Shower Songs

This is The Drive with Josh Graham Podcast.

Three internet sensations, guys! Tune into The Drive weekday afternoons, 3 to 7 on WSJS. You are on a Monday Drive, WSJS NewsTalk Sports for the Triad, where the football is starting to get real around here. Wake Forest opened up pre-season practices this morning. Exactly one month from today, the Demon Deacons will kick off the season against Elon in the newly named A Legacy Stadium. Wake AD John Curry will join us in studio to talk about that, amongst other things, about 10 minutes from now.

Meanwhile in Spartanburg, the Carolina Panthers put on pads for the first time this morning, and through about one week of training camp, a star has emerged. And no, I'm not talking about Bryce Young. I'm talking about the new DJ Moore, who just so happens to be the new DJ.

It's DJ Chark, number 17. Every single clip that I've seen from camp feels like it features him catching a ball 25, 30 yards downfield. He's the best receiver on this team. Not Adam Thielen, not Terrace Marshall, going into year three.

DJ Chark is the closest thing to a one-for-one replacement of DJ Moore on this roster. Every clip, he jumps out in Spartanburg, and now he plays for a team where he could become a household name in this league. That wasn't going to happen for the pre-Doug Peterson, pre-Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars.

That wasn't going to happen, all due respect, when you play for the Detroit Lions, who haven't won a playoff game in a million years. For the Carolina Panthers, when you're catching passes from a Heisman Trophy winner, a number one pick in the draft, on a team that could win the division this year, a true division contender, that's how you become a household name. That's how you start getting taken in the first three rounds of fantasy drafts.

If you are a fantasy football person, you better have circled somewhere in your middle rounds as your sleeper DJ Chark. He's also got a magnetic personality, kind of like Robbie Anderson did the last few years, getting to know him. The type of guy, when he speaks, you should listen. Every media availability that he's had with the Panthers thus far, he's said something that makes me laugh. And over the weekend, no exception, here he was when talking about who the fastest player on the Carolina Panthers is.

At least I'm a man, so I'm going to go with a man. You told that to J.C. Borne? He played DB. He talked about receivers.

The only person I think probably really got me might be Dante. Maybe. Maybe. The reason I say that is because he made a big deal about his Madden rating. I don't really care about what the rating is. I just want the speed where I need it to be.

The other stuff is, you know, I can adjust that if I need to. When the question was first asked by Joe Person, who's the fastest player on the team, he said, you're looking at him. That's what Madden says. Madden says I'm the fastest guy. J.C. has a better rating. I don't care what the rating says. Oh, he's a better player? I can adjust other parts to my game.

But it says I'm the fastest. That's all I care about. He's got a magnetic personality. And DJ Chark becoming a star should not surprise anyone. When he does play, he's fantastic. In his second year in the league, I think he was catching balls from Blake Bortles or Nick Foles, maybe Gardner Minshew. He grabbed 73 balls in 15 games. His second year in the league, DJ Chark. A few years after that, over 15 catches in 13 games.

It kind of hits on the big issue with Chark, though. This is, for all the positive things that we've discussed, the big knock that you can have is he hasn't played enough. He's played four years in the league, four or five years. He's 26 years old. He's entering his prime.

But he has not played a full 16 or 17 game season yet. If he does, he could be DJ Moore. A lot cheaper version of DJ Moore. But what I've seen from Camp thus far tells me this guy, this guy right here, the new DJ, looks a lot like the old DJ. And that DJ was a star and one of the 10 best wide receivers in the league.

DJ Chark could be that type of player for the Carolina Panthers. On Twitter, at WSJS Radio, if you want in, that's where we're streaming video in addition to YouTube and Twitch. However, and wherever you are watching or listening, we appreciate that.

Well, Dalton is the executive producer of this show. W.D., really do appreciate you pinch hitting for me on Friday while I was out at my sister's wedding. My little sister got married over the weekend in Youngsville, North Carolina. I really do appreciate that. It was a blast. And you know what? Nothing burned down. We're still standing. We are.

Glad to hear that you didn't wreck the Porsche. That's right. Do you know what this week is? It's the Wyndham. Wyndham Week.

That's right. It's the Wyndham Week to you and yours. We will be broadcasting live Thursday, Thursday and Friday from the Margaritaville underneath Atiki Hut at the Wyndham Championship.

We can't wait for that. Once again, there will be real urgency at the Wyndham Championship this week. Just look at the leaderboard.

The big thing to tell you about this year that has shifted. It's now the top 70 in the FedExCup standings that qualify for the PGA Tour playoffs. It's narrowed down a bit, which means more guys need to perform at Sedgefield in order to qualify, in order to continue playing, to play at the St. Jude's in Memphis. Here are some of the major champions who right now would not be in the playoffs if they started today. Guys who will all be playing in Greensboro this week. Justin Thomas, Shane Lowry, Adam Scott, Danny Willip, Gary Woodland. All of them are on the outside. Adam Scott, did I already mention him?

I think I did. Former Masters champ. Former world number one. All are going to be playing in Greensboro this week. Then there are the players who want to protect their top 70 status, who want to protect their positioning, who don't want to fall out of that top 70, who are that close to the cut line. Guys like Matt Kuchar and former Masters champ Hideki Matsuyama.

And if that was just it, then the field would still be pretty darn good, but that's not it. You do have course favorites, guys who have been around like Webb Simpson, the former Demon Deacon. You do have Davis Love III that's golfing, but you have top players in the world right now who are already qualified for the playoffs who are viewing this week as a tune up opportunity to make sure their game's in the best place possible in those playoffs. 15 of the top 50 players in the World Golf ranking are going to be at Sedgefield this week.

Sam Burns is the highest ranked player who's in the top 20 and the only reason he's the highest ranked is because Tom Kim, former Wyndham champ, he was ranked in the top 15 but had to withdraw last week due to an injury. We are so excited for the Wyndham and you should be too if you're a golf fan or just a fan of attending a big party. It's the Triad's biggest party of the year of the summer and it's this week.

We are super excited about that. On day one of Wake's preseason camp, a month out to the day of the Demon Deacons kicking off the football season against Elon, Demon Deacon John Curry, the AD of the Deacs, who just so happens to be an alum as well, will join us in studio next on The Drive. I remember the first time we had our next guest on, John Curry, Wake Forest AD, joining us. He was on the phone and he said, AM 600 WSJS, Gene Overby and Glenn Scott.

And I knew that me and this guy were going to get along. You are sitting now in the fifth home that WSJS has ever had in 93 years, John Curry, off Providence Lane, and only about like a five, six minute drive from campus. So we're glad to be back in Winston and close to you guys. Well, thanks to Will Pantages, we got over here in about three or four minutes.

If anybody saw Will's car, I can't tell you what make it was. But anyways, we're here. And you know, the fact that you're here and we're so close, this is another example of like the easiest town to live in in America, in Winston-Salem, in the Triad. Everything's five to ten minutes away. You know, you got this incredible football stadium. You know, this sports complex is right around the corner, including the Winston-Salem fairgrounds and the Coliseum Annex, you know, had 750,000 visitors last year.

The number of event days here is remarkable. So the impact that the place that you're now anchoring here at WSJS has on this whole state is tremendous. Has it hit you yet that media days behind us for football and camp started this morning for Wake? It has hit me because I went out there this morning. And, you know, Josh, I actually haven't even had time to do my tweet.

I did a brief Instagram about what I found in my office this morning. But I've been out of town for a few days. Right. And and as everybody knows, you know, there's lots of challenges in college athletics and we got all these issues and challenges and existential crises of the de jure or whatever it is. Right. And today I walked into my office and on my desk was a national championship trophy and a note and a signed flag by all the members of the two thousand twenty three NCAA national championships and a champion women's golf team and a note from Ken Llewellyn. You know, that's the tenth national championship. Wake Forest has won. We're one of seven schools in the ACC that's won ten national championships.

And that was on my desk. Right. And then I walked outside onto our practice field, the Doc Martin practice facility, speaking of old time Winston-Salem stuff and our student athletes are out there. And you've got guys like Michael Jurgens and Spencer Clapp and Chase and Chase Jones just just on down the line. I mean, just great, great students and great representatives of what everything college athletics is supposed to be about.

You know, and I had this kind of moment walking off the practice field because then I had to go back to my regular job. Right. Thinking about, man, I'm like the luckiest person in the world to have this kind of environment, even though, you know, it's challenging and hard and all that kind of stuff. But we're really lucky and we're ready for a great year in deep time.

Don't look now. But one month from today is the opener against Elon at the newly named Legacy Stadium. It's a Thursday night. Other than covid, the Deeks have opened the season with a weeknight game every year that Dave Clausen has been the coach. And this is now his 10th year at Wake Forest. Is there something strategic to that or is that merely coincidental?

I don't think it's it's definitely not coincidental. It is strategic, you know, candidly, for one thing, you know, playing on Thursday night means that we're one of the first game. So right out of the shoot, people are, you know, feverish for college football to get going.

And we're out of the shoot. We're there. We're there on a Thursday night. We also recognize it for a lot of people, you know, most of the fans that come to Wake Forest game didn't go to Wake Forest.

They're not wait for our students. You know, it's people from all over that are Wake fans. And we recognize that people have got, you know, they go to the beach or they go to the mountains or whatever they want to do on the weekend. Labor Day weekend, right? But that Thursday night also gives us a chance to make sure that, you know, it's an evening start, which is a little bit more temperate usually in our part of the country, right out of the gates. We got this great attention and it's just we're ready to get going. We have to figure out something to do with that. Now that we're five minutes down the road, we probably need to get on that a month from today. But it is interesting. You look at this year, you look at the schedule, you have it's the first season divisionless football in the ACC. And while NC State's on the schedule this year and next year, they won't be the two years after that because they're not a permanent opponent. Just take us behind the scenes about how collaborative.

It's hard to please everybody. But how collaborative the process was in figuring out who your permanent opponents were going to be. Well, it was a great process and I appreciate the leadership of the Commissioner in getting to that point because, you know, I've only been back in the ACC.

This will be my fifth year back in the ACC. But I know that every year in every conference you talk about scheduling and changing the model every single year. Everybody talks about it all the time, right? And so the fact that Commissioner Phillips and our league leadership was able to make this the advance was really important and a great, great moment. I thought Coach Clawson's comments at media days were like right in when they asked him about it, right? And he has a great story about how all the Atlantic coaches voted against it and forward or whatever. And, you know, but the fact that Dave Clawson said last week, he's been coaching in our league for 10 years. He's never coached against the University of Miami. He's never played a game in Pittsburgh. That's not a conference, right?

That's some kind of association. So I think it's great. I mean, I was looking at our schedule today. I was, I was texting with the Georgia Tech AD because that game is going to sell out very quick, very soon. And I was like, hey, your fans hadn't been here in a long time. And, you know, they better get their tickets if they want to come because we're going to sell out. Looking at you, Roddy Jones. His wife's a Wake Forest former athlete. So you got to get Roddy in the building.

So that game's going to sell. Pittsburgh hadn't been here in a long time. So, so having the opportunity to get those teams in here and have, you know, really have fans and travelers and parents from other communities come to Winston-Salem and see what a great place this is and see Old Salem and see all the things that we have and the music downtown and everything.

That's a great part of what we're all about in terms of providing value to Winston-Salem. John Curry, Wake AD and studio with us. We had Dave Claussen on at media day last week. And what he said was pretty interesting talking about the 12 team format, how it's going to impact scheduling moving forward. He feels like teams can take more chances because if you lose a game, that's not quite it, which there are two ways to look at that. You can look at that as that means you will scale schedule more aggressively, maybe schedule more power five opponents, or that means that there's more opening to play the app states and the East Carolinas of the world. When you start thinking from a director of athletics perspective about the 12 team format, how do you think that impacts your approach? Well, first of all, I need to go back since you mentioned, Dave, you know, when we talk about why we play that game on Thursday night a lot when we can part of why we played on Thursday night is what a coaches say happens between your first and second game.

You get pretty good. The most improvement of the whole year, right? So playing that game on a Thursday night gets an extra recovery game and extra Improvement Day to get ready for us, which is will be a, you know, a game against the Southeastern Conference team when we play Vanderbilt at 11 a.m. on September the 9th. Back to your deal about the 12 team playoff, you know, certainly I'm in favor of the expanded access.

I think it's really positive. I don't think admit it diminishes the regular season. I continue to have concerns about the the ultimate load on the student-athlete to participate in that many games. And I think all coaches and administrators, you know, are thoughtful about that. You know, we've been able to play a really dynamic schedule here at Wake Forest. We've been intentional about scheduling non-conference games that are significant. We've also been intentional about scheduling good rivalry games and regional games that our fans are interested in. We played East Carolina in a few years. We still, we, Doug Gill and I have an ongoing conversation about trying to figure out how to get the Wake Appalachian game. I saw the cool tweet with the old logos, you know, just everybody that's retweeted that to me. That was very cool. And we'd love to figure out how to do that.

But but there is some like pieces of the puzzle that have to move around to make it to make it work. John Curry, you were bringing up something interesting to me talking about Wake Forest brand. Like it's something I hear a lot about this market where when I talk to college basketball television folks, they tell me to look at the Nielsen ratings the last 10 years of the Final Four. And the one that I first went to was when Virginia played played Texas Tech in the national title game. And the second highest rated market in America was this area, the Triad, even more than Lubbock, Texas, where Texas Tech was playing in that championship game. And I hear from Panthers folks outside of Charlotte. More people watch Panthers football here than anywhere else.

It's a tremendous sports market, which is why I've been so lucky to been here for five years now. But in terms of your brand at Wake Forest, you we've talked about this last time. So you hear more talk about brand and on field success. You guys have the on field success, but the brand doesn't get talked about enough. I don't feel like.

Well, a lot of times, you know, both from an academic perspective and an athletic perspective, your reputation is always, you know, 10 or 15 or 20 years behind reality. Right. And so, you know, I walked in. I walked in the McCurry football complex this morning. Right. Look, I've been doing this for 30 years. I've been in and built a lot and been part of a lot of facilities.

I've been in them all. And ours we look as good as anybody in the country. Right. And we are way better than most of our competitors in the ACC. Most of the national competitors, I'd say, are on campus facilities at Wake Forest are in the top 10 nationally.

Without a doubt, it blows you away. And it represents the investment that we have in excellence for all of our students, just like Farrell Hall, the School of Business at Wake Forest, Dean Annette Ramf, who's done an incredible job leading leading our School of Business at Wake Forest with all these incredible, innovative graduate programs, et cetera, in addition to the undergraduate program. But if you think about the Triad, Wake Forest anchors the Triad, you know, from an ACC standpoint. And the Triad is one point five million people or something like that. And that the Triad is the number seven market for ESPN nationally.

So think about that. A top 10 market in terms of the percentage of Triad residents who turn in the ESPN to watch college sports is Greensboro, High Point, Winston-Salem and all of our great communities within. Right. This is a big market, a valuable market. It's a Birmingham, Alabama kind of market that cares about sports. And so the fact that Wake Forest is here, right in the middle of this state of, you know, 11 or 12 million people now, the fastest third fastest growing state in the country, the number one state, the number one state in America for business from a CNBC perspective, an hour and 15 minutes from Charlotte, an hour and 20 minutes from Raleigh. I mean, we're right in the heart of where everybody wants to be.

And that's a huge advantage. And so the Wake Forest brand, you know, we have let this narrative of a small brand, all this good stuff, right. There's two point six million people in America that identify as Wake Forest fans. Hmm. Right.

Two point six million people. Right. That identifies Wake Forest fans.

That's a lot of fans. And we saw it during the run, the baseball run back in the springtime. Wake Forest website, national website, the top nine brands in terms of hits in the month of June in America, the top five brands, Florida Gators, Texas, Alabama, Michigan, Stanford, Texas A&M, Tennessee, Wake Forest, number one brand in the ACC, being good on the field helps with that.

Absolutely. And guess what? Wake Forest is really good on the field in everything. You know, before I came over here, I was with our women's soccer team, right? You know, they're having their opening year compliance meeting. They got a game, you know, on August the seventh is their first game. We're at Duke in an exhibition game. Then August the ninth, we're home in Winston Salem.

So we're going right away. They're going back to the SLA tournament. John Curry's with us here for one more segment. You sounded like kind of when you were talking about an hour and a half from Raleigh, hour 15 from Charlotte to make a case maybe for why the ACC basketball tournament should come back to Greensboro regularly. Let's have it in Winston Salem. Hey, fortunately, I brought that up to ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips and we'll react to some of the things the commissioner had to say when John Curry continues with us next.

John Curry back in here with us. He's got these planning flags and signs in and around the premises. Our new studios in Providence Lane. Yeah, a legacy stadium.

That's the new name of Wake Forest home one month from today. Where are we at ticket sales wise? Do you know we are closing in on a sellout? We still got a few more and we also have some breaking news because our four-pack, you know, we pride ourselves part of the best fan experience in North Carolina is having affordable opportunities to come to the game.

So you can still for a limited amount of time. You can get a four tickets to the opening night game on August 31st in the Legacy Stadium. You get four tickets and a parking pass when you buy a Bojangles four-pack for $59.

So think about that. That's four tickets and a parking pass and I think you might get a Bojangles gift card as part of doing that too. WD's ears just perked up on the other side of the glass when Bojangles came up in any time breaking news. You want to introduce John Curry to whatever happens when breaking news happens on the show? Yeah, we have this new thing we do. Whoa, there it is. You want to get the context of that?

No, I don't think we should. It's just Brent Musburger doing Brent Musburger things. I wanted to get to your reaction. I wanted to get your reaction to some comments Jim Phillips had when he joined the show last week. He spoke about scheduling strategies that were discussed in Amelia Island at spring meetings when it comes to basketball and here he was talking about why we're seeing a lot this offseason, a lot of home and homes that are being scheduled in hoops. Even if you're not at the top of your conference, when you go on the road and you play somebody, even if you're in the top quadrant or middle and up, those middle and up in the power five are usually playing some really good teams throughout the year. I know there's debate about what conference is best, et cetera, but when you look at the power five and you may even want to throw in the Big East in men's basketball, those are going to be good teams.

Those are going to be good quality wins if you can do it on the road and if you can get them at home and you can beat them at home, those are also going to be really those quad one wins you speak of. That had me thinking about Arizona and Duke scheduling a home and home, North Carolina and Kansas, and this year Wake Forest will have the return trip from Rutgers and a home and home as well. Just how involved are you as an AD when it comes to men's basketball scheduling? Well, Josh, we also go to Georgia early in the year, you know, very early in the year. We return the game to Georgia. We beat Georgia here in Winston-Salem last year.

So I'm involved to the point of being in collaborative agreement with Coach Forbes or Coach Jebbia about what they're trying to accomplish with their schedule. And every year is a little bit different depending on both the options that are out there and what kind of team you have coming back and what kind of MTE you might be, where you're going, whether you're home or away in the conference, you know, events, you know, last year, for instance, we had a we had a tough draw because we played at Wisconsin, right? And it was a nine o'clock game on a Tuesday night and then we had to go to Clemson on a Friday night, right? So it was awesome to beat Wisconsin on a Friday on a Tuesday night, but then we came home. We were on the road at Clemson on on Friday. That's a tough turn and we lost that game to Clemson.

So it's all tricky. Ultimately, you got to win the games you play, right? And as a league, because we have so many schools in our league, right, when we had a couple of teams that had tough years last year, like Florida State in a very good year, Louisville didn't have a good year, you know, and they lost some games early on in the non-conference play and that devalued those wins. And so when we go and beat Louisville early on in the year in, I think we beat them in like January, early January, late December.

I mean, that's early on now. They got good players at Louisville. They had a tough year, but they got good players and you just don't get any credit. And that's kind of what the commissioner is talking about. You just didn't get any credit for a win over a Power Five team on the road.

But bottom line is you got to win the games that you play. And under Coach Forbes, we've dramatically increased the number of wins with, you know, a 23 regular season ACC wins in the last two years. And I'm really excited about our team coming up this year as I know he is. Jim Phillips then got to ACC tournament sites and he said that he wanted to announce the reason why we don't have one for 2025 yet is he wants to announce sites through either 2028 or 2029, four or five sites, which would mean a site for the 75 year anniversary. Here was Phillips saying that he wants to do something special for the 75 year anniversary. We want to try to do something special if we can.

So it's logistic, you know, driven and timing driven. But yes, I really believe there's a way to pay special tribute to the 75th anniversary, the ACC basketball tournament. So that has been something we've been talking about really for the last couple of years as well.

Yeah. And then you have folks publicly and privately. It gets discussed with the media and folks in the league talking about the potential of having the league return to where the ACC tournament was at for the first 20 years of his existence, Reynolds Coliseum and Raleigh. Potentially, you could do that on Tuesday and then the rest of the tournament you could potentially have in either Greensboro or on campus and rally at PNC Arena if you were to go back. Would you take any issue if ACC tournament basketball games were played on campus? I want to be thoughtful and not rigid in how we look at continuing to serve our fans in the ACC and how we continue to best position our basketball programs. And also how we continue to support the communities that support the ACC, right?

So all those things are important. And I think we've got good collaborative discussion and creative thought about that, you know, as we've talked about before, you know, as a native son of Tobacco Road here, you know, growing up on the ACC tournament back when it was eight teams and four games on Friday and two games on Saturday and weave it to a mall and all kinds of stuff, you know, I totally get it. And I also totally get the fact that, you know, it's when you expand it and it starts on Tuesday and goes to Saturday, you know, there's some different aspects of it, right?

So what can we continue to do to elevate the excitement and the experience for the student athletes, but also the experience for our fans. You're following in the same tune of Paul Brazo talking about the lack of rigidity when you're looking at the rotation that exists right now. That's why he said cities like Boston and Pittsburgh have been discussed as potential options going up north if they weren't going to go back to Brooklyn. What's your view in terms of the rotation? Like how many cities do you think should be involved?

And when you move up north, even cities like Pittsburgh and Boston? Well, I wouldn't necessarily start with the I mean, the where factor is really important, right? But also there's a what factor, you know, what's the right format for our tournament? What's the right way to showcase ACC basketball? What's the right way to provide value to our fans? What's the right way to position our teams for success in the NCAA tournament and for getting into the NCAA tournament, right?

So what what are the right things there? And all of those factors are things we should consider. You know, making the NCAA tournament is really hard. It's really, really hard. It's the most schools in any sport competing for one tournament, right? And generally speaking, it's the sport that most of the schools with the exception of football are investing most of their resources in, right? So it's really hard to make the ACC. I mean the NCAA tournament and you know, there's no question. We've seen a kind of a maybe it's metrics driven or maybe it isn't but there's there's a greater sense of you know, trying to have a more of a breadth and so of teams from across the country and you know, this league getting two or three teams in where they used to get one and stuff like that and there's only so many spots. So what's the right thing to do from the ACC tournament holistically for ACC basketball and one of those pieces just like our whole basketball season is making sure that we have the ability to best position all 15 of our teams for the best possible opportunity to be part of the NCAA tournament. You talked about the NCAA tournament and how hard it is to get in. Does that mean you're in favor of making it easier to get in when people talk about expanding the recommendation that was handed down by that group in January saying that all NCAA championships should have a fourth of those who compete making the championships? I definitely think that there's some merit in expanding the NCAA tournament or expanding access to the assembly tournament. I mean heck we just tripled access to the college football playoff, right?

And so and just like and I'd like to see the the NCAA field hockey tournament expand right because it's a it's really small so 18 schools or 16 schools and usually everybody in the ACC that has a winning record makes it right. So I'd like to see access for our championships for our best programs. John Curry really do appreciate you being in here. It's good now that we're so nearby. Hopefully there's more we can do and covering your programs the right way because like you mentioned a lot of championship programs to talk about. Hey, this is a great a year to be going into for Wake Forest and for the Atlantic Coast Conference in our entire state. You know, this is a this is a college sports state that also has some great professional franchises, but it's been so great to see people come into this region and adopt the Deeks as their team.

That's Wake Forest AD John Curry Ding ding boys schools in session. You're on the drive with Josh Graham Viewers Choice WD You want stories from my little sister's wedding over the weekend that was put together in a month and a half or do you want me to give you a golden NFL idea that they should seriously consider in giving perhaps the month of August to facelift for their events. I kind of want to hear about this month that took place after just a month or a month and a half of planning because that this wedding you mean or yeah the wedding.

Okay. It was a miracle that they pulled this off that my family pulled this off every single person that I've told about this wedding. We're like, whoa, how many people are coming more than a hundred. When did they get engaged last month? They're wanting to get married July of this year. Yeah, July 29.

That's what we're going to do. They got married on Saturday. This was not like an elopement. No, they had a venue.

It had air conditioning. It was I mean hundred plus people showed up. There was a DJ. There was a choreographed.

There was some choreographed dancing. There was enough food for everybody. The food was good. It was, you know, drinks. They didn't run out of that either. That's a plus. That's a plus.

The major checked box. It wasn't the most traditional wedding ever, but we're in the South man. It wasn't the least traditional wedding I've been to. I went to a wedding where we were sitting on hay bales. Oh God. Where the groomsmen were wearing white button-up shirts, bolo ties, and blue jeans plus cowboy boots.

Can't forget about that. And when the wife rolled up, she was sitting in the passenger seat of a pickup truck being driven by her dad. The bridesmaids were in the bed of said pickup truck and to prevent the groom, the first image that he sees of his soon to be wife being her sitting in a pickup truck. He had his back turn while people in the gallery were yelling at him, no peeking, no peeking. What in the redneck wedding was this?

That's what I'm saying. That was about 10 years ago. She was pregnant and had like tattoos, the whole deal. My sister was not. She was not. That's not why they wanted to get this wedding on the rails. Just want to make sure I specify that. Get that out there.

Don't want any speculation of that type of source. No peeking, right? And then the reception at the least traditional wedding I went through. Now I get in my sister's. This is not my sister's wedding.

This is the one from 10 years ago. We went up the hill into a barn. What do we got on the menu?

Pig picking. What are we drinking? What are we drinking? What do we have? Well, for the adults, we've got, for the kids, we've got Yoo-hoo.

Oh, you were writing home then. For the adults, we've got Bud Light and water. You know, I was going to guess Bud Light.

And water. That was 10 years ago. Bush would have been my second choice. I say all that to say, it wasn't the least traditional wedding I went to. We're in the South, so we're having breakfast at the Graham household on Saturday, the day of the wedding. And I was sitting on the couch playing Immaculate Grid, trying to figure out which Oriole played for the Braves.

Nick Markakis was the answer, by the way. And then walking through the door was Juan, the groom, and his groomsmen having breakfast with my sister on her wedding day. It's a little different.

Nothing wrong with it. Just a little different. So they saw each other. They did.

They did. They saw each other and they had breakfast together while I was playing Immaculate Grid with my dad. I was a little unprepared for that. But you should know, WD, that I was involved in the wedding. I wasn't in the wedding.

Which again, completely fine. A little bit different. A little untraditional, but fine. I was in the wedding, WD. You want to know what the two roles I was asked to do? I declined one of the two things. I think I know one of them because we just- The first thing I was asked to do was to be a flower bro, where I'd walk up the aisle- That's a thing?

With a fanny pack and throw flowers. That's what I was asked to do. Absolutely not. I refused. Good. I'm glad.

Okay. The second thing I was asked to do was, and there's probably video. Sarah Bradford got video of this. She enjoyed this way too much.

I'll have to take a look at that. Was like during the choreographed father-daughter dance, there's a portion where they break out into different songs and Curtis Blow's basketball starts to play and she grabs a basketball and me and my brother were asked to go out on the dance floor and get crossed up by her. That's what we did. My involvement at my sister's wedding was I got crossed up and fell and hit my head on a concrete floor. I don't think it was concrete. But it was choreographed though. It was choreographed. I took a great fall. We played a role.

We did our job. My wife, nobody was standing when the bride was coming and she motioned to me, Josh, stand up. Then I stood up and then everybody else stood up, which is good. That would have been bad.

Got to make sure the bride, people got to know. I also burned down the dance floor. Literally or you tore it up? No, I tore it up.

Oh boy. The final hour and a half, they played some obscure Spanish songs. I was singing those songs. I know that's right. Did I speak Spanish? No. Nope.

Nope. I knew what I was doing that night. Yeah, you did. I was in the zone. I was in the zone. That was my experience at my sister's wedding from over the weekend. It was fantastic.

Had a great time and she's now on her honeymoon. Probably not listening to this. That's a good thing. Why is that? I didn't say anything negative.

You don't want to run out of food or the drink or anything. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying they didn't do any of that. That's an achievement that you didn't run out of food or drink? No, I'm just saying the wedding, it was very quick turnaround, very quick turnaround. Make sure you had the proper amount and a lot of people there. I'm just saying we achieved what we set out to achieve.

That's what I'm saying. Mission accomplished. And you got crossed out.

And I got crossed out. That happened. Now getting to my NFL idea before we get to Permar. The answer for revamping August as a calendar month that really matters for the week. Less preseason games, because those seem to have fallen out of favor, just like Hard Knocks seems to have run its course. Less of that and more joint practices between teams. Figure out a way to televise joint practices.

That seems to be the answer. Now there are problems that come with this. Chief among them, coaches protect information like it's the nuclear codes, not just NFL coaches, college coaches, certainly high school coaches even. I'll be doing a game and they're not going to want to tell me who their starting quarterback's going to be. I feel like I'm going to leak that to the other high school team. I don't care enough.

I'm sorry. All due respect to whatever triad-based team trying to think. With all due respect, East Forsythe, I'm not going to tell the other team that you're playing who your quarterback is. Just not. Just a random example.

You know where East Forsythe is, W.D.? That is correct. But the reason I bring that up, coaches might not be game to have these televised because they don't want to see their formations. They don't want anybody else to see the formations that they're putting out, the plays that they run. That's the problem that you have.

But I think there is a compromise that you can find, portions that you can televise that would make it entertaining. Because in the preseason, you're not seeing starters play anymore. You don't see the starters.

You don't see the stars. You want the snaps for in these joint practices for players like Bryce Young or Aaron Rodgers. We're both going to share a field next week. Televising that seems to be an answer. And the NFL's found ways to create more events on the calendar or just revamp things that they've had. Throwing everything into prime time like the draft or the combine or Hall of Fame speeches or the schedule release, even though we got the opponent.

That seems to be the next step. Let's go to Garbage Mike, 3-3-6-7-7-7-1-600. He apparently has a question about this wedding. What do you have, Garbage Mike?

I have this wedding question, man. How you doing? I'm doing great.

What do you have? Hey, congratulations on my new addition to your family. Yeah, no doubt. Shout out to Juan Pajardo.

Shout out to him. What are your thoughts on weddings where the preacher has an iPad? Because as a wedding aficionado like yourself, that's something that really burns my butt. I'll take it off the edge.

Thank you so much, Garbage Mike. Member of the Graham Crackers, by the way. They need a drop or something. Anytime the Graham Crackers call.

We need to figure that out. But personally, I don't want the iPad. However, however, you know, there's a way you can make it look professional, like well-to-do as long as there's a podium that's in front of him and he's just referring it. It's no different than if you have like a notepad of some sorts or something, a piece of paper that you refer to to make sure you're following the program or reading scripture. I think it actually seems more technologically advanced, honestly.

I don't think the more I think about it, the less I thought I would have great issue, Garbage Mike, with the iPad. I don't think I do. I don't think I have a problem with it at all. I think it's just the appearance more than anything else.

I mean, it's the same stuff. Yeah. Another plus for my sister.

Give her a huge plus. Pastor didn't do 1 Corinthians. Oh, is that a thing? Oh, yeah. I know. Love is patient.

Love is kind. Did your people do that? No.

No. We read from Genesis and my sister read from Mark. It was good.

I was good. If you're planning a wedding, do something different than 1 Corinthians. Why?

You could be more creative than that. Hey, Spermar is going to join us. We'll see if he's having a party at 3 a.m. for US soccer next.

Hey, Spermar, joining us from Sports Channel 8. There's this monument, we'll call it, in Raleigh that's called the Rialto that was put out of business during the pandemic that Spermar has purchased in recent months and have had World Cup watch parties from. But that was when the World Cup game started at 9 o'clock. Tomorrow morning, it's 3 o'clock in the morning that they're closing the group stages against Portugal. Will you be hosting a watch party at 3 o'clock in the morning at the Rialto?

This is a fair question, Graham, because I probably should have, like, applied for an exemption to be able to pour alcohol at 3 a.m., which, you know, you can't do. And so I did not do that, partly because I assumed there'd be no drama in this game. Right.

I thought we would have already advanced, but we have not done so. But no, I will not be showing the game. It's funny you brought it up because I'm actually standing in the Rialto right now.

I did a birthday party a little bit earlier. And as I'm cleaning up, because I have a huge screen, I just put on part of the interruption. So I've got like the biggest screen in Raleigh and I'm just watching ESPN and I should have just put on the Josh Graham show. So next week I'll try to be watching the Josh Graham show live on the huge screen before I come on the Josh Graham show. That would be pretty entertaining to make that happen. And it'll also be very entertaining for anyone else who's there, because, you know, five years we've been on here in the triad.

Yeah, maybe I should have done that for a birthday party. I'm also going to say this out loud, even though I'm on the radio, I've got an incredible echo coming back at me on my phone. And I don't know if that's anything we can solve. If it's not, no big deal.

But I think it's getting better. So let's just let's roll with that. Did you just solve that right there?

I think the problem just got solved. I sure did. You know, see these types of things happen.

It was one of those things where it was like once I realized it was there, I could endure and do the segment. But I just wanted to let Will know just in case he could fix it. And of course, he did. He did. That's it. You just knew this was a producer to producer conversation. Yes, it was. Hey, idiot.

Feeding me. Press the button that I know I can picture in my head after doing that for a long time. Don't you don't you host guy ever, even if you were indirectly quoting a hypothetical me, don't you ever refer to a producer as an idiot? OK, that's right. Only other producers could do that. OK, you back off.

Settle down of it. Talent, talent boy. I could have score you or a talent boy producer producer PTSD over here. Now let's get to skips or plays with Hayes. Hayes Permar is somewhat of a Renaissance man, an expert in the finer things. But he hangs his hat on music, loves his God.

And he's the friend of Satan. He was like, oh, six in busy with the sticks. Been watching big Mike, a little trick trip. I just need a Zion and someone he can dunk on today. Hayes will decide if this music is smash or trash blows or blows.

It's time for skips or plays with Hayes. And I'm breaking the rules a little bit here. W.D. picked two out of the three of these songs.

I picked the first one here because I need to know if Permar can relate to this at all. We were giving away Diamond Rio tickets to go see him in Winston-Salem, August the 18th, on a Friday night. I have to go to that show. You want tickets?

We got you. I'd love some Diamond Rio. If you want to you got a place to stay in Winston if you need it. If you want to come and see Diamond Rio. That's that's like I'm not going to argue Diamond Rio's like I'm trying to equate it to like, you know, NBA or something where or I mean any sports thing where like no way does Diamond Rio make the top five of 90s countries bands. But in my per I recognize that I am ranking them higher than they should be.

But like they're in my top five. Wow. You know, I just realized something. I just realized something.

Diamond Rio is the country version of Nickelback. I just realized this now. I mean that. I mean that in this case. I mean that in this case.

They are never they're not that great, but they're so memorable. If you say Diamond Rio, everybody knows who you're talking about. That's just get that out of here. Tell that idiot producer to stop playing. Stop playing Nickelback.

Can I get to my point though about that? Can I get to the question that I have for you which is related to the first song you're going to have in skips or plays with Hayes. I can't explain it.

It's almost like the Manchurian Candidate or Inception. It's been placed in my brain and I don't know why because it doesn't make a lot of sense. But every single time I get into the shower beautiful mess by Diamond Rio pops into my head and I don't know why.

So think about if there's an example of that for you a certain song that happens or if you can relate it all as we listen as your first skips or plays song to beautiful mess by Diamond Rio. All right. Now a couple things here.

First of all, if we were a podcast and not an O. over the air radio show like I know you are I might take a stab at a joke on why you think of the song beautiful mess every time you stop at the shower. Thank you. I'm not going to do that.

Thank you. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to steer well clear that. And I'm just going to skip this song because I'm so bad that there's like just banger Diamond Rio tunes that you've blown right past. Give me this. I'm skipping this. I don't want different genres. I want to be in charge of Diamond Rio DJing for the rest of the the drive with Josh Graham's history.

If Diamond Rio is played I want to be consulted moving forward. So there's not a song you think about when you're in the shower every day. I'm not answering that. I gave you my answer. My answer is refraining from making a joke.

Josh Graham. That's my answer right now. Yeah. Okay.

So the next the next song that we're going to get to because that was a skip like per Mars wishing we had one more day or something play. Yes. Yeah.

I'm taking it really super bummed out. Night is falling in my heart. Oh yeah. Meat in the middle. Come on.

Meat in the middle is an excellent song. The idiot producer's taken over now. All right. Let's go.

So I'm watching Remember the Titans for the first time tonight. And so I decided to pull something from the soundtrack. It's Ain't No Mountain High Enough. Who sings this version of it? This isn't the Diana Ross. No. It better be Marvin and Tammy.

It's Marvin. Yeah. It's come on.

If you're playing the one from the movie it is. Let's go. Here we go. Yeah. As long as it's Marvin and Tammy. Diana Ross does this like slow version that I can't get with. But this is 100 percent of play.

Hey sperm are. That is the song. You chose a good one because clearly you haven't seen the movie. He hasn't seen the movie so he just looked at the soundtrack. That is the song that I think about the most when I think about Remember the Titans. Either that or Fire and Rain by James Taylor.

Well let me know how it is Wil Dalton because I've never seen that movie either. Whoa. That's right. Yeah that's right. You want a hot take.

Brent Musburger. Whoa. You're not missing much. Whoa. I mean yeah. Then why am I watching it?

The audience chose. Oh. Okay.

Let's get to the last. I'm a big Donald Fason fan. I like I've seen Seeds with him in it and I like him a lot. Yeah he's. My man Turk from Grubs. Yeah that's right. Great actor. So we're also I think. His name's Petey in the movie notably. So I think we're gonna be doing some Tim McGrawal tickets at some point here soon.

This week I think. Yeah. So I decided to pull a Tim McGrawal song.

Something like that. Ah man you're speaking my language right now like there are probably better Tim McGrawal songs but you're hitting right in my era of Diamond, Rio and Tim McGrawal. This is like 98, 99 or something like that. And it's when I was getting into Diamond, Rio's greatest hits and Tim McGrawal's newest album. This is a great song.

I hate that everybody focuses on it. And everybody calls this song barbecue stand on my white t-shirt song. But it's a great tune. It's a banger. It's one of those where like this is the reason you go to a country concert in the summer because you're like you don't need to know this song. If you hear this song you'd be like yeah I got a beer in my hand and two in my belly and this is a great time and I'm glad I can. This is an unbelievable country song.

It's a huge play. And there's some Billy Madison element to it too. If we're going back to the 90s of like yeah I have a barbecue stain on my white t-shirt. That's the cool thing now. Everybody's doing that.

Everyone pees their pants. Yeah. If having a barbecue stand on your white t-shirt was cool consider me Miles Davis. There you go. Yeah. Hey Spermar. I consider you a lot of things.

A lot of things that I won't say. That's a line from Billy Madison. I know I know I know. Just making sure we knew that. That's pretty good.

I didn't think you were going to pull that line from Billy Madison. Hey Mr. Penguin. I know what you're doing over there. Spermar we'll talk to you later. Thanks for doing this. Where I'm from everybody puts barbecue on their t-shirt. Talk to you guys.