Marty Smith

This is The Drive with Josh Graham Podcast.

Tune into The Drive weekday afternoons 3-7 on Sports Hub Triad. This doesn't normally happen to me, but reading Wright Thompson's latest story on Michael Jordan today, which still leads ESPN.com, I caught myself becoming emotional, sitting there right at my desk, because sports, at their core, are inspiring because of their relatability. The athletes, they all come from somewhere, and it just might be your wear. To summarize this very lengthy story, Wilmington and North Carolina is just as much a part of the story in Michael Jordan's success as James and Dolores Jordan were.

I'll even take it a step further. Michael Jordan's life is a love letter to our state. His ideals, described through paragraph after paragraph in all the books that you read about Michael, the way he speaks about his days at Wilmington, and in Chapel Hill, and in Charlotte, it's the best of Michael. His ideals were cultivated by southern values, passed down generation to generation, having to work harder than everybody else just to achieve anything, making any negative a positive. Michael said that's what got him through the passing of his father. It also built an armor on Michael.

It allowed for him to use all the slights that were out there, or even perceived slights, use that as fuel that really spawned a fire to allow for his success. That was all cultivated, fostered in Wilmington and in our state. Like, when you read these stories, these anecdotes that I had not heard before in Wright's story that is titled, fittingly, Michael Jordan, A History in Flight, I think we can all relate to this. Aaron, you grew up in the Triad, as did you, Robert. I grew up in the woods in Youngsville, North Carolina. Michael, he was surrounded by the woods as well.

This is the part that I think resonated most. At six or seven, Mike went outside with an axe, mainly because his parents told him not to play with it. He started chopping up wood and little branches like he'd see the grown-ups do. Then he misjudged and caught his big toe with the axe. There was blood everywhere.

To this day, he's missing a quarter of an inch on his big toe. There was another time. Larry, his brother, wrecked the Yamaha 60 dirt bike with Mike on the back of it. All of them got skinned up. They feared their dad even more than the damage to the bike.

So what did they do? They wrapped their cuts in tissue and they put long-sleeve shirts on in the middle of the summer to try and hide it. But, James was too smart for that. He quickly realized it. He saw some blood on Michael's elbow and said, Take that damn long-sleeve shirt off. Mike complied, revealing the disaster on his arms. His dad sold the bike.

But this one, I think, Robert, I want you to think about in your time growing up in Clemens, North Carolina, if there's anything you have that sounds like this. There was another time some neighborhood kids were throwing footballs and shoes and stuff at the family's electric meter. One connected and broke it. Mike's grandmother was furious and told Mike's father, who said he'd take care of it. He called all the neighborhood kids over to his garage and he said, One way in, one way out. Mr. Jordan, he told the kids he wanted to give them some cake and ice cream and like suckers, they all bought in. Mike's grandmother saw what was coming and pulled him in to help her into the kitchen, keeping him out of the line of fire. That's when they all heard the screaming. Mike's dad was giving them whippings. All the kids, not just his own. They ran crying to their parents who went over to confront Mr. Jordan.

They found Mike's dad on the porch smoking a cigarette. You beat my kid, they asked. You damn right, he replied. Robert, I've given you some time to think. What comes to mind?

My dad never beat any of my friends. I don't know. I feel like that's kind of overstepping the line, but also they were stupid enough to be throwing stuff at an electrical thing. I don't know what you called it. But I guess the most comparable thing was my grandparents telling me not to slam their glass door as I was running outside. And where is this?

This is in like around the Forsyth County area. Not in Clemons, but close to it. Got it. And I remember just running out one day and then the glass door slammed behind me and I heard the glass break and I knew my ass was about to break. I loved going into the woods as a kid. I used to be scared of snipes.

You remember that? These things. Hey, go snipe hunting at night. And you go out and you look for these things.

Apparently they have like glittery, glittery bright eyes. And I was looking for that the entire time. And it turned out to just be a fake thing that people would go out and do for sure. The boys would play with BB guns, Michael and his brothers. I once upon a time had my front tooth, my lateral incisor, which you might know is the same tooth that was knocked out of Ed Helms mouth in the hangover. It was knocked out with a BB gun by my brother.

We were just horsing around. He jabbed with it, didn't shoot me, but it chipped my tooth and I had to get braces for five years or so just to shift things back in order to get the implant. So I think growing up in the South, all of this really resonated that the greatest individual athlete, the greatest individual career we've ever seen in sports was produced because of our state. In part because of our state, Wilmington, North Carolina, Michael Jordan, his life is a love letter to this state. His pride for the Tar Heels, he hit the game winning shot in 1982. He felt that changed his name from Mike Jordan to Michael Jordan. That was Dean Smith's first title. He cried the day that Dean told him he had to leave Chapel Hill. It was best for him to leave early after his junior season. He wore the same shorts underneath his baggy Chicago Bulls and Washington Wizards shorts during all 1251 games he ever played.

Also during baseball too. They said North Carolina on them. He returned home to the state of North Carolina to become the Hornets owner where he made history. First former player to become a majority owner. It's the same city. I didn't know this until reading the story. He moved his parents to Charlotte nine days after breaking his foot his second year in the NBA.

So the ties, they are all there. Jason Hare, he was talking to Richard Deiss, who we had on the show last week, the premier media writer from The Athletic, and he said there's still just so much meat left on the bone. Speaking exclusively about Michael's days at Carolina. Speaking exclusively about Michael's days in Wilmington. He thinks there could be a second documentary made just on his early North Carolina days alone.

And I'd consume all of it. The things that shaped him. The history of this state. Him being cut from his varsity team and his sophomore year in high school.

They do want to preface. He was never really officially cut. He was relegated to the JV team, but that just doesn't sound as good when put out there publicly. But I was very moved by the story Wright Thompson wrote earlier today. We're going to be joined by Sean Clark, Appalachian State head football coach at a little over 20 minutes. A big decision is coming for John D. Brown. That's expected to be made right about now as the former demon deacon is picking between Illinois, Michigan. And also Gonzaga wishing him the best because he was always a good ambassador for Wake Forest basketball. He loved being a demon deacon.

He loved Winston-Salem. He has one more year of eligibility remaining. We'll keep you updated on that. But this is really a big week or two for Steve Forbes. He needs to make big picture decisions with the three remaining scholarships he has.

Already have two grad transfers in. Ian DeBose before he arrived from Houston Baptist. And Jonah Antonio, who's the sharpshooter from UNLV that they picked up last week.

They don't need any more placeholders. Bo Hodges, good scorer East Tennessee State. He only has one year remaining and he might have to sit one in order to just play one. Jalen Johnson, he's a grad transfer.

But again, he's in and out after one year. I don't think the demon deacons with this roster can be really competitive in the ACC. Especially considering what next year's class is potentially going to hold. And how little evaluation time you might get this summer looking at it. I'd probably jump as much as I can on this year's class.

Evan Daniels from 24-7 Sports. He describes the 2020 basketball class as being better than 2019 and far superior to what's going to come in 2021. There are a ton of reclassifications. Forbes, he's already offering young big men a lot of three stars, a lot of four stars. It doesn't mean that he can't go after transfers at all.

There are some good options out there with multiple years remaining. Mac McClung, shoot your shot man, if you can get him from Georgetown with two years left. Really good player from last year, that would be huge. Davian Williamson seems like a perfect fit. He's from Winston-Salem, so he understands Wake Forest. Really bright kid as well, so he should fit in academically at Wake. And he's coming from East Tennessee State, so he already understands what Coach Forbes is trying to do as well.

Two years remaining, ineligibility, even if he can't play next year, he can still practice. And one of the bigger things you try to instill your first year as a coach is the culture. Davian Williamson can be one of those culture pieces that allows for Forbes to do exactly what he wants to do in Winston-Salem. Okay, as I mentioned, in less than 20 minutes, it's going to be App State coach Sean Clark at the bottom of the hour. There are two North Carolina schools I'm very concerned for right now. I'll tell you who they are next on the drive.

Somehow I missed this just before we were about to go on the air. Chondi Brown announced on his Instagram page that he is committed to Michigan. Transferring from Wake Forest to Ann Arbor, he chooses the Wolverines over Mark Few and Gonzaga and Illinois. So wishing Chondi the best of luck, it's going to be Juwan Howard's third year by the time he's eligible to play. So hopefully Michigan continues to build and Chondi can play in the NCAA tournament where he hasn't been able to compete in his first three years with the Demon Deacons. But I want to shift things to football. There are only two true football schools in our state. Appalachian State is one up the mountain in Boone, and then there's East Carolina in Greenville, America.

App coach Sean Clark is going to join the show in 15 minutes. As for ECU, they are the North Carolina school I'm most concerned about amid the coronavirus pandemic. Yesterday, in a school board of trustees meeting, it essentially decided that ECU would have to cut varsity sports in order to balance the athletic budget. They're looking at, by year's end, facing a $12.5 million budget or deficit, I should say. They think that completely shutting down spring sports when they did can get that number down to 10.

But even if it's at 10, it's still just an incredibly difficult spot to run an athletic department with a $10 million deficit. So sports are going to go. It might be the first school in the state of North Carolina to cut sports. Yesterday, we learned Furman, which has been playing baseball for 125 years, cut its program immediately.

Done. With ECU, they have to cut sports because, quite frankly, they probably have too many sports. They run 20 varsity sports, and that's the most in the entire American Athletic Conference. On top of that, that's more varsity sports than some ACC schools have. I think that's more than Clemson. I know it's more than Wake Forest has. It's more than App State. It's more than Charlotte.

So they have to hack away. Remember, in order to play FBS, big level football, you need to have 16 varsity programs in place. Title IX legislates that you need to have just as many sports on the men's side than you do the women's side. And scholarships have to be allotted the same way. Men's basketball scholarships, for instance, are full, so the women's basketball scholarships are full as well. Looking at football, those scholarships are full, so volleyball, those scholarships are full, and all the way down the line.

So you're looking at, with 20 varsity programs in place, East Carolina is either going to have to cut two programs or four. If you look at the ones who are most susceptible to being cut, I think track and field is safe because that makes up six sports. You're talking about, you can't really separate cross-country from the track, from the field events.

It all kind of goes together. So track and field, they're safe. Football, men's basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball, they're all safe as well.

You're essentially looking at golf, swimming and diving, and you're looking at tennis. Those are going to be the sports that likely get cut, and you're talking about two varsity sports apiece because there are men's and women's teams. From what I'm hearing, talking to my friends in eastern North Carolina, it's more likely today they're going to cut four programs than just two. And that's devastating news.

Now, I don't know that for sure. It's not a lock by any means, but that is what we're potentially looking at with an American Athletic Conference school. The other issue with East Carolina, they do not fit it all in the conference that they're in. The American Athletic Conference is just not a fit. Think about it this way. When you look at budgets, ECU's budget, having been in the conference from Conference USA since I think 2013 or 2014, it's a lot smaller than pretty much every other school in the league.

Now, why might that be? Look where East Carolina is located. I love the college town of Greenville, North Carolina. I went to school at ECU, full disclosure, but it's the only pure small market college town that's in this league. You got Tulane, which isn't a world beater by any means, but it is located in New Orleans. You got SMU. I don't know how many people in Dallas care about SMU, but they are in a major market. South Florida is in Tampa. UCF is in Orlando.

Connecticut, it's in Storrs' small town, but it's adjacent to Bristol where ESPN's at, New York City. So it's a very difficult spot ECU's in being in a league where most teams have bigger budgets because they're all in bigger markets. One of the solutions, the AD yesterday, when talking to reporters made, John Gilbert, who's been on this show, he said, we're just going to cut out non-conference, long-distance road trips. So we're going to play a lot more regional opponents in football and in basketball, baseball, and all the way down the line, and that should save a lot of money. You don't have to worry about long-distance travel, planes.

We can instead just bus to a lot of places. That's all good and well, but what about the conference you're in? The closest team to East Carolina in the American Athletic Conference is Temple. They're in Philadelphia. That's the closest team.

Put that in perspective. That side-by-side versus what say the ACC teams are dealing with for the state of North Carolina. You got Wake, which is right next to North Carolina, NC State, Duke, Virginia Tech, Virginia. They're all in proximity to each other, close proximity. Clemson, all close to each other. ECU's closest conference foe is Temple. And then it's Connecticut. And then you're talking about flying different time zones to get to where you need to go.

There's no easy trip in there. There's been poor administrative decisions for the last five years. Robert, you follow ECU football as closely as anybody I know. It really all goes back to firing Ruffin McNeil. When that happened in 2015, we saw a football program deteriorate to its roots, essentially. To the bars.

It's all deteriorated. And I feel bad for Mike Houston. I like the guy. I'm confident he's a good football coach, but it's just so hard to build that up.

And now you add this to it? Athletic deficit, budget, and having to cut sports is just a difficult deal. Yeah, for sure. And it's not even just the football program. It's that fan base. I mean, if you look at the stands with the fans at those games last year, it's not hard to decide to figure out why their revenue was down. It's the only, that's a good point. It's the only school in that conference that is dependent on the ticket sales.

It's their cash crop. Or the city they're in depends on the ticket sales. A hundred percent. ICU football fuels Greenville, America. When you look at the other schools, do you think New Orleans takes a hit at all if Tulane can't fill a football stadium? Or like Philly for Temple? SMU? I've been to those places. Fans don't go to those games.

They don't. Let's go to Michael in Winston-Salem very quickly. Michael, what do you got on what sports you think potentially could go in East Carolina's case, but many other schools' cases as well? Yeah, Josh, question for you. I think that women's field hockey across the nation will go as a low-profit margin sport.

What do you think will be the equivalent on the men's side as a low-profit margin sport? It's a very good question. I wish I had a good answer for you, Michael.

Thanks for the call. I think every school's different. ECU, another poor administrative decision they've made. They added sports during a time where things were already tough. They added women's lacrosse. I don't think women's lacrosse gets cut because, well, there's no equivalent to the men's side.

If you're going to do it in twos, I don't know. There's no men's lacrosse program. They have women's soccer, but they don't have men's soccer at ECU.

So I think you got to kind of look at it that way. If you have 18, 16, 20 sports, you're looking to cut sports potentially that you could also make sure you follow Title IX regulations as well. I do want to get to another team that I'm concerned about as well, another school in the state of North Carolina, but perhaps we get to that after we chat with Sean Clark. Spoiler, it's NC State. I'll add something to that.

It doesn't have anything to do with coronavirus. There's something that's happened with NC State this week that I think many people who are in the know with the pack are terrified about. So we'll get to that after we speak with Sean Clark. He's somebody I'm fascinated by. We love visiting with him. I think he's the one that does homeschool, has been doing homeschool while trying to run his football program at home.

I think a lot of people can relate to that. But before we finish up shop on the ECU front, they also have this tower, this tower on campus. It's a press box and it's suites. Apparently they thought, they projected when they built this thing. This is comical.

This is amazing. And it was released yesterday that they were going to make $42 million over 30 years with this press box slash suite, suites that they built with this tower at Dowdy Ficklin Stadium. Well, the newest projection that came out and it was revealed to this board of trustees meeting, it's not making the money at all. They're in fact losing money and they're projected to lose $6 million over that 30 year stretch. $48 million.

How are you all? I think they missed. Yeah, they missed quite a bit.

They didn't carry a one somewhere. Yeah. I mean, ECU, not great at the math.

They used to be teachers. As a bunch of Kentucky students, Kentucky fans have pointed out to me, you went to East Carolina, which isn't a lot better. And to that I say, stop it. You got a point. Come on.

I was never good at math. At least ECU's acceptance rate is at 95%. Oof. Shouts to ENC.

Hashtag 252. The head coach of App State Football, Sean Clark, will join the show next on The Drive. All right, let's go. Oh, I'm so excited. And three, two, one, go. The Drive with Josh Graham on Sports Hub Triad. I get nostalgic when it comes to opening up packs of trading cards.

Also, I've noticed this actually happened to me this past weekend. When you get really bored, you start thinking, what are some card games we can play? Me and Sarah Bradford, we were like, yeah, we could play Uno. Uno is not very fun when you're just playing with one other person. So she pulled out a regular deck of cards and said, what can we play one-on-one?

I'm like, I don't know. War? That's what I played as a kid. We played War. I had trading cards. And since the NFL's overtaken Major League Baseball as being, I think, the pastime for American sports, we've created NFL Trading Card War, where me and Robert open up a pack of cards and we try to stack things up against each other in given categories, kind of like high school senior superlatives. The five superlatives we have this week, most likely to coach after their playing days, most likely to own a non-traditional pet, most likely to order their steak well done, most likely to throw up at the party, or most likely and most likely to hear one day, I don't want your wife, Dad.

Those are the five categories. Let's open up our pack of cards and play NFL Trading Card War. Okay, Robert, how are you feeling about the deck you just opened up? It's actually a lot of stars in here. I did not expect just many players. Last week you did not have any stars. It was a pretty bad truck of the law. It was pitiful. He had a lineup of grocery store workers. Shouts out to the grocery store workers.

It was like XFL players was my whole pack. Pretty bad? Okay. You feeling pretty good about where things are going?

Yeah, this week I did. Okay, most likely to coach after their playing days. Who goes first, Aaron? That Robbie gave. Josh did win last week, and we want to put some reasoning behind that so Sarah Bradford doesn't think it's preferential treatment.

That's right. She thinks the game's rigged because Aaron figures out who's going to win. I feel very confident about my deck, by the way. I have Andrew Luck here. I know he's not coaching yet, but I feel like out of my deck, he is going to be the most likely to coach. He's got the brain for it.

He didn't want to play anymore because of his body. So I'm going Andrew Luck. I'm going with Dak Prescott. Dak, if you ever hear the guy talk, he's often talking the way a coach would. He's mastered the coach speak in the media, never says an interesting syllable, and you're talking about a guy who's had to make it in the NFL as a mid-round draft pick.

So it's not sheer talent alone he's making it off by. Usually it's the guys who aren't the most talented that end up being coaches. Dak Prescott, I mean, he's not unlike Andrew Luck, who seemed to be the number one draft pick for sure when he was taken. Dak Prescott, mid-round guy, more likely to be a coach, I think, just because of the talent or lack thereof. Andrew Luck here because he went to Stanford and he's white. Secondly, most likely to own a non-traditional pet, I'm going to go ahead and collect my winnings here, Josh Norman. Does he have a weird pet? Josh Norman, I don't know for sure he has a weird pet.

Okay, so you should not collect any winnings here. Josh Norman, he is erratic, he lives life on the edge, doesn't mind if it offends you at points. Just a guy who's, I think, in a sport where a lot of the personality gets wiped away from people, very fascinating. The most, I think, talkative corner in the league since Richard Sherman was at the top of his game with Seattle, so I'm going Josh Norman. Well, since you mentioned him, I'm going to lay Richard Sherman down as my play.

Wow. He went to Stanford. He's a smart cat and I think that he could be the type of guy who, when you go over to his house, he's going to be like, oh, you want to see my snake? And he would let the snake crawl all over his arm or something. Like you said, Richard Sherman's got a lot of personality, even more than Josh Norman, probably more now.

And he's got a chip on his shoulder, which he could feed to his pet. He's a lot older, though, so I think that's a young thing you do, like Josh Norman's a lot younger than Richard Sherman is. Okay, you're going to call Richard Sherman old? He would be offended by you calling him old.

That's fine. He's a lot older than Josh Norman. How old is Josh Norman? Josh Norman I think is 31 years old.

Let me check for here. He's 32. Richard Sherman I'm pretty sure is older.

Watch Richard Sherman be younger. He's 32. They're the same age. They're both the same age. All right, Aaron, Josh Norman versus Richard Sherman. I'm taking Josh Norman in this argument. Yeah. Because I actually have a report in front of me about a tiny guard dog that Josh Norman has whose name is Yoshi.

That is a traditional pet. He named Yoshi and Josh likes Yoshi, so I'm going to let him. Don't appeal. Third nominee, third category. Likes their steak well done. Who are you going with? I'm going with Layton Vander Esch. He's painfully white, as white as they come. He played at Boise State, so I don't think he's going to want his steak like he likes his field. He's not going to pick it to be blue.

He's going to ask it to be a hockey puck. And I'm going with Layton Vander Esch. I'm going with Andrew Luck.

I almost had this here. Andrew Luck, I decided to save this card for later because caucacity for sure. Andrew Luck, he just strikes me with his weird, the way he speaks, a very weird cadence he speaks with.

I like my steak well done. Andrew Luck just strikes me as somebody who would order his steak in a strange way, so I'm going Luck over Vander Esch. Aaron, what do you think?

Man, this is tough. Also, I just looked at Layton Vander Esch. I think I might go Layton Vander Esch here. Oh, you don't even know who Layton Vander Esch is.

I know who he is, but I just had to look at him, get a look in his eyes real quick. Okay, he's doing his job as a judge. He literally pulled up an article about the last card we played, him having an untraditional pet, which was still a traditional pet. You cannot say he's not a preferential pet.

All right, moving on. Most likely to throw up at the party. If Josh Norman isn't a lot, this one better be Antonio Brown. I feel like he can handle his liquor.

I'm going to go Kyler Murray because he's a short guy. He's small, and he's going to take two shots trying to hang out with all the other big dogs, all the other Cardinals. He's got some of the sexiest girls from ASU over at his house. He's trying to show off, and then all of a sudden the liquor gets to him. His small stature gets to him, something that everybody said he couldn't be a successful quarterback for is now showing why he can't be a successful partner.

One sec. I get that Kyler Murray is small, but AB isn't necessarily a giant. I mean, he's six foot. Antonio Brown, this guy is the most erratic, irresponsible person out there. If you're a quarterback, you're the face of the league. You're the face of your team, I should say. You handle yourself so well that you're the number one pick. You do well in Lincoln Riley's offense. You do well at Oklahoma.

You do well. I forget the school he was at before. But if you're the quarterback, you have to have all the screws tightened. Wide receivers?

Not so much. I don't need to go through AB's track record. I'm just going to say Hollywood Hogan. You just named all the reasons why Kyler Murray would definitely puke from drinking too much at a party because he's the good kid. He's going to puke.

Antonio Brown, he's a wild child. That dude's done everything. I feel like he can handle his liquor, man.

That dude's done everything. He's drinking Henny straight from the bottle. He's not even drinking Henny. He's drinking. All right, so are you taking his over mine?

Yeah, Kyler Murray's going to throw up immediately. Well, bleep off. So we're tied at two now? No, you won the last one. You won. You already won this game. I'm being so losing, Josh.

It's three-one. All right, well, let's do this last one. You're most likely to hear, I don't want your life, Dad. I got Russell Wilson. I've got Joe Jackson, who I'm not sure who he is, but because he's... Stop.

Just give it to me and we'll wrap things up. It's just like Michael Jackson's dad. He's trying to get his son to be an NFL player so bad.

He's like, I don't want your life, Dad. It's a mistake I made. If I played Russell Wilson at throw up at the party, odds are I win that category. I feel pretty good about that. I misplaced my cards. I didn't play my cards right.

If I played Russell Wilson instead of AB and just flip-flopped those two, I'm sure one of Antonio Brown's kids are going to yell at him, I don't want your life, Dad. Probably. So I mess this one up. I accept that. That's fair, because you did. Did I win that last one at least?

You did not. You chose Joe Jackson? Joe Jackson? His name's Joe Jackson. Who the hell is Joe Jackson? Michael Jackson's father? It was the whole joke. I did a whole thing about it.

Were you not listening at all or you were just still pouting because you lost? No, what team does he play for? The Cowboys. He played at Miami. And his name's Joe Jackson.

I mean, you can't get any better than that. You won last week, Josh. Okay. He does not like losing, man. He definitely turns the game off before it's over if he's losing. Mercy rule 21.

Josh pulls the cord out from the wall. Coming up. Why reading up on Michael Jordan, who I bet would have reacted the same damn way I'm doing right now? May be emotional today. Keep it here on The Drive. Hit it. Go.

Let's begin. It's on. Josh Graham on Sports Hub Triad. The two biggest sports stories today are Michael Jordan's still and NASCAR's return as the sport continues in Darlington tomorrow and will be headed to Charlotte Motor Speedway Sunday. Because of those headlines, I believe ESPN's Marty McGee, or Marty Smith, excuse me, from Marty and McGee, to be the perfect person for us to be speaking with right now. He was in Darlington Sunday.

He lives in Charlotte. And Marty, how many pair of Jordans do you happen to own? Forty pairs.

There is the vast majority of them, to be honest with you, are still on ice, which is like sneakerhead jargon for still in the box. I was thinking about this recently because I've been a Michael Jordan fan since I was a kid. Nobody inspired me athletically more than him.

Nobody inspired me to dream really big more than him. And so that's why I have so many pairs. In fact, I'll tell you, Josh, the first pair I ever had was a pair of FireRed 5s, and they just re-released those, and I bought, I maybe shouldn't even say that, I don't want to sound like I'm trying to be too cool, but I buy Jordans as thank you gifts when people do nice things for me, and I just bought a few pairs of them for people who've done really nice things for me. One of which is my producer, Travis Rockhold, who produces Marty Smith's America, my podcast, and I thought that kid was gonna faint.

I thought he was gonna fall out when they showed up at his house. But when I first got that very first pair of FireReds in eighth grade, I would carry them to school rather than wear them to school because the originals had a clear bottom outsole on the bottom, and if you wore them outside, they would soil to this kind of bronze color, and I never wanted to let that happen to mine, so I carried them to school and put them on once I got there. So I've been neurotic about my Js for 30 years now. Yeah.

I've, as I told you I think last week, I've never owned a pair, but I changed that by ordering FireRed Jordan Retro 3s online, so we'll see how that goes. Let's go back to Sunday. Change your life. Like you're not, when you, when they arrive at your home, and you open that box, it's like there's a light that comes out of the box, like this light comes forth, bursts forth from the box, and you are more fulfilled and you feel whole. It's amazing. What was the most bizarre part of covering Sunday's race in Darlington? How quiet it was.

It was really weird, man. First race I ever covered professionally was May 1998 at Richmond, Virginia, about two weeks after I graduated from Radford University. And I've never been to a racetrack on a race weekend when there weren't people around.

Fans everywhere, all of the pageantry and tradition that comes with it, people sitting out with their cooler and their camping chairs and their bonfires, having cold beers and being immersed within that beautiful energy. And it was quiet. And I've never experienced that before. And the closest that I got to the infield, I was not allowed inside the racetrack, closest I got to the infield tunnel was probably 75 yards. And to be out there and it'd be so quiet, it didn't feel, because I was outside, it felt like I was just like hanging out or something.

And then all of a sudden, at around four o'clock, they sail off into turn one and there was that beautiful symphony of engines. And it was kind of normal from the outside, because I was watching it on the Fox Sports app just like the rest of y'all were, because I couldn't see it inside. And then it became surreal again as Harvick did his burnout and got out of the car and there was nothing. So that was the weirdest part of it, man. The COVID-19 screening wasn't weird. I expected that, wearing my mask all day wasn't weird.

I expected that, but I wasn't, even though I knew there wasn't going to be people there, the energy was very different than I even expected it to be. Marty Smith with us here from ESPN. Insiders for a handful of different major sports said all eyes were on NASCAR Sunday. And it seemed like NASCAR passed the test, whatever the test was. But what are some specific things, based on the feedback you've gotten from drivers, race teams, and also from people who were watching on the periphery like you were very close to the track, that they got right, that you suspect could make other leagues more comfortable to move forward? Well, NASCAR is different. One being that they don't, the competitors themselves don't touch one another.

That's a substantial difference here. However, I will tell you, having spoken with Steve Phelps, the president of the sport on Saturday morning on the Marty and McGee program, by the way, when you called me Marty McGee, it made me laugh because there's a horse racing expert journalist named Marty McGee. And last year I was at the Kentucky Derby doing the Marty and McGee program. Overdawned at Churchill Downs, and Marty McGee came walking by, and he poached his head into the tent that I was sitting within and goes, hey, I'm Marty McGee.

I'm like, come in here, man, you got to be on the Marty and McGee show. So anyway, NASCAR did a tremendous job, Josh, and I'll tell you why. All the boxes that they had to check got checked.

First back to market and all the eyeballs that come with it, check. They had more than 6.3 million viewers, which is a remarkable number. And I think if you ask the executive level, they were a little disappointed that the weather was so beautiful all over the country because they think the number would have been much higher had the weather everywhere not been so good. They got out of there with nobody who got screened for COVID-19 having any risk factors whatsoever. They put on a great race with a lot of unique storylines, and this allows them to theoretically get in all 36 races, which, as you know, and some of you listening may not, the TV contracts, a lot of the sponsor contracts, they are contingent on having that number.

So there's a lot going on there, man, and they were allowed to manage all of that extremely well with no issues. So right out of the box, and then they had a guy win his 50th Cup race in Kevin Harvick. Matt Kenseth comes back, doesn't, I mean, this is in the top 10. Ryan Newman comes back, runs very well. Kyle Busch runs the first of seven races.

He'll run in 11 days. So a lot of really unique things to make people pay attention. Tomorrow is the interesting part, because you have a scenario where NASCAR has wanted midweek races that's been floated for a couple of years, it's been debated in boardroom. Now they're going to have that chance. Now the forecast doesn't look very good, thunderstorms, but if indeed they do get to race on Wednesday, that's a unique case study, man, because there ain't nothing else on it. Very fascinating stuff. And then, of course, we're going to have a race at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday.

You live in the city of Charlotte. We're being joined by Marty Smith, by the way, from ESPN. And Michael Jordan, he's been at the center of the sports conversation, sports consciousness for the last month at the Last Dance, Wright Thompson wrote the story that was centered on North Carolina and his roots that dropped earlier today. But as somebody who admired Jordan pretty much all your life and in your youth, what was the highlight of the Jordan doc to you?

Oh, no doubt, the end of episode seven. Episode seven told me so much about the human element, because if you think about Michael's emotion right there, and I went on social media and posed the question to followers, what do you believe was the reason he broke down emotionally? You went from a guy in a two-minute span who said, if you have any problem with the way I led, you've never won anything, to a guy who said break, because he was emotionally moved. And that is this unbelievable spectrum of emotion from a guy who had everything that he did validated, because the indomitable will to win and the indomitable will to dominate you was validated as an athlete.

Every single bit of it was validated. So he could be demanding of his personnel under his stead. That includes the coaching staff. He could be so demanding, because everything he said and everything he did, he led not only vocally but by example, was validated. He won six championships, all right? He was MVP however many times, finals MVP, however many times, on and on. You can win it, Michael won it.

All of it was validated. And then, however, here's what happens, man, I wrote a column on ESPN.com several years ago called Athletes Die Twice. And what I mean by that is this, when you retire or when the game is taken from you, one or the other, a part of you dies, because your entire identity must shift. And when Michael Jordan retired, he's the greatest of all time, for me, Josh, there's no debating that, but the game kept rolling, brother. And Kobe Bryant came along, LeBron James came along, and other people won, on and on. And so then you're like, okay, all right, the game was still being played at a high level and an interesting level, even though I'm not there. And so what happens? As we age, time forges the genuine human desire to be liked and accepted. And when that might not be there, when one of your teammates says what Will Purdue said, you go, oh, man. And suddenly, that vulnerability, the older we get, the more vulnerable we get, or the more bitter we get. And in some cases, both. So that was a striking revelation to me.

There will be 20, 30, 40, 50 page master's thesis, what's the right word? I don't know, Josh. Theses?

Theses? Theses written on that psychology, on that two minutes of television. What's interesting- And that was unbelievable to me, man. What you're describing, how somebody ages and how somebody retires twice or dies twice in an athlete's sense, it actually reminds me, speaking of Wright Thompson, he wrote something when Jordan turned 50 describing the Hall of Fame speech. And I think the way he put it was that the five-year wait, it's supposed to give emotions time to sprout, to grow, and people wanted Jordan to look more human. And what they saw was somebody who was not like us, that was different, who still showed the teeth and growled at you and was able to talk trash even at that stage of his life, five years removed from playing. And what struck me was he's still so convicted in everything he did, whether it was Republicans wear sneakers too, whether it was gambling, whether it was obviously the way he treated his teammates. He was still struck by how convicted he was in his actions so many years ago.

No regret as he reflected back. It was amazing psychology, the whole thing, right? And I just, as someone that inspired me so deeply to be completely undaunted in dreaming huge dreams, I knew that I was going to play quarterback for Frank Beamer. I knew that I was going to play, but there was an issue that I had that's called athleticism. But the fundamental willingness to believe is a direct result of watching that man play.

So the psychology of the documentary is what my takeaway is. I want to close. Okay, go ahead, brother. My bad. I'm sorry to interrupt you, Marty Smith. He's on Twitter at Marty Smith ESPN. You need to listen to his podcast as well, Marty Smith's America, where last week he was talking to Reese Davis, really good stuff there.

I think you even had Craig Elow on a few weeks ago, so a lot of really strong stuff there. And of course, Marty McGee, not to be confused with Marty McGee, something you should catch on the weekends on the SEC network. I love to hear good stories, and I remember we were corresponding around the Duke Carolina game in Chapel Hill. And you were telling me that you planned to go to that game, but then the day before you said you weren't going to make it because you, I think it was your wife, you may have scheduled a date with some friends. Now I wouldn't bring this up unless the game was an all-time classic. And unfortunately, the game turned out to be an all-time classic, double overtime. I thought about that when the game was going to double OT, man, Marty, this must really be a situation where you're kicking yourself. How close were you to going to that game? Not.

I had the opportunity, I had tickets to the game, I was going to bring my son who's 14 and is a Tar Heel guy, but alas, it did not happen. But I will tell you, as I sat and watched it while, let me put it this way, as I snuck views while I was at the restaurant. This is all between you and I, no one else is listening, just you and I. Through the panes of glass that led to the bar TV, I went, oh my gosh, I can't believe this.

I could be sitting right there, and not only could I be sitting right there, I could be sitting right there. Oh, oh, it's okay. My blessings are rich, it was not meant to be, and I had a great time that evening with my friends and my wife. There's a lot of college football stuff I'm interested in. Next time we catch up, we could talk about Jamie Newman transferring from Wake to Georgia, maybe what Kyle Trask could do at Florida this year, Trevor Lawrence and all that. But thanks for the insightful stuff, as always, on Jordan and Jays and NASCAR, as always. I appreciate the time and the triad today, Marty. Thank you, brother. Appreciate y'all having me. Thank you. Thank you.