He's amused Cam Newton. He's been insulted by Charles Barkley. When some idiot in the press asked him, if you know what you know now, what you scheduled his game.
He's interviewed Matthew McConaughey. I do say go Tario. And he's taken on Big Blue Nation.
He's just completely taking the wind out of my safe. It's time for The Drive with Josh Graham. You are on a Monday's ride WSJS Neustadt Sports for the Triad, where for the first time since 1955, Wake Forest Baseball is headed to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska. And between now and their first game at TD Ameritrade Park or whatever they call it now, you're going to hear pundits say these types of things to kneecap the deeps. You'll hear a top seed hasn't won in this format since 1999, since Miami did it.
So be sure to temper your expectations. Or you might hear Wake had such an easy path to Omaha, there are gonna be more battle-tested teams left in the field when play starts. And if Wake Forest were a normal top seed, that might be good analysis. But it's pretty obvious that this Wake team is very abnormal. What they are doing is far from normal, so normal rules don't apply to them.
This is a historic juggernaut and they should be treated as such. Let me explain why. The Deacs put up 22 runs on the SEC in a Super Regional yesterday. 22. They hit nine home runs, nine times they stepped to the plate and hit it out at the couch. That's an NCAA record. Nine home runs, a record.
Or at least it ties one. Nine times. You might say, oh Josh, come on, that's the park. You see how it was flying out? Aluminum bats in that park?
Okay. Alabama was playing in the same park last I checked and they were held to five runs or fewer in both of their games over the weekend. If you are of the belief that this is such a hitter's park and it's aluminum bats and all these things and you want to pooh pooh the offensive numbers Wake Forest is putting up, let me ask you this question then. How is Wake Forest closing the regular season with the number one ERA in America when pitchers have to pitch in that park so often? Explain that one for me.
How do you square both of those things being true? The offensive numbers they're putting up, number one ERA pitching as well. This team's different. Through the NCAA tournament thus far, they are plus 59 in run differential in this tournament.
Plus 59. That is an all-time record for a team heading into Omaha. Last weekend they're plus 41, 48 to 7 they outscored opponents.
That was the best we've seen since Miami in 1999. So this is not a normal number one overall seed. This is one of the best college baseball teams we've seen in recent memory and depending on who you ask this was either 14 years in the making or 68 in the making. First college World Series appearance since 1955. It's crazy to think as good as the ACC's been in baseball that the two programs that have won College World Series still Wake Forest and Virginia who happened to be the two ACC programs going to the College World Series this year. It was the Whos I believe in 2015 and then the Deacs in 1955 that won it all. Those are the only two teams in ACC history that have done it.
We'll see if that changes this time around. The reason maybe 14 might be the magic number that's the number of years that Tom Walter is coached and between that time and where we're at right now there were some down seasons. Just a couple of years ago they missed the ACC tournament and here they are in Omaha. They had that pitching lab.
They got really close in 2017. This is the second Super Regional that they've been a part of under Tom Walter. First time they ever hosted and they break the door down and good on them. Here was Tom Walter talking about that process, that journey to get Wake Forest back to Omaha. It's a big day for our program. This is the culmination of a lot of hard work from a lot of people. Started with Ron Wellman and Mike Buddy and their vision for our program. The improvements we made to the facility. John Curry came on board, moved us further down the field and you know when you got guys like Brian Sosick and Tony Joyce and our assistant coaches Bill Cilento, Corey Mascara, Matt Wessinger, Will Craig. Those guys do so much to help these guys prepare and develop as players and men. So just proud of our organization. It's a big day for us and we're gonna celebrate this one for 36 hours and then we're gonna get back to work because this team, we've got even bigger goals. Check another box off to Omaha for Wake Forest baseball.
This is not normal. Don't let the pundits try to tell you that it is on twitter at W. S. J. S. Radio. If you want in on today's show, that's where we're streaming video. In addition to YouTube and twitch will Dalton, the executive producer of this show, taking your calls at 336-777-1600 W. D. Very excited about this. What tickets are we giving away today? What show are we giving away tickets for? How about that? Oh, Darren Bot is making a special trip into the studio in order to help us give away tickets for that. Later on, we're gonna bring back the old segment that we haven't done in a couple of years. We're gonna be putting together our Nickelback All Star team for baseball. And if you can think of some names, write them down. Think about it.
When we get to that later on, you will have the opportunity to win Nickelback tickets in both Raleigh and in Charlotte. Moving things along to the NFL as the Carolina Panthers continue their off season workouts. This is gonna sound like a knock against Bryce Young, but it's actually not. So stick with me. Bryce Young is boring, not as a player. He's pretty exciting when he's out there on the field when you get the pads on and you step between the lines. But his personality is pretty milk toast. Since he was taken number one in the draft, he hasn't uttered an interesting syllable since that moment. For us in the media, it's not great. We don't have a lot to work with. But from a team standpoint, that's a very good thing.
And historically, that's a good thing to history bears that out. You don't want unpredictable or fun guy as your franchise quarterback. Just like you don't want fun guy or unpredictable guy is your surgeon. Hey, you got something serious that you have to do today. How about I crack a joke?
That's, uh, you know, has some pop culture politics in it. I'm sure you'll want that right before you go under, right? You don't really want a fun lawyer. You don't really want that from your franchise quarterback. Other positions. I'm cool with it. But base of your franchise trading multiple first round picks. You're investing so much in this guy.
You don't want it. Historically speaking, you know who fun guy was great personality eccentric type Baker Mayfield, Johnny Manziel. Those were eccentric fun guys.
Sometimes you'll get pretty good player. Tony Romo, eccentric fun guy, but not really franchise quarterback Super Bowl winning quarterback. You know who wasn't the most fun? Who wasn't all that interesting? Laundry list of Hall of Fame quarterbacks.
Joe Montana, Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, Drew Brees, Russell Wilson. They didn't give you much of anything. They understood that part of the position is politician where you got to know how to handle yourself and not give people much of anything. And it's not necessarily lying. It's being about that lifestyle because what dawned on me listening to Bryce Young speak for the first time since he started taking first first team reps out of O. T. A.
It's becoming clear this is not a PR sculpted persona. This is who Bryce Young is. Try to go on the google search here or on the twitters on the social media and find a Bryce Young party story from Alabama. Go and try.
I did. Couldn't find anything even though he's the biggest star in the sport and he's in the S. C. C. For God's sake. Couldn't find anything ever since he was drafted in charlotte. Did you ever see the TMZ story or see him out and about in charlotte?
Oh man, he's out of the club. Don't haven't seen anything instead. Here was Bryce talking about what he's done on his off time away from the facility. Yeah, it's been, it's been pretty, pretty chill.
Not too much for it. Um, a lot of the time does go to that and being here, I'm trying to do everything I can to, you know, to watch film, you know, get the playbook down. So, um, not too much of it has been outside of just going back to where I'm staying and getting ready for the next day. Um, you know, my family has been down here, um, to visit and help me out with stuff.
So that time has been been great that I've had with with family. Um, but outside of that, um, sorry to be boring, but I don't have too much exciting news report. Sorry to you guys to be boring, but with the Carolina Panthers here when they say that, oh man, this guy gets it. He's a rookie, but he's checking all the boxes. He's got the media piece down. Remember, this guy, he's probably gonna have less exposure as the Carolina Panthers starting quarterback this year as he did the last two years as Alabama starter. Because when you're playing in the sec, you're in that 3 30 time slot CBS prime time or you're nationally televised every single week.
And if you lose one game, it's Armageddon. It's actually tamp down going to be the Panthers starting quarterback in the NFL this year. So, of course, he's ready, already getting first team reps already has the playbook down. He's telling Andy Dalton when something is wrong on the play sheet a couple of weeks and him and to him being in the building. And on top of that, he's got the right coaching staff around him to maximize him.
This point can't be emphasized enough. You got adults in the room like Frank Reich, who has been there, played the position, offensive minded guy. Josh McCown, you invest in Jim Caldwell and Parks Frasier.
You have the right people surrounding Bryce Young, and you have the right guy who has his priorities in the right place, who's exciting on the field and off the field is not even a concern. You're not concerned where what he's gonna do with his money. He's the first star player to come from the N I l age who already enters the NFL legally being a millionaire. He knows what to do with his money. He's already had money. You don't have to worry about him going to clubs. You don't have to worry about him doing the wrong things.
Yesterday, he showed up the practice two hours before it was supposed to start. He's boring in the right kind of way. In the way you like your surgeon to be boring in the way you like to be your lawyer to be boring.
He's boring in the best way a politician is not great for us, but great for the Carolina Panthers. Good news, and I got bad news for you. W. D. Which would you like first?
I always prefer the bad news. The bad news is you're about to lose our lunch slash dinner bet for the NBA finals. It would seem. Yeah, you're Miami Heat aren't winning three in a row. I'm not sure they're gonna win tonight. We'll get to that in a second. That gets us to the good news, which is our friends at Real Q hooking us up with some barbecue today to have for dinner right after, I guess, supper. Right after the show ends. Supper time. Yeah, right after the show ends, Theron Vaught, yourself, myself, gonna dine on some Real Q before we head out to Stan Cotton's Radio Ranch, watch the outlaw Josie Wales tonight. Stan gonna join us at about 10 minutes getting back to the Deacs. To the NBA finals though, tonight's the night for the Denver Nuggets.
Denver is not going to lose at home. They lost their last home game in game two, but that was their first home loss of the playoffs, W. D. Would you like to take a guess the last time they've lost back-to-back home games? How long it's been? How many months? I'm gonna guess maybe since February. First week of March.
It's pretty close. Over three months since the Nuggets have lost back-to-back home games. The Heat, looking at games three and four, they are playing as if they're about to tap out.
One common thread between the first four games. The Heat have not scored more than a hundred points yet. They've been held in check and it's a pretty bad sign when Jimmy Butler shoots over 50% from the field like he did in the last game and BAM goes for 20 and you still lose that game at home by double digits.
They actually didn't play bad in either of the last two games and they still lost at home by double digits in each of those games. Now with that said, the Heat, hashtag Heat culture, they they're going to throw everything they have at Denver tonight. So this is the hottest take that I have. Everybody I think has arrived at Denver's going to win the series, but the hottest take I have is tonight's gonna be the best game of the series. It's gonna be close.
It's gonna be a great game. Is that a hot take at all? Is that the hot part? I thought you were about to tell me the Heat were gonna actually win tonight. No, no.
I don't know if I can give you an airhorn for that. Okay, that's fair. Question answered. But I do think this is the best game we're gonna have, which might not be saying a lot. What's been the best game prior to this? Game two, right? The Heat won.
There was a play at the buzzer where Jamal Murray had a look at it. That's the best game we've had. I think tonight's gonna top that. With the Heat playing for their wives, Miami or Denver trying to win their first ever finals.
I think tonight is the night for Denver, but I think it's gonna be a fantastic basketball game too. I think it's gonna be a fantastic finish. Speaking of fantastic finishes, what a time for golf right now.
Really. Did you know, WD? These things kind of sneak up on you. Did you know that this week is the US Open?
I knew it was getting close. I didn't realize it was this week. The US Open starts this week, and it's out in LA, and it comes a week after the PGA Tour, live golf, merger, partnership, whatever you want to call it.
They're under the same umbrella. And in between these two major events, you had the Canadian Open from over the weekend, and it's just another reminder that nobody is better at calling the sport of golf than Jim Nance is, because a Canadian player named Nick Taylor hit a walk-off eagle in playoff holes to win the Canadian Open. Here's how it sounded. And then there was the long pause, which great announcers do, and does this make me smart or, okay, I know it doesn't make me smart, does this make me dumb that it took me about nine, ten times of listening to that to connect what Jim Nance was doing there? What do you mean? Do you know why he said glorious and free? I do not. It's part, I believe that's part of the Canadian national anthem, no?
It very well could be. Okay, that makes me feel better that you didn't connect those dots. No, no, I did not know that.
Let me make sure I get this right. See, this is not, I'm not a hundred, I've heard enough Canadian anthems going to Caine's hockey games that I feel like I would know. Yeah, God keep our land glorious and free, or as Jim Nance might say, God keep our land glorious and free. Oh Canada, we stand on guard for thee. Don't interrupt.
Oh Canada, we stand guard for thee. Show some respect. I didn't know you were gonna keep going. Oh, I gotta show some respect.
I'll do the French version next. Oh boy. It is an outstanding call. See, how do you come up with that on the spot?
Because it's Jim Nance and we know that he had that pre-packaged. I think he had that, he had to have. He does this in the final four.
Going into the playoff hole, but how do you do that for golf? You do your homework. That's the level of homework he does. Pretty good. You know that.
It's pretty good, but for something like that you're probably not prepared for that on an eagle. Probably not. I bet he couldn't wait to rip that line off. He was ready.
I bet he was. Wow. I get to use it.
I get to do it. You know who else was ready? The security guard.
Yes. So, Vic Taylor hit the putt. He was upstaged by the security guard who's tackled another player, who I had never heard of before, who started spraying champagne on Taylor in his caddy.
And the security guard, to quote Cat Williams, is the only real mother bleeper in the equation here. Like, I don't blame this dude at all. He's not supposed to know who every golfer is. He probably knows though, especially on the final hole, who is supposed to be allowed to run on the course and who isn't. Right. And that guy wasn't on the list.
That guy, that guy saw, like, he walked up to the bouncer at the club. He was, his name was not on the list for getting on onto the 18th green in that spot. So you don't think this the security guard is gonna get in trouble?
No. I think he's gonna get a raise. Form tackle, didn't lead with his head.
See, this is where I fell on it. He's either getting a raise or he's getting fired. He's not getting fired.
Nothing in the middle. You're not firing his guy. Because he, again to quote Cat Williams, he's the only real one in the equation. He, he was doing his job. He, it's not his job. They, they tell you who's allowed to be on that 18th green, who isn't. That guy wasn't allowed on the 18th green. You know, you know. You know who you don't see running? At the Masters, you don't see other golfers running on to the 18th green, trying to spray champagne on the winner. No?
Because you're gonna get tackled by security guards if you do, as you should. You know the Panthers do need a another pass rusher. That's what I'm saying. I mean, hey. What's this guy doing? Brian Burns, link him up.
Mm-hmm. Back to Nance, his golf is superior. He is good on basketball and he's no longer gonna be on the Final Four or the NCAA tournament.
This year was his last one. He's okay on football, but golf, it's, it just doesn't get better. There's nobody in the history of that sport, with all due respect, Vernon Lundquist and some of the others, that is as good as Jim Nance is on it. Hope he, I hope he does it forever.
And he says he's gonna keep doing it till the 100th Masters, which would be in 2036. It sounds like we'll get to enjoy Jim Nance on golf for quite a little while. Speaking of calls, if you haven't heard Stan Cotton's call of the final out sent Wake to Omaha yesterday, we're gonna play that for you and have Stan Cotton react to Stan Cotton, when Stan joins us next. That was the call of Stan Cotton yesterday as Wake Forest punched its tickets to Omaha. Stan Cotton joins us now.
Stan, I want to ask you about Stan of yesterday. Grade your call, how'd you feel about it? Oh, I think in the moment pretty good. I, you know, the, I've always told folks when I speak to them, you know, younger broadcasters or students or whatever, the game's the most important thing, right? Not the announcer or anything like that on the periphery, it's always the game. And I think, you know, that, that was one of those weird games where the outcome was determined, you know, what, an hour and a half before the end of the game, something like that. So there was no walk-off, there was no dramatic play on the field that ended the game. What was dramatic was that long at least in my view, that, that long wait was over, you know, 1955 is a long time ago. And that's the last time the Deacs had been to the World Series.
So I think, you know, whatever, good enough for the moment. And it was certainly fun to sit there and be a part of that moment as the players continued to, to celebrate on the field. And the thing that really got me, Josh, was when Bill Merrifield, great player for the Deacs, as we all know, rolled Dr. Gene Hooks in a wheelchair out onto that field that bears his name. And that Dr. Hooks was there at the game, was able to watch what no team had done since, you know, way back before 1960. You know, he's been so good to me over the years.
Dr. Hooks has a couple of handwritten notes over the years and just so supportive of me. And I got choked up when we were talking about him being out there on the field. So the moment was huge.
And I was just thrilled to be a very small part of that yesterday. Because for those who don't know the history with Gene Hooks, maybe younger listeners, the picture I saw was him and Ron Wellman and John Curry on a field. Those are the three athletic directors for the last 60 years of Wake Forest Sports, yes?
Yeah, unbelievable. I mean, it's those three right there. And we talked about that too. You know, Dr. Hooks, for so long, and he was such a visionary. He really was he was he was ahead of his time. And then Ron Wellman's long tenure and all the good things that Ron did. And now John Curry, very progressive type of athletic director embraces, you know, technology and all the different things that the current times have. And those three guys together.
Pretty, a pretty powerful moment out there, I'm sure. And we talked about it a little bit on our broadcast at the very end. Yeah, we just now need to get Mr. Hooks out to Omaha, where he's quite familiar. He might even know some of the places. He might.
He might direct us to some good steak joints, probably could. Yeah. Back in 1949, when we lost the championship game to Texas, there was this place right here. Maybe it's changed a little bit.
Who knows? But Stan Cotton going to be making. Have you ever been to Omaha? Never been to Omaha. This, you know, we don't do all of the baseball games. You know, Larry Sorenson and I, and he's listening, by the way, he's traveling and listening.
Hey, Larry. But we we've done all the postseason this year, and we'll go obviously all the way to the end. And it's been, you know, we do a lot of games on April 30th.
On ACC Network Extra. But it's been quite the ride. You know, all of us knew that this was a special team.
I think the whole country really felt that. I look out for Wake Forest, and here Wake is in the end. Really, I think, making a statement through the regionals and the super regionals about who's the favorite. And I think the number one seed and the number one ranked team in the country will be that. And we'll see how it shakes out. But Wake's playing awfully well right now.
Should be a lot of fun. Stan Cotten with us here. You mentioned your broadcast partner, Larry Sorenson, who's listening right now. By the way, thank you, Larry, for not texting me last week about your Brewers taking two out of three against my beloved Orioles.
I know you're more of a Tigers fan, but I do appreciate not getting the text in that circumstance. But something Larry said a couple of months ago is when he and it kind of raised eyebrows at the moment was he said the expectation isn't getting to Omaha. It's winning games in Omaha for this baseball team. And anything less than that will be, I don't know if a failure is the word, but maybe a little bit disappointing considering what they've been all throughout the year. How do you start to set expectations for the World Series?
Because this doesn't feel like a, you know, icing on the cake, house money situation. Yeah, I mean, it's, again, I've never been, Larry has, you know, been a broadcaster there before and experienced that. And it's, you know, you've got eight teams, right? And it's a double elimination deal. So a lot of opportunity for a lot of really, really good teams. And I think you got to have a little luck on your side to win the whole thing.
But good players make good luck for themselves. And this is a special team. You know, the pitching staff is elite. I mean, Rhett Louder's 15-0. And, you know, the combination of Wake's pitching through the starters and in the middle relievers and on into, you know, the last guys out of the bullpen.
I just, I don't know that I've ever seen a staff this deep. And when you hit for power and hit for average, like Wake does up and down the lineup, I just, and what Wake has done, not only throughout the regular season, but especially now, marching through the regionals with no losses and just pounding the ball over the wall and scoring a ton of runs. I just can't imagine that this Wake Forest team believes, you know what, we're going to go in there and win that thing. And I think that's the, that's the stance that they will take. I think Tom Walter believes his team is the best team in the country.
And so they'll go in there, I think, expecting to win, but you still have to go play hard. And I think that's what this team has done. And I think maybe more teams, more than many teams over the years that I've seen, this team really has taken on the kind of the persona of Tom Walter.
And that's very confident, but as you know, Josh, I'm not cocky. And while I hope they get it done, I know so many people, Larry and I for sure, would really like to see Tom Walter win a national title. I don't think anybody in the country deserves this maybe more than he does with what he has given to the game of himself, to his teams, to the university and, and to others.
I mean, he, other schools, he's been around for almost 30 years now as a head coach. So we'll see how it shakes out, but I would not bet against this Wake Forest team right now. They are going into the College World Series hot, both on the mound and with the bat.
And that's a dangerous, dangerous combination. Stan Cotten with us here. First time since 1955, Wake Forest is going to the College World Series, as you said in the call, 68 years. And that's about as long as it took for us to get the outlaw Josie Wales plans in. And tonight is the night. Tonight's the night that we're going to watch outlaw Josie Wales.
I'm going to watch it for the first time. It's your favorite movie of Clint Eastwood's Who You Love More Than Anyone Else. Why is it your favorite Clint Eastwood movie? I don't know. It's just when you watch it, when you watch it tonight, you'll, I think you'll understand. I'm not sure I can explain it. And I like all the Clint Eastwood movies, but this one just, I don't know, man. I can't. It's going to be WD's first Clint Eastwood movie.
He hasn't seen any Clint Eastwood movies. Wow. Well, look, I, everything's ready to go.
I even, I've been in there vacuuming. I've had both daughters, grandkid, grand dog, wife, everybody's out. They're all out of town today. And so it's just the three amigos, you, me and Will. And even though there's some NCAA baseball games going on tonight, we'll be watching the outlaw Josie Wales.
And I swear you, if you don't like it, then I don't, you, you're going to drop down a notch or two in my view, if you don't like this one. I also brought snacks. I got some candy. Got the gummy clusters.
I'm ready. You guys grab some dinner on your way out of the studio. Real Q. Real Q is bringing us some, some food into the studio today. So we're going to be, we're going to be well fed and taken care of on the way into the radio ranch tonight. Well, we are, Clint and I are sitting on go and we are, we're ready. All right. Stan Cotton, we'll see you in a few hours.
Thanks for doing this. Okay. You bet. There we go. Stan Cotton, voice of the Deacs joining us.
He's right. There is some college baseball tonight, maybe some double screen action where Tennessee faces Southern Miss at six. You got at eight o'clock, Texas facing Stanford and the remaining game threes, the remaining super regionals that haven't been decided yet. He's vacuuming everything for us. I feel like royalty. Yeah. Big time. Like I said, brought my own snacks.
B Y O S bring your own snacks. That's, that's what I'm doing here. Excited for that later on tonight. Uh, before we get to the big four brought to you by Budget Blind.
Yeah, that's right. Just go subtle there. We'll go big in a few minutes. A couple of topics we've been following pretty closely. Updates on the North Carolina sports wagering bill. Roy Cooper has till June 18th to sign that. What's today's date?
What are we on right now? It's June 12th. He's going to sign it on Wednesday.
Send me that cash out, fam. Gonna be signed to the law on Wednesday. Probably they'll get it fired up in January of next year.
No later than a year from this month. Uh, and then to Deneil Hunter, apparently is skipping mini camp for the Minnesota Viking. Seems there might be some contract issues there. We pointed this out on Friday. Panthers have money to extend guys like a Deneil Hunter.
Just, just saying that that's something that we can, you know, hope for, especially if you're a Carolina Panthers fan getting that guy and you're building 28, one of the best pass rushers in the NFL. He's unhappy holding out from the team's mandatory mini cabin. WDS telling me we got one more pair of Nickelback tickets to give away. And he says, it's your choice, Charlotte or Raleigh. Charlotte's on a Tuesday night in September. Raleigh's on a Thursday night in September.
I don't know if this would influence anybody, whether what show they would choose since we're kind of in the middle. Darren Vaught and I are going to go to that Raleigh show. We're going, we're there. We're making it happen. We three, three, six, seven, seven, seven, one 600. All you have to do is ask us an unusual question. Could be sports, could be otherwise, and you will get tickets to whichever those two shows.
And I imagine those tickets will be wherever our tickets are going to be if you're going to the Raleigh show. So if you want to see us raging to some Nickelback, this is the part where you play the drop WD in case you didn't know. Nickelback. Yeah, just the drop. This part. Five seconds. Yeah. By the way, can we, can we just like clear the air on something?
Please. They got hits. They have a ton. I went to go see, um, there was a band not too long ago. Who was it that had a, I remember sitting there like, wow, you saw you six, seven deep. You happened unto fuel once. And that happened in Winston Salem at incendiary.
That happened on a labor day weekend. Like, Hey, there were a lot of people here. They're playing fuel songs. Oh, wait, it's fuel. It's fuel. I would have, I was so jealous.
Plain white teas. I went to a plane YT show. I'm like, Whoa, they got a lot of songs that I like. Nickelback there. And it sounds like it sounds like they're in the stage of their career where it's like, Hey, we know you like these songs. We're just going to play these songs. Kind of like T-Pain when we saw him in Winston a few years ago, T-Pain still the only show I ever went to Darren Vaught and I amongst a bunch of wake students a couple of years ago, went to this show at the Joel.
He never wants to address the audience. What's up Winston Salem? Nothing.
He just went on for an hour and 10 minutes, only bangers and then left stage. The greatest show ever. Nickelback knows what to do. This is a nostalgia fest.
If there ever was one, I think it's going to be similar to like, I went, I saw fallout boy a couple of years ago and like I'm past really caring what fallout boy puts out. Right. To me, they haven't made a song that I've really, really, it's really resonated with me in a long time, like a decade plus, but they just kept playing songs and it's like this one, you know what?
This one's good. Yeah. And it never stopped.
So I think Nickelback's going to be the same way. I have high expectations. Let's answer unusual questions. Last week, guys, everybody made it out that I got mad at Josh and I left the press conference.
That's not right. I thought it was an unusual question and it's okay. It's time for unusual questions with Josh Graham. And with Nickelback tickets on the line, we go to Artie in Thomasville, who I assume wants to win these tickets.
Artie, how excited would you be to go see Nickelback? Well, I heard your top five at five and your number one was another bear story. And you give the same advice every time you run a bear story. Hey bear. But is it not more accurate to say, and it's low probability here in North Carolina since we don't have griswits.
Yeah. But it's brown, get down, black, fight back. Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on one sec. We should dance if there's a brown bear. Hold one sec. Artie, explain your position very quickly.
I need to just understand and clarify your position. Okay, so what do you, so what are we supposed to do when we stumble upon a black bear? Black bear, you get big, you fight back.
Brown bear? If you happen to run into a grisly, you get down. You get down.
That's play dead. Okay, essentially. This is good stuff. So that's a nice clarifying- Artie could admit you bust a move.
You break out and dance. You know, I think that's good enough that you don't even have to ask a question. I appreciate the clarification, but if you have one, we will answer it, Artie. Well, that was my question. Was it, is that not the correct advice to be giving out? I've never heard that, but I would take your word for it, Artie. It is. That is an interesting question to ask on a sports radio show out of context, devoid of context. I appreciate you providing the context. Very good call there.
Artie, you're going to the Nickelback show. Congratulations. Can I make the clarification?
We are not in any way experts on this. I am. Yeah, I was waiting for that.
Josh thinks he is. Yeah, play big. Bear. Hey, Bear. That's what you do. Break out in song and dance.
That's what Artie says, if it's Brown. No, he said, get down, get down. I see what you did there now.
Same expression. I don't know why it took me a couple of times to catch that, just like listening to Jim Nance's call of that, that miracle putt yesterday in the Canadian Open. I didn't realize what he was doing was paying homage to the Canadian national anthem until about the 12th time I heard it, and WD still didn't catch it, even when I told him that's exactly what they were doing. We have that call still, right? It was the putt that he sunk, or Taylor hit the putt, Canadian golfer to win the Canadian Open.
Yeah, we got it. And the national anthem goes like this, WD. All I need is the key line in the call at the end of the song, Oh Canada, which is obviously the national anthem. If you've ever been to a hockey game, you know exactly where that is. Let me see if I can find the part that I'm looking for very quickly here. He closed his call by saying this.
Oh Canada, we stand on guard for thee. I didn't realize that's what he was doing for the longest time. What is your unusual question, Darren? What kind of host do you think Stan Cotton's gonna be later? He's already vacuuming. He said he was vacuuming.
Yeah, he's gonna treat us like kings. He also said, bring your own snacks. Yeah Josh, your own chocolate milk everything.
I already said I was bringing my own snacks, not an issue. What are those? I just wonder if like halfway through the movie, if there's halfway through the movie I'm like, you know, gonna whip out some ice cream, maybe a brew, something of those sorts. I don't know. I think Stan's got us. I think Stan does. If halfway through the movie, you know, our guy Josie just killed a couple of people, as you do, and I just wonder if there would be some refreshments of sorts. Hey Stan, you're the voice of the Demon Deacons. You got some ice cream and some root beer for some floats, don't you? Let's go to Don in Winston-Salem who has an unusual question.
Hi Don, what do you have? Well, there's one place in the United States where you can walk less than a mile and find yourself in the same other state. Any direction you walk, you can walk less than a mile and be in the same other state, and I happen to think of it because it's gonna come into play this week. I think it's Nebraska you're talking about, am I right? You are right, and what's the other state? The other state would be either Colorado or Kansas.
Nope. Ah, which one, what's the other state? Iowa. Ah, so hold on, all right, so you could pinpoint one spot in Nebraska and you walk a half mile in literally any direction. No, no, no, you're in Iowa. In Iowa.
You walk less than a mile in any direction and you find yourself in Nebraska. That's right, yeah, I see that now. Oh, I gotta pull up a map now. Yeah, it's great.
See, thank you for the call, that's excellent. A fantastic unusual question. I lived on the border of Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado, Ray, Colorado where there was three corners right outside my door about a mile is where Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado met.
I lived there for a year my first job out of college. Apparently Mark in Greensboro has something on T-Pain. I can't wait to hear what he has to say. Hey, Mark. Oh, hi, Mark. Hi, Mark. Hi, Mark.
Oh, hi, Mark. I really do, it's not necessarily about T-Pain, it's correlation, so when I was just out of college, I went to see Chris Rock, not bring the pain, but the bigger, blacker torso after that. Wow. It was at a venue called the Oakdale and actually what's interesting, even more interesting about it is I sat next to Richard Hamilton, which was me nerding out about things. You were sitting next to Rip Hamilton at this thing? I sure was, he was, I think he was a year into the league or two years.
Wow. So it was in Wallingford, Connecticut. So the venue was called the Oakdale and Chris Rock called, he said, what's going on Oakdale? He didn't say anything about Connecticut, nothing about it being in Wallingford, it was just Oakdale. What's there to do in Oakdale? We're like, Oakdale's not a place, bro, the venue is called Oakdale. He never referred to the town or the state or anything, it was just wild.
You get a better awareness. But also, it's Chris Rock and this is before Will Smith days, where he would run up and smack you, no one said anything to him and tried to correct him from the crowd. We were all just like, uh-huh, okay, cool. That's fantastic, Mark, thanks for the call.
I went to go see Nikki Glaser a couple months ago and she said Greensboro, South Carolina. Ooh, tough. That's a tough one. That's tough. You got to have better awareness than that.
Hard to really recover from that, but I really do like Nikki Glaser. W.D., do you have an unusual question for us? I do. So as a kid, one of the highlights of traveling was always like going to a different hotel and like different places. Yeah, you like hotels. Sarah Bradford loves hotels, too. Like, really into hotels. I'm also team hotel. Airbnbs burned me one too many times.
I remember that story. But I've been to enough hotels where I'm not, I'm not, I'm seldom super impressed by hotels anymore. So the unusual question is, what chain hotel have you had the best experiences with?
Omni. Buddy, I'm a Marriott guy. I'm a Hampton Inn guy. I'm a Marriott guy. Sugar cookies.
Although, although. You guys aware of Citizen M? No. Sort of like a very kind of European style hotel, somewhat affordable, kind of like an economy level, very like little rooms. But normally you're you're staying in them when you go to a bigger city, you know, you just need somewhere to like sleep. Stayed at one in Washington, D.C. a month ago. When did I go there? Like a month ago? Yeah.
Solid, solid experience. But typically, I'm like, I'm a Marriott rewards guy, so, you know. When you're having people over, what snacks the highest batting average snack?
I bring people over to my place. We have a church group every Thursday night and one of them doesn't eat sugar. So we did strawberries instead. But it had me thinking, like, if you don't know the people who are coming over, let's say, what snack has the highest batting average? Quick clarifier. Your guest knows that strawberries have sugar in them, right?
What I was thinking. Like natural sugar. I understand. There's sugar nonetheless. I'm a big hey, hey, hey, let's get a pizza guy.
That's that never misses. Pizza's not a snack. That's an entree. Is it? Yeah. Is it?
Yeah. That's a mindset issue. That's no, no, no, no. I'm not going to let you I'm not going to let you get off the hook with pizza. I'm saying we're setting something out that are just snack like finger food. We're not like having like a full fledged meal. I don't host like that.
That's not that's not my that's not my the way I host. Sure. We don't do finger foods. W.D.? Chips and salsa never loss.
What type of salsa? Mm hmm. You ever heard of Mateos?
This is like the end of eight mile where Mateos stops. Sure. Sure. I mean, sure.
I would trust the Mateos. I meant like texture, chunky, chunky. How hot you go in medium because you don't know how crowd people want to go with the crowd pleaser medium. Chunky's the only move at 100 percent.
I don't know. Medium usually, but sometimes I worry about that because like some people really don't like spicy medium can have a kick to it. Depending on what brand it is, you warm up some queso, get a separate bowl with some queso, always some guac. Big hummus guy. OK, hummus is good.
Yeah, I can do hummus and pita chips. Oh. M&M's.
See, too grabby. It's like it's like having peanuts in a bowl like, oh, man, that it seems grimy to me. Cheese balls. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's you.
All right. We're talking holiday snacking. Cheese pops like mom's mom's cooking Thanksgiving or whatever.
But during the day, you're just like grazing on some cheese ball and a cracker like a like a Ritz cracker with a cheese ball. We got the hip hop air horn ready to go because this guy's writing in all caps. So I feel like it warrants that.
But Citi writes in definitely chips and salsa. That's right. He's got it. Yeah.
That makes sense. I've come to find a staple at the Graham household. Is that dark chocolate bark? It's good. It is good. Sarah Bradford, she is the master at finding the finger foods that she has the proper plates and stuff to for everything gets its own little plate. She's really good at this. I believe that she's played. Yeah. She's a killer host.
Yeah. She's she's the master that her two top skills. I've come to find out these are the two to two top skills I've learned about her after getting married. So I knew a lot of her great skills upon marrying her. But post being married since this week marks our one year anniversary is she makes unbelievable animal sounds like like playing with dogs. Like like when she plays with Willow, she is a master at playing with dogs. Dogs love Sarah Bradford. The sounds that she makes with her mouth. Can you give us an example of that?
I can't because I can't do it as well. She does. But the way she plays with animals, it's unbelievable.
She's like the Steph Curry of playing with dogs. And then and then the second thing that I learned, incredible hosting people. All right. Regarding the first of the two.
Why can I not get the image out of you guys? No. King of the Hill.
Yeah. Leanne. Bobby, Leanne, their daughter or stepdaughter has the finger puppets and she gets the local access TV show.
The manger babies. But hold the voice. I shouldn't have just said animal sounds. I'm talking about like when conversing with animals, like she's great with animals. You said animal sounds. And my mind was the Leanne from King of the Hill playing with finger puppets and oinking like a pig. Dang it, Bobby.
