Wrapping up 2023 with the week's biggest headlines from the NFL to NBA, Ja Morant to Dallas Cowboys, Family time to the true meaning of Pivot.

FOLLOW THE PIVOT PODCAST: MERCH | https://pivotpodcast.com YOUTUBE | https://www.youtube.com/thepivotpodcast INSTAGRAM | https://instagram.com/thepivot TWITTER | https://twitter.com/thepivot TIKTOK | https://tiktok.com/@thepivot FACEBOOK | https://www.facebook.com/thepivotpodcast Ryan’s former teammate Rashard Mendenhall recently tweeted about an all-white person vs. all-black person football game that has sparked much debate online....the internet went abuzz and a seemingly controversial topic turned into fun banter between former and current NFL players. Countering former NFL player Will Compton who gave his takes on the "white" team, Ryan Channing and Fred shared their takes on the scenario with some competing opinions. Getting into a little NBA, The guys were excited by the return of Ja Morant to the Memphis Grizzlies and how he made an immediate impact through his play making a statement on and off the court. The guys talk about Ja taking accountability for his actions and his importance to the league and Ryan says he can be the face in a different capacity as Allen Iverson became. Switching gears into another important topic, Brooklyn Nets forward Dorian Finney-Smith was reunited with his father who was incarcerated 28 years ago. The former Dallas Maverick received help from owner Mark Cuban, and Chan brings up a conversation from two weeks ago about the importance of influencers having real influence. Prison reform is an important issue in today’s society, but having a strong support system is what can change people’s lives. The guys commend the joint effort from Nets and Mavericks to make something special happen. In sports and in life, Ryan Clark knows that success is subjective, so as the 2023 Steve Sabol award winner, Ryan talks about what the honor means to him. He also says dedication is what matters and Fred transitions into another team in the spotlight, the Dallas Cowboys. It seems as if they remain under a microscope week in and week out with a target on their back makes them an easy focus for the media, but after all the guys agree they are America’s team. Touching on a tougher storyline of the week, The conversation goes into a deeper discussion about a King's G-League player’s recent confession to murder. The guys are surprised how very few people see the bigger picture of their actions in today’s society. Before heading into the holiday, Ryan reflects on how the Pivot began two years ago as a platform for open and honest conversations, but being able to experience his daughter's graduation for her master's degree, the idea of a pivot became much bigger and more impactful. From all of us here at The Pivot family, we wish everyone a happy and healthy holiday and hope everyone understands that it's about time, people and making memories this part of year. New episodes drop on Tuesdays at 12 p.m. ET and Fridays at 3:30 p.m ET on YouTube, with audio available on all streaming platforms including Apple, Spotify and Amazon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest, or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior like beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser-Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 0:28Ryan Clark?

  I hate that we have to start the show this way today, but this is what it is. So no pristine shots, no great camera angles, just me talking about Jonathan Owens and having to defend him for something he doesn't or shouldn't need defending for. He was telling the story of the way he met his wife Simone Biles on our show, and she was also there. And they told this story with so much love in their eyes, and every time they looked at one another, you can tell how beautiful it was to them. But everyone is now twisted and taking that and made it something negative. What people haven't done is watched the entire show. Watch him say that she wasn't scared and that once they finally went on a date, it was history from there.

• 1:13Ryan Clark?

  Or listen to him talk about their 2020 conversation while she was at the Olympics, as he encouraged her that she could be okay, and when she wasn't, the time he took away with her, even getting married during that time. And now Simone Biles is back to the Simone Biles we know. He talked about the way Simone Biles has changed his life, how much she has helped him, how much their love and their journey and their story is all tied together. So what has happened is people sitting in their homes, whether married or unmarried, are now worried about this man and his relationship. Instead of being happy for two people who are excited to be together, two people who support one another wholeheartedly, we've now decided to pick apart one clip instead

• 1:58Ryan Clark?

  of learning the whole story. So the moral of the story is this: If Simone Biles is happy, why aren't you? If Jonathan Owens is happy, why do you care how they start or what jokes they make?

• 2:13Ryan Clark?

  This is a couple that has found their own way and they found their way to one another in a very unique fashion. And just because you feel like he should be worshiping the gymnast Simone Biles, doesn't mean that you can't respect that he's in love with the woman Simone Biles. Man, that's their relationship. And if they could smile, you should stop frowning. Welcome to the Friday period. Last week, there was hoes in this house. This week. I'm on that big Nick energy, you feel me? Yeah.

• 2:50Channing Crowder?

  I like it, I like it.

• 2:51Ryan Clark?

  Freddie T got on to Christmas colors too.

• 2:53Fred Taylor?

  That's right.

• 2:54Ryan Clark?

  And look at you, just HBCU.

• 2:56Channing Crowder?

  I don't know, man, y'all be always hitting me with this damn seasonal colors. I don't think grown men worry about seasonal colors. We're grownups.

• 3:03Fred Taylor?

  It don't take much thinking though, Chan. It's Christmas.

• 3:06Ryan Clark?

  Everybody don't celebrate Christmas, Fred.

• 3:09Fred Taylor?

  That is true. That is true.

• 3:10Channing Crowder?

  Happy holidays.

• 3:11Fred Taylor?

  But you celebrate Christmas.

• 3:13Ryan Clark?

  I do. I just like to argue.

• 3:14Fred Taylor?

  You just got some kayaks and some mother shit.

• 3:16Channing Crowder?

  Just like to argue.

• 3:44Ryan Clark?

  Welcome to the Pivot. This is Friday. So you know what Fridays are, man. It's about the boys just chopping it up. I'm RC, this is Chan, that's Freddie T. It's an interesting week. Here I am, minding my own X or Twitter business, whatever you call it. And my former teammate, Rashard Mendenhall, goes on a rant about white people speaking on black players and white people who have never played sports and he wants to be talked about by black players who've played sports, when there are actually a lot of white people that have played sports. Maybe if it was a statement about people who have never played commenting on people who do the Nets thing. I do want to say, just because he is one of my former teammates and we share a lot

• 4:29Ryan Clark?

  of friends and people who are in both of our lives, Rashard is dealing with some stuff. You know, and so like many of us who have played this game, or just random people who are walking around who've never been hit in the head, you sometimes go through some things. And when you're going through some of those traumas, traumas and dealing with some of those things, and now you have these, these public outlets, sometimes what you're going through privately leaks out into the public. And I think this is part of it. Uh, so initially, I didn't even want to get into it. And then Will Compton makes his team because Will's a comedian. And Will is fun. And Will will capitalize on any viral opportunity or moment that he could get. And so he did.

• 5:14Ryan Clark?

  Now, I personally was extremely hesitant. Here's why. I'm already tweeted or messaged or DM'd by many people that just say, "Oh, you're racist," because I stand up for black people.

• 5:25Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:26Ryan Clark?

  Right? So if I come, I felt like if I came out and I said something, now I was going to be taken differently. So when Will tweets that to me and tags me, I was like, "Nah, man, let's just keep it the same way. Like, I'm glad I got to play with you. That's part of the game. Ooh. I'm glad I got to play on the same team with you. Sorry, Fred." You know, and that, you know, because of that, let's keep the game the way it is. It's fine, I'm done. And what Rashar said was divisive and we shouldn't enter it like that. But now everybody's having fun with it.

• 5:58Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 5:58Ryan Clark?

  So I don't have to be this serious and worry about my image or my reputation or what people are going to say. Do you think if we split them up, the all-black team versus the all-white team, who are you putting your money on? Because I ain't lying, Fred. Will, Will put his team together. First off, Will's coaching staff is crazy, by the way. And he put his team together.

• 6:21Fred Taylor?

  He can't have Mike McDaniels.

• 6:23Ryan Clark?

  No, he's black.

• 6:24Fred Taylor?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 6:25Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 6:25Fred Taylor?

  So Mike McDaniels, that's a void. Will, that's a void. And what, what'd he call it? The half, the halfways or whatever he called it?

• 6:32Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, he said halfway gets a pick.

• 6:34Channing Crowder?

  That, you know, that touched, that touched me.

• 6:36Fred Taylor?

  That was funny.

• 6:37Channing Crowder?

  It was funny, but I'm a white and a black man.

• 6:40Fred Taylor?

  So what side would you go on?

• 6:41Ryan Clark?

  The side society put him on.

• 6:43Channing Crowder?

  I- I always say it like this. If I rob a bank tomorrow, are they gonna say when the police come? Suspect. This big suspect with dreads and tattoos was white and robbed the bank. They're not gonna say that. They're gonna say this big ass black dude came here with dreads and tattoos and stole all that damn money. I gotta be on the black side. Breaker, breaker, one nine. Breaker, one nine. Yeah. Suspect, light-skinned black male with dreads. Has anybody ever watched this show and said, yeah, R.C. and Freddie on there with that big white boy?

• 7:22Channing Crowder?

  Alicia sometimes forgets that you're black. They're not gonna say it. And I always joke, I say, respect me like a white man because we all know it's different. But we're having fun with this, so we have fun with it. I love Mike Alstott. Let's go current. I love Christian McCaffrey. They might have the best back in the game, Chan. I love, there's an offensive line, like there are. It is funny because I always say, my thing about it is that, think about the best coaches ever. We'll go back to Vince Lombardi. Was he good at football? Nope. Nick Saban. Bill Belichick. Bill Belichick, they were garbage ass football players. You can be good at coaching, you can know football and know the game without playing. So that's taking the race out of it. So I always hate, we actually talked about this before.

• 8:06Channing Crowder?

  I hate the narrative that you can't speak about sports if you've never played the sport at a high level. Man, these motherfuckers can know the game and not play. If you break down the athleticism of white people versus black people, come on, man. The African-American team is gonna be the most athletic and be the better team.

• 8:25Fred Taylor?

  When you look at Will's list, his team from coaches to players from A to Z, he has an amazing fucking list. And not to say this team is gonna be more dominant or stronger or defeat this team or the other side, right?

• 8:38Channing Crowder?

  It's gonna defeat them.

• 8:39Fred Taylor?

  But he has a great list. For me, it's a margin, the error for margin is so thin. Like if you look at the NFL, 1,600 players, right? What is it, like 80 something percent of it is black or whatever? That doesn't mean the black guys are gonna go and just dominate or win. But we have some amazing players, black and white. I think Menon Hall, even though that was the craziest fucking tweet you can tweet, is crazy conversation. Like to magnify it and make you think like, whoa. Like, we got Aaron Donald, we got TJ and, well, we can't say TJ Watt, but TJ Watt. It's a lot. You got the Bostas. You know what I'm saying? You got Christian McCaffrey, you got Thielen, you got Cooper Cup.

• 9:25Fred Taylor?

  You know, so you have a lot of guys. And you talk about the quarterback position.

• 9:28Channing Crowder?

  So Thielen and Cooper, Thielen and Cooper Cup compared to Jett, Tyreek.

• 9:34Fred Taylor?

  I mean, come on.

• 9:35Channing Crowder?

  Oh, Duante Adams.

• 9:37Ryan Clark?

  I'm gonna say this.

• 9:37Channing Crowder?

  We're gonna have the conversation that's happening now.

• 9:39Ryan Clark?

  And so I don't like, I truly did not want to have the conversation. Like, I didn't because I don't feel like it goes well for me if I have it.

• 9:47Fred Taylor?

  We're just critiquing Will's list.

• 9:50Ryan Clark?

  Okay.

• 9:50Fred Taylor?

  Let's start there. That's what I went on. I didn't compare the other side or the side that he didn't highlight. Because we got some, I say we because obviously.

• 10:00Channing Crowder?

  We got some dogs.

• 10:01Fred Taylor?

  We do have some dogs, but I think it's a crazy cookout conversation to have. You know what I'm saying? Like, for homeboys, not know, well, it's just blatant racism. Maybe from Men in Hall's fingers to the world.

• 10:16Channing Crowder?

  That part was, but now it's moved into fun.

• 10:19Fred Taylor?

  For people who know.

• 10:20Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, it's moved into fun.

• 10:21Fred Taylor?

  Guys who shared the locker room, you know, you, Will, me, and, you know, whomever else that I'm super tight with now. I think it's good for cookout and locker room, you know, just to kind of fuck around and have fun with it. But when you really weigh it out, like, both sides equally got some, they got all pros. We got all pros. You know what I'm saying? So I think it's a good thing to have fun. You ask me who will win, I can't even give you a good answer because some days. You might have the guys that go out there and party and fuck around like Channing on South Beach.

• 10:54Ryan Clark?

  Okay.

• 10:54Fred Taylor?

  We ain't ready. We gonna have a game full of mental errors, you know, guys fatigued, all that stuff.

• 10:59Channing Crowder?

  Fred, white people party too, Fred.

• 11:03Fred Taylor?

  I didn't say they did.

• 11:05Channing Crowder?

  I had a ball with white boys in the club.

• 11:07Fred Taylor?

  I didn't say they did not.

• 11:08Ryan Clark?

  I'm gonna say this, Fred. Freddie T, you are doing the thing you always do, which is, you're just a nice human. And you want to be liked. Period, point blank, period, you do. That's why, like when people, when people run up, when people run up to us, they universally like you more than they like me and Channing. Now, Channing is liked more than I am as well, because Channing's funnier, right? But nobody ever has a bad thing to say about you. Us two, we've had some shaky interactions. But they're not bad in bad, though. They're bad in questionable. So I'm gonna say this, so I'm gonna say this right now. Without a doubt, the most talented team is the black team. Now, the reason that it's even a conversation is because only 11 people play at once, right?

• 11:53Ryan Clark?

  Because when we're talking about depth, they don't have it. Now, obviously quarterbacks, you got it. He, we went Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, right? So on the other side, you're gonna have Patrick Mahomes, right? You can have Lamar Jackson, right? And so that they got two, we got two. And if we want to go past that, we can go all the way to the bottom to the rookies. We could get CJ Stroud. You could have Dak Prescott. So there's a, there's a large amount of depth. I'm taking two of them. Right, there's, we can't, we can't take two. I claim the polio. I claim the polio. So there's a large amount of depth there, right? Large amount of depth at quarterback. So do you go running back? They got the best in the world right now. They got Christian McCaffrey. After that, he had Lance Burkhead. We good. We are good. Now, take it to receivers.

• 12:37Ryan Clark?

  Three years ago, Cooper Cup, one of the best in the world. This Cooper Cup would now be their best wide receiver. Ain't no shot. Because guess what? There's gonna be like Braxton Berrios, and he's gonna have to be in the slot on like Stephon Gilmore. Right. Because he's gonna be like down the list of our good players. Oh, by the way, they don't even have enough corners to fill an entire room. Right. Harrison Smith could play. Now, Harry, they're gonna have a great safety. Everybody else, barbecue chicken. They need Jason, they need Jason Seahorn. And things have changed. Like, we play offensive line now. Like, we've become the Laramie Tuntles of the world. We might just have to switch a guard to like center, and we don't really have to do that. We could just go grab the ones we got.

• 13:22Ryan Clark?

  Here is where they get us. Mother effing special teams. We ain't got no kicker. We're gonna have to get Justin Reed from the Kansas City Chiefs, or the running back from the Houston Texans to be our kicker. Guess what else we ain't got? A mother freaking long snapper.

• 13:39Ryan Clark?

  We ain't got no long snapper.

• 13:40Fred Taylor?

  Damn.

• 13:40Ryan Clark?

  So we're gonna have to convert somebody to long snap. Or matter of fact, what the hell we gonna do? We're just gonna go for two all the time and we ain't punting no way.

• 13:48Fred Taylor?

  I like the sound of it.

• 13:49Ryan Clark?

  Right? And we do have Presley Harvin, so we got a punter. The big boy from Pittsburgh.

• 13:55Fred Taylor?

  That's okay.

• 13:55Ryan Clark?

  What I'm saying is this, when we look at it superficially, the other side has a good starting team. After that, they tail in trouble.

• 14:07Fred Taylor?

  So ain't no 60 Minutes.

• 14:08Ryan Clark?

  Now, I'm gonna tell you what they got now. They got a gang of tight ends. They basically all went to Iowa, but you got TJ Hockenson, you got George Kittle, you got Travis Kelsey, you got Mark Andrews, you got LaPorta from Detroit.

• 14:23Fred Taylor?

  Hey, boy.

• 14:23Ryan Clark?

  They gonna come out and play 14 personnel. They just go keep all they tight ends on the field.

• 14:28Fred Taylor?

  But that doesn't, that doesn't suffice to say, David, um...

• 14:32Ryan Clark?

  Njoku.

• 14:32Fred Taylor?

  Njoku, the boy Likely.

• 14:35Ryan Clark?

  Oh.

• 14:35Fred Taylor?

  From Baltimore.

• 14:36Ryan Clark?

  Waller? Are we speaking, are we speaking of Darren Waller?

• 14:39Fred Taylor?

  So I mean, it's so...

• 14:40Ryan Clark?

  Fred, we're fine. No, Fred, Fred, you beat around the bush. I'm putting all my...

• 14:45Fred Taylor?

  You, you always provide an additional piece of perspective.

• 14:49Ryan Clark?

  I'm Wesley Snipes.

• 14:49Fred Taylor?

  Like, I couldn't see it.

• 14:50Ryan Clark?

  Hey, I'm Wesley Snipes. What Wesley Snipes said in Passage of 57, "Always better on black." Right? So, hey, so now, the, the coaching staff thing is crazy. So we got Mike T. Right, our defensive staff is phenomenal. Mike T., D'Amico Ryans.

• 15:06Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 15:07Ryan Clark?

  Steve Wilks, Brian Flores. Like, we got play, coach after coach after coach after coach. Offensively, though, who we got? Offensive coordinators.

• 15:16Fred Taylor?

  Mike McDaniel.

• 15:17Ryan Clark?

  So we got Eric Biennium.

• 15:19Fred Taylor?

  Biennium?

• 15:20Ryan Clark?

  We gotta, we gotta take Mike McDaniel.

• 15:21Fred Taylor?

  He's ours.

• 15:22Ryan Clark?

  We got, no, what we got is we got all the wide receiver coaches, running back coaches, Gerard Johnson, the quarterback coach down in Houston. So, though I think they fielded a good team at the top. I do think Christian McCaffrey is a different rusher when he ain't got Trent Williams. And guess who team he on?

• 15:42Channing Crowder?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:44Fred Taylor?

  Come on over here, Trent. Let's go.

• 15:48Channing Crowder?

  That would be the thing, the combination of what creates those players. And that's why the conversation, like I say, I'm glad we're doing it funny.

• 15:53Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, it's fun.

• 15:54Channing Crowder?

  I'm glad it's just fun because you can say about the, the, the white successful players and what the black guys do for them. Also on the other side.

• 16:03Ryan Clark?

  Yo!

• 16:04Channing Crowder?

  The, the, the Bengals receivers, who I love, who I think could start-

• 16:08Ryan Clark?

  Joe Burrow ain't helping him?

• 16:10Channing Crowder?

  T, Jamar-

• 16:11Ryan Clark?

  Stephon ain't start going off when he got Josh?

• 16:13Channing Crowder?

  You see? Stephon went over there and went to go crazy. So on both sides, what those players, white, black or otherwise, what they create for the other people? And what Tyreek did for Tua, what Tyreek did for Patrick. Now you see Patrick struggling a little bit with all them drops and all that. So on both sides, you gotta be honest about it, but come on, man.

• 16:32Fred Taylor?

  And we got Trent Brown too.

• 16:34Channing Crowder?

  Listen, when we do DraftKings and all, the black team is minus 28 if they play. The black team are 30-point favorites.

• 16:44Ryan Clark?

  Hey, this guy-

• 16:45Channing Crowder?

  If they play the white team.

• 16:46Ryan Clark?

  This college football, it turns-

• 16:47Channing Crowder?

  It turns into college football if they play, if they play that game.

• 16:50Ryan Clark?

  The ability to create explosives is on our side.

• 16:53Channing Crowder?

  Come on now.

• 16:54Ryan Clark?

  For sure.

• 16:55Fred Taylor?

  That was McDaniel was just talking about the, uh, what is it, one-play series?

• 16:58Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 16:59Fred Taylor?

  This is a one-play drive. And he's aggressive.

• 17:02Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, think about that.

• 17:03Fred Taylor?

  I like our play call.

• 17:04Ryan Clark?

  Here's the thing, but Jalen Waddo probably doesn't make our team.

• 17:08Fred Taylor?

  That's ugly.

• 17:10Channing Crowder?

  You're right.

• 17:11Ryan Clark?

  You know, like he doesn't, he doesn't make our team, bro.

• 17:15Fred Taylor?

  That, that's ugly. You was talking about DraftKings, Chan, just the other day, when Ja came back, they had a, a two-team parlay. It was Ja, what's big boy's name down in New Orleans? Zion. Zion. It was like plus 200, that's two to one. Plus 200 for Ja and Zion to score-

• 17:36Fred Taylor?

  At least, what was it, 13 points, 12 points each in the second half of that matchup. It was a DraftKings play, did I take the bet? Did I take the bet?

• 17:45Ryan Clark?

  No, I wouldn't take it.

• 17:46Fred Taylor?

  Did I take the bet?

• 17:47Ryan Clark?

  You did you, yes?

• 17:49Fred Taylor?

  No.

• 17:50Ryan Clark?

  Well, I say I-

• 17:50Fred Taylor?

  Because I had a liability. The Pelicans were up 20 points. Ja Morant was back. Now, I liked it, I loved it for Ja, but Zion kinda scared me off of it. He had five at the half. He finished with 13. Ja had seven at the half, finished with 34 and a game winner? Down 20? That motherfucker, he is back.

• 18:14Ryan Clark?

  What do you think about him being back, though?

• 18:16Fred Taylor?

  I'm happy to see him out there. I'm thankful that he was able to put that stuff behind him. It seems that he's a bit more mature and he understands business and moving forward. Just being back, really just to help his team, it helps the NBA. His fanbase, everybody cheering him back.

• 18:33Fred Taylor?

  And then to have a return like that, you couldn't ask for a better return.

• 18:36Channing Crowder?

  Have you ever been to Disneyland with a heavyset person?

• 18:41Channing Crowder?

  They're gonna slow down late in the day. Zion Williamson is not finishing games, I've been saying this, he does not keep himself in good enough shape to finish those games and be the player he's supposed to be. It upsets me to see the talent that Zion is giving up right now. It really gets to me, knowing that people that work hard and stay in shape and really grind, that could maximize the God-given abilities Zion Williamson. The Ja thing, I knew he was gonna go crazy, we've had him on the show. He goes. He loves the game, he's very talented. And to your point, he got in all that BS, the gun brandishing and all that stuff. 25 games, I think, was sufficient suspension, and he's gonna go off. And I say it now, Ja is going to be, if he played those 25,

• 19:25Channing Crowder?

  there's gonna be conversations, RC will talk about it on TV, should he be in the MVP race, because Ja Morant's about to go wild the second half of this season.

• 19:33Ryan Clark?

  I think the thing I love the most about what has seemed to happen to Ja Morant is he's seemed to matured. He seems like he understands. He's taking accountability. Not only taking accountability for his actions, but taking accountability for how his actions have affected the people he cares about. Not only his family, not only the NBA, but his team. He said he's the reason his team is now in the hole that they are in because of his actions. And I think that level of maturity, that level of leadership is only going to make him better. The other thing that is refreshing is people aren't holding it against him.

• 20:18Ryan Clark?

  It was a victimless act. Because I'm not going to call it a crime because it wasn't a crime. It was a victimless act. What Ja Morant did was immature. What Ja Morant did was make a bad decision. And he deserved to be punished for it as it pertains to the shield of the NBA. And he's now taking that punishment because I told you, you couldn't do a certain thing, and you still did, right? And so now they had to make an example out of him. But he needed that example. I think Ja Morant needed that example in other parts of his life. And what I love about him is he's walking off. Ja Morant said, "Oh, I kept receipts too." Right? Because when you go away, there's people that talk about you as a man, right?

• 21:02Ryan Clark?

  There's people that talk about the person you are. And what happens when they talk about the person you are? They talk about the people closest to you. So this man who has a father that supports him through everything, and we talk about this, may not have done everything right, may not be doing everything right. Now they're talking about him. How his behavior has affected who Ja Morant is. You got to hear that, and you love your people. You know, and I love the interaction he posted with him and his mom, right? And his mom just said, "This is who you are. I love and support you, and it's time." And then you go out, and Desmond Bain, you asking, "Should we get Jada Rock in the post? He got a smaller guy." And his answer, "F' no, you getting the ball."

• 21:44Ryan Clark?

  Because they even know how important he is. But I love that he got people around him that's saying, "Nah, like, you're not back to be something different." You're back because of who you are and we want you to be that. Take this mother effing ball. And I think for him to deliver, bro, is poetic justice. Like, it truly is. To be playing your childhood friend or your high school friend, to be down and have to come back and to get that moment and deliver. It shows me that dude's going to be the face of the NBA, not so much as maybe the one they put out, but the one Allen Iverson became.

• 22:24Fred Taylor?

  We met T and we know how laid back and chill T is. Didn't have the opportunity to meet his mom. But just for context, the text you just spoke about. She said, "It's return, play your game, let the game come to you tonight. Don't force nothing. You'll come out with the W." She didn't leave it on him. It wasn't a sign of being selfish. It was, "Play your game, you're gonna win." And he said, "I love you." She said, "You ready?" He said, "I'm your son, you know the answer." She said, "Period." And after the game, she was like, "Yes, sir, never doubted you. Tell him I'm coming," is what he finished with. You gotta love that relationship, man. You can imagine your mom backing you like that? And understanding what's at stake? Because some moms just go to the game.

• 23:09Fred Taylor?

  Because this is my son, I go with support. But she knows the game, like she knows the vibe. You know what I'm saying? To be able to get her to kind of push you a little bit further. You're just attack mode all night.

• 23:19Channing Crowder?

  Everybody has that, just knowing y'all the way I do. Knowing your grandmother who just passed, was at the wake. Meeting your uncles and everybody, how they pushed you. RC, your parents.

• 23:31Fred Taylor?

  Big Mike.

• 23:32Ryan Clark?

  Still there.

• 23:32Channing Crowder?

  The people that still had you. Like, those people being there means something. So I would just say for people right now to have young athletes coming up. And Joff, I only made a mistake at a higher level. But I made a mistake. I got locked up in college and my mom was right there. She was right there. I was talking to her at Latrobe County Jail. A collect call from Latrobe County Jail and she was accepting those. We all made missteps. I know you. We all made missteps. That support system. Is not overlooked, even if it doesn't seem as it at that moment, it means something. Those young athletes need that and to T. Morant, we know, we know, we met the Morant people. Right, that's a big time to have that because now to your point, Ja's about to be the face of the franchise.

• 24:16Channing Crowder?

  Face, no, face of the league and you could look at Allen Iverson as crazy. You can look at him as wild, whatever you want to say, but bro, he was basketball. And I think Ja Morant's headed in that direction.

• 24:28Ryan Clark?

  You know, it looks like Ja's headed that direction and people didn't bail on him. Right, like he did lose some endorsements, but he got a new shoe that's about to drop. The black and the white and black joint, you know what I mean? Like Nike's still with him and that says a lot about what people think about your fabric. You know, because when you make these decisions or these things happen so publicly, that's when people have the, the opportunity to say, I rock with you or I don't. You know what I mean? Like we always talk about it, like once you're in the public eye and your friend or somebody attached to you or attached to something you do, does something, then that'll reflect on you. And you have the opportunity to say, yeah, bro, I stand with you.

• 25:09Ryan Clark?

  Or you get to back away in the shadows and be like, nah, that sunshine on you, that ain't for me. And so I think watching the way his team, obviously his family, like we never doubted that Ja's family would be there, but also somebody like Nike. Nike's even saying, no, we still believe that the trajectory you're on is not going to be so affected by this that we're bailing on you, right? And when they still standing in front of you, like all the rest of that junk comes back. And I think it goes to again, not dismissing or making someone not have to take responsibility for their actions, but it's like there's just different type of bad decisions.

• 25:54Ryan Clark?

  And in his bad decision, it affected him. In his bad decision, the suspension affected more than him. And I think that's what made him go, okay. Something has to change, something has to be different. And I expect him to be different going forward.

• 26:11Fred Taylor?

  Hey RC, speaking of support and family, the Dallas Mavericks and their owner Mark Cuban, I think he did an amazing gesture for D F.

• 26:20Ryan Clark?

  Dorian Finney Smith.

• 26:22Fred Taylor?

  DFS, Dorian Finney Smith. Talking to the parole board in Virginia to get his dad out. What do you think about that?

• 26:29Ryan Clark?

  You gotta really go into the entire story. So Albert Smith, who is Dorian's father, was convicted of second degree murder for 44 years. And what happened was him and his homeboy were going to collect a debt. However, it happened, so they both had a gun, right? They get into a tussle and the guy goes to grab his homeboy's gun. So Albert pulls a knife to get him to drop the gun. Well, in the tussle, his homeboy shoots the guy three times. So he shoots him and then when they're up for their trial, they offer them both the deal. Like you can take a deal which will give you manslaughter for five years. He had court appointed attorney.

• 27:14Ryan Clark?

  And that guy told him, fight it, don't take the deal. Because he doesn't take the deal, he gets 44 years. The man that actually pulled the trigger only got five. Right? And so that brings us back to why there is a need for prison reform. Why Meek Mill is crying when he is signing a bill to give him or to give people who have been to jail like him or give people who have violated parole like him, different opportunities to be released from jail because the prison system and the way that it was set up, it was set up to railroad. It was set up to make money off of brown and black people.

• 27:59Ryan Clark?

  And in Virginia, there is a no parole rule.

• 28:04Ryan Clark?

  Right, there's a law that's passed that doesn't allow you to get parole. Or that makes parole extremely difficult. What happened to Albert Smith was because he went to jail so long ago, before 1995, he was eligible. Jerry Kilgore, who became his lawyer, worked on the campaign for the guy that won office, based off of eliminating parole. He's now working for a private firm, and that's who they went to. And this all started because the Dallas Mavericks Chief of Staff started working with Dorian Finney-Smith. And so, when you look at the entire thing, I think, one, what the Dallas Mavericks did in committing

• 28:47Ryan Clark?

  to help his father get out of jail is more than commendable. You know, when you look at the Michael Rubens of the world, when you look at the Mark Cubans of the world, starting to understand and relate to these players and be around them enough to understand the disparity in which the way that brown and black people are treated as compared to white people. I think you need those voices, you need that sort of support, because that gets you in different rooms. That's how he was able to get into that room. But I think this just, again, signifies the need for reform. It signifies the need for the understanding, for the funds to be put in, because of the court-appointed attorney who was obviously in over his head, and who also had no skin in the game.

• 29:32Ryan Clark?

  Right. To say that and to now, this man's been in jail, and so like, I think the other thing I want to point to is Billy Donovan. Right, so Billy Donovan was Dorian's coach. Billy Donovan knew he didn't have a relationship with his father. He urged him to have that relationship. Because Dorian talked about the anger he had toward his father, how that part of that abandonment hurt him. And so, he developed a relationship, and when that man goes undrafted, you know who encouraged him to continue playing ball? His dad from jail.

• 30:09Ryan Clark?

  Right, that's how important that relationship between father and son is. Even though he wasn't there, even though Doran can't even remember actually touching his father, for him to say, "Hey, man, you need to continue playing." But to do that and then to now have your dad released, man, and for the Brooklyn Nets to charter a jet, for him to be there, to be able to see his father get out of jail, I think this is one of those stories that does have an extremely tragic start. Right, it does talk about the circumstances in which people come from and the positions that that puts you in to make certain decisions. And then the lack of support you get in defending yourself.

• 30:50Ryan Clark?

  But now for that to come full circle and have the Dallas Mavericks and Mark Cuban be so much a part of that release, I think it's one of those stories that make you go, "You know what, man, there is some good in the world."

• 31:02Channing Crowder?

  How many more Albert Smiths are in prison?

• 31:04Ryan Clark?

  So many.

• 31:05Channing Crowder?

  And that's why I say, and I give a shout out, you brought up Mark Cuban. Michael Rubin does so much, Meek Mill's, and we, we, there's, we stories are out there with that. I bring up Kim Kardashian, she's getting people out of prison too.

• 31:17Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 31:18Channing Crowder?

  If you're an influencer, and we messed around about a couple of weeks ago, Benny, be influential. Those people are using their platforms to help people that don't look like them. And I, you know, and it might be a player or somebody, Billy Donovan, I'm gonna speak on that in a second. But if you want to be an influencer, do something influential. And that's why I give a big shout out to Rubin and them people that are really trying to change the world. You got a bunch of money, people know you, you're, you're, you're running great, great businesses, but influence the world. And you tell the story about Billy Donovan, who was, you know, Gator and all, love Billy, Billy D to death. After, when I got, one of the times I got arrested at Florida, I had 5:00 AM treadmill. I had to go a thousand, thousand floors on the treadmill, 5:00 AM every day, Ron Zuck.

• 32:02Channing Crowder?

  And Billy Donovan walked in one day, walked over to me, he's like, "I know the story." I respect your work even before this. I respect how hard you work. And I tell my ballplayers about it. And that's Billy Donovan, oh, you know, national championship, Joakim Noah, Corey Brewer and them boys. He was like, I respect your work. So I always respect Billy for coming up to me in a time of, time of trouble for me and just give me some, some encouraging words. But Nat Moore, the old receiver for the Dolphins, who now I think is, uh, vice president of football operations. He has, he has a big title with the, with the Dolphins. And me and my father weren't talking when I got drafted. And it goes right back to the, to the divorced families. My mom was bad mouth, my dad so bad. And I always, I even said in my comedy show, I'm like, listen,

• 32:45Channing Crowder?

  if you are not with your baby's parent, mother or father, don't bad mouth the other person because that's not doing nothing but confusing the child. So that came between me and my dad. Nat Moore came up to me after my rookie year and there was a family barbecue. And he played, he knew Big Randy from back when they played together. And he came up to me as, as a man and was like, I don't know what happened to you and your dad in the past, but you and your dad need to talk. Y'all both got drafted to the same team. They tell the story and the end of the story should not be you and your dad not having a relationship. That should not be the end of that story. So when you said it, it just made me like almost tear up because without Nat Moore, I don't know where me and my dad. Y'all know me and Randy tight now.

• 33:29Channing Crowder?

  But if that didn't happen halfway through oh five at that, that family barbecue, I don't know where me and Randy's relationship be right now. So just a shot, I made you think about it, you know, just a thing, man. If, if you, and it was on both sides because my dad had to be open to it and I had to be open to it. So from that side, if anybody out there is not speaking to your child or you're not speaking to your parent, be a grown up, be a man, let that shit go and have that relationship because I swear to God, me and, me and my dad right now, that's my ace. He gets these, yeah. That's my dude, you know what I'm saying? But I don't know if that would happen without Nat Moore. So say all that to say, Nat Moore, I appreciate that, man. I really appreciate that years ago.

• 34:11Fred Taylor?

  You make me, uh, uh, think about, uh, CJ. CJ Stroud and his father, and he's fighting for reform in his father's case and situation. But I think Mark Cuban, you know, you talk about Mike Rubin, Meek, Kim. You know, it's good to have a few billionaire friends in your corner that believe in you believe in doing what's right. Because they have a bigger voice sometimes and, you know, I just want to tip my hat off to those people for even considering that fight for these guys. Man, that's pretty dope.

• 34:45Channing Crowder?

  And I gotta say, because RC, RC saying it got me emotional. RC, do you ever miss?

• 34:53Ryan Clark?

  What you mean?

• 34:53Channing Crowder?

  Bro, we were just inside the NFL. I'm sitting in the room, got all the big dicks there.

• 35:01Channing Crowder?

  You won the Steve Sabol Award. Your first damn time in the building, bruh. Emmys, Steve Sabol Award, bro, what Snoop says, this motherfucker don't miss. Do you ever miss?

• 35:15Ryan Clark?

  I do, a lot. You know what was cool about it is, y'all know, like, I love ball. And I come from the place in ball where it's given me everything I've ever had. Like, truly, I've never had a job that didn't have to do with football. Even when I got cut from the league, LSU gave me a job because I played football there. And to win the award, I mean, he's the fabric in which the NFL is viewed. He's the storyteller, he's the architect. And to know what he meant to the NFL and that the way that we now see it is viewed through the prism that he saw it.

• 35:57Ryan Clark?

  The camera that he held on the sideline, the editing that he did, the stories he decided were important to tell. And, you know, when Pat gave me the award, he just said it was about the dedication and about the work and about the effort. Now, y'all know, man, like, that's all that matters to me. Success is such a subjective thing that I can't control. And I used to try to control it, but when you get cut or when they tell you enough that you ain't got it, you start to realize, if I start letting those people be my success, then that barometer of life will ebb and flow with the way people feel about me. So I think it's just really cool, man. I was really honored.

• 36:38Ryan Clark?

  Like, you know, it's our first year in the building, and shoot, you been there, it ain't start great. You know what I mean? There was some, there was probably some people that are like, oh, Lord, we gotta hear this motherfucker talk again. But it's starting to work out, man. And so like, that was a, a, a big, big honor for me.

• 36:55Fred Taylor?

  That was pretty dope. Listen, I got a question for you guys. They tend to say fish don't outgrow their environment. Like you put a fish-

• 37:03Ryan Clark?

  Put them in a small aquarium.

• 37:04Fred Taylor?

  Right. But I have trivia. There's one fish that outgrew their bowl in the 90s.

• 37:14Ryan Clark?

  Is this like the, the, is it the, the fish that? What was, what's the basketball movie? The fish that, I don't know. I don't get to tell me.

• 37:22Channing Crowder?

  That one boss, the fish called Wanda.

• 37:25Fred Taylor?

  There's a fish that outgrew his bowl in the 90s. Just think, this is more like sports related. It wasn't a real fish. All right, the Dallas Cowboys, which makes them an easy target, which also brings forth the conversation, Micah Parsons. And what he said, I, I fault Jerry Jones and how that team kinda just outgrew itself in the 90s, won a ton of championships. And now anything they're, they do, they're the mockery of everything. No matter what they do, there's, they're an easy target. Micah, his comments. Former players, analysts, they want us to fail. Every week they're looking for us to fail.

• 38:05Ryan Clark?

  It's an absolute farce.

• 38:07Fred Taylor?

  What he, I was gonna ask-

• 38:08Ryan Clark?

  That's an absolute farce. The, the Dallas Cowboys are the most talked about team because they're the most popular team. When the Dallas Cowboys are great, everyone speaks highly of them, maybe outside of Stephen A. And for him, it's just a stick. Right? It's, it's his thing. Jerry Jones loves Stephen A., Stephen A. loves Jerry Jones, he loves the Dallas Cowboys. If without the Dallas Cowboys, First Take would not be a watchable show during the football season. Nobody wants them to lose. It's just that when they do lose, you gotta talk about it too.

• 38:43Fred Taylor?

  That fish is out of the bowl.

• 38:45Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, like you, and I think the saying is, when you're wrong about someone, or someone does something good, right? Let the applause be as loud as the boos. On the opposite side of that, you can't love the applause. Because if you love the applause, then you'll fall with the boos. Right? If you allow the claps, right? If you allow the positive to boost you up, then inversely, you're gonna allow the negative to bring you down. And what happens with the Dallas Cowboys is, it's so great. I'm feeling good, I'm feeling good. Everybody loves me, everybody loves me. You know, let's go to the press conference after the game. And when we talk about ourselves, let's have this air of arrogance, like we've made it and we've done it. Because when you're a Dallas Cowboy,

• 39:29Ryan Clark?

  even when you haven't necessarily actually made it or actually done it, we treat you like you do. And so you start to feel really good about that. And then when something bad happens, and people are just telling you the truth, you feel like it's an attack. But why? Because if somebody just keeps telling you, "I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. You're great, you're great, you're great, you're great." And then you show us that you're not, and we tell you.

• 39:54Channing Crowder?

  You grabbed pearls.

• 39:56Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 39:56Ryan Clark?

  "I'm not the best?" You mean the fact that we sell the most jerseys? Doesn't mean we're gonna win every game? How dare you? And so I think that it's that feeling of being so visible all the time. And when, because you can't run from it. You can't run from the good. They say they don't listen. You're lying. And then when you feel the other side of it, it's just difficult to take.

• 40:24Channing Crowder?

  It's different. They're called America's team.

• 40:27Ryan Clark?

  And they are.

• 40:28Channing Crowder?

  They're America's team.

• 40:29Ryan Clark?

  They are.

• 40:30Channing Crowder?

  The only country with flat-out established billionaire football teams. And it's the team of football. And it's there. So when you have that on your back, and think about it. Who's the owner of the San Diego Chargers? I actually don't know. And you don't even know that they're in Los Angeles now. See, look at that. Didn't even know they moved states.

• 40:53Channing Crowder?

  Didn't even know they moved cities. And I don't know the GM of the Chargers. I don't know. He got fired, too, let's go. See, like, you'll know some of that, because Ryan Foulieship, but a normal fan don't know that. That's true. You know everybody on the Dallas Cowboys, even if you're not a Cowboys fan. And Jerry Jones, he don't help his players. The ones that are, Micah, that's talking about, they want us to fail. Jerry Jones is gonna tell you we're the best. He's gonna act like we're the best. He's gonna talk trash. He's gonna do his radio show. He falls into it, to RC's point, they play into it. If you want a plan to be a big boy, and you get whooped, everybody's gonna talk about it. What's the final scene in Friday was what? Craig whooped Debo's ass.

• 41:36Channing Crowder?

  Dallas is Debo. And if somebody whoops him, we're gonna celebrate it. Or, to RC's point, you're gonna speak on it rationally, and that's what happened. Dallas plays into it. They're the highest value team in the league. Highest value sports team in the country. In the country. So now, if you get your ass whooped, somebody's gonna speak about it because of the fact that you put the target on your back. So that big ass fish in that little bowl in the 90s put a target on his back that now people are staring at. And why was you staring at?

• 42:07Fred Taylor?

  Right. So, what the players have to learn, right, is not to let the opinions of others become their reality, no matter what side they're on. When they're telling you you're great, thank you, keep pushing. When they say you suck, that's your opinion, I gotta keep it pushing. And I think that, when you look at the back-to-back weeks, they blew out Philly. They're like, alright, they finally played somebody. And they did a damn good job, they blew them out. But Philly's reeling. Like, they lost three in a row. And then Dallas goes and lose, in blowout fashion. Are they as great as everybody was saying they were after that victory against Philly? So now, reality is starting to kind of come back to those guys. What's the big question? Is this a good team?

• 42:52Fred Taylor?

  Or are they gonna be the Dallas of old?

• 42:54Channing Crowder?

  This is the prove it week.

• 42:56Ryan Clark?

  You got the Miami Dolphins. These are two teams who you can say have struggled against good football teams. The Dallas Cowboys have played very well after losing. They're on the road in Miami. They haven't played well in road games. Miami hasn't beaten a quote-unquote "good team." This is the prove it bowl. The team that loses this game will be talked about on Monday as if they've never won a game. Yep. That is, be without a doubt. And I think that that's the beauty of what we did though. Love it. Like, every week mattered so much. We don't have 82 of them. You don't have 162 of them. You got 17, and we had 16. And I think the hardest part I had to learn in

• 43:37Ryan Clark?

  the NFL was to learn to wear a loss the right way. Right? Because it had to affect you, because without it affecting you, you didn't approach it appropriately to learn from it. But it also couldn't kill you because everybody loses. Yep. What happens in Dallas is, this is higher than everybody's this. And this is lower than everybody's this. Being, and y'all can tell me if y'all disagree or do agree, being a Dallas Cowboy is like being in love. Right? It's like you can have all these relationships in life. Right? Like, you can mess with, you can have this boyfriend, this girlfriend,

• 44:22Ryan Clark?

  you could have this friend, this and that. But when you're in love, you watch a movie, and that movie's so much better because of the person you're sharing it with, and the way that y'all talk about it. Right? But let that mother effer be mad at you. Right? Or say something to you that you know might not even be true, but you think that they actually feel it, that junk cuts. That's what the Dallas Cowboys are like. It is such an emotional roller coaster with them because everything matters about them more than it matters about every other team. And we actually didn't make it so. They did. They did. You did. From the 90's. You did.

• 45:05Ryan Clark?

  Oh, I just downloaded DraftKings Sportsbook app. My phone hot. And you know what it is? It's the holiday season. I'm trying to get that extra money. Anybody that signs up right now, any new customer, you place a $5 bet, you get $150 in bonus bets, but only if you use the promo code PIVOT.

• 45:23Channing Crowder?

  My phone hot too, baby, because you know what I got? I got the same game parlays. Give me something, baby. Same game parlays, more money for multiple bets in the same game.

• 45:33Fred Taylor?

  But you can't get in the game unless you download the app. Just download the app and go get to it. That's all I gotta say.

• 45:39Ryan Clark?

  Download the app. Promo code PIVOT, $5 bet, $150 in bonus bets. We're talking about relationship. Chance Comanche, he was with the G League, Stockton Kings. They kidnapped and killed Marina Roberts. He and his wife, I mean, his girlfriend. Her name's, uh, Sakari Hartnett. This woman had been missing since December 7th. Like, the last time they said, anybody said they saw her, she was supposed to be going hanging with friends. So, the girlfriend actually called Chance to talk about the dispute, to say they had beef. And to say this, after they tried to hire a hitman.

• 46:23Ryan Clark?

  That fails, so they set her up. They're both escorts, right? Sakari and Marina, God rest her soul, they're both escorts. They set her up to what Chance said was gonna be kinky sex, and they were gonna tie her up. And he choked her with an HDMI card, and then the girlfriend with her hands. What sort of twisted, evil human do you have to be to premeditate that over a disagreement? And as a man, how weak do you have to be to allow that phone call make you do that to another human who hasn't done you anything, who is not presenting you any harm?

• 47:07Ryan Clark?

  And then to just go on with your life? Like, we have gotten to a point... Which is so scary to where it seems that human life doesn't matter anymore. It seems that we now believe in this generation, you get to come back from death and you don't. Like those people, like her family, the people that were looking for whoever it is that may love her, will never see her again, and like they have to read this too. Like they have to know the hopes are that the way God works is that like in these moments, he takes your soul before your body.

• 47:50Ryan Clark?

  Cause I can't imagine any human being treated that way, having to live their last moments that way, and process what's happening to them from people that they know. You know, I don't know what is even the, the question off of this, but when you hear something like that, like what are your feelings about the entire situation? But also that young lady and what she had to go through.

• 48:23Channing Crowder?

  The, just the, the story physically of getting choked out and all like that's getting strangulated.

• 48:30Ryan Clark?

  And the other thing is too, Channing, I don't think people understand, it's not the movies, right? Like in the movies.

• 48:38Fred Taylor?

  The guy on the police report? And they went back and they uncovered a lot of texts and a lot of different things from both of their phones. And their communications, their ex-girlfriend and, and Chance. They said, they said, we'll do just like in the movies. I'll sit behind her with a thick rope. I just need a thick rope. Cause the ex-girl asked, did you get a gun? He's like, no, I don't need a gun. I just sit behind her like in the movies with a thick rope and strangle that.

• 49:05Ryan Clark?

  Like the point is though, it doesn't happen quick like that.

• 49:09Channing Crowder?

  No.

• 49:09Ryan Clark?

  Right? Like in the, in the movies and things like that, like this is a very quick, dramatic, theatric thing. You know, like we're talking about actual humans. We're talking about people who breathe, people who love, people who hurt, people who cry. You know, and I think that. Like, it's sad to me, and that like, this is just a young, like, a young brown woman who, for whatever her faults were, didn't deserve that, you know?

• 49:45Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, it's just, man, it's misguided people. Like, and you put, what, toxic toxicity around yourself? Like, one of those two people, being a man, when she came and said, "Yeah, this girl disrespected me," something about a watch, you're reading the story, I was upset with her in some form or fashion. As a man, you should say, "It's not that serious." Whatever that watch was, whatever this disagreement is, it's not that serious. But, to your point, RC, and I don't even know if it's this time, because you go way back to, what, some crazy motherfuckers that were eating people, Dahmers and all that? Like, I think there are flawed, messed up people out there.

• 50:25Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 50:25Channing Crowder?

  And I think this time, I think the point that a lot of people don't think about, and I speak to a lot of, when I talk to kids about, they don't look deeper, like you just laid it out. They don't look that this young lady has a mother, has brothers, has aunts, has uncles, has grandparents, has cousins, has people that really care about her. What is this gonna do? How many people is this affecting bigger picture? I think that might be New Age with this quick microwave society and the technology stuff. I think that might be where people don't really think about, that this human came from a lineage of people that love her. But I just think, man, there's some messed up people out there, and for his dumb ass to get with her dumb ass and think this is a good idea?

• 51:06Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 51:06Channing Crowder?

  Like, come on, man. Come on. That's why I think-

• 51:10Ryan Clark?

  Too stupid on the efforts, for sure.

• 51:12Channing Crowder?

  Too, okay, yes. I ain't, we ain't trying to hurt and help nobody, help, pretending nobody's feelings with these two raggedy bastards.

• 51:19Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 51:19Channing Crowder?

  But just two toxic people getting together that's gonna play and joke. And Freddie showed me this shit, they were sending emojis to the technology side, like, coughing emojis and things, like, where is your mind at as a human being, where you think somebody's life is that easy, to send an emoji about taking it?

• 51:37Fred Taylor?

  Something like, allegedly, the young lady was a sex worker-

• 51:42Ryan Clark?

  Escort, yeah.

• 51:43Fred Taylor?

  Escort, and his job was to lure her to them, and then he was gonna do the hit, based off of the direction of his ex-girl. And then the text messages from, that the police uncovered? She was like, "Did you do it yet? Did you cross her path yet?" They had gun emojis with the ghosts in the coffin. So they go through this elaborate plan as they thought it would be, only to bury her under some rocks on the side of the road, and which the police uncovered quickly. But they plotted it for a few days, because he had to go from Cali to Vegas, play a game in Vegas, and then it happened. So that was on like the fifth or sixth. The young lady went missing on the seventh, and they finally, they found her. He confessed to it.

• 52:27Fred Taylor?

  And just fucking idiots, man. It's all bad, bro.

• 52:30Channing Crowder?

  I almost hope there was drugs involved or something, because I don't want to think that

• 52:34Fred Taylor?

  They mentioned that.

• 52:35Channing Crowder?

  That two human beings could do this in their mind.

• 52:38Fred Taylor?

  They mentioned getting her drunk, out of her mind, and then going through with the plot.

• 52:44Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, but the thing is-

• 52:44Channing Crowder?

  I'm talking about with them, like-

• 52:46Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, but you're planning it that long? Like, you ain't on drugs that much.

• 52:51Fred Taylor?

  Exactly.

• 52:51Ryan Clark?

  Like, you playing basketball games, you know? And I just think that shows, like-

• 52:57Channing Crowder?

  Inhumanity.

• 52:58Ryan Clark?

  It is. No, it truly is. It truly is inhumane. I have a- I sent y'all the pictures of Jaden's graduation, and like the start of the speech, and I sent you guys more of it. So Jaden's speech, you know, she graduated, she got her masters. She was the commencement speaker for the graduating class. So they have like a undergrad graduating class, and then the commencement speaker. And her speech was about pivoting. You know, and she spoke about graduating, not having a job, not really having a direction, in that she said her parents told her to pivot. Actually, Yanka told her that she needed to pivot. And this was before, you know, we got together.

• 53:42Ryan Clark?

  And I was listening to her, and I cried the entire time. And I was listening to her, man, and I learned. Right, and what I learned was, it was like, I didn't want her to go. I wanted to help her, I wanted Jaden to be with us. Because I felt like then I could help her sort of control what was happening. But everybody's pivot is their own. And I had to learn that. And I thought because I loved her so much, that helping her and being a part of it and making some of those decisions was loving her. But really, it was controlling her. And control is the exact opposite of love.

• 54:26Ryan Clark?

  And I was listening to her talk and say what she'd learned and say how much she's grown being there. And that was hard for me because you want to be a part of everything. But sitting and listening to her, I was proud of her. Like, I remember not arguing with her when she made the decision and letting her go. But I also remember the feelings I've had of like, why couldn't you talk to me? Why didn't we discuss it? Why didn't you let me help you? And it got me back to like, Jordan picking the school. I always wanted him to be able to say, every decision that he made was his decision.

• 55:07Ryan Clark?

  So whether it worked out, whether it didn't, I did it because it was right for me. And she did what was right for her. And what it taught me was, sometimes, in order to love something the right way, you gotta let it, him, or her learn to love themselves the right way first. Because until they become everything that they're supposed to be, you're not truly getting all of them to love anyway. And so, man, I think that like the dope part about having kids very young is like I got to grow up with my kids.

• 55:51Ryan Clark?

  That was also like the hard part, right? Cause like I was still learning like to be me, like I had Jaden at nineteen, Fred had babies, I had Jordan at twenty-one, Logan at twenty-four. So as this like, as I'm learning to become like this fully formed human, I'm trying to raise people to become fully formed humans. And I learned so much from them, man, and like that was the, watching her give that speech, because I had so many feelings of so many things of certain people being there that I didn't think deserved to be. People who I felt deserved to be not being there.

• 56:31Ryan Clark?

  And like for that ten minutes or twelve minutes, nobody else was in that church but me and her. And I know she didn't write it to talk to me, but she did. And like at the end of it, it made me feel like the parts I could control, got her there to be able to make that decision.

• 56:56Ryan Clark?

  And in making that decision and stepping away or leaving into a place I couldn't control, what I did to get her there made her want to bring me back.

• 57:09Ryan Clark?

  And so, you know, I think pivot for us has take like every time we hear it, obviously it matters now. And we don't know like, it's probably a word people have used my entire life, but now every time I hear it, I equate it to what we are and what we've done. And that was the first time I heard somebody use it and it affected me more than anything we've ever done here.

• 57:32Fred Taylor?

  It's definitely been flown around forever. I know on the, um, the energy drink, the, the saying is it's never too late to pivot. Like if you're having it down there, what have you. But I, I saw something the other day online where Oprah was speaking. She was speaking about parenting and she said, parents have to learn to be irrelevant. Not in a bad way, but to remove yourself from your kids. Like make yourself smaller so your kids can be bigger and push and encourage and allow their confidence to build and grow, yet nurture them, but let them do it how they want to do it, you know? And see, it's not a bad thing, but a lot of people-

• 58:13Ryan Clark?

  I've spoken like somebody that's never had a kid, though.

• 58:16Fred Taylor?

  Yeah, well, I-

• 58:17Ryan Clark?

  Because it's a-

• 58:18Fred Taylor?

  I see two parts of it.

• 58:19Ryan Clark?

  Well, because it's a, I'm not saying that she's wrong. I think it's a, it's a very hard thing when you realize how much you can love a little effort that can't do nothing for you.

• 58:34Fred Taylor?

  Correct. What I got from it was allow your kid to become the Kobe, the Mike, the LeBron. And you just, you could be a role player, you know, re-encourage him.

• 58:45Channing Crowder?

  They all need a spanking.

• 58:46Fred Taylor?

  Yeah, I mean, that's not, come on.

• 58:48Channing Crowder?

  They all need a spanking. Kobe got his ass whooped. His daddy was military.

• 58:52Fred Taylor?

  But I'm not, I'm telling you from where I saw it.

• 58:55Ryan Clark?

  Do you think, do you think it's phases, though? Or do you think it's, I think it's phases of that, right? Like, I don't believe she's wrong, but Chaz can't go be Kobe right now.

• 59:08Fred Taylor?

  No, not right now.

• 59:08Ryan Clark?

  Little Chan can't. And that's what I'm saying, though. Like, I think it phases, but the thing is, it's like anything else, you don't know when they're strong enough to hold that rope themselves, right? And so it's like their whole life, as they were learning to be Kobe, or they were learning to be LeBron, or learning to be Michael Jordan, or whatever it was, as they were getting there, you had to hold that rope with them, right? And so it's like, when we're holding that rope together, you have to gauge, okay, how much am I still pulling, right? Because at first, they don't, they don't have it at all.

• 59:44Fred Taylor?

  They don't.

• 59:44Ryan Clark?

  You know what I'm saying? You know how you're doing stuff with the kids and you're like, oh, let's pick up the, let's pick up the truck, Chaz, and Chaz straining, ugh! And Chaz, and you're just picking up the whole truck. And then as they get older, they're picking up a piece with you. And as they get older than that, they're picking up more of it. And eventually, they can pick the truck up themselves, but you have to build up to get there. And I think sometimes it gets to the point- Where we've so, we're so used to holding that up ourselves, that you do need your kid to say, "Nah, Pop, I got it."

• 1:00:20Fred Taylor?

  Correct.

• 1:00:20Channing Crowder?

  And I would add on to it, because y'all, y'all kids are older than mine. I'm learning it. We know how to walk in and read a room. We know how to walk in and read situations, playing ball and all. You gotta know your kids. Everybody's different. You gotta deal with first kid different, the second kid different, the third kid. And I think a lot of people, and I'm getting away from it now, where this the way I'm parenting. No, I know Chan needs a different, you know. I can't, I can get on Ava a different, I can get on Chan.

• 1:00:50Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 1:00:50Channing Crowder?

  I can get on Chad, he's, the babies, you know, they just like, like, babies, you gotta just keep them in line. But when they start getting 12 and 10 now, there's a different approach that's gonna get the best out of each of them. And I think that's one thing with parenting is that you gotta, you know how to read people, you know how to read adults. You gotta read your children too and know, I don't know if it's them damn astrology signs or whatever, but every person you work with in the world, you approach them different, you understand them. You can't, you can't teach your kids, this is one way I'm gonna deal with my kids. You have to read your kids as well and know your children. So that's what I'm saying, I'm learning right now. I'm getting better and better every day at knowing my kids and know how, what's gonna best maximize them to not, to not push them in the direction, but just correct them every now and again as they start walking off that line.

• 1:01:34Channing Crowder?

  Just tap them and keep them on that line, that you know where success is gonna come from.

• 1:01:38Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, man, well, this may be our last show together. We'll have a show next Tuesday that we release, but this is definitely the last show of the holidays. Maybe the last time we all sit together before, we will be coming up on two years as a, as a show, you know. It happens fast. We have all, for the most part, changed in some way. Some, some good, some not as, some, some not as good. I think the holidays are always a, a time, man, that you get to reflect. And more than anything, y'all boys, you know, y'all enjoy that, man.

• 1:02:20Fred Taylor?

  Didn't we?

• 1:02:20Ryan Clark?

  Spend that time.

• 1:02:21Fred Taylor?

  Didn't we shoot our first episode like on the 21st of 2021?

• 1:02:27Ryan Clark?

  In Jersey? Wasn't it? I don't know, man. I'd be drunk. Yeah. Wow. It was. It was. I remember getting out of the car that day being like, "What the?" It was about to happen. Like, I'd had, I had no clue. And I still, bro, I still say it to this day. "We were sorry." "We had..." It wasn't that bad, man. "Chad, Chad, you were great. You were always you." "Fred, you was always you." "As a, as a collective." "As a collective." "If we didn't have Alicia Zubikowski, "the people would've gave up on the pandemic." "Alone." They would've tucked their word out the damn dictionaries. Nah, they'd have fucked up the whole word.

• 1:03:11Ryan Clark?

  Happy holidays, y'all, man, from our family, this one, to our bigger families, to our families at home, to yours. Thank y'all so much for the support. Our prayer is this, though, that in this time, we know everybody can't have everything. We know that there are people who are struggling with something. We just pray you have an ounce of sunshine, a glimmer of happiness, and somebody to hug you and hold you and tell you that it's gonna be okay. 'Cause it will. Y'all be good. You're so good. This motherfucker don't miss.

• 1:04:31Speaker 00

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