be doing this where you could see it? It's sitting right there. Yeah. But now it's covered in all sorts of ads and stuff like that. Yeah. Is. It's at least feels a little different now. It feels a little different and not good. It feels a little sleazy in a way with all that stuff. Yeah. So have you got any feel for what's going on in the setup with the Mavericks these days yet? Well, I... Maybe a little bit. I I think it's it's interesting to me that the big question is what do they do with Dwight Powell? How did that become a question? It's impressive how many regime changes he's been able to He's see got pictures of somebody. I don't know what the situation, he's a very nice guy and he's very well liked by his teammates. But just make him a coach. KP, man, you know, he just can't play. So, I do think, tell you, I do like Dusty May, I think he's he's very genuine and the players like him and he does, you know, he can't argue with what he did in college and and the thing about him is that you can say that about a lot of college guys, but he's always had a pro bent, you know, he's always loved pro basketball, spent a lot of time going to Europe watching, you know, play over there, you know, watching professional teams here. I think he's I think he's probably gonna be a success story. Now the question is, is it... Is he gonna have the personnel around him? And I think it's gonna be a big thing if Kyrie Irving comes back. If he hadn't lost anything, then that's gonna improve them immensely just that. I think some of the players they got are are probably nice pieces, but they're still another player away from being a a really competitive team. I don't think I've ever been as surprised by the reality a guy... Of a guy who's come through here as opposed to what we were led to believe about him as I have been by Kyrie. Yeah. Mean, that guy has been nothing like I'd... I thought it would be. Well, you know, he he was what he was. Right? Yeah. Documented. It wasn't... People weren't just saying he's a bad guy. They're not not saying you why they thought he was a bad guy. He did a lot of crazy things. And I think what happened here, whatever Nico Harrison did wrong, and he did a lot wrong. Well, just one big thing. Yeah. I think of one thing. One big thing. What are you guys talking about? But he he really liked Kyrie and they had a great relationship. And Jason Kidd had a great relationship with him. And so I think the the two of them being here and being so receptive to him and kinda letting him do his thing and giving him space, my impression of Kyrie is through all of this has been that just give him a little grace here and kinda let him kinda don't don't crowd him too much. Yeah. And kind of let him be who he is and then he'll be happy with that. And then the fans, you know, he's talked about the fans and how much they meant to him. I think he hears a lot of good feedback from them. And so, you know, that's the kind of place Texas is, I think. What's amazed me about him is that every time there's been something going on around the team and people go to him for, you know, for a quote or an opinion or something like that, The guy has been the voice of reason through it all. Yeah. I mean, everything he says is well thought out, well considered, and and most of the time right on the mark. Yeah. I think so too. It'll be interesting to see what he does now that kid's gone and he goes gone. And Right. If that's any of that's any different. You know, May has kind of made it clear that, he's given, you know, Kyrie a wide swath here. You know, he he realizes that he has to do that, and he's smart enough to know that. So, you know, there's a lot of things that that can happen here. You know, one the things that can happen is if it really goes south with this team, well, Kyrie won't be here very much longer. You know, they'll trade him at the at the deadline. And I'm not so certain that that isn't the best thing, you know, because how much longer is he gonna really be on top of his game? Is this team really close to being a contender? I think probably not. They're probably a bubble team at this point in the playoffs. So I I think that, if they could get a good return on him, that that might be the best thing that could happen. I think it would be the best thing unless this thing fools around and turns out to be a lot better than anybody thinks it's gonna be and shows and contends all the way through the regular season and then goes into the playoffs looking like it just might do something. Right. Well, that that... That's what it does and that's... You just ride with it. Right? Yeah. It's really a pretty easy decision, you know, from a Saig Zeri, you know, is all he has to do is just see how they're doing. You know, if they're playing well and looks like they're playing well and he's healthy and he's back to what he's been before. Well, then sure. Just ride it out this year. But I I think probably if if he was wishing for something, a Messiah, I think he's he's he's wishing that it doesn't work out so much. Yeah. And and and I think if you look at how they've constructed the roster, they made some nice moves. There's some nice pieces there, but there's no... What was the big move in the offseason? No big move. No. You know? So if there's no big move and they clearly need to have another player of that caliber, then that tells me that they don't want to. They wanna keep they wanna keep their their contracts down as much as possible so they... At some point, they need to bring in somebody. They can still do that. Yeah. And then... But but more really in reality is is building toward the future. And you know, Cooper Flagg will have his, you know, like someone pointed out the other day, was like his fourth coach in four years, right, if you go back to high school. So, it'll be nice to see how he responds, especially if he's not being asked to be the point guard, which Jason Kidd could try to sell that all he wanted to. I really wasn't for that. No. News. Not at all. Yeah. Uh-uh. Breaking news. Jason Kidd has signed with ESPN. Oh, that's official. Has he really? Okay. Alright. How about that? That'll be interesting. Yeah. We're turn the mic up a little bit. Add a little gain to it. It's okay. Yeah. Tell him not to say most definitely so much. Yeah. So you've, already decided that your expiration date is nigh upon us? Close. Yeah. Getting close. Yeah. Next year, like I said, next year will be fifty years and I think that's enough. I I have really enjoyed it. I have three grandkids. They live, eight minutes from us and so that's really cool. I'm really enjoying that. And then our... We have three... Four children and three of them live here in town. And so I enjoy being around them. I find, and I always have, I always tell the story of, when Kalashaw left the paper to go to San Jose, everybody was asking me, at that time I was covering the Southwest Conference and they said, well, are you gonna are you gonna apply to be the Cowboys beat writer? And and that was kind of the natural progression for sports writers at the morning news. If you really had ambition that it went through the Cowboys. And I hadn't really thought about it at the time, but I talked it over with my wife and we said, okay, sure. So I walked into the office and Dave Smith was meeting with Chris Worthington, who was then Dave's deputy, and a really great assistant and was really good for my career. I said, Well, I'm throwing my hat in the ring for this Cowboys beat. Chris looked at Dave and he looked at me and he said, Okay. He said, Do you really want to do that? And I said, No. He said, well okay then. I had, I took, Chris came through town a couple of days, a couple of months ago and I hadn't seen him in thirty years and we went to the ball game and I said, I felt like that you were trying to protect me. And he goes, I was. I think what he meant by that, he thought that I was a really good feature writer, that I needed to do that and didn't need to be doing a day to day beat. So, that enabled me in the nineties to have a really nice life as a sports writer. Bill Lyon worked in Philadelphia, a terrific columnist, and in his obituary it said that he was traveling 150 to 200 nights a year. It's hard to have a family when you're on the road that much. And I didn't have to do that. My kids knew me and I went to their games and their dances and their performances and all that stuff and it's the most important thing in my life. So now I find myself when I go anywhere, I'm just thinking about getting back home, you know, and really it kinda was always like that. So it'll be nice not to have to do that kind of stuff anymore and the last thing I write for the morning news will be the last thing I ever write. Wow. Not even an email? Maybe an email. One. Okay. If you if you email me, I'll email you back. Hell yeah. Short story... But it'll say, no. No. I'm not going on your stupid podcast again. Yeah. Once is enough. Yeah. Delete this. Well, we had him once, and I'm damn glad we did. I appreciate it. Kevin Sherrington, The Dallas Morning News. Thank you very much for gracing us with your presence. My pleasure. Thank you very much for your fabulous work all these years. I appreciate You've always been a good fan and and and they're gonna miss you when you're gone. Well, We all will. I appreciate that. It'll be fun. You can always look it up. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. That is it for Little YDC four today. We thank you very much for watching. We would also thank you very much if you could help us out on your social media when you share us and like us and do all that stuff that they tell me to do that I actually don't know anything about and don't know what I'm doing, don't know what I'm sharing, don't know what I'm liking. TikTok. Don't know anything about it. Don't know anything about TikTok, but they tell me that we need to do that. We need you to do it too. So you do that for us. And rate and review wherever you're listening. Yes. And rate and review wherever you're listening. No matter where it is, no matter when it is. Just rate, review. What am I talking about here? I don't know. Anyway, thanks so much for watching. Till next time. Bye. Alright. I'm gonna go take my pants off. You're Dark Companion is a stolen water media presentation.