The Dan Patrick ShowHall of Famer Charles Barkley discusses the latest in Inside the NBA's future and gives his take on the Larry Bird top 10 player debate. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey breaks down the latest in the College Football playoff proposed expansion, and voices concern over NIL dollars outpacing player maturity. All-Pro Ravens RB Derrick Henry reflects on going from high school phenom to 4th string at Alabama and shares how his game has evolved over the years.
You are listening to the Dan Patrick Show on Fox Sports Radio.
Hall of famer Charles Barkley back on the program. Are you unemployed right now?
No, I signed a deal last week.
Then, okay, when do you start working with ESPN.
Next year when the season starts?
Oh? Okay, so there's nothing going on from now until the start of next season.
No, you know, I took my time trying to figure out. My big thing was the work schedule, and I got together. I've been working on it for like two months, and I got together with T and T last week and I signed a deal.
So how many days a week are you going to work at the Mother Show?
Well, you know it's I don't even think they know the exact schedule, to be honest with.
You, so you better know the exact schedule.
Well, I'm gonna trust trust them, you know. But that's been my biggest concern. Yeah. Uh So, like I said, I didn't officially assigned it to last week. I said I'd worked for two more years and that's what I agreed to, and.
I'm gonna have to trust them.
But I listen, you know, if if they start trying to work me too much between ESPN TNT.
I'm just gonna walk on home, you.
Know, because listen, I actually have seven years left on my contract.
I'm like, yeah, there's no way I'm working seven years.
I says, you know, I'm gonna be a good soldier for Kenny, Ernie and Shaq and the people I work with, because I love the people I work with, especially behind the scenes. I said, but the best I can do is two years and the mother five years. They got no chance to happen, and so I said, you know what, I give y'all two years.
They're like, can we get three?
I said, I just told you I'm gonna get you. You know, David, it was the fun I said, I get I'll give you two years that can we get three?
I said, I just told you I was gonna get you two.
Welcome to the SPN way of life.
Though this is the TNT people, uh because because my I think my my contract technically is still with T and T.
Okay, Okay, yeah, okay.
Yeah, I'm gonna be a good soldier.
What was that feeling like last show?
Well, I was.
Fine until Ernie started getting emotional and then I started tearing up. And I'm glad that they only had the camera on him, you know, because you know Kenny and Shaq, you.
Know, they were just talking. I was like, okay, he did, but Ernie was emotional. Uh. The crowd was great.
Uh.
But like I said, man, you've been I've been with these people for twenty five years. It's a great thing.
You know.
The NBA family has been tremendous to us. The fans have been tremendous for us.
Uh.
But you know, I will admit, you know, I'm looking forward.
You know, ESPN is the most famous sports brand ever, and it's gonna be Uh, it's gonna be awesome working for them, and uh, nobody knows what's gonna happen. I mean, I think that's the only thing that like what are we actually going to do? So I think that's that's the only thing. But like I say, I did not want to leave people out in the cold. So I say, you know what, let me do it for a couple of years and then y'all can have it.
Okay, But does the show look like the show? It's just it's inside the NBA, but it's on ESPN. Is that how you're uh like positioning this?
Dad? We don't even know.
You see that that that's one of the reason I was waiting, like, yeah, I don't know what we're doing. And then TNT is trying to do something stupid behind the scenes. We taped the pilot about a month ago, and it was the stupidest ship I've ever seen my life. You know, because because because we're not going to be on ESPN as much as people think.
Wait, wait, what do you mean you taped a pilot.
Well, because ESPN, Because we're only probably going to be working for ESPN like half the time to one third the time. So I think tn T wants to do something. And we taped a pilot about a month ago and it was the stupidest ship ever.
Okay, so you're still going to do a show, an NBA show on t n T and you're gonna do a show on ESPN. Yes, okay, good But.
But but like I said, if they're being honest, we're gonna probably work on ESPN one third or half the time. But they're trying to do something stupid at tn T, which which which is which is number one is the stupid idea for a couple of reasons. Number one, we we won't we won't. We won't have basketball highlights. But also we're probably gonna be going up against the NBA game. And I don't anybody who likes basketball. The ain't gonna say, hey, you know what, let me turn off an NBA game that's on Amazon, ESPN or NBC to go watch these four dudes hit around and talk about nothing. So it's complicated. And like I say, we taped the pilot doing stupid stuff and it was just stupid stuff.
And I wouldn't want to go out like that.
Okay, is this like a second screen or a manning can? Like what are we doing here?
Don't they don't know? They listen?
Oh my god, I'm telling you, Dan, it was interesting we were sitting there taping it.
Well, I will admit one thing. I get TNT credit.
They did say it was awful pilot with you.
They were honest.
They were honest because it was like we just uh so they want to do something. But like I say, the problem we got we got to be going up because they're gonna be probably much Well, no, that's gonna be an n big NBA game on every night, so whenever we do it, it's gonna be up against the NBA game.
So that's the first problem.
So but I guess they want to feel like they're doing something to make us earn our money from tn T.
Charles Barsley joining us inside the n B A uh on t n T, is it gonna be? Okay, what's the show called on t N T? And is what's the show called on ESPN?
Man?
Then then first of all, I guess inside the n B A I think, and and I guess it's gonna be just inside the NBA on ESPN, A b C. I think that's easy. But I think so I forget. I think the pile is called inside the NBA.
That's not confusing.
Well, well you know that. You know the thing that was hilarious about it. Then we didn't have any NBA.
You know, you have no rights to the NBA, but you're inside of the NBA.
That's right.
We can't show highlights. We can't show highlights.
So we were sitting there for like an hour and a half taking this pilot, and we're looking at each other, what the hell are we doing? But like I say, I give TNT credit the first thing they said out of the pilot, Yeah, that was really stupid.
We got to figure something out.
What role do you think Michael Jordan's going to play with NBC's coverage.
Oh, that's a great question. I don't know.
I don't see Michael bean on television a lot. I mean, I don't see Michael being on television a lot. To be honest with you, why do you think he's doing this?
I have a zero ideal. I think it's great that he's going to be part of the NBA.
I mean, he's, in my opinion, no disrespect to Kobe or Lebron, he's the greatest player I've seen. I have no idea why he's doing it, but it's a welcome addition. I mean, yo, man, you know this is going to be interesting going forward because there's so much money out there right now. Dan like, they got to do everything and their power to engage fans. I mean the money at the NBC, Amazon and ESPN are paying you know. You know, I tell people we were paying about one point two billion dollars a year, and it goes up to two point five billion. Those numbers don't compute, So you're gonna have to do everything in your power to draw fans. I think it's gonna be fascinating going forward, how this thing is going to work.
What do you think Jordan would get paid today if he was playing.
Well, he'd be the first hundred million dollar player. Well, well, first of all, we gonna have guys making seventy eight to ninety million dollars three to four years. Yes, you know, but you know, man, bless these guys as long as they appreciate how lucky they are and don't think they're making all that money because they're great players. They were just boring at the right time. We got a bunch of great players. But man, these guys, I just hope they appreciate how lucky they are and stop this bs with low management. You know, we can't keep crapping on the fans where we're like yeah, wait, yeah, you're making seventy million dollars. You can't play basketball four days a week. You can't work two days in a row. And you want doctors and nurses and firemen and comps and people in the military and people who got like work in.
The cement factory.
Like wait a minute, I make twenty dollars an hour. This dude makes seventy million dollars and he can't play back to back. Come on, man, I think that's an insult to the fans, and it might.
Be a problem.
It was already a problem, but when this money like double and triple, the fans gonna are like, yeah, I'm not watching this crap any more. If these dudes can't play two games in a row. Can you imagine you a fan and you get like a great player who comes west to east or east to west. He's only coming one time a year, and the tickets are ridiculous, and you're like, yeah, he.
Played last night.
Uh so I think there's some things we got to amstor A basketball players going forward.
Yeah, but you're making whatever, twenty million dollars a year and you only want to work two days a week.
I show up every day though we Hey listen, I show up. I show up every day.
Then okay, back back to back though.
Back to back? Wait, like going the playoffs. You know, we worked like six days a week and I show up every day for those six days. Hey, then you know what you guys?
You know, I apologize. I apologize. I didn't realize the work schedule, the workload.
You have my bad?
Oh you just wait, just oh there you go? Are you back?
You you can hear me.
Now, no, you froze up right after I said that with the apology, and I thought you were you know, it was a dramatic pauloge there, so.
Wow, because it was a dramatic Shaw changed me.
Dan, don't do that.
I didn't show shank you.
Changed you.
Oh I thought it was Shaw shanked. Oh yeah, I sure changed you, But I didn't shawshank you.
Yeah. Okay, But but you know these guys out there, you know, I'm so old.
We flew commercial and played back to back, and these guys got the best private planes, they got the best medical staff, they got these cold water plunges, they got the hyperbaric chambers.
I mean, they got the best shoes.
And they can't play basketball two days in a row for fifty sixty million dollars. That's the craziest stuff ever.
Man, Well, this will be crazy, I'm sure to you. But I brought this up to Stephen Jackson last week. I said, you know, can you see a time or get ready for Larry Bird dropping out as one of the top ten players of all time? Like, could you see a scenario where Larry is not ranked in the top ten all time?
Well, let me say this the three most important figures in NBA history of Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan. You know, there are a lot of great players, but there's only a few guys who transcend the sport. I'll throw Kobe in there, I'll throw Lebron in there, I'll stow Steph in there, and there are a lot of really, really good players, but nobody can take away the historic significant member. Dave Corbin's one of the greatest ever against mad When I say this, before Magic Johnson and Larry Berry, the league was too black, two thugery. The average salary was two hundred thousand dollars. Now the average salary is like twelve million dollars. And Magic and Bird started transformation. Michael Jordan took it to a whole other level. He got guys making one hundred million dollars from Nike now and other shoe brands. That's all Michael Jordan. Because you look at the same thing in golf, Garrett, player, Arnold and Jack. They are the three foundational pieces and tiger woods that once in a generation player who was Michael Jordan and golf, there are a lot of great players. Phil Michles is probably the only other person in that conversation in golf. But there's very few athletes in every sport that people can say, oh, you know, yeah, he's playing, I'm going to watch. That does not be We don't have a lot of great players, like right now, we got Shade, we got the Joker, we got Joannis, we got Lebron, Luke, all these guys, but there are very few players that transcend their sport. So no matter what happens with Bird, as far as that him and Matty Johnson are the two most important figures in NBA history in my opinion, then I say, then we all old Michael because when Michael's you know, when he started doing commercials, that changed everything for everybody. Now, because of Michael, I was making millions of dollars from wearing Nike. Nobody was doing that, Nobody had a signature shoe or they were making one hundred million dollars a year.
That's all because of Michael.
That's why, regardless of all this other stuff, this Lebron stuff, this Kobe stuff, people buy shoes because of Michael freaking Jordan. That's it, I mean, And that's no disrespect to anybody. Yes, some of these other guys out here selling shoes. Michael, you try to make people wear shoes to wedding. Nobody ever thought about wearing shoes to weddings until I could do it.
Think about that, then.
Did you ever wear Air Jordan's when you played.
I'll tell you what's interesting about that? When Michael had pulled me aside and told me we went out smoking cigars the last time, he said, the Marty that flew down, he said, I got something to tell you, guys. He flew down to Houston, and he takes us out. We go out to dinner, we go out to smoke some cigars. He says, guys, I'm just giving you all the heads up. I'm gonna retire to the end of the season. I'm like, what am and a mob was like, I think he's serious. He said he I'm gonna retire to the end of the season. So I called him like a week later and I said, oh, man, that's a tribute, because you know, remember when Magic Johnson announced he had AIDS.
I wanted to pay homage to him.
I called Billy Cunningham and said, hey, can I wear your jersey to celebrate Magic Johnson? He says, sure, no problem, I said, because and I called Irvan. I say, hey, Man, for everything you did for me and my family, I'm gonna wear number thirty two all year. So I wore thirty two one year. But I called Michael and I said, hey, send me a pair of shoes. I just want to tell you how much I appreciate everything you did for me. Give me that, give me that advice on that Nike stock that made me a thirty million dollars.
And that was an insider trading, was no because you know, at the.
Time, I was making about three million dollars a year and we were playing golf and he said, Chuck, I was talking to somebody, So I want you to quit taking three million, take a million, and take the other two million and stock options. So I called my people and they say, hey, Michael told me to do that, because miche has always been a brilliant businessman.
And they're like, this is risky. You think he gonna be that great?
I says, man, I ain't never seen nobody like that, dude, because I had met him at the Olympic trials. I says, he gonna be amazing, he says, And we did it, and like I said, I ended up probably making seriously another fifty million dollars, to be honest with you, but he made.
Me trade that in.
But the point I was making, man, I put his shoes on one game. He definitely did the greatest bann basketball player ever. Then those were the heaviest DOWMN ever played in in my life.
I'm not even.
Joking because when I designed my shoes, I'm one of them really really light. I played in those heavy ass air joints one game. It was like I had bricks on my damn feet then, and I've been one hundred cents serious. I called him man, I actually called him after the game. I said, Yo, Man, what the hell you be putting in these damn stue I mean, they were so damn heavy. Then I said, hey, I played in them one game. As attribute to him, these shoes to damn heavy for me, Man, that's a two story.
Then it makes it even more amazing what Mike did in those air Jordan's.
I said, you're really out of damn bricks. Bricks.
Do you do you think he could have had them design a special pair for you that maybe were a little heavy. You know, Mike's very competitive.
No, because he got them to me like in two days. Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, No, he had time to put no bricks in them. But man, them shoes were heavy as hell.
Man before I let you go, Uh, what kind of chance you give the Pacers against Okase.
I think they can make it competitive, but I've been saying for months, nobody can beat that team four times in a week. The Pacers got a good team, but the Okay See, they're one of the best teams I've seen in a long time.
They're the deepest. They might be the deepest NBA team I've ever seen.
They be playing guys who don't even play like the last series, and they put them in the game.
They're like, damn, what he been so and that's gonna really negate the Patriots.
The Pacers bench which beat them to help them beat the Knicks because the Thunder they're bringing better players off the bench than the Pacers. The Pacers got a terrific bench, but Oklahoma City got better bench players.
So I hope it's a good.
Series, but I don't think anybody can beat okay See four times in a week.
Great to talk to you. Perhaps I'll see you in Tahoe.
You a coward.
Dan know I'm gonna go out there.
Oh you're not gonna play.
Well, they didn't invite me. I might be working.
You won't be working. We play on a Friday afternoon, on Faturday and Sunday.
I'm bringing I think I might bring the show out to Tahoe.
You bring it out and I do. I should do it.
How long you on?
How long you own?
Three hours?
I'll give you an hour one day me and you.
Okay, But so last time you came to Tahoe, you missed about six little three inch putts because you normally they give you you know, yeah, as we have to put out.
I know, I know.
I didn't pick up my ball one time. Like that's good, right, And then I was like, oh no, people looked at me like what are you doing. I wasn't that good? Then like no, you gotta play them, gotta play them all the way to day.
Yes you do, brother? All right?
Uh yeah, I'll see you maybe in July.
All right, brother, be safe, safe out there, all right.
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That's Cavino and Rich Greg Zankee, SEC commissioner kind enough to join us. It's been kind of busy here in the off season. Never stops for you. Recap what happened last week, give me the cliff notes version.
Spent a lot of time in overly air conditioned meeting rooms in western Florida with athletics directors, head coaches, football, men's, women's basketball, and our presidence and chancellors. Talked about our football schedule, the college football playoff, potential settlement of a set of lawsuits that would introduce a revenue sharing model to college sports, and we talked about any other number of issues like our softball tournament location that are probably more mundane than you want to jump into on a Monday morning. But happy to talk about softball and gymnastics championships locations for the conference if you'd like.
Well, that's why to have you on. But let's get some of these ancillary things out of the right. That's fair, Okay, let me start with basketball and then we'll get to football. The discussions of seventy two, seventy six teams, any discussion from the SEC portion of this.
I introduced the issue to our men's basketball coaches, which I think we've talked about with that group before. I would guess Dan, given the other issues we have on our plate, that that conversation maybe lasted five minutes. My points to them were, this is still a work in progress. I didn't know that there was going to be kind of a press gathering. This is not a criticism. Charlie Baker spoke about tournament expanse I think the day after our basketball coaches gathered, I mentioned it to our wins basketball coaches as well. Briefly, didn't really go anywhere, and so my introduction was, I just want you to be aware problem. Towards the end of the month, this will come up.
I said.
My view is, I think we should be exploring tournament expansion. Whether or not it happens, it is actually another point of evaluation. So have the conversation, deep dive, figure out if it works practically, competitively economically. I think the one issue for us is if it is expanded. Let's pick the number of seventy six and I'll do quick math for you. So fifty two of the seventy six teams would be like in that traditional first round. The other twenty four would play in twelve games, the twelve winners meet up with the fifty two. There's your sixty fourteen bracket.
Right.
That's like from my intermural director days at you to the comp That's how I know how bracckets work. I'm really interested and we're interested in a league. Is who fills those twelve games those other twenty four teams. The kind of Dayton model, if you will, which is a men's basketball side is it's a combination of the lowest aqs, the lowest rated aqs kind of by placement of the committee, and then the last at large teams in And I kind of pivot to look look to North Carolina State last year eleven seed, they were in AQ, but they went to the final four. And it's just kind of an indication that competitively, those top fifty or so teams, you know, things fall right, injuries, heel can make really good runs. So I'm not one who thinks we should just follow the Dayton model automatically have expanded if expansion takes place.
So that was my reference to our coaches.
When our decisions made or voted on for expansion for the college football playoffs.
Yeah, that's a good question.
Buy agreement that the outer boundary is November thirty December one of this year for the twenty six playoff. Now keep in mind, when we went to twelve teams, the board said that'll be the format for twenty twenty six. Let's start early if we can, which we obviously did I think did overall in a successful way. But what was introduced immediately is let's go through these two years and conduct an evaluation. So we're in that evaluation standpoint. A lot of talk about really fourteen or sixteen that I think twelve is known as as kind of a foundation point, but the conversation is about fourteen or sixteen, and then how our team select it or placed into whatever size bracket exists is the more the headline question. Okay, but what model do you like? Well, I've been one who said over time, I'd give no allocation. So this whole five seven thing that exists now, I just make it the twelve best teams, and I was clear on that. Now, when we get into rooms, we make political compromises, if you will, small p not like Congress political compromises, but to achieve an outcome.
But the sides on the top twelve Teams Selection committee. Yeah, but here's what I think.
I think we've not.
We spent so much time expanding and working through our own little side arguments about teams and oh, we can't do this, we need this, you got to protect this bowl game or that bowl game. We never went back to the essence of decision making, which is how our team selected. As everyone relocated over the last four or five years, do the analyses that existed and worked for the fourteen playoff and twenty fourteen still have the same relevance and we're behind that curve in my opinion. That's why other ideas are introduced and considered, and we've looked at ideas. You know, this allocation of it's called automatic bids. That's such a harsh term. I think allocations is one where I like that word because we've already we already allocated. And look at last year. We had two teams not in the top four. They get to move up because of the political compromise. We have a team outside the twelve that moves in, and then the teams that are displaced look around and say, hey, wait a second, that doesn't make any sense any longer. That introduces the questions around should that model continue or should that allocation model expand where other teams are brought in.
Talking to Greg Sankie, SEC Commissioner, we've talked about this before. You know, given the scheduling and hotel rooms and travel of reseeding after the first round of games, can is that on the table at all anymore?
Well, not really receding, because almost what a week and a half ago for the twenty five season, this college Football Playoff Management Committee, which is the commissioners and the Notre Dame Athletic Director, agreed to just go to straight seating by ranking. So the movement of teams outside the top four into the top four that won't happen in twenty twenty five. You're going to get what you earn. Same for home games. We've not gone back into the receiving question. And Dan, if you go back to June of twenty one, which was like ancient history in college sports, when the twelve team model was introduced, and we went back through this about a month ago with everybody involved on that management committee, one of the questions.
Was should we be in receding.
We never really got back to that because you remember the SEC had this little expansion to sixteen, great disruption in the forest. Then we had twenty two in expansion of the big ten. So he waited around for a year, and now we've been in hurry up mode since. So we haven't talked so much about receding as we did just about honoring the rankings in the bracket.
Help me understand the report on Cooper Flag as he made close to thirty million dollars is one year at Duke, that's nil. Help me understand as the athlete moves forward of the salaries and nil and any restriction, any compromises that will be there for these marquee athletes let's call them.
Without commenting on the Cooper Flag story, I haven't seen that, and nobody's sending me financial documents to verify.
As you can imagine in this environment.
A couple points one is this settlement that's positioned in a set of lawsuits has great impact on the answer to your question if the settlement is approved for the first time at the college level, and really quite innovative in the sports realm, would be the process for overseeing third party name, image and likeness to establish there's an appropriate range of compensation and fair market excuse me, in real business purposes.
Fulfilled around name image and likeness deals. That's not like novel.
It just hasn't existed as we've gone on this state by state exploration of kind of reducing any regulatory system for college sports niol So. I think that's a first step, and that's one component third party name image and likeness. The second is what I think will be kind of a name image and likeness activity within a revenue sharing model where athletic programs are providing that payment directly to student athletes.
That can be a better system. There has to be a commitment to make it work.
And I still am one who thinks that notion of having fifty different state laws governing is highly problematic. You're not going to have college World Series. You can't run Final fours and national championships that way. You run something more like high school championships where every state kind of walls off it's and establishes its own rules. And I think that has to be understood as a significant point of concern. That's why the return of national standards in the congressional conversation still has meaning.
What would stop me as a businessman if I wanted the top quarterback in college football to come to Alabama, and I want to give him twenty five million dollars a year.
Right now, there hasn't been a lot.
This is the States migrate away from any oversight of their own laws or any regulation. If the settlement is approved, I go back to that third party oversight, and it would depend on your classification, assuming you have some affiliation, you've provided money donations to the university involved. You then kick into this third party in aisle oversight and the ability for somebody to be deemed at an appropriate real business purpose and range of compensation level would be involved. And if it doesn't, there'll be an opportunity to adjust your offer.
I would love for conferences or maybe there's somebody who can be like the NFL has somebody who does this scheduling, like I would love. You know, we might lose Notre Dame in USC like I'm I don't know, maybe I'm the get off my line, the old guy, but you know, can you come up with scheduling that we don't lose Texas versus Oklahoma or whatever? Oklahoma state? Oklahoma? I should say, I got to want to lose these rights we don't have many left, and I don't know if college football could ever have a schedule overseer. So we do have marquee matchups.
This is this is.
Entertainment, it's TV non conference. You know, what do you think of that?
I think a couple things. Let's go back to the college football playoffs. So I've been the recipient of plenty kind of side comments about.
Good of the game, whatever that means.
And when programs like when wake Forest notifies Old Miss the day before their first game of a home and home series that we're not playing the one back in Oxford, that's a problem.
When when Nebraska.
Cancels an agreement to play Tennessee home and home and sites and I'm not criticizing.
Their athletic director, this is a reality.
Cites the college football playoff selection process as a fundamental reason why we have to understand the college football playoffs selection process is threatening the regular season, not supporting it. Remember all those conversations people had about, hey, if you expand the playoff, you're going to diminish the regular season. I think there is something to that. I just think everybody missed that the regular season was being changed by the college football playoff. So point one is whether people agree or not. I think the first issue that has to be addressed is the selection criteria incentivizing playing these highly competitive, highly desired games, whether that's non conference or conference. That's one. The second is, I think conference is coming together to facilitate this scheduling is important, and I'll just take ourselves. We facilitate four end of year non conference games last week of the season. We've had schools actually leave our league and come back, and we facilitated those games when when they've wanted to play. So I think from my perspective, I'm happy for a coordinated conversation to try to get scheduling right. But I do think you have to go back to at the forefront of everyone's mind is how decisions about the postseason are going to be made. And that's the point I've made more subtly than of late and more directly in the most recent comments, because I do think that leads the agenda of what must be addressed in college football scheduling is how this postseason selection guides people's thinking.
Give me the one thing that keeps you up at night that has to do with where we're where we are or where we're headed.
If I could, if I like, if I could have one thing to keep me up at night, I'd sleep like a baby again, So.
Let's just stipulate that would I would be out like a light.
I wake up every day on issues around the relationship with our dudent athletes, and that's both the economic relationship. I'm concerned about the lifelong impact, about the amount of money that flows into somebody's life when the motional maturity may not be there. You know, how do you go take a fifty thousand dollars entry level job and we run these ads that ninety eight percent of the people on the athletic fields or courts or tracks are going pro in something else, and you've had your own personal economics or value inflated. How do you learn those lifelong lessons? I think the transfer environment is linked to that, perhaps the inability to walk through some of the difficult moments in life. Hey, it's not every transfer is a problematic transfer. And I speak as somebody who transferred a couple of times. You're trying to figure it out, especially if you're a first generation college student, like you don't have somebody pulling you aside and helping you understand, Hey, maybe if you stick it out, build your legacy in one place, receive some economic benefit, have educational and relational continuity, you come out as a more prepared adult for what's next in life. The combination of those factor the economic relationship, the transfer decisions, and then the lifelong impacts that come from that we're not going to know for a while.
Those are at the top of what keeps me up at night.
I propose this well to myself, but on my show probably ten years ago, that if you have players who are coming to school because they think they're going to be a professional athlete, can you have some kind of curriculum that helps them with investing, balancing a checkbook, real estate, think taxes, things that have to do that are you know, the history of Mesopotamia. While I took the course hasn't helped me today. But if you're taking something that does prepare you, and college is supposed to prepare you. If I go to college and we have, you know, some kind of symbiotic relationship of I'm coming to use you, you're using me. I don't have any interesting staying in school, but can you help them with things that will help them in what they want to do.
A few points like I studied the Mesopotamian thing and had the same reaction. Then I went to the British Museum and there's a section on Mesopotamia and I'm like, hey, I read about this when I was fourteen or something like that. That's one second. I think if it's if it's only in life, do what you want and not challenge you to broaden your horizons, I think we lose an opportunity to help young people grow. So I would never suggest we just walk away from a broad educational experience. Third, sure, could we pivot, and there are plenty of electives, There are plenty of ways to learn. But our athletics departments provide pretty deep financial literacy programs. In fact, I've debated with current student athletes like should I not pay taxes right now on my earning and wait and paint at the end of the year and then go into quarterly tax payments for kind of ten ninety nine work.
So that I can invest that money. I'm talking about nineteen.
And twenty year olds in business classes and taking financial literacy classes through their athletics department. It's not the lack of provision of education, information and context that people involved have to receive that whether it's Mesopotamia, real estate deals, or how to balance your checkbook, it's not just that the educational opportunity and.
The information is provided.
They have a responsibility to understand. They have to consume that information and internalize it and use it. And I would say too for the people around the student athlete, for the young person involved in college athletics. You know, the notion that what's happening around nil payments just continues all the way through life, I think can be kind of a perceived pot of gold at the end of a rainbow that's just going to continue. And I think we all know that hard work, dedication, perseverance, taking a risk here and there, betting on yourself, those are the things through the next forty years of life that sets you up for success, not that defined area between you know, eighteen and twenty two. In fact, there's a John Grisham novel called Bleachers about a high school football player. And I'll paraphrase one of the lines in this novel and hey, it's a novel, but it's pretty wise, which is the worst thing that can happen to somebody is that become the biggest deal ever when they're eighteen or nineteen years old, because there's a whole lifetime ahead of you.
Big twelve ACC commissioners on your Christmas card list, you guys.
So yeah, hey, disagreements Finally one of my great conversations a oneth to go. Roy Kramer, who was SEC Commissioner number six, was telling me stories about going to me with Jim Delaney and Tom Hansen, who was the PAC twelve commissioner, and like he said, we walk out of that room and we hated each other, and then we went home, we got to work and figured it out.
I think disagreement's absolutely fine. It makes us better.
And I think for the fact that we comment about each other, we have a conversation as the four of us tomorrow and yeah, we rob each other off from time to time, but we do have a responsibility to work together, and I think each each of us understands that responsibility.
Play nice, thanks for joining us.
Okay, we'll go to the sandbox and see what we can do.
That's Greg Sanky, SEC Commissioner.
Be sure to catch the live edition of The Dan Patrick Show weekdays at nine am Eastern six am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Dereck Henry. He is the Baltimore Ravens star. Let me give the full lineup here. He is a five time Pro bowler. He is the twenty twenty NFL Offensive Player of the Year, two time rushing champ, three time rushing touchdown leader. Signed a two year, thirty million dollar deal in the off season. Twenty five million is guaranteed. All of a sudden, the running backs are valued again. Derrick Henry joining us on the program. Good to talk to you again. You know, let me start when you went to Alabama. You had one of the more decorated high school resumes in history of any running back, maybe the greatest of any running back. Then you go to Alabama and you're like third or fourth on the depth chart. How do you how do you process that from going from what you were in high school to a backup back up at Alabama.
Yeah, I think that was one of my first times that I actually like experienced adversity, which was really good for me coming into to that program being highly recruited and having a stellar high school career and then coming to Alabama getting humbled.
Really really quick.
Uh it was.
It was really good for me and a great learning experience for me as well, being so young because I graduated high school early in the road that spring and got to got to participate in spring football and uh get a jump on that early and then up then end up getting hurt the last scrimmage practice right before the spring game. Uh, fractured my fibula and tore all the ligaments in my ankle.
So that year was a big adversity learned a year from me.
What was your welcome to the NFL moment?
I'll say probably my rookie year. And in camp.
I think we were might have been a running play kind of got lit up a little bit by Sean Spence.
Uh what do you mean you kind of got lit up like like like he hit me.
I didn't fall, but.
Like kind of got knocked back a little bit and then I end up finishing the play. But I gotta got a good pop out of it.
This is in practice.
This in practice.
Yeah, Yeah, they're allowed to hit you that hard.
I mean it's a thud, but like we mean we're going for Yes, it's gonna be it's gonna be loud, a stout dude.
You ever knocked anybody out in practice?
No, I don't try to do anything like that.
Well, they might run into you and knock themselves out, yeah, I mean.
If if the collision is that big. But I try to be nice to my teammates.
What do you do better now at thirty one than you did it twenty one?
I think the game has just come with more experience, you know what to expect. Uh, look at tendensees. I mean, as long as you study film, it'll make it a lot easier to atisation to the to the little things.
But what are you looking for when you know you're getting the ball?
Yeah?
Okay, so Lamar is calling the play and then all of a sudden and then that two seconds, three seconds, whatever it is. What are you looking at?
Well, ma'am, just looking at the defense, seeing how they are aligned, trying to see what I can make happen. I mean, because they give you a picture and then the snap of finger that could change as soon as the ball is snap. So I just try to try to see what the defense is given us and not try to anticipate too much because you don't want to make a pre snap the decision. But just let it come naturally, but just really try to get a picture from the defense really then be out there running.
When did the shift go back to now running backs are valued with you and Sa Kuan?
Yeah, Like we had that big commotion about it like a year and a half ago when the market was it was really sad. You know, we you know, wanted to do something about it, and I think the biggest solution was play better, show our value.
But you had to get the opportunities to carry the ball, to run for nineteen hundred yards and in Saquon for two thousand.
Yeah, I mean I think you know, at the time, I was still Intenden see when that big commotion came about, and he was in New York and a lot of guys were still on different teams.
And next year some of us are free agents.
We all got a little different franchises and you know, new opportunities, new beginnings, and it all worked out well for us, and the market is, you know, where we wanted to get it to for the future of guys that's coming out to us.
We're talking to Derrick Henry. He signed a two year, thirty million dollar extension twenty five million guaranteed signing. But when's the last time you spent a lot of money on something like you splurged?
He went, oh boy, yeah, I mean I don't try to spurge too much.
Something crazy that I know.
I know, but everything. Everybody has something that they really like. I mean, you like what you like.
And I think my biggest thing right now is I'm into like watches. I love I love watches. All right, what what did you buy.
Recently? Purchased?
Was like, I think I got a a platinum Daytona Rolex. Okay, that was a nice one.
But yeah, yeah, you gotta gotta treat yourself. Yeah.
But but if you're in New York City, you can buy those watches that look like real Rolelexes and then you don't have to spend you know, fifty sixty million, you know, one thousand dollars on it, saying.
Yeah, I don't know about that.
You can you can't. You can't buy them though, you should wear in the game one time, you know, just oh no, no, no, it'd be it'd be great advertising.
There, definitely would I just do it?
Though? Heck no, uh the bench press game, Let's go around the room one rap derek'spouse all right, Todd four forty or forty, Seaton four fifty five, Marvin for twenty five, Pauli for twenty five. I'm gonna go four thirty five, one rep.
I think you might be.
Right, man, I think that's the last last time I've been like heavy max probably for thirty.
Five, okay, but that would probably be up there among the top running backs. I'm guessing. I don't know.
I mean some strong guys in the league.
And it's been a while since I did a max bench, But last time I did it, it was probably probably for thirty five.
All right, black dumb bell, like dumb bill, bitch.
What about forty yard dash? What would you run it?
Now? Probably the same when I when I ran it during the combine? What was that? It was like four four five four four five two okay.
But you seem to be faster when you're carrying the football. There's certain guys who run faster when people are chasing them.
I feel that way. I don't know, you know, you know, some people say you have like.
Testing speed, and then some people have football speed, and I definitely feel like that's the case for me.
I feel like I'm more faster on the field. If I had you and Lamar race, Oh, I like me. I'm gonna guess he likes him.
Yeah, for sure? Who did you have?
Did you have a poster on your wall?
Growing up?
I was a big Ladaian Thompson fan, but I like all running backs though, but I was a big LT fan. I said, I had his Bible head jersey. I love LT.
What What have you talked to him?
Yeah?
I talked LT plenty of times. Heank you did he get some time with him as a little Nike event at Nike Hill.
But he runs differently than you.
Do, way differently, And I thought I can run like him until I got older and the bigger our guy, I was like, maybe I'm not like.
Do you wish you were built like Ladanian more than you're built like you?
No?
I mean the Danis and Ladanian and I'm me so God make me the way I need to be made.
So I'm sure there are defenders that wish you were built like Ladanian.
There was running now, I mean you know that size ain't matter, and it was he was the truth.
Great to talk to you. Congrats on the contract extension.
There, appreciate it, Thank you, thank you.
Can we get to two thousand yards this year. I mean, why stop at nineteen hundred.
I don't know.
I know how important was two thousand for you?
It wasn't really, it wasn't. It wasn't important at all.
But you know, when you get that close, everybody's like, hey, you couldn't get two thousands, thine hundred, you couldn't get two thousand.
I'm like, no, I don't know what in my cards? That's you?
Well and uh, nice to talk to you. We'll talk to you again. Thank you again, and congrats on the contract.
Appreciate it, Dan, Thank you for wearing that hoodie. Man, I'm green, brighten up my day. Appreciate it.
Well, this is Happy Gilmore too.
This is what Adam so, okay, that's one of my you know, I was helling my favorite actors. So that's what's up.
So that that's the Happy Gilmore golf swing right there, that patch right there.
Hey, if you can you do my favorite Yeah, if you ever see him again, tell him I'm a really big fan.
I would really love to meet him one day.
Okay, you know what I'm gonna do. I'm going to text him today and ask if he'll send a video please, and then I'm going to send it.
To the Ravens. Okay. Cool, I'm a huge fan. Okay.
And if you get to two thousand yards, I'll get you in a Sandler movie.
All right, Cool? Say no more? Is that all right? Remember that? Now you remember this. Remember no.
I'll take care of my end of it, okay. I mean mine's easy, Yeah, yours is hard. You got to get two thousand yards, no more. No pressure, that is all, no.
Pressure at all.
All right, thank you, alright, see y'all.
