Unlocking the State Secrets of College Football, with FOIAball's "King of the Bros"

He dug up Dianna Russini's playlist for Mike Vrabel. And Osama bin Laden's p*rn stash from the CIA. He even got a DM from Bill Belichick's girlfriend on the prowl. Now, David Covucci is shattering the illusion of coaches' power — and the unfathomable pastimes of the billionaire booster class — one embarrassing document bomb at a time. Pablo finds a kindred spirit... and Jessica Smetana makes history. • Subscribe to FOIAball https://www.foiaball.com/subscribe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:00Pablo Torre?

  Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today, we're gonna find out what this sound is.

• 0:10Pablo Torre?

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• 0:54Pablo Torre?

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• 1:21Pablo Torre?

  I'm looking at how many views are on the Diana Rusini Spotify playlist.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  I just got asked to join the Twitter monetization program, and it asked for so much information. I was like, I can't do this.

• 1:32Pablo Torre?

  You're like, I know how records can be used against you.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  Like, connecting to Twitter through my bank account. It's like, we can see your balances and recent transactions. I was like, no, no, please, I don't like that at all.

• 1:44Pablo Torre?

  But the downside is that the next time you have a post that has 19 million views on it, it will not be monetized.

• 1:52Speaker 02

  You can make $6.

• 1:53Speaker 01

  I did the math. I think it might have been like 120 had I been able to get it, which is, you know, I'm starting my own business here. I'll take anything I can get, even sort of evil dollars from Elon.

• 2:03Pablo Torre?

  Jess, but Hannah, did you know of David Covucci before the Diana Russini Spotify playlist?

• 2:07Speaker 02

  I did. I've been following his newsletter, subscribing to his newsletter for a long time now.

• 2:12Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you.

• 2:13Pablo Torre?

  I mean, FOIA Ball is one of the all time great sports newsletter ideas.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  I'd been kicking around in my head for a while and like any good journalist, I got laid off and just figured now was the time to try my own thing. So I was able to hit the ground running because I had a lot of energy behind it, but it's, it's still very new. It's only been publishing for eight months. So I'm very thrilled by the response so far.

• 2:34Pablo Torre?

  And was it therefore cruel when the thing that everybody broadly knew you for, who isn't at this table, was like, you're the Diana Russini Spotify playlist guy?

• 2:44Speaker 01

  Not necessarily because the last Fireolf way I did was pretty, uh, I don't think my parents were too happy about that one.

• 2:50Pablo Torre?

  Wait a minute. Hold on. What was the last one that you did?

• 2:52Speaker 01

  Uh, if you just Google David Covucci, Osama bin Laden.

• 2:58Pablo Torre?

  Which I do biweekly.

• 3:00Speaker 02

  Wait a second. The post called you a quote, "bro"?

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Yes. I, I was working at a place called Bro Bible at the time, which is still somehow one of the only-

• 3:08Pablo Torre?

  You were FOIA-ing Osama bin Laden stuff at Bro Bible?

• 3:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, um-

• 3:13Speaker 02

  Wait, but we, I'll just read the headline because now it does kind of track. It says, "A bro asked the CIA about Osama bin Laden's porn stash. The agency answered."

• 3:24Pablo Torre?

  June 10th, 2015.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  So actually I sent that request May 26th. So it's almost the 11 year anniversary of that.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  Oh, that's cute. Happy anniversary.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  And eventually I was part of some appeals that were brought and we got, we didn't get the pornography collection. We got the records. So it's sort of on the-

• 3:41Speaker 02

  You didn't get the collection. Interesting.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  No, but they did release a lot of his laptop files where it revealed he was, um, like watching Tom and Jerry during the day and stuff like that. So I have, my very first FOIA I ever sent was to the CIA and I got like results. So I think it's a pretty good-

• 3:54Pablo Torre?

  Osama bin Laden was into anime?

• 3:56Speaker 01

  I don't know. Is Tom and Jerry anime?

• 3:57Pablo Torre?

  I think it's the original.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  Was it easier or harder to FOIA the CIA than college athletic departments?

• 4:03Speaker 01

  I've only sent one to the CIA and I've had a hundred percent success rate. So I'll go with easier.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  That seems like a tracks.

• 4:10Pablo Torre?

  So just to put a button on the Osama bin Laden porn stash. We don't know specifically what Osama bin Laden was into as a matter of genre.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  No, he's dead, so you're free to speculate.

• 4:25Pablo Torre?

  Well.

• 4:26Speaker 02

  Do you want to speculate? Go ahead.

• 4:27Pablo Torre?

  I think he's into extensive anime porn.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  I think one of the reasons I heard back so quickly was because of how I asked. I was like, you know, he's the most wanted man in the world. Like, we need to know, like, what was going on in his mind, you know, while he's being hunted by Predator drones and US forces. So like, what? What got him off? I think I wrote that in my actual request.

• 4:47Pablo Torre?

  I have another headline. This is from Mother Jones. CIA Tells King of the Bros He Can't See Bin Laden's Porn Stash.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  King of the bros?

• 4:55Speaker 01

  I had put that just in my Twitter bio like

• 4:59Pablo Torre?

  I'm learning so much.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  12 years ago and, um, you know, when something about you goes viral, you have no control over it. So people were just putting, they like, you know, declaratively stated that I was king of the bros. And, you know, who was I to object at the time?

• 5:12Pablo Torre?

  Your highness, excuse me for not properly introducing you. But this is, this is the thing that I have been bonding with you about in real life. Before you did publish Diana Rossini's Spotify playlist with Mike Frable called

• 5:26Speaker 02

  Which feels like a, a personal violation.

• 5:29Pablo Torre?

  Or great journalism, because Freedom of Information Act requests, FOIA requests, are of course the sort of etymology of FOIA ball.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it was, the Freedom of Information Act was a federal law started by one very cranky senator who was upset about, uh, over classification of the Department of Defense. And he spent, I think, about 10 years trying to get this bill passed. And then every state in the US adopted laws after that federal legislation was passed. And the idea is that governments drive their power from the people in democracy. So they have a right to see everything you do. Now, it was sort of written in the 1960s. So the idea was you would just walk to the mayor's office and say, let me see the plans for the new park. Let me see the, you know, construction schedule for the next couple of weeks.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  It's very quaint.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. In the digital age, that's really metastasized and state institutions have struggled to keep up because they get lots of requests and average school gets like a thousand to 2,000 a year. They usually only have one to two. People responding to them, and those are usually great people who are trying to do their best. But, you know, the idea is that they can't hide anything from you. So I believe it's Kentucky even has a clause in its state laws that say, you know, we must release records, even if they're embarrassing to the officials involved. So like, the idea is that transparency is extremely important. I think it is one of the most important laws we have.

• 6:40Pablo Torre?

  But the idea of there is information out there, deeply, invasively, personal information out there that has been published, it takes us to this. December 19th, 2022.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Actually, one of your producers hit me up to look into it. He was like, can you see what you can find? And instead of sharing that with you and turning it into an actual episode.

• 7:01Pablo Torre?

  We tried to hire David like a bounty hunter.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Exactly, and I just fired it out. I felt, I felt kind of bad. I was like, I should have passed this along. I should have saved it so we could turn it into a whole episode, but it kind of blew up. So, um.

• 7:15Pablo Torre?

  There's a four-game Titans losing streak. Mike Vrabel was the coach. Diana Rossini makes a playlist in which it is shared with a user who is named Mike. The, the music here?

• 7:26Speaker 02

  It's not good songs, which I think was why this took off. If it had been a really good playlist, I'm not sure if 19 million people are invested in it. But also, like, if I made a playlist for someone and it became public, no matter who that person is, I would be deeply embarrassed about it because I have a terrible taste in music as well.

• 7:46Speaker 03

  Cut my life into pieces. This is my last resort.

• 7:52Pablo Torre?

  Did you have Papa Roach, "Last Resort," which is the 10th song on this?

• 7:57Speaker 01

  No, I did not comment on the quality of the music because a lot of people were instantly just, they were calling it garbage, terrible, the worst playlist they'd ever seen. And there were songs on there that were on my wedding must playlist, so.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  Right.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  I, I just zipped my mouth shut and said.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, you have.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  I can, but I wasn't gonna tweet that out then.

• 8:12Pablo Torre?

  Pump It Louder by Tiesto and the Black Eyed Peas was on it?

• 8:15Speaker 01

  No, no, uh, we played Raise Your Glass by Pink.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  So, I, I enjoyed my wedding. I'm sorry you didn't.

• 8:27Speaker 02

  I, well, I wasn't invited, but maybe, this is, this is gonna go on the do not playlist on my upcoming wedding, uh, DJ setlist.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  Would any of these songs make it on your wedding playlist?

• 8:37Speaker 02

  Well, I will say, as a Steelers fan, Renegade may be, maybe played at the wedding.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 8:49Speaker 02

  What the Steelers play in the third quarter of every home game.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Vrabel played, what, a year with the Steelers after he left the Patriots?

• 8:55Speaker 02

  Okay, yeah.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  I think so. People were pointing out that Renegade was on there. But it was shared with the username Mike and after it went viral, the user Mike changed the name to Tycar, which is a portmanteau of Mike Vrabel's two sons. So, you know, a lot of people were like, maybe it's not him. Maybe it's just a random Mike that she shared it with. But I'm pretty confident in after that.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  I mean, to your point about how invasive some of the apps are. Well, no, not you. I mean, Spotify doesn't need to be a public facing social media app. Like, most people are not using it for that. So the fact that like someone who is a public figure could have a searchable database of what they listen to, to me is like, I wonder if these people even knew that someone could find this.

• 9:36Pablo Torre?

  Well, one of the great, and this is something we've done on this show separately. We did it with the NBA gambling investigation that we did. People don't know that their favorite app is being used as a social media platform.

• 9:48Speaker 02

  Right.

• 9:49Pablo Torre?

  Venmo.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Don't, don't talk about Venmo. That's, no, I know.

• 9:53Pablo Torre?

  It's too good. It's too good to check everything through the Venmo user base and be like, oh, they forgot.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  Venmo's gotten a lot of college athletes in trouble because they've put, you know, stupid things on Venmo with names and titles that they shouldn't have put on Venmo and been investigated over it, so.

• 10:09Pablo Torre?

  And yet I would say that having "Cuff It" by Beyonce

• 10:20Pablo Torre?

  as the first song on this playlist between Mike Vrabel and Daniel Ricciardo, probably more embarrassing than.

• 10:24Speaker 02

  Well, it's a good song. That one I will.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  That's, yeah, but it's.

• 10:26Pablo Torre?

  But the implication.

• 10:28Speaker 02

  Man, right. I do want to ask you though, because I.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  So I'm trying to see if I can find your Spotify playlist.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  I deleted it.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 10:33Speaker 02

  Because I'm so paranoid about people finding out how much I listen to the Les Mis soundtrack. I mean, it would really.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  That's fantastic. I could do that all the time.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  It would shock people. That and heated rivalry. Like, it's just going back and forth. But I've followed you for a while now and I saw a lot of people were like, just accusing you of, you know, engaging in smutty, like, this isn't fair. Why are you doing this? This is, you know, an invasion of privacy. And you had a response to that. So I'm curious if you have any more thoughts on that.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I understand that argument, I think. Uh, but especially in this day and age, public figures have sort of lost all right to privacy. You know, they all make so much money. They're very famous. You know, they're. Part of a social contract where they're supposed to live up to certain standards, even if they don't. So I don't have any sort of issue with it. And you know, there are, there are probably things I want to publish, but I didn't think that was like, I don't understand how that could have impacted her well-being. She was already accused of having an affair, it's been going on for a long time.

• 11:30Pablo Torre?

  This was the thing in your defense, and as someone who resembles the, the target of the criticism that you just described, which is a fair point to raise for any journalist. This playlist was both hilarious and also, I think, as close to dispositive as it got in this story. Like, the reason it went viral was not just because this is so funny, it's how the [bleep] else do you spin a relationship, at the very least, that isn't deeply personal in any other way, other than, man, these people really did have some sort of connection.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  One of the things I'm really fascinated by is sort of the myths of coaches as, you know, omnipotent, being sort of super hard, dedicated workers who are, you know, always on top of everything, always, you know, one step ahead.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  Men of integrity.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:20Pablo Torre?

  Kings of bros.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Showing that, showing that that's not exactly the case. I think there's a lot of illusions built up around a lot of public figures in this world, and it's fun to, to shatter those as best I can.

• 12:29Speaker 02

  Also, the digital literacy aspect of it, that I think is, you could say it's generational, but I do think it impacts anyone in any generation, that you don't realize how you're being tracked across these apps.

• 12:41Pablo Torre?

  And we should, we should say that, for those not familiar with your oeuvre, my liege.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 12:47Pablo Torre?

  Ray Bull and Russini, not the first bit of playlist journalism that you've done.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Yes, and, and this was just a couple of weeks apart. I think I was on a Spotify search and kick. Sometimes I'll find sites that I like to sort of dig into and look at a lot of people. But Lane Kiffin, when he was run out of, well, not run out of Ole Miss, he left Ole Miss and was also run out. A lot of his Pilates instructors and hot yoga teachers were sort of burning him on TikTok after the fact. And I don't know why I started searching this one, but I found a Pilates playlist that he listens to from a studio in Baton Rouge. The Pilates playlist was great. I listened to it like, three times in a row while I was writing an article about it. So, his stuff was much better than, although he didn't come up with it, he just stole it from an instructor.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it did seem like the Pilates community coming after him was what really hurt him the most in the midst of that debacle.

• 13:46Pablo Torre?

  Well, hold on. The username here, ML Kiffin.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Yes, we did deduce today that he is...

• 13:54Speaker 02

  Legally, Monte Lane Kiffin, which is not what his Wikipedia page says.

• 13:59Pablo Torre?

  No, this is the fact-checking phase. Wikipedia says that he is Lane Monte Kiffin. And what you're here to report is that that is inaccurate.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  Yes, and as he is going, you know, being persecuted in the media right now, we should note his initials are MLK.

• 14:16Pablo Torre?

  Son of Monte Kiffin, making him, I believe, MLK Jr.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  I don't think anyone could quibble with that.

• 14:22Speaker 02

  At the very least, he's MK Ultra, the more famous of the MKs, the Monte Kifins.

• 14:28Pablo Torre?

  If you're just on the playlist, Jess, like, are you a Pilates person? Not to profile you.

• 14:33Speaker 02

  It is spot-on accurate profiling, though. Yes, I go to Pilates like six days a week.

• 14:38Pablo Torre?

  And the playlist strikes you as what?

• 14:41Speaker 02

  You know, there's a lot of terrible Pilates playlists out there. I've been subjected to listening to many of them. This one was not bad.

• 14:48Pablo Torre?

  I just like the idea that Jess is like, "Could we get a little more Les Mis?"

• 14:52Speaker 02

  I mean, if you did a remix to "One Day More" in Pilates, I think it would really get the group going.

• 14:57Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, I want to stretch out "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables."

• 15:01Speaker 02

  Oh, no, don't make me cry, Bob.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  I had a spin instructor who always played a techno remix of "Defying Gravity" as the last song. And it was great. I loved it. It came on, played it a lot, but it always went, yeah.

• 15:12Speaker 02

  I love that.

• 15:13Pablo Torre?

  Where does the drop come in?

• 15:15Speaker 01

  When she defies gravity?

• 15:17Speaker 02

  Are you kidding?

• 15:18Speaker 01

  Have you seen the movie?

• 15:19Speaker 02

  Have you seen the movie? There's like 10 drops in the... They stretched that song out so much. They were like, "We know the sequel's not gonna be that good, so we're gonna make 'Defying Gravity' 'a 20-minute-long scene in the first Wicked.'"

• 15:36Speaker 01

  I'll leave the singing to y'all.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  His Excellency does not partake in such shenanigans.

• 15:40Pablo Torre?

  I apologize.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  I have my court jester here for me.

• 15:42Pablo Torre?

  Oh, God.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  We're Jester-maxing.

• 16:02Pablo Torre?

  So the thing that brought us together originally, before I tried to hire you as a bounty hunter to get good information on Diana Rossini and that whole story, was who else but Jordan Hudson?

• 16:14Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 16:15Pablo Torre?

  That is the appropriate reaction.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  I find her charming.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  I would like to state for the record, I had no idea what we were gonna talk about when I came into the office today, but so far, two for two on guesses.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  We have some surprises planned, though.

• 16:28Speaker 02

  Oh, I love a surprise.

• 16:29Pablo Torre?

  Well, the thing about Jordan as a character in a story of public records is that she is not so different from you and I, it turns out.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  No, she has been submitting public records to UNC. She sent four in December and two in April, trying to track down all the school's communications, basically about her. She's looked for the term girlfriend. She's looked for communications with CBS.

• 16:53Pablo Torre?

  Jess, could you please read the first bullet point?

• 16:56Speaker 02

  Yes, it's a request, and it says, "Correspondence received or sent." That includes the terms Hudson, Jordan, Belichick, girlfriend in the subject or body of the email.

• 17:05Pablo Torre?

  Insofar as we are also people who file public records requests of North Carolina, which I have done, which we have done as a show here, and you have done separately at FOIAball, what happens is, you realize as you're getting these requests, the paperwork back, that someone else is also doing the same thing, except she is the girlfriend of the head football coach, who is the highest-paid employee in the state of North Carolina, which I will dare say is an unprecedented dynamic.

• 17:32Speaker 02

  How many states do, or schools, I guess, do let you see requests?

• 17:37Speaker 01

  So, some of them are very easy to see, Iowa, and North Carolina, Oregon. But you can request them, they're public records themselves.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  You can request the requests.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  Yes, you can watch the watchman.

• 17:48Pablo Torre?

  North Carolina receives a public records request, or a series of them, from not only David Covucci and Palpatro Finds Out, but Jordan Hudson. How do we understand their response to Jordan, to be?

• 17:59Speaker 01

  So I then, this sort of becomes a Russian nesting doll, where I requested all of the requests that Jordan had sent, to see what she got back.

• 18:07Speaker 02

  And she requested your requests of her requests.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  She did, and then she sent me a little DM, just waving, and I was like, that's correct, so it's turtles all the way down here.

• 18:14Pablo Torre?

  But on Instagram, she DM'd you?

• 18:15Speaker 01

  She DM'd me on Twitter, she followed me on Instagram. And she has not watched any of my stories since she followed me, which I-

• 18:21Pablo Torre?

  We're offended by it.

• 18:22Speaker 02

  But do you post good stories?

• 18:23Speaker 01

  I don't post much, but I do have a dog and I post photos of her. So like, I think she would appreciate it, maybe. Do you think she's a dog person?

• 18:31Speaker 02

  Well, I don't know.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  Oh, she's a, she had a parrot. She's a parrot person. Yeah, she's a bird person.

• 18:36Pablo Torre?

  David is the only person who knows more about Jordan Hudson than me.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  Only because I have wanted to impress you and just text you the randomest things.

• 18:42Pablo Torre?

  But just the idea that she has a parrot, I'm like, [BLEEP], I got scooped on a parrot.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  She's, she was posted in r slash birds a long time ago. I'm not.

• 18:50Speaker 02

  What?

• 18:51Pablo Torre?

  On the bird subreddit?

• 18:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:53Pablo Torre?

  So she sends you a message, basically saying, "So that you're aware fully, I am watching you."

• 18:58Speaker 01

  That's what I figured it was, because I replied and I said, "Hey, you know, I hope you haven't been hacked or something." It's, you know, I assume this is legit, but then she never wrote back, which is a little sad.

• 19:09Pablo Torre?

  And so when you request the requests of the requests, Carolina responses, I presume saying, "For [BLEEP] sake, guys."

• 19:17Speaker 01

  I, I feel I have probably gotten that response from some colleges. But they did seem to be keeping tabs on the fact that she was sending them. The, like, head of communications for the athletics department was CC'd on them. She then sent that to Brandon Faber, who was like Belichick's PR man, his chief of staff, which I love to imagine poor Belichick's chief of staff having to decide whether to go tell him, like.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  Oh, God, yeah.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  It went to the A.D. and the A.D. in waiting, and it also went to the top communications official. So six people were informed that she was sending FOIA's.

• 19:47Pablo Torre?

  Which is not standard for all of the FOIA's.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  I don't think so. I haven't requested everyone else's FOIA's to see that. But like, in communications, I've seen, no, it doesn't seem like they're making it to the highest levels of the school.

• 20:00Pablo Torre?

  The particular topics that seem to be animating Jordan Hudson's inquisition. It seems to still go back to the interview on television that broke the story wide open for like, the mainstream, which is that CBS interview and her interactions with the network.

• 20:18Speaker 04

  Presence during our interview.

• 20:20Speaker 05

  How did you guys meet?

• 20:21Speaker 06

  Not talking about this.

• 20:23Speaker 05

  No?

• 20:24Speaker 06

  No.

• 20:24Speaker 04

  It's a topic neither one of them is comfortable commenting on.

• 20:28Pablo Torre?

  What in the records requests sort of indicated the CBS stuff? How obvious was it?

• 20:32Speaker 01

  So Jordan was requesting emails between the university and a producer at CBS. And there's nothing there, you know? Most people are just doing their job. They're asking about interviews. There wasn't, UNC wasn't like emailing surreptitiously like, please ask about the relationship. Please blow this up. So in all the requests she's gotten back, I haven't found anything that she could use or be interesting. It's just sort of very basic stuff.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  But also just to state the obvious, like I can put myself in the shoes of a television producer, having done that before. If I was up to some nefarious business with an end goal in sight, and I'm not saying CBS was, I wouldn't be putting that over public communication either. So you'd have to be both complicit in wanting to make her look bad, but also careless enough to put it over an email that someone like you could find that out via a FOIA request.

• 21:22Pablo Torre?

  It is unlikely that there would be some, again, to borrow the language of our time, some smoking gun.

• 21:27Speaker 02

  A paper trail.

• 21:28Pablo Torre?

  A paper trail that has, aha, everyone was colluding against us, me and Bill, or at least me, Jordan Hudson. It's unlikely that there would be that sort of evidence. But the attempt to make sure, the attempt to find out, I both relate to and find so fascinating because...

• 21:47Speaker 02

  Okay, so we're like the scene in Austin Powers where Dr. Evil's talking to Austin Powers and he's like, we're not so different, you and I.

• 21:53Speaker 03

  Remember when I told you we're not so different, you and I? We're not so different, you and I. See, I did say that.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  But it's you and Jordan Hudson.

• 22:05Pablo Torre?

  That's right.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  Okay. I get where we're going here.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  After stories about her doing, after my stories about her doing color records requests blew up, she responded to, I think Stuart Mandell tweeted about it and she said, oh, so it's only fantastic when The Athletic does it. I replied, I said, no, I think it's great that you're doing this. I think it's very interesting.

• 22:22Pablo Torre?

  I love it.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would love to know why though. Like, what do you think is out there? And maybe, you know, for a lot of people who are new to it, you do think there's a smoking gun, you know? When I first started... My career, I figured I could get everything. And you sort of have to learn how state employees work, how they communicate, what platforms they use. And so it takes a little bit of learning, but she's getting there. I wouldn't count her out.

• 22:44Pablo Torre?

  Are you offering to tutor Jordan Hudson in public records requests?

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Why not?

• 22:49Pablo Torre?

  As a former teacher?

• 22:50Speaker 01

  The problem why a lot of records offices are overworked is that a lot of corporations use it to get contract info, to get better, make more competitive bids, get information that can lead to a better profit. Journalists don't use it as much as you would think.

• 23:03Pablo Torre?

  Correct.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  But I do believe anyone can send a FOIA request, and I think anyone should. So sure, if she is listening to this, I will give her my Intro to Public Records seminar. It's about 60 minutes. I can teach her how to get exactly what she wants.

• 23:17Pablo Torre?

  And so the question that I have now is, OK, so Jordan Hudson is doing this over here, and is Bill Balacek in on these requests? Does he have a sense that this is even happening? Is he supportive of this? And we don't have the evidence that suggests one way or the other in the records that he would be.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  No.

• 23:38Pablo Torre?

  But we do have, from earlier this week, an interview that he gave, Bill Balacek gave, Sean Hannity, the king of Fox News. And it sort of expresses a certain level of perhaps media criticism as well.

• 23:53Speaker 05

  Like CBS, I was stunned at how horribly you were treated. I couldn't believe it.

• 24:01Speaker 04

  I couldn't believe it either.

• 24:02Speaker 05

  I was stunned. I hope you saw him.

• 24:04Speaker 04

  Well, you know, as we've seen recently, there have been more editing problems. And they go back to, over a couple of years, multiple examples of editing and interview process and all that. You know, I thought that the interview I had with him was done very deceptively. And...

• 24:33Speaker 04

  I've asked for the transcript from them and they won't give it to me. They've done that with other, others. I'm not really sure what that policy is.

• 24:41Speaker 05

  You can have the transcript. I'll give it to you.

• 24:45Speaker 05

  But, but, well, go ahead. I didn't let you finish.

• 24:47Speaker 04

  Yeah. So, um, kind of confused about their, some of the things that they say they are, but I don't, I don't really see them living up to the trust that they, uh, that they talk about.

• 25:02Pablo Torre?

  And on Tuesday, incidentally, Jordan Hudson promoted this same clip of Bill Belichick talking to Sean Hannity on her Instagram stories.

• 25:11Speaker 02

  Can you imagine listening to an hour of that? Like the two charismaless individuals that I've ever listened to. My God.

• 25:19Pablo Torre?

  In a wood paneled billiards hall.

• 25:22Speaker 02

  Yes, like a smoky cigar lounge.

• 25:24Pablo Torre?

  And I think it's worth reminding people that the brain trust here, the inner circle of Bill Belichick, part of the reason why I've been, again, both like trying to be self-aware, but also so serious in my embrace of this stupid story is because he is the highest paid employee in the state of North Carolina. And he has these two advisors that are so, I think, essential to understanding how this archetype of how to live in public has been turned inside out. One of them, Jordan Hudson, the other one, if you're wondering like, how conspiratorial is this inner circle? The other one happens to be Mike Lombardi.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  Who is, I learned, a JFK assassination truther. And I don't mean that in a derogatory sense. He just does not believe the official narrative. And he's gone on the Solving JFK podcast twice. Uh, in one appearance, he did talk about how the media is spinning a narrative against the truth, which I think goes to, to speak a lot to his mindset.

• 26:19Speaker 07

  The media creates a narrative and that narrative will never go away because that's what the media wants to create. And part of the attraction for me- For this case is this never ending desire by our media to continue with the narrative when they know it's not true. That's what resonates with me the most. Why I'm fascinated with this because they're a broader issue than just who did it.

• 26:46Speaker 02

  Now I'm Dr. Evil looking at Mike Lombardi. I'm like, we're not so different.

• 26:50Pablo Torre?

  The general, the highest paid general manager in college football in Jess Montana, overlapping Venn diagram when it comes to JFK.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  Assassination conspiracies.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  As the media now, why have you been telling us that the Harvey Oswald acted alone?

• 27:04Pablo Torre?

  What I'm finding out today, Jess, is that I killed JFK.

• 27:09Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 27:10Pablo Torre?

  We did it.

• 27:11Speaker 02

  You shouldn't say that on camera.

• 27:12Pablo Torre?

  Can we cut that?

• 27:13Speaker 01

  We can clip that.

• 27:14Speaker 02

  My reaction to that is, man, go recruit some high schoolers.

• 27:19Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, the suspicious opening you should be obsessed with is the transfer portal, sir.

• 27:32Pablo Torre?

  This message is brought to you by Apple Card. With Apple Card, you earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases like groceries or merch or tickets to the game. Plus, it can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted. No matter your team, no matter where you shop, Apple Card is here to help you tackle game day. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.

• 28:08Pablo Torre?

  The other reason, Jess, I wanted to have David on is because when it comes to the money in college sports, it's been my goal to put a human face on it. And so you've been on the sidelines of college football games and surrounded by all of these boosters of some amount of wealth, I can only presume. And I have wondered, who the are these people?

• 28:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's a level of booster where it is a person who is maybe well-known in their industry, but they're not like a celebrity famous person. And so everyone will be paying attention to like the former athlete who will be on the sideline or the celebrity on the sideline. But then there's like the country's richest man over here that no one really recognizes, but is secretly the money behind the entire operation.

• 28:55Pablo Torre?

  Yes, there's like Matthew McConaughey's, plural. They're like T. Boone Pickens's. These are sort of like, you know, people who live on top of oil wells, I can only presume. But how do we actually find out who is on these sidelines in this era in which Mike Lombardi, by the way, yes, was going to Saudi Arabia to consider, can we get money from over there? Who are the people in America that we can actually put a face and a name to?

• 29:23Speaker 01

  So a lot of states have exceptions for donors to public universities. You can't get their names, which I think is a little absurd because they're funneling wealth into these schools. And with that comes a lot of influence. And these are places that still should be operated for the benefit of the public good. So I think you should know who gives money to that. So I was recently, I got some documents back from Texas covering some communications with their old NIL collective. And they had mentioned that for a million dollars given to the athletic department, you could get sideline passes to all Texas football home games for five years.

• 29:55Pablo Torre?

  Doing the math on that. So a million dollars every home game for five years.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  It's actually not that bad if you have it.

• 30:02Speaker 02

  It's a good deal.

• 30:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:04Speaker 02

  You just gotta, you know.

• 30:04Pablo Torre?

  I like where it's just a point in college sports where it's like, that's a steal.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. So what I wound up requesting recently from the University of Texas was a list of everyone who had gotten sideline passes to the games. And that was not protected under Texas public records law. So I was able to see that at an average Texas game, you know, their last home game against Texas A&M, there's four billionaires there, you know, two people in oil, one in, I believe, real estate, and the guy who married into the Pace-Pacante family who then

• 30:32Speaker 02

  Solzhenko.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  Yes, he divorced his wife and bought her out for $90 million and then sold the company for a billion a couple of years later.

• 30:39Speaker 02

  And like worth noting, now more than ever, these people do play a more direct hand in the success of their universities that they're supporting, of their football programs than in years past, I would say.

• 30:51Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 30:52Speaker 02

  And I would also add to that, you're a Virginia Tech alum.

• 30:56Speaker 01

  We have no billionaires.

• 30:57Speaker 02

  James Franklin, though, was the Penn State head coach and part of the Shock of him being fired midseason was how much his buyout was going to be. And so these schools say, well, this buyout money will not come from our, our university or from our athletic budget. We'll have these private donors. We won't really say who's doing it. And if you are around the university or, or, you know, work in media around the university, maybe you'll know who it is or, or hear who it might be. But like, these are not things that they publicly advertise where they'll say, this booster is actually paying for the Franklin buyout.

• 31:28Pablo Torre?

  There's no endowed buyout.

• 31:30Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 31:31Pablo Torre?

  It used to be, right? Like you'd put your name on a library. Now, kind of the ultimate mark of like being a mover and shaker is you're one of these people on the sidelines who is funding stuff that enables, in this case, the University of Texas to be.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  Aided for?

• 31:48Pablo Torre?

  Yes, to be, to be aided for. And still claiming we are the cream of the crop in college sports, which Texas does believe about itself and what they sell about themselves.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  And the numbers are pretty astounding. I think AL.com recently did a story that the University of Texas brought in 168 million dollars in donations just to its athletic program last year.

• 32:07Pablo Torre?

  So who is on the list that gets access to the sidelines at the University of Texas?

• 32:14Speaker 02

  Other than salsa, air.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  One of my favorites that I found was a, the owner of, I believe, eight car dealerships in the Austin area, which the Austin Business Journal said brought in like 700 million dollars in revenue last year, which is wild. I didn't realize car dealerships were, I knew they were generating a lot of money. I didn't realize it was that much. But he gave a million dollars to the university a couple of years ago, not to the athletics department, but directly to the school. And he was on the list of people who'd received sideline passes, but he's also currently on trial for allegedly burning down several businesses in the Austin area.

• 32:49Speaker 07

  Four fires in three months. Fire investigators say one man is behind them all. 75-year-old Dorsey Bryan Hardeman is the owner of Continental Automotive Group, which operates several car dealerships in Texas. During all four fires, Hardeman's Mercedes-Benz SUV was seen on the properties. Fire investigators say they were all set by gasoline and stretched matches.

• 33:17Pablo Torre?

  Far be it for me to advise how to arson. But leaving allegedly your Mercedes Benz SUV at the scene of each of those stories.

• 33:27Speaker 02

  Especially when you have access to other cars.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  Oh, I didn't even think about that.

• 33:30Pablo Torre?

  Wow, wow. There's a burnt orange joke there somewhere. I don't know where it is.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh, okay.

• 33:35Pablo Torre?

  Just pretend that like I nailed it.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  I reached out to the University of Texas and they didn't respond, but I did find photos of him like on the foundation website at a game recently.

• 33:45Pablo Torre?

  And so, yeah, all I can cite, I suppose, is this email from 2024 that Brian Hart had been sent to the Austin Business Journal in which he denied involvement. And his attorney, for the record, did not respond to requests that you, David, had sent him.

• 34:01Speaker 02

  What's the biggest reason that there's so much privacy granted for these people?

• 34:06Pablo Torre?

  Maybe the world shouldn't know that what I do is I own and operate a hunting lodge in the state of Texas that allows me to facilitate the killing of exotic wildlife.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  Yes, that's another billionaire on the list. And according to Forbes, he is co-owner of the Greystone Castle. It's not just a hunting lodge, it is a castle in the middle of nowhere, Texas, where you can hunt ibex and impala and springbok.

• 34:33Pablo Torre?

  This castle, this Greystone Castle Sporting Club, the website, Texas hospitality in an extraordinary setting. We are an Orvis-endorsed wing-shooting lodge, which is clearly a thing. And your bird hunting trips can include dove, quail, pheasant, Hungarian partridge, duck and turkey. Combine any of these hunts with our five-star rated lodging and you have a hunting trip fit for a king.

• 34:56Speaker 02

  King of the bros.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  If they wanted to chase me for the work I'm doing, you know, like, if they want to give me like.

• 35:02Pablo Torre?

  If they want to hunt me for sport.

• 35:04Speaker 02

  I do not volunteer that.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Turnaround is fair play.

• 35:06Pablo Torre?

  What we should be doing is.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  I don't know if I'm gonna be allowed in Texas after this, so.

• 35:09Pablo Torre?

  Or on r slash birds.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  I did recently find some messages that former head coaches wrote on bombs to Osama bin Laden.

• 35:18Pablo Torre?

  All roads.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  Charlie, speaking of Notre Dame, Charlie Weiss wrote, "You will lose. Go Irish."

• 35:26Speaker 02

  Wait, he like wrote it on a bomb?

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:28Speaker 02

  I'm sorry, I don't quite understand how one does that.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  So they did a tour like of military bases in the Middle East?

• 35:35Pablo Torre?

  Charlie Weiss wrote, "Decided schematic advantage on a [bleep] bomb."

• 35:40Speaker 02

  You guys just love your Patriots head coaches on this show.

• 35:43Pablo Torre?

  It's, I can't stop referring to the New England Patriots coaching.

• 35:48Speaker 02

  He wrote it on a, you can write on bombs?

• 35:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, like when you're touring, when you're touring like US military bases.

• 35:52Speaker 02

  They let people write like messages?

• 35:54Speaker 01

  They don't let Pablo write on a bomb.

• 35:56Pablo Torre?

  It's like, it's like a message in a bottle, but also the exact opposite.

• 35:59Speaker 02

  He wrote, "Go Irish."

• 36:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, go Irish.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  It's a [bleep] Catholic school, dude. What are you doing writing on a bomb?

• 36:06Pablo Torre?

  He wrote, "Go Irish?"

• 36:07Speaker 02

  I don't think Pope Leo would have approved if I didn't go Irish on a bomb.

• 36:11Pablo Torre?

  He wrote, "Go Irish," but really deserved an asterisk that said, "America."

• 36:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. I was almost like, wait, the Irish have...

• 36:22Speaker 01

  What if he was like, his last thoughts were like, "What did I do to the Irish?"

• 36:26Speaker 02

  There's so many levels to what rich people do that I have like no access to, like shooting springboks, writing on bombs. I mean, this is just like an unfathomable pastime. Like, I really don't, I have nothing. I got nothing on this.

• 36:41Pablo Torre?

  Sound more broke.

• 37:30Pablo Torre?

  As Jess wonders, how do these people live behind closed doors? How do these coaches, what are they doing? And how do they wield their power? It brings us to something that Jess is absolutely in the dark about. And frankly, I am kind of too, except that, David, one of the things you have discovered is a phone number that I want us to dial from inside of the studio. Because I think Jess Matana has the ability to make history.

• 37:56Speaker 02

  Me?

• 37:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:57Speaker 02

  How so?

• 37:58Pablo Torre?

  Because, David, we asked Jess to prepare one thing specifically. Well, 25 things, actually.

• 38:03Speaker 02

  You guys asked me to do a top 25 college football ranking in May.

• 38:08Pablo Torre?

  Well, it's because we value your expertise.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we love to talk, you know, teams here, bets, futures. Like, this is a real deal sports podcast.

• 38:16Pablo Torre?

  That's right.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Who you got this year?

• 38:18Pablo Torre?

  We're doing sports, obviously.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  How did you get this phone number?

• 38:21Speaker 01

  This was from some emails ECU's Blake Harrell was sending.

• 38:25Pablo Torre?

  This is an actual call we're making right now.

• 38:28Speaker 02

  Who am I talking to?

• 38:31Pablo Torre?

  Just channel Charlie Weiss.

• 38:38Speaker 07

  Hello, you have reached the voting line for the USA Today Sports Coaches Poll. This line is for football and men's basketball. Please give your name and school, followed by your top 25 selections in order, beginning with number one. As you read, please check your ballot carefully to make sure you have not duplicated a team. Identify yourself first, please. Thank you for calling. Begin speaking at the tone.

• 39:02Speaker 02

  Leave your message at the tone. Press pound when finished. This is Charlie Weiss from the University of Notre Dame. Number one, Ohio State. Number two, Oregon. Number three, Notre Dame. Number four, Georgia. Number five, Indiana. Number six, Texas. Number seven, Texas Tech. Number eight, Miami. Number nine, Texas A&M. Number 10, LSU. Number 11, Alabama. Number 12, Oklahoma. Number 13, USC, that's Southern California. Number 14, Michigan. 15, Tennessee. 16, Ole Miss. 17, Penn State. 18, BYU. 19, Florida. 20, Missouri. 21, Washington.

• 39:47Speaker 02

  22, Iowa. 23, Clemson. 24, South Carolina. 25, Utah.

• 39:52Pablo Torre?

  No UNC.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  No Virginia Tech.

• 39:55Speaker 02

  UNC, I mean, their wins total is like 4.5 right now in the sports books.

• 39:59Pablo Torre?

  Really?

• 39:59Speaker 02

  Their schedule's pretty hard.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Should we end the call or just let them keep listening to us?

• 40:03Pablo Torre?

  Oh, yeah. We're all-- I am also Charlie Weiss.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  You've made history. I believe you're the first woman to--

• 40:08Pablo Torre?

  We've made history.

• 40:10Speaker 01

  You're the first woman to ever vote in the, uh, coaches poll.

• 40:13Pablo Torre?

  We're still voting.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  Hang up the-- cut this.

• 40:17Pablo Torre?

  Go Irish.

• 40:27Pablo Torre?

  Pablo Torre Finds Out is produced by Walter Avaroma, Maxwell Carney, Ryan Cortez, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rob McCray, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, and Chris Tumanello. Studio engineering by RG Systems, sound design by Andrew Bersik, digital strategy by Bailey Carlin and Andrew Northern, theme song, as always, by John Bravo. We'll talk to you next time.