Games with Names - The Millennium Wave with Laird Hamilton | Teahupo'o, Tahiti | August 17th 2000

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

Laird Hamilton is in studio! We're going deep on the heaviest wave of all time that changed surfing history on a very special episode of Waves with Names. Laird joins us on the couch (1:57). We go back to August of 2000 (39:37). We profile Laird & his team as well as Teahupo'o (56:17). We break down that legendary wave (1:13:32). We score it (1:39:08). We wrap it up by answering your fantasy football questions (1:53:23). Support the show: http://www.gameswithnames.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Keri Champion, and this is Season 4 of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry.

Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadson. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in.

Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game.

Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's basketball. And on this new season, we'll cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio apps, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke. Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford, and I've spent my career exploring the three-pound universe in our heads. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life because the more we know about what's running under the hood,

the better we can steer our lives. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, your podcasts. It's right here in black and white and prints. They lie. It's bigger than a flag or mascot. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I lived in Marina Del Rey like 15 years ago when I was like a rookie. And I lived right up on the beach.

And I'm sitting here looking at this ocean. I'm like, I'm going to go out there and surf this thing. Those words precede some sort of horrific situation. Yeah. Welcome to Games with names i'm julian edelman they're jack and kyler and we are on a mission to find the greatest game of all time on today's episode we are covering the millennium wave we're changing the name it's this is waves with names now with legendary big wave surfer wellness, and my favorite waterman of all time, Laird Hamilton.

We get into talking, riding the heaviest waves of all time. It was the wave that represented a dream come true. That's poetic. Not on purpose. We get into Laird's relationship with the shark community. First time I'm there, dive down, just get a bad feeling. And surfing the perfect storm. Now, could you surf the perfect storm?

We're working on it. Let's go. It's my fault. And we're going to answer some of your fantasy football questions. You got to stick around to the very end. Awesome interview. Let's go. Games with Names is a production of iHeartRadio.

August 17, 2000. Teupu, Tahiti. The swell was mean and heavy. Waves were giant. But a legend and his board would change surfing forever. This is the heaviest wave ever ridden welcome to games with names today we are looking at the millennium wave august 17th 2000 in one sentence we got we got laird hamilton here guys i'm a little nervous

i'm a little nervous uh he's been a legend i mean i can remember watching him on everything from wakes the wake surf i got a real quick question the what is it called with out of the water foil the foil did you get. Did you get that from an air chair? I did. So I remember I was watching this kid and back in like, you know, Lake Berryessa? I'm a lake kid. Yeah. There's like a sandbar

and this guy was over on this wake chair, they call it, or air chair. Air chair, yeah. And he's hitting it and there's a fucking sandbar and we're sitting there and this guy goes and he hits it and he flies off of it

because it was like two feet deep those things were gnarly so that is that where the foil got the inspo yeah it was the air chair yeah man that just came that was somebody had a old air an old air like not an old one but just an air chair in their garage in hawaii and my friend goes oh this guy's got this weird thing with a you know like a fin on the bottom and i go let's get let's get it let's try to go we call it the scare chair just because when you rode it you just get you'd smash your face because you were strapped to a seat yeah you couldn't tuck yeah so you were in this we i mean i thought it was for handicap when i first saw it i go that's for handicap because your seat didn't drop to it and they're like oh

no that's how they ride it and and we were like well we don't ride it that way we're surfers so we we messed around and tried standing on them and then then then we started riding them in the waves and bam now it's a now it's a whole new now you're world dude because we watched your documentary in that last scene where you rode away for like five minutes yeah and that's that's the significance of that chair because you can get the speed or the foil. You can get speed and just keep it going. Well, and you lose all the friction. So what it allows you to do is just, I mean, my original purpose for wanting to foil is that we reached a limit on what's rideable on a surfboard so we

rode some giant waves that we learned that we couldn't descend when the surf's actually 100 feet like when they really talk about really real 100 foot surf and not contrived 100 foot surf there's a limitation on on the surfboard the board won't allow you to to descend and so the foil is the you know we believe is the is the next device that would allow you to descend the irony is is that you can ride a non-breaking wave so now we can ride even little waves that don't break and you it just opened up our whole world so that device has really made kind of the surfing world expand dude it's insane so let's let's get into what we're actually talking about we're talking about the millennia wave yep in 2000 which was supposedly an unsurfable wave can you explain in one sentence why you picked this wave to talk about. Because it was the wave that represented a dream come true.

The wave that represented a dream come true. Love that. That's poetic. Not on purpose. That's fucking. It really is. Well, you forced me into a sentence so i had to try to i had to get everything in there is that the greatest wave of all time no no no what's

the greatest wave of all time haven't written it yet oh that's like br's favorite ring. The next one. Now, I watched your doc, and I'm going off script. I'm not even going to ask this, but there's this thing that you did. I can tell you're hyper-competitive with yourself. You're not competitive with other people. You didn't do the surf comps or the surf leagues because you thought it was subjective with people judging. Where does that competitive fire come from? I think it's like a curse.

It's a curse you're pouring with. I say, no, I'm very similar to that because it's the, like you said, the next wave mentality. You're always trying, like you said the next wave mentality you're always trying like you conquer something like i would always get this thing called the super bowl saddies i'd have a great year i'd win a super bowl and then dramatic and then afterwards you're sitting there like well now i gotta do it again and it's gonna be way harder like everyone knows about it everyone knows you got to evolve yourself like that's that's i'm assuming that's kind of how yeah the surf world and like the way the next wave is

always better yeah well there's a great there's a great saying uh and written by the anonymous stuntman that's what the caption is but he said they say never let your memories be bigger than your dreams and so i think that that is a big thing that you know because you always hear that you know the guys are at the bar oh you know i used to be the captain of the football team it's like they're living in the past and i think that that's something it doesn't mean you can't appreciate and and enjoy the that but if that can't be the focus like if you're looking in your rearview mirror you're going to run into something probably that you don't want to or you're not going to make the

right turn so i think there's a there's something about that that you want to keep striving forward and i mean i think that's the i think that might be the lesson that we you know wherever we're going from here it might be that might be the whole mechanism that we need it's, wherever we're going from here, it might be, that might be the whole mechanism that we need. It's like when you're a kid and you, you first come out everything, you're curious about everything and you're learning about everything. And I think to continue to do that, that seems to be everybody that I know that I admire, the elders that I admire are all curious people. They're just curious. They're always interested in, and it, you know, you just change the genre like, okay, Hey, you do this and you can't do this. Now you do something else. I mean, it might just be, you know, when you can't use the body, you use the brain, whatever, like,

you know, so curiosity didn't kill the cat. Somebody had always said, no, I caught him a rat. Can you take us through your day? What's your day to day life, Luke, like now? So seasonal, my life is pretty, it's always been seasonal. You know, when I, when I, I mean, you can relate to that. You know, you, there's a time, there's winter, there's spring, there's fall, there's summer. I mean, this time of year, normally this is winter in the southern hemisphere so if you're going to do anything in the ocean substantial you have to go south and you know the more substantial you'd like it to be the further south you have to go so you got to go you know south africa tasmania uh you know tip of chile or someplace deeper to get um or, or just anywhere Southern hemisphere. So I'm like right

now, I just get into a good training cycle cause it's summer and I can, you know, I can be, I'm not so distracted by the ocean as much, uh, and get into nice rhythm and, you know, always, I mean, I'm, I'm, I mean, I like, I like the pattern of sleeping, training, like, you know, get tired. The routine. Earn it. Yeah, earn it. I like the routine. I like the predictability and the consistency of that.

And you can do that better in the summer. The winters, there's surf's going to distract you, and, you know, you can't get into a nice rhythm that you can. You can kind of, in the summer, I can kind of ignore the ocean a little bit. I can kind of pretend like nothing's happening. And then if something comes up that I'm interested in, then I'll get distracted. And I have daughters. I have three daughters.

I got one. Yeah. Congratulations. It's just begun. It's just begun. She's seven and it's it's really just beginning yeah she's i'm getting called bro yeah like you're seven years old don't bro me until you know me let's go well she she is your daughter she is she so she when you're

wondering where it comes from you can just kind of look in the mirror but the apple doesn't fall too far from the fucking tree unless it's on a hill and then it rolls down by a river and then usually they get bigger but so becomes a tree yeah now what's this so like what's your daily training like i i'm so fascinated with like your training mechanism you do a lot of the underwater training, explosion. I like diversity. I mean, I don't like too much monotony in the training. I like it to be a little diverse. I try to listen to the body.

I try to be aware of like, hey, today I feel really good. I'll go harder. And then, hey, I'm feeling a little less. I'll go harder. And then, Hey, I'm not, I'm feeling a little less. I'll, I'll go lighter. You know, it's like, we're constantly learning, uh, about health and wellness. I think there's no end to it. So, you know, what are, what are the, I just don't want my, my training to undermine my performance and, and, and my training isn't my performance. So like people's training for some of them, that's their, that's what they do. Like, Hey, what do you do? I train. Well, I want to be able to do these other things. And so I'm using that, but pretty diverse stuff. I mean, I do breath work a lot of the pool stuff. I'm always doing heat and ice stuff. I do cardio

stuff. Uh, how, how long can you hold your breath? I mean, it depends on like running from a giant dog or laying on the carpet, like breathe up to it. You know what I mean? Like those are differences. So it's situational. Absolutely. If I'm, I mean, if you think about something like free diving where you're getting into a meditative state

and you're bringing your heart rate down and you're getting your CO2 levels down and your oxygen levels up. I mean, you can, you can, you can take most people and you know, they can do three to five minutes. Right. And so that's, and you'd be surprised how, how, uh, actually how well you can do it. If once you get into the right pattern now at maximum heart rate, that's a different animal. So these are like opposing things and most of our stuff is geared towards holding your breath under load which is because going to be more indicative of what we're going to do with and those are completely i mean if you

can hold your breath for 20 seconds at maximum heart rate that's heroic that's that might as well be five six minutes uh so again those are two different different things we like the the under load you know that kind of that kind of stuff but my my normal answer to how long can you hold your breath is so far long enough so so still here that's my like still here yeah yeah exactly man but but again but there's there's two very different things that happen now if you can be calmer in more aggressive situations and you'll have a lower heart rate which will allow you to hold your breath longer if you know like for example if you're talking about in the water and you're being hit by a giant wave if you know when to relax and and not fight and then know when to fight like so you can conserve energy it's you know i always say it's like wrestling with an immovable object right you you when somebody

has you and you can feel they have you that's not the time to fight you feel when you feel them let up you make your move so and then the ocean's the same way. It's like, if the ocean has you and you feel it has you, that's not the time to fight because it, because you'll just exhaust yourself, uh, you know, and, and then when it's time, you won't have the energy and then also you won't have the capacity. So no kind of learn. And we learned that over long periods of time, you can just feel when you're, when, when there's enough energy on you that you're, that moving isn't going to be effective. And then as soon as it lets off, then you can be real aggressive. So, but those, those, you know, if you're holding your breath under a big wave for more

than 30 seconds, that's a problem because that means the next wave is on you. And especially when it's big. So if you're, if you're, I mean, if you're down more than a wave, if you're down two waves, that this is problematic. This is where, you know, this is when people go to sleep. So, so you just try not to get in there. First of all, try not to get in those situations, but all this, all the work we do in the pool and all the other cardio stuff we do, a lot of it's just based on being more efficient, you know, being better at using oxygen and supporting the system. Yeah, you know, so it was interesting what you said there.

People just train to train, and you train for your performance on whatever you want to do. And when I was playing, it was at a level where I had to redline my body in the off season to get it prepared for a whole season so like that's ultimately what brought me down as an athlete is because I had to redline that body so much that my body started breaking down but for me to have my maximum like best performance I had to do that you know and and i wish i would have learned it a little more when i was a younger guy on listening to the body you know that you know sometimes you don't always have to go run fucking 20 60s to 20 hundreds and then routes you know when you're young dumb and full of cum you just think you can do it and it and you know that's that's well that's true and and also i think i mean listen as we

learn it's like now their guys are talking well now they're doing you know 80 of their training is in zone two and you know guys run the marathon and win and just all he did was jump on a trampoline i mean i've done some things when i didn't i mean a lot of the what you do is for this is for the psychology of it like Like you did, the stuff you were doing was helping you come in psychologically to be able to go, hey, I've done everything to prepare for this so I can do this. Confidence.

Exactly. That's where you get confidence through preparation. Yeah, you built it because you've, in your mind, when you go into the situation, you know that you've taken care of everything that you had control of right you don't have control of the other stuff but but then it becomes deja vu yeah that's that that's that one thing you you go over situations that that or you go over plays and you do it in your head

it's kind of probably similar to what you guys do i know you guys are very like you guys think about yeah your wave or yeah you know like when then once it happens you're like the muscle memory the flow your body just goes it's subconscious it's in there yeah well that's the whole thing about 10 000 hours just the whole concept is just when you do something enough then it shifts from the conscious part of the brain to the unconscious which the unconscious moves at like what do they say 32 000 times the speed of the conscious mind i mean your reactionary thing is completely you're a different animal when you're operating from that part of your brain and that just comes from volume i mean that's your

and you know and and there's no way not to think about it if you're that obsessed yeah no there's no way you know it's like my gabby calls it a dog with a bone you just keep going back to the bone got back to the bone back to the bone it's like no matter what you're talking about it's that it's that it's the caveman that pushes the rock all the way up the the mountain and then once he gets up there he throws that bitch back down and he goes and pushes it back now how many hours you think you put on the surfboard we talk about 10 000 hours stupid amount i had a i have a friend that's a helicopter pilot and we were we were trying to figure you know because he has like 30 000 hours of flying and stuff and

i was like i hard to hard to measure i know i have i told him i have more than twice as much as you like a lot a lot of i mean you started a little yeah since we're in three i mean the thing about for us like what we realize is that surfers are really wave readers like that's our real our real skill is we know what waves are going to do we can look at waves and know their behavior be like you hunt with somebody who's a very good hunter they just know the behavior they just know what the things where they're going to go and what they're going to do and so that's the part that takes the longest time i think that that's really i mean you take a good athlete that's a good skateboarder or good just a good athlete period i mean getting on a board and kind

of riding it feels there's some things about it but understanding when the wave's going to break not going to break how it's going to move that stuff is just you know that's where things about it, but understanding when the wave's going to break, not going to break, how it's going to move, that stuff is just, you know, that's where the time, it takes time to see that. That's so, like, so I lived in Marina Del Rey like 15 years ago when I was like a rookie. And I lived right up on the beach with like five dudes. I mean, it was a sick spot, but looked like an a vietnamese opium den with mattresses everywhere and shit like and they all had regular jobs and i was in the off season so

you know i'm sitting here looking at this ocean i'm like fuck i'm gonna go out there and surf this thing i get a board i put on my buddies like those words words precede some sort of horrific situation yeah i go out there in like a short wetsuit or whatever i put on my buddy's wetsuit and i go out there and first off it took me 45 fucking minutes to get past the whitewash and i'm a dense dude i didn't know how to do this shit i'm like dying and stuff and i'm sitting out there and this dude rolls by me on a board some surf guy he's like hey bro are you in a fucking shorty i'm like what what is a shorty he goes you're a wetsuit yeah yeah yeah he goes it's fucking burrito out here man and he just sat there and it brought me to the story of i didn't know how to read the wave yeah like yeah yeah and i was sitting with my buddy the next time and i went out with my buddy and he's like he surfs and there's a whole different thing about reading the wave

and dropping into the wave like i could do it but it was that reading of the wave that i didn't know the timing of like am i early am i late yes like that when is it gonna rise up and like how do i see that that well that's the part that takes the time that's like that's the that's the i mean and you can you know and you know this better than anyone you can definitely speed that process up by watching people that know how to do it right because you can get that in your mind and be like okay you know that's what it looks like when you do it right you're like okay bingo you know monkey see monkey do you get that in your mind and then you use that

as but still there is a lot sometimes you see that and you're like oh that looked easy and then you go try to do it and you're like uh where was that easy part for me so did you ever watch film of guys surfing to like like you surf movies surf movies movies like that was the i mean you know when you're a little kid i i think they had huge influence on me because it was just the the way you know when you're young too everything's so i always tell you know i always tell my daughters and i talked to gabby about it too just the you know how scary scary movies are when you're a little kid like how and so and so what you know and and surf movies were my stepdad was in them all these guys i knew were in them so i would see the guys and see them surf and then come to the movies and and what and there'd be me you know

honk playing or some music, and there was all this. So I saw that a lot. I mean, I think one of the things I can look back on is some of these movies. There's one movie where they had these little, it was a cartoon, but there was like these little tiny guys riding these giant, but there were, it's just drawings,

but there was like Ant-Man. It was like little, we call it Ant-Man, where there's little tiny guys riding huge waves and you know it was like in my head you're thinking man wouldn't it be amazing to be able to do that like ride waves giant like that would be that little and the waves would be so big and stuff but so the influence of that kind of stuff definitely the visualization yeah yeah yeah now when you were a kid you're watching these movies your your dad's bill hamilton or your stepdad's bill hamilton he's fucking rad surfer yeah like who was your hero growing up as a kid was it a surfer or was it

someone else no the guys that i really admired uh were the next were like older than my dad so my dad because my dad was young like he was he was he technically was like a older older brother and so the the guys that i looked up to were a little uh they were a little more savage they were like these older crustier like go swim when there was huge storm and you know diving and they just were they were like a little more you know there's like jose angel was a was a crazy guy and this guy warren harlow who was like a nuclear physicist had an incredible family but just a stud like go out when it was giant so i had i had guys that i men that i saw that i i would say admired but they weren't my dad's generation they were the the old the the old time yeah guys that were and they were big and they were all big you know big wave riders so riders. So I just like the...

And what we say watermen in Hawaii, they were divers and sailors and fishermen, and they just did all the things in the ocean. But yeah, you would see them in these conditions where it's like evacuate and close the beaches. And then the guys would just be out like another day in the office like just like where's he going he's gonna swim to sunset beach and then swim back after and you're like like how is that even possible and so i you kind of i mean i had that as a reference i go oh

yeah that those guys you know you can that's the stuff you can do and i don't know what it was but i always admired these guys that were like family men too, like that they were dads and like they were respected in the community. I thought that was, for me, somehow intuitively that made sense. Some of the party guy stuff, I felt like that was sloppy. I thought there was kind of a sloppiness to that, and so I looked at the guys that were, like I said, family men. They were dads. They were responsible they they had these traits that that i considered a man i go that's a man

like because i was looking for man a lot of it too you know because i didn't have a dad and then i had a dad and and so i was always looking at you know what is man what is man how does what does man do what is the man that i think you know what do I think a man is and what do they look like? That hits to me because my pops, his dad died when he was two. And he's like such a stand-up guy. And he was self-taught. And it could be because of that not having that father figure in his life. I mean, my dad grew up in trailer parks and, you know,

the whole kit and caboodle of that life and like i don't understand if i didn't have my dad like i feel like i would have been fucking incarcerated yes or dead because i was a wild child you know what i mean yeah yeah and and it's just like that that's that's cool to hear especially in your community because it in that community yeah like you said it's there's some sloppy crusty guys yeah you know it's that that way but like you always admired the family guy or like the guy that had his shit right you know that that's that's pretty cool well maybe part of it was too also the disappointment because i had guys that i looked

up to or that i had like they were like you looked up to them and then you saw them you know in the park with a paper bag all drunk or something stupid you know like that and and and that was like i go oh that's that that was disappointing like you have your hero there's some guy he's like oh that's my hero he's awesome then you see him and you're just like what like so that i think that was another like yeah that was the other side of it the disappointment the disappointment do you do you remember your first wave you ever caught i mean i don't know if it's stories or but when i was really young i mean i got pushed into waves very young because my mom either had guys that

were trying to you know butter up to her or you know i'll take him i'll take a little guy out and push him on away but the one of my first i would say recollections you know i don't know i was pushed into a little wave uh in lahaina on maui and i could have been just supposedly i needed diapers so it was I fell on urchins and I had both my butt cheeks impaled with urchins and so I couldn't sit down like as a you know and you're like a little kid so you get you know you learn that lesson quick like urchins like I had a so that had I have a lasting memory of that but but i got pushed into surf and played in the shore break i mean my my my my mom said i could swim before i could really walk she said i could crawl and go

in the pool and swim in the pool i mean whether that's true or not mom's a rock star she's just letting you go do shit like not scared or anything yeah my mom my mom was a courageous woman and i don't think she had a choice she said when i was really young i like when in my i was in a crib and i undid all the thing and it was they found me down the street so i i i think i put my mom in an early grave like between my brother my brother finished her off i i started it but you know like like i think i mean my mom was like wow you made it to 12 wow you made it to 13 yeah wow you're 14 that's it's like you know 15 miracle like it was like wow you made it to 12 wow you made it to 13 yeah wow you're 14 that's it's like you know 15 miracle like it was like so that was the level because it was we were plus i think our environment the time uh we were savages and just and and then we had an environment where we were

free yeah and so the combination of that was just oh yeah it's you know stitches every week and this and with them just always something like always some some like is he gonna make it you know kind of thing so i mean i think like even in the film they have me jumping off a waterfall like it's like some i don't know 50 60 foot waterfall when i'm you know six eight whatever it's just something i mean crazy stuff but i'm like a little kid with adults too. It was, you know, cause that was a different time. And being in Hawaii is different. They, the kids are with the adults. So when you're with them, you know, like you're like, you're a little brother and you want to do what the, so you're sped up. Well, now if all the

people that are your older brothers are adults, you're like i'm in like what are we doing like you think you're a little man so you're you're acting like a little man and and which leads to a bunch of hard lessons but see i i you have a little case of that crazy which i've been told that i have that as well and i had a brother that was seven years older than me so like i was i was never scared of anyone because I used to get my ass beat by my older brother, you know, all the time.

Or I was, I was mimicking what he was doing. Like you said, it kind of like fast forwards you into that, that role. You know what I mean? Where you like fear, pain.

Yeah. It's not there. Yeah. You're not going to do anything that my brother hasn't already done twice so exactly when did you know surfing was for you when did i i saw your doc and everything but like was there a clear moment and i've done all the research yeah i mean i think it was just i think it was just like it was an unspoken thing that that's what i was doing just because it was where i was it was who i was around it was like you know you're that that's what I was doing just because it was where I was. It was who I was around. It was like, you know, you're, you're at the park and whatever they're doing there, you're,

that's what you're doing. So all the men, I was around the communities. I was in every, I mean, definitely young. I didn't know what route I was going to take. I've been told stories, obnoxious stories about, you know, I would tell guys, I'm going to be the best and all this stuff. And, but, and they'd be like, Oh, shut up. You know, it's like, cause you're a little kid and you're, you're puffy chest, but, but young, young, like young, young. I knew I was going to, I knew I was going to do something in, in the surfing. I just didn't know what it was. But again, you know, you're around all these people, whether you're stepdads, you know you're around all these people whether your stepdad's you know a well-known

surfer and then you live in a place that at the time when i was you know young there was our all the best surfers in the world walked through our yard to surf pipeline which was the most aggressive wave in the world you're there you're like there they go there they're out there out there surfing they come in that guy's head got smashed on the reef that guy you know it's like you just you're in that so for it was it was almost like well that is the only thing i'm going to do but i had that in my head to you know that i intuitively sensed something was gonna i was gonna do i was hoping monumental i didn't know what that looked like and still don't to this day. I mean, I think it's still an ongoing pursuit. But, yeah, it's a little bit out of your hands kind of thing.

You can relate to that, I think, too. It's a little bit out of your hands. It is. And it's also something to do with the parents or who's raising you. The fact, like, I had friends. I played football. My brother was a football player. and it's also something to do with the parents or who who's raising you you know like the fact like i had friends i played football my brother was a football player i was on the practice field when i was three years old my dad was the coach running around diapers doing the drills and you know what i mean and once i got there the parents like my parents didn't fear me getting hurt or do

like they didn't care you know like that's what they liked you know i had a lot of friends they couldn't play football or they couldn't do things because their parents were so worried about oh something's gonna happen to them so i think that helped springboard me and it clearly like yeah your was there ever a time your mom was like worried like always worried always always worried but always always promoting that you can do anything you can do you can be anything and do anything but worried because you know that's what moms do yeah but are they worrying worrying about you and then not letting you do it those are two different things yeah you can worry and still promote freedom and so her whole thing was freedom

like being free and choosing and being able to do what you wanted to that was the thing that was the real you know but be a good person you know all these her things were more important than that surfing she could have cared less she was just probably saddened that i didn't go to college and stuff that was for her i think a disappointment um and then you know her concern about my surfing was nothing it's like what kind of person what kind of man are you what are your values what are your like all those things be a good person honesty you know just the the important stuff yeah yeah you know like but her but her yeah go go you know I mean I'll tell you a story about my mom, just to kind of give you something to understand her mindset was that when I was, uh, uh, 10 years

old, she had an opportunity to, uh, take me on a trip because she felt that traveling was very important because of what you learned. So we went and her friend invited her on a trip. We drove from Paris, France to Bombay, India. And so we drove through the Khyber Pass, Istanbul, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan. I had my 11th birthday in Afghanistan. And then we finished in Bombay. I mean, you're coming from Hawaii. Like you're coming from.

Island. So you're. Yeah. I mean's i got coconut trees and papayas and like you're like waterfalls and and then you go uh and you just the impact that that had on me as a person was it was powerful and and and probably influences you know me to this day uh but so that's the kind of woman that she was, that she was like, hey, I think this is really important. And she used to read me a bunch of all the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the whole thing front to back when I was really young. Read me Dune and Jonathan Livingston. Just all these really imaginative like imagination building

material and and so i think that that you know what a fucking cool trip yeah like and that does like i didn't travel you know my dad would always say we're going across the pond to fremont that was the bay you know from redwood city to fremont we didn't have those kind of funds but like when i started traveling you do you pick up so much perspective on how other people live on what it's like in different places uh and that's such a that that had to be six weeks from paris to bombay that's like a lifetime that's a trip of a lifetime. Driving it to? Well, it's closed now. You can't even go now.

Yeah. Ever since the, what is it, Iran-Contra or one of those big things that there's, no, you can't drive. We drove through the old Silk Trail and Khyber Pass. But I mean, like things that we learned was like, there was a kid I met. We slept in Afghanistan on the border

because they closed the border. It was just a metal pipe across the road. And you could drove around it, but you didn't so we stayed stayed there and we were this one kid had translator and the kid was we were trying to explain that it was my birthday and they were like he was like oh what's that and they and then they're like oh that's the day you're born and they're like oh yeah well he's moons old so like he was 120 moons old which means he was 10 um and so and then there's like okay there's a guy with a boomerang walking in the middle of nowhere like you're hundreds of miles from nowhere

and what and he's only got one hand and well he got you know he got caught stealing and so they cut his eating hand off and now he only has his wiping hand so no one lets him eat communally i mean just like all those kind of you know go to bombay and all the kids starving and so then you get home and you're like food yeah it's awesome finish every food you know appreciate the the abundance and stuff so all those things had a had a i mean definitely had an influence on my you know and that okay hey you get to do this thing it's surfing like you have an ocean and you can surf like this is something that not everybody gets to do yeah like not everybody gets to do this amazing thing and so i think my you know i mean and i always had it i always had it with the ocean but that's the grandmaster you know the ocean's like the

grandmaster and so you get to learn from the grandmaster and so that's but that is a luxury that's not like just not everybody even knows what the ocean is you're in the middle of somewhere and they're like an ocean they're like what is even is that they see water in a flood you know like isn't it crazy we know more about space and we do the ocean oh yeah what's that's gnarly isn't it it's just ironic yeah and there's some irony in it like we know the stuff about out there but we don't know stuff about in here yeah can you explain because like you're you're a water man you paddled across what the english channel or something you did that you you surf you went yeah fucking i paddled a bunch i paddled a lot too much probably but probably too much what's that relate like your relationship with the ocean that's like real what can you explain that like how you feel well there i mean the you love you love it you i mean it's a little bit like my relationship with gabby you know you fear it a little bit

you love it you fear it you know there's all those emotions but the i mean if i look if i think about my relationship with the ocean i mean all the everything i have is from that yeah all the everything that i've ever all my like gabby's everything is from like that's all been from the ocean and my biggest uh other than my children and my relationship you know which is in its own category, my biggest, you know, achievements from the outside looking in athletic achievements or physical achievements have been in the ocean. So my greatest kind of successes, my greatest failures, my biggest injuries, my, you know, lost at seas, my, my, you know, my trauma and suffering and injury pain and all that are from there too so i have you know and you can relate to that mine's like gridiron football field exactly exact same thing i'm sitting here talking to you because of football yeah yeah it's

fucking all the great things all the shitty things up and you know when i'm your age i probably won't be able to walk but that's from football too. You know what I mean? Football's my ocean. No, you're going to be able to walk. Technology. Technology. We'll be right back after this quick break. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente.

And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions. Like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or, can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions.

Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Santer. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it like you miss 100 percent of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Keri Champion, and this is Season 4 of Naked Sports, where we live at the intersection of sports and culture. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Every great player needs a foil. I ain't really near them boys.

I just come here to play basketball every single day, and that's what I focus on. From college to the pros, Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Angel Reese is a joy to watch. She is unapologetically Black. I love her. What exactly ignited this fire? Why has it been so good for the game? And can the fanfare surrounding these two supernovas be sustained?

This game is only going to get better because the talent is getting better. This new season will cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke. Do you ever wonder where your favorite foods come from? Like what's the history behind bacon-wrapped hot dogs? Hi, I'm Eva Longoria.

Hi, I'm Maite Gomez-Rejon. Our podcast, Hungry for History, is back. Season two. Season two. Are we recording? Are we good? Oh, we push record, right? Okay. And this season, we're taking an even bigger bite out of the most delicious food and its history.

The most popular cocktail is the margarita, followed by the mojito from Cuba and the piña colada from Puerto Rico. So, all of these we have, we thank Latin culture. There's a mention of blood sausage in Homer's Odyssey that dates back to the 9th century B.C.

B.C.? I didn't realize how old the hot dog was. Listen to Hungry for History as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's go back in. This is a segment where we go back into August 17, 2000. We kind of go over what was going on in pop culture which i'm i'm real interested to hear if you were dialed into this movie the cell that was the number one movie have you heard what is that movie did you guys hear about that jennifer lopez vince vaughn like a uh psychological thriller ai kind of i don't know you ever see that i don't think i have you movie guy i mean i've seen it but i just not it wasn't

impactful enough for me to remember yeah same 33 put it that way perfect storm i mean okay perfect storm of course now we're talking could you surf the perfect storm well we're working on it it's my fucking god let's go we're we're working you know we're working on it we are we we're working on it that's our that's one of our our what working you know we're working on it we are we're working on it that's our that's one of our our what does that mean you're working on it what is how can you surf the perfect storm it's a movie but i want to hear your what the perfect storm is to you what is that how are you working on i mean and we can we're we already i mean technically we can but we can be we can ride giant.

Like, like I, I give you an idea what would be for me if I, you said, Hey, what is something that you can, you're going to get to do, or you could do, what would you want to do? And, and I'd be like, well, I'd like to have some healthy daughters that aren't insane and, you know, and continue to be with my beautiful wife and all that. But, but if you said like, for my own personal thing it would be like when you see those movies when there's a giant and you see these films of these huge ships and they're going into these huge waves and then the waves are breaking over the bow and stuff like we can technically ride those those that we can with the foil we can ride those environment now how do we get there how do we get out of there? How are we there and able to kind of keep surveillance each other

and make sure that we can not lose them, lose us? And so that's really the complication. But we can do that. We can do that. We're able to be in that kind of conditions. And so that's really the, you know, the, that now it's, we know we can do that. So now how, how are we able to do that? And so that's where we were working towards that. That's something that, you know, and I have, when I say we, I have some young

savages, some younger guys that are, you know, that have a lot of testosterone. You can just tell by the way, all the girls look at them when they walk by. They're sending that signal, that electronic force out there. But so I have a good, you know, I have a good little platoon. Just pheromones. Oh, yeah, just sending it. Testy pheromones. It's electrical. It's electrical.

It's like electrical force field. So it's like I try to tell my daughter, I go, just so you know, you're sending those messages. sending those messages no i'm not yes you are so that's like like a storm out like in deep in the ocean that shit's happening like figuring out a way to get out there you feel like you could ride those waves but like logistically about safety and actually physically being out there in those conditions and we have some of those we have the safety and the i mean we have and just the vessels and i mean initially you have to start you know you don't go right to the top you start at the bottom of the hill and you do a run but we've already been doing it we

we know we can do it we know we're we you know we're starting to have the the the systems in place the communication the surveillance the you know the tracking the communication, the surveillance, the, you know, the tracking, the, okay, what vessels and what, you know, how, how we can do it, but we can definitely do it. We, we, there's definitely, and there's a huge frontier. Like, that's the thing that's the most interesting is that there's just this, there's just a huge frontier. It's like, it's wide open. Like, what do you want? So, which, you know, in this time in the world is pretty, I don't know. I think that's like a crazy blessing. I feel like you get blessed for your, your, uh, the genuineness of your pursuit, like you're genuine. Uh, and then,

and then also the, what is it? What is the good book says, you know, I reward you openly what, what you practice privately you know so there's something like about the effort putting in towards it the thought the the the work all the stuff that you put towards your pursuit it's pretty crazy that you've probably been the pioneer in making surfing a team sport you know like i watch when i watch a lot of your stuff you know having your guy in the wave runner having the guy over here for safety having the lookout guy like everyone has their job it's like the patriot way you know everyone just do your fucking job we'll get it done you know what i mean and everyone has their job job, and everyone is relying on everyone else.

So the accountability factor of everyone, it's like you've made it a team sport. It's gnarly. But it's also, I think— And I say that word. I'm not just trying to say that because you're a surfer. No, but I can attest. No, but I think it has to do also with, actually, I think it was more that way in the beginning that the way the Polynesians were that because you were sailing vessels, you know, canoes across the ocean and you it was always like that. And so when they first saw surfing, it was a lot more communal.

It was more everybody was doing it. It was young, old. And so I think there was already that kind of energy in it. And then somehow we took it and we made it competitive directly among, against each, you know, against man, against man. And once we did that, then that created a lot of the different energy that happens. But like we, I know from when the surf is really if you go out in this

and it's you know it's it's it's scary and it's giant and it's stormy the only guys you have are the guys you're with like that's all there is and so you have a different attitude you're not like hey screw you i'm gonna take this one you're like no you go ahead i'll keep an eye i'll let you know hey there's a set coming there's so much more camaraderie in that. And that just brings, I mean, for me personally, it brings out the best of me because the other side of it is that that aggressive side, which I have that too. And, but I'm trying to learn how to constructively vent that and not promote it

and boost it. Cause I know it doesn't need any help. It's already bad. So I don't want to. But I think that the original prowess was a lot more like that. Because you had to be. Because you just didn't. You had to rely on one another. And that's really the success of our species.

I mean, you can say what you want. But we're successful because we have worked together and with and you know and whether you have combat against the other tribe or not but you're still a tribe and working together i mean we're just too fragile in in a in a wild savage world you know until we make guns and bombs and you know do the things that we've done that allow us to you know become more fragile that's crazy let's get back into this this segment did you ever play the sims you're not a computer guy that'd be no no i didn't get there the sims were huge yeah let's jump into the let's see what were the

sports like in this time 2000 nba champions yeah la lakers of course are you are you laker who do you basketball of course lakers you lakers i mean it's right across the it was right across the channel now let's say i was a lakers fan and then it slowly became an unlaker fan so why well first of all because i'm not i'm just not fan in general so i think at the beginning uh when i first started watching i mean what are the who are the original lakers like we were jerry west and stuff yeah not that not that magic magic yeah kareem yeah worthy i would say i mean i'm i know kareem i met him before but he was in hawaii he'd come stay where right next to where i lived oh heck yeah i saw one day i was at the beach and i saw this guy swimming and then i saw like a fin i was like oh my god there's like a shark

following this guy and i was like oh my gosh i go and then the guys came in by the shore and the fin was still there and then he stood up and it was cream it was his feet sticking out because you know you never you don't see i mean he's large your proportions are you know you have in your brain you're used to just normal people so you're like yeah that mean to have something that far back trailing in the water i mean that's got to be like a shark something's following that person no it was just but but but let's but let's say yeah so for me because by 2000 i'm i mean only time i'm you know original original okay magic kare. Okay, like when you watch that series or whatever, Winning Time or whatever, that was the Lakers.

After that, I don't think I had much interest on the next generation. Now, that just sparked something. Yeah, okay. Sharks. Yeah. I didn't mean to start you on that. No. Do you ever get a little spooky from a shark?

You've had some encounters? Yeah. Or do you have a relationship with them? What's your relationship with the shark community? It's good. It's good. Clearly, we're here. It's good.

We're here. It's good. It's good. And you have a – I believe that when you've been in the water a certain amount of time that you and you have that kind of your pheromone you have a sixth sense you got that pheromone too so it's proposing yeah they know that i'm not like yeah there's no interest in me i'm not and i'm not projecting fear yeah i just hope yeah yeah you know yeah well i mean it's an honorable way to go i mean mean, you die doing something you love.

It's not tragedy. I mean, listen. That's a point break right there. Anytime you go in the jaws of a creature, it's probably not the. It's kind of badass. That's full cycle, full circle. That's high level. But let's say, that being said, I saw Jaws as a little kid.

And so, you know, I used to think sharks were in swimming pools. I mean, I definitely don't. Not a, very aware of sharks. Don't do stuff like, I'm going to swim across this bay with little tiny goggles that I can't see anything with and wonder why something happens. I mean, so I'm not doing, like I grew up fishing with, uh, with some, uh, Hawaiians and the thing they used to do this thing called a hooky Lau and a hooky Lau is when there's a big pile of fish,

there'll be a spotter and then they'll row a boat off from the beach out with a net and they'll circle the whole big thing with a net. And then they get two groups of people and you pull the nets in right and so i grew up doing that as a little kid and uh and they do that in the summer what's it called hukilau hukilau hukilau so you do a hukilau and hukilau means pull so you pull then you pull in i mean it's a giant like a giant pile of fish so i used to drive trucks when i was really young because that's a job that you can do that doesn't require you to be an adult. So if I can drive, I'm too little to be strong enough to be helpful doing labor. But if I can drive a truck, then I eliminated, I take an adult

out of the truck and put him in, he can work. I can be 10 years old if I know how to drive a truck. So I learned how to drive back trailers up in the sand and and learn how to drive little kid you know the trick when you're doing the trailer you put your yeah your hand on the bottom wherever you go on the steering wheel that's where the trailer will go exactly exactly if anyone exactly one there's some and there's a difference between driving back in a trailer up and looking at the trailer and then also looking at the review mirror yeah those are two different very those are two different kind like you can be a great trailer guy looking but can't do it in the mirror and then you can be a great mirror guy and you can't do it in the thing those are two different type of driving you ever get stuck you just put your hand on the bottom of that wheel yeah you know

and control it you can because whatever way you put that hand that's the trailer yeah go that way that's what i have my dad always taught me good good good teaching but but so anyway so my point was is that finally i got old enough to be helpful and there's so one of the jobs is is that as they pull the net in they have a guy they have a guy couple swimmers in the boat and you swim down as they pull the net and make sure that the net doesn't catch any rocks on the bottom because you have all those people pulling you'll break the net and then the fish will all get away so you dive along the bottom and then you pull yourself along the net so i'm finally get old enough to because i'm good in the water they're like okay now boy you're gonna go and do the you're gonna go swim the net so the on the one of the days a lot of fish i'm just coming you know

that means there gotta be a shark in there they keep going there's gotta be something there first time i'm there dive down i'm pulling myself along the bottom like that i just get a bad feeling i'm just like i go like that look and there's an eyeball right by my face like this and the net's clear underwater so you can't even see the net and there's just an eyeball and i'm like so i just kind of pull back and it's a big hammerhead like a big one and so i just swam straight to the top and i said and i went big big shark is that shark signal well yeah just like hello like here they are here he is and so go so get in the boat go in they pulled it they pulled like a probably i'd say 12 or 14 foot maybe it could have been bigger than that for like big old hammerhead when they pulled the net because they normally they try to open the net and let

the thing out um but they wouldn't go out so then they just ended up pulling in on onto the shore because the the relationship with the hawaiians is that that's your amakua which is the your ancestors go into the shark so they have a very amakua yeah you have a good relationship with the with the sharks so that was the beginning of know, and I've seen some big tigers and I know that, you know, the girl that got her arm, uh, Bethany Hamilton got her arm bit off at my home break that I spent many years, you know, paddling it's way offshore out at sea. I've been out there a lot with me or just a couple guys and i mean with all the years that i've been in the water the amount of sharks i've seen is so few like honestly and i always say

the shark you see is a good shark because you see it the ones anytime anybody's ever been attacked they didn't see the shark yeah um you know it's a mistake i mean but if you're sparing fish and there's blood if you're wounded there's blood um if you're making weird movements in the water i mean there's it's it's normally mistaken identity but i have a like you know i just i'll get a feeling like i'll be out somewhere and i'll just be like this is not i just feel that things are right they're they're around and i'll go in and then the guy will be like oh yeah do you hear and i go well they all they saw a giant tiger and then I'll be like oh yeah I felt that thing in the morning but that reminds me of who is the guy free solo what's his name Alex Arnold and I we sat and we drive we did a a speaking

engagement together and he had that same attitude if I feel any kind of spooky i'm out i don't i you gotta go when you go go when you go and absolutely you have any kind of something the fear that's telling you yeah and you have to listen to that that we have instincts for a reason we've had those skills for a long long time that's been something that we that's why we're still here because we had that you know you're hiking along you're like oh you know what something around that corner i don't know and then there's like oh yeah there's a giant bear or something like we just have those things we've lost a lot of those but we're there in us and if you can i always say i always say it's good to practice your intuitions when you have them if you have

some feeling you call you know how come you get a weird feeling you call up so and so you're like oh yeah oh you can't believe or it's so great or i was thinking of you i mean you always so that's part of that tool and i think you can definitely sharpen that tool that tool is especially if you use them and you go off of them i think that's i mean they're they guide you uh and so i i'm a big proponent of that but the sharks definitely will be something that that will definitely make that tool important. Yeah. Anytime I'm out there, I'm thinking about it. Yeah. Ever seen one?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's no fences, I tell people. There's no fences. There's no fences. There's no fucking fences. They are where they want to be. Yeah. But they really don't want us.

No, I know that. No, they don't. Because if they did, you'd know. They don't. We're not good eating. We're too many bones. I mean, they can eat some nice. There's a lot of nice stuff to eat out there.

But then the orcas are the kings, so then you can always think about that. But I saw Free Willy. I mean, they had a relationship. You know what I mean? Only in the movies. Jackie's set the stage. All right, so this is the part of the show we usually,

we deal with team sports, traditional team sports a lot, so we'll break down team one, team two, whatever it is. This week, we're talking man versus the ocean, so we found it fitting to talk about Tahiti a little bit. We'll talk Chopu a little bit. A little high-level recap on Tahiti. Part of French polynesia gross domestic product you know we love talking global finance on this pod 5.8 billion uh roughly 403

square miles average temperature between 76 and 84 beautiful very nice um main industries tourism agriculture fishing uh just to give a little perspective of where it is it's 2600 miles from hawaii so it's out there baby um and then uh most recently hosted the 2024 summer olympics how about that surfing there's some good surf too a little disappointing what let's hear it a little disappointing i mean the final was it was it could have been a beach break you might as well been at huntington beach so that was that was disappointing i mean you know it the potential for teahupo which is how you they call it chopo but it's the the real pronunciation is teahupo which means wall of skulls wall of skulls wall of skulls and it's probably because a lot of people have lost their life there in over the, over the evolution of those guys fishing and being in canoes and,

you know, going over there and getting pile driven into the coral. But, but that event, um, you know, you're at Teahupo, um, again, difficult because of the, just the, the nature of the ocean, you know, like the reason why I haven't pursued why one of the reasons that contributed to me not participating in the in the whole organized surfing was just because the waves just come when they want how they want and you can be there and all of a sudden there's you know multiple sets and then there's no waves and all of a sudden you're sitting in the heat i

mean i watched probably two of the better surfers in the world, if not two of the best surfers in the world, you know, John, John Flores and, uh, and then the Brazilian champion. And those guys didn't even get the wave count. They sat there and then a wave never even came in that interested them, them enough to catch it. And so it's a, like a little bit in that, in that way, but that's competitive surfing. And so that you have to bit in that in that way but that's competitive surfing and so that you have to know that going into that but that's a little bit that's a little bit like kind of a bummer it'd be like you go to your super bowl and then you know and and only half your team shows up and you're like hey we we might need the guys for the defense you know like yeah

so it's it's that's the only you know and that's the nature of the format of how they do that and and and i mean i think there's always going to be that element to it until they start running you know running these things and these wave pools where they can just spit out a perfect way the same and yeah we can be more like gymnastics or something i mean i think there's still always be some some confusion uh with with with the judging because it's it's so subjective yeah who's your who's your who's your modern surfers that you you look at you're like that dude can rip you know i don't watch half the guys i don't know i mean of course i you know you see john john i mean you know you're you're never going to have another kelly slater i mean you're just not that's just like you just they don't make those i mean and if they do it's a long it's a

long run what makes him so spectacular well that he was able to win 11 titles yeah and he's just a consummate competitor and he just knows how to get in people's heads and consistently can do it and did it in over a time period that how do you get into someone's head how do you get into someone's head in a heat i mean i think he got you you can ask him he's good at it yeah now is there there's ways to get in people's head there's shit talking and stuff you know stuff stuff that you do like stuff that you do stuff that you do that that psychologically can you know again as when you're i mean it's like you know this when you're on a man-on-man thing and you have another man against you i mean so a lot of fights that are already won before they get in the ring yeah like

they're already won yeah like the guys already they've already won it so there's the things that happen that you don't see that affect the performance. Like the guys already given up before it even started. Cause the, you know, I mean, so there's a lot of,

I think there's a lot of that, you know, like someone like John, John Florence and is he's, his surfing is, is superior to everyone. And, but he's just not quite the kind of guy that's his interest isn't in the

in at least from my perspective of course isn't in just the straight up hey i just want to beat you i want to beat everybody no he just wants to serve the best and that's a different mentality right there's two different kind of mentalities one is i want to beat you and the other one is i just want to surf the best and those aren't always correlated they don't always connect so but um but yeah i i don't you know a lot of i don't know a lot of what's going on uh with with surfing and i and i probably a harsh the kind of surfing that i that i really admire big wave and just strength yeah like and you need power you need wave powerful waves to be have powerful have powerful riding and so there's there's not a there's not a lot of people that i look at and i go wow amazing like i watch john john i watch kelly i've watched you know i watch some of these guys some of the stuff

i just don't i don't like the movement. I like the way the body positioning is. I think maybe because I've been around it so long, from every different level of kind of bored to evolution to the, I mean, it's like I'm 60 years old. I've been watching surfing since I was four or five years, little kid. I've been watching surfing for 55 years. It's like kind of maybe harsh.

Yeah. These guys are doing like clips, aerials now. Yeah. That came from you though when you started strapped. Yeah, but I mean, I think that's also a growth from skateboarding gave back because skateboarding started because of surfing, and then it gives back then snowboarding came you know it gives back so they they learn learn a lot of the aerial stuff and that stuff is i guess for me i can't appreciate it enough

because it's so far out of my just because of my size in my you know how i surf it's out of my i'm not i didn't i don't even you know like gymnast yeah yeah exactly exactly when you watch you like we're watching you and we're doing all research and i've seen you look like a fucking linebacker out there different yeah different next all yoked yeah dudes yeah looks like you you should be going across the middle and laying someone out yeah like that's it's different it's a different animal well it's like acrobatic it's like skiing i give skiing if you think about downhillers like what the average downhiller is 240 pounds 230 whatever and then you think about like acrobatic skiing yeah like there's acrobatic skiing and then there's downhillers yeah these are completely

different species these are different animals it's hard to even compare them how do you can't they're both skiing they're both skiing but this is this is one kind of skiing and then there's another kind of skiing and there's very few that can really cross that bridge it's like it's hard to take the flyweight and make him you know punch like the heavyweight it's like he just but he can punch a lot more times it's like there's so there's a completely different uh it's just a completely different approach and uh you're the heavyweight surfer well i just part of his size size size alone and then and then desire but size alone just yeah just your weight i mean you're gonna go out there and surf against some i mean there's there's

bigger guys that can ride little tiny waves but for me i i grew up in hawaii and we just had plenty of horsepower we didn't need that we we weren't desperate enough to have to ride little, little stuff. And, and, and also the interest of doing other things too, right. Wanting to do, you know, I always like, like fast, like I always like fast and I'm like, okay, well, it's hard to go fast on a little wave. You know, it's like no matter what you're doing. And so it's hard to, hard to, and the relative, no matter how fast you go in a little wave, it's not like going fast on a big wave. So that's like windsurfing was great because it was fast yeah fast you can go fast like are you on the snowboard snowboard love snowboarding 30 something years like 30 since ripping you i mean you i wakeboarded a lot when i was a kid so yeah snowboarding's easy transition

yeah from wakeboarding i grew up snowboarding i used to go to tahoe every year big snowboard guy yeah love it just i was just talking with travis rice the other day yeah yeah he's badass bad man big boy big dog big dog eats yeah i like that though i like that kind of right like i i like like we talked to me about snowboarding i was like that's the kind of stuff i like like big mountain big mountain like high speed like i've done a bunch of snowboarding all over the world and and uh and and it's so much like surfing so it's an easy transition compared to skiing skiing was so not like surfing because individual and just the positioning and everything now it's changed a little bit but yeah heli heli, heli boarding. I like Alaska. Like I'll go, I'll go heli in Alaska. I like, I like to, I like just part of it is like being in

the mountains. Yeah. You know, like it's like being in the ocean that you're in nature and you're in powerful nature. You're on a big, huge glacier somewhere. And the energy that it has very ocean-like, like there's that, there's just, it's like the brother and sister, you know? Like they have a lot of that. So you get that same sensation and that energy from it. You know, and so I think that's the part that, you know, resorts are not, I mean,

I have the luxury to be able to go on a helicopter over the years. I've had friends and have gotten to be, you know, and have relationship with helicopters too so i have so it's allowed me to really go and because that's what it reminded me of when i see when i when when i was watching all the stuff when you strapped in yeah like you're like snowboarding the wave exactly exactly like the big snowboarding had an influence being strapped in uh windsurfing had being connected had a big with your velcro yeah yeah but being connected and and it definitely like that was a that was a big uh a big breakthrough like the way you can ride i mean

now they're doing no no boarding where they have no bindings and stuff but but it's not the same as when they when you're connected to it and you're it's you're it you become one with the with the board that that changes the the deal what about wake surfing have you done that a little bit not a lot we love that now yeah we used to do free boarding which is we would ride our big wave boards behind a boat and it was more like water skiing cutting like water skiing but in a in a surf stance yeah and then that was the uh that was a good way to train for big wave riding so we would we would go and do like water ski stuff behind behind a boat with uh or behind a ski yeah with those with our big wave boards so that was that

was that was a good way to train and and uh and it was you know kind of a lot like what we're used to let's get back to chopu yeah do it or how do we how do the hoopoe tail tail though so t-e-a tear who h-u poe tear hoopoe yeah tear hoopoe You nailed it You can't say Rob Riggle Teahupo Well, I grew up around Paulies So I'm from the Bay Okay And we had a lot of Smolens Tongans

You know that No Yeah, you know that You gotta pronounce You gotta Teahupo Everything's in syllables Teahupo

Teahupo Teahupo Back to Yeah, a little We talked Tahiti here a little bit But to get specific Teahupo Population just under 1,500, little town located in the southwest corner of Tahiti. And like we talked a little bit earlier, like the waves here, it's because that reef is so shallow and you got the ocean moving in.

Heavy. These deep water, heavy boys. And it's a left breaker, right, Laird? Yes. Okay. Yep. Crazy. Now, how does Teahupo stack up against the other famous surf in the world?

One of a kind. That's probably one of the all-time waves in the world. So Pipeline, the beach that I was raised at, was considered the most premier wave in the world. And it was one of these things where for every shot of any other wave in the world in magazines and whatever on the internet there was like three shots of pipeline right and so Teahupo took over that that spot and and is now uh probably the most and now with i mean we have some incredible waves around the world, but when it comes to just straight up perfection, like a perfect, a perfect wave to understand that this wave is, is, uh, the coral that on the, on the Island grew in a way to absorb the,

to absorb the energy of the wave in the shortest distance possible. That's just how the coral grows. So the shape of the island itself is designed to absorb the wave's energy. That's just what it's designed to do. And the result of that is that the wave will dissipate in such a short distance,

so it takes all the power of the wave and it throws it into the air, which makes that perfect cylinder. And then that wave is i mean pipelines known as you know was known as the greatest tube in the world until teohupo took over uh and and and and the millennium wave kind of it was already on moving towards that direction but it sent it over the top because it was, that was such a defining wave for the writable and unwriteable. That was the big thing about that particular wave or those, that wave that day and those waves,

because there was multiple ways written on that day. And so that, that really kind of defined, uh, first of all, that, the pictures of that went all over and and and brought you know more attention to it than it was already getting and brought attentions to to it doing the freakiest thing that it does when it gets past the point where you can actually physically catch it and that's that's you know that's the heaviest part of that wave is that you can ride that wave when it's completely unrideable like technically no one would be able to surf the wave that i was towed in why well you just because you physically aren't able to generate enough speed

on the right equipment that allows you to actually enter before you're thrown into the sky you just can't there's so much water lifting up and heaving that you just can't get into it before it throws over. I mean, and guys are pushing the edge of, you know, of how far they can go, but that, and, and, and multiple other days since then, there's just, there's just no, you just guys, there's no, they don't even try because you just know it's not, you know, there's other, other waves that are a little more ambiguous.

There's times when you all could you catch that manually or not? You can do that. But that wave is just, it's like pretty much a clear, a clear line in the sand. And if you fall, you're hitting reef. There's a very good chance. Like the month that I rode that way the month before a guy hit his head and eventually died um like crushed his skull now there's been another guy that we know a friend of ours is paralyzed on a small day um the reef is live coral you're gonna if you touch it you're gonna it looks like a tiger like a tiger swiped you you're shredded um and then and then there's about it depends on your tolerance for staff but there's a pretty good chance you're going to get staff like you're just going to because it's live bacteria and

corals just full of full of staff so you're going to get staff they have a thing where where they rub uh limes on them on the wounds and you know how you when you get a paper cut like you get a slice and you put lime on it or lemon how good that feels imagine like giant road rash and then we're going to take a lime and rub it on there that usually results in some serious whining now can you can you break down laird jack oh i would be honored oh my goodness here we go uh we talk here we already got the wave out of the way. Now we got to talk about Laird and the team. We talked Laird earlier, 6'3", 215. At the time of this wave, 36. Innovator of a lot of things.

Revolutionized big wave surfing. Stand-up paddle. Hydrofoiling. Nutrition and wellness. A little bit of the da Vinci of the sea, if you will. Laird, one thing that I had to ask, is there anything that is still eluding you in the invention or innovation category

that you've just been dog with a bone for years and years? I mean, yeah, it's ongoing. I mean, I have a couple other ideas. Of course, the pursuit of the ocean, but riding under the waves, that's another area. There's always... Riding under the waves? Yeah.

What does that mean? Riding the waves, that's another area. There's always... Riding under the waves? Yeah. What does that mean? Riding the waves under the water so you're in something. We do it with our body already, but being in what would probably look like some kind of weird torpedo or something like that. It could be more of a dolphin shape or something that you ride inside of to ride underneath uh the water but that's i mean that's i've had that in my mind for a long long time oh my gosh and then we can't forget about the crew this day uh tim mckinnon photographer

nelson kubak was your toe-in partner correct yep uh double d derrick dorner was driving the jet ski and then legendary surf director jack mccoy was was there directing this shoot yeah my friend poto too yeah buttea david was a tahitian tahitian guy that was down there he that morning and i i tell the story a couple times but that morning we were launching first of all the guy he goes oh yeah we're not going to go out today i go what do you mean i'm not going on he goes oh let's we don't go is when it's this when the surf's this big we go to this other wave and i'm like yeah we're going to go out there today and he's like what do you mean i go well we're not gonna go to the other wave until we go out there and know we can't ride this way first of all and i could see it from the beach and it was doing it looks look like some something that's

only in cartoons and so then uh then we're getting ready we get on the skis we're driving and poacher goes oh i locked my my keys and my sunglasses in the car and he was sponsored by oakley and he was like i need to get my sunglasses i go what do you mean and he goes well i'm sponsored by oakley i gotta have my shades i'm like okay fine so i'm like get a coat hanger when you got the guy get a coat hanger went in there broke i broke in the car got the car okay you got a shades okay now everybody everybody got everything they need okay here we go let's go because it's always i think we always do that like whenever the surf's big especially the bigger it is the more we make sure there's no

you know it's like hey tie the knot tie the knot the same every day but tie it again yeah like on the day when as it gets bigger you just kind of go you know you go over all of that stuff uh double time and move and move slower actually we start to slow down like everything becomes more calculated slower just so you don't run into a situation i wish i would have that's right you don't want the i wish i would have yeah or i wish i didn't or didn't either one of those uh we talked a little bit earlier of just the the ferocity and the death defying nature of it of a guy dying a month earlier starting to surf here um and then it came on the scene pretty fully in the 90s and was known around the surfing community right laird

yep okay um and then it was actually before that they were surfing it already and i had i would the tahitians would come to pipeline and surf and they kept telling me about the wave and but i was kind of like okay yeah cool like but i i wasn't i i mean i just took my time to go down there you know i've had i known i might have gone a little sooner so that was your first time there yeah first time yeah i'd been there for two weeks i'd been there for two weeks and then I was leaving the night, the day before. And the flight. And the guy, no,

the guy goes, somebody, one of the guys goes, oh yeah, it looks like we got a, you know, there's a big bomber coming, like a big swell.

And I'm like, and I go, okay, well, I'll cancel my flight. Man. Yeah, don't leave,

don't leave when the, right before the surf comes. That's bad dog. Yeah. Bad dog. Hey, that's bad dog. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline,

a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions. Like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or, can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice.

And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do. Like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports, where we live at the intersection of sports and culture. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Every great player needs a foil. I ain't really near them.

Why is that? I just come here to play basketball every single day, and that's what I focus on. From college to the pros, Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Angel Reese is a joy to watch. She is unapologetically black. I love her. What exactly ignited this fire? Why has it been so good for the game?

And can the fanfare surrounding these two supernovas be sustained? This game is only going to get better because the talent is getting better. This new season will cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke. It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packers star Kabir Bajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. KGB explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play.

A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning. In a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron and the consequences for everyone involved. You mix homesteading with guns and church and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked. Voila!

You got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible listen to spiraled on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts um yeah laird and the crew got there august 2nd uh this was for an oxbow shoot correct yes okay heck yeah and then um yeah when the swells were coming in laird canceled the flight and the rest is history um and then the morning of we talked about a little bit earlier yeah um they were they were describing this as a big glassy wave correct yeah can you for the for the laymen at home that don't know surfing like we do can you describe what like that glassy

means well it's just no wind so the water is real and glass glassy is representation of glass like the smoothness of a window oh so you have that smoothness uh of and so no wind and uh and and that you know that just that just means that you're not gonna have to deal with any texture as you're riding uh even though they're every once in a while the boat goes by we had to deal with a boat wake uh when we were when we were riding on one of the a couple of the waves of bowie came through but but yeah glassy just means like a window like smooth like that which which uh water skiing when you water ski yeah we look for the glass in the morning go early that's so late yep and you guys set out

super early that morning like 4 35 a.m yep and got a little got some practice reps in on some smaller waves and then waited for this big boy. Around 1130-ish, around noon-ish? Yep. Thank you. Can you walk us? Multiple rogue waves came through. I rode two, actually.

So we got out there in the morning and normally over the years, and it's not necessarily self appointed. It seems like, you know, see if Mikey likes it kind of stuff, send Laird first. And depending on,

you know, if he comes back or not, we'll know whether we want to go or not kind of thing. So I w I was usually the Guinea pig and, and I've done that for a long time. I, I, it seemed like jaws.

I would do that. I would just be the guy that you, cause they're going to get a good idea of what the, what is the writing is going to be like from me they're going to see me and go oh yeah that doesn't look like it's very fun or not and uh whether i mean i just kind of what is was my role uh and so i was first man up uh and my friend went to to tow me on the first wave and the wave, the tightness of the wave made the, everything different from towing. Normally, normally we can get out on the wave earlier because the waves start to stand up out at sea and then we get on them and we can let go and there's time to do everything. Well, this, this place is really really condensed and so you don't have the time and the

wave comes out of deep water it doesn't it doesn't you don't it comes from deep water it doesn't start standing up way out at sea so you don't you don't have a lot of time once it stands up then you have to go and so the first wave we missed it and i was pissed um he he turned to he turned early because he was didn't want to get on the wave because he was worried about getting trapped and which i i don't blame him and in in retrospect when i look back at it it was good way i didn't go on that one i might have gotten plastered all over the reef the way the wave was it just way could and then that would have been the end of the morning if i would have just gotten mowed and hit the bottom, then they would have been like, okay, that's it.

So the first one I missed, then I got the next one after that, and then I rode multiple, multiple, you know, I kept, I rode, I don't know how many I rode. And then once I had ridden long enough, I asked the other guys, a couple of the, I go, okay, you guys want to take a, so I, a couple of the guys were like, guys want to take it so I um like a couple of the guys were like okay yeah we'll go and so I towed a couple to uh I towed the Tahitian on um I towed Derek I towed a couple of the boys on on to waves um as well and then they they were like okay are you good and then I and then they're like okay we're good and so then i go i go okay well i'll go i'll go one more time then and uh and then i went and then that's when those

those rogue ones came those road like they were just a lot bigger than the rest had been and that's it's a little bit like that you know there's a people what is a rogue wave well it's just a wave that's just bigger than the other waves in the normal sea state and that happens more often actually in the southern hemisphere because of the way the there's no continent in the way the way the storms just go around uh antarctica without hitting any land mass so they gain so waves join together so waves will join together and all of a sudden it'll just be like it'll be like 10 feet 10 feet and they'll be a 20 footer and just and they don't really understand completely how they do it but so they do that kind of stuff so that uh that's kind of what those ones were they just came

they were two really substantially larger than the other ones and the other ones are already big enough uh and then after those two waves i mean i wrote a few before then i then those two waves came at the end of the session then we were kind of like it was already about noon and we were like okay we're we'll go in and eat lunch and as soon as we hit the beach a giant uh storm front hit wind blowing raining like the day was over it was kind of like that was the the end of the uh ride yeah that was the ride that was the end that was kind of like you had the here's your gift store's closed you know flip the sign yeah closed that's right no more what are you thinking when

you're you're hitting this wave for the first time like what what is are you are you enjoying it or are you are you trying to execute your your technique so something bad doesn't happen are you with the wave are you feeling part of the ocean what's what's the mindset going into this wave right now are you it's is it pure euphoria well i i had been there for two weeks i had finally talked the guy to taking me to teohupo so i had been right i had ridden it a few days before right so i had ridden it a couple times and uh and we called barreled you know being in the barrel like being in a barrel and had gotten a lot of tube like a lot of tube time like i had been getting a lot of so coming up to it i already kind of had a

a relationship with the wave itself i already had an understanding of of just how to where to be and how to ride it uh but when those bigger two waves came and and you're you're always trying to position yourself in the deepest spot you can be and still make it like that's the whole objective right is how can i be in the most critical position but still complete the ride because i can get myself in a really critical position but then not make it and that happens a lot like you're all of a sudden you're like you're just a foot back if you were just a foot ahead you would have had success but you were a foot back and the little gap closed you know so you're just a one you know one step from and so and then how to be in that position where to position your

you know how to put yourself put yourself in the place and so and then still make it uh and there are some unique things that happen on the one wave that were, was completely instinctual. I didn't, it wasn't even something I was conscious of is actually Sam George, who's the editor of surfer magazine said it after that, the, that I put my hand down on the inside and it was a weird, it was a weird thing. And, and even since then, I've seen some giant swells.

I watch guys do what you would normally do on a wave in that position but the wave doesn't isn't that isn't normal and you have to do something that's kind of counterintuitive which is you to you want to go you want to go out of it but the only way to get out is to turn in and so it's kind of like it's like a thing that doesn't make sense. And so that was, that was something that I did without knowing. I just did it instinctually, um, out of survival to make it. And so, um, but when you're in that moment and I know, you know, this very well time expands exponentially. And so there you're, you know, you can sit, you're sitting there having a conversation with yourself and it's like, I mean, while that happened in however many seconds. So there was some of that, you know, there, there was some of the jump off, you know, kind of, I call it the conversation between the, the, the horns and the halo was like, Hey, you got to jump off, jump off, jump off. And like, Oh no, but if you jump off, you can't make it, make it you gotta wait and get knocked off and so I was going back and forth in my head like that and so

um but jumping off but at times you you just think oh I just gotta jump off and then it was like well no but if you jump you can't make it so but I ended up not jumping uh and that I then I made it but that was a emotional time I was in emotion I was in a heavy time in my life, in my relationship. And I was, I think my guard was down too. I wasn't coming into it thinking that I had an opportunity to do something that had been kind of a lifelong pursuit. I wasn't really looking at it like that. I was like, oh, Tahiti, tahiti cool be fun catch some good waves you know reef break get tubed and you know beautiful clear water reefs

like the and i grew up in that kind of environment so it's real easy for me to go there it was like you know tahiti is the sister of hawaii yeah it's like the big brother and the sister the she's beautiful um she's also dangerous but she she's so i had already a relationship with the tahitians and tahiti because i grew up in hawaii and culturally and so i had a lot of comfort um in that but i didn't go i didn't go in thinking oh yeah i'm gonna get this huge wave and get these huge waves and be pressed and really challenged um to this level and so that i think i that's it was kind of like a bolo kind of got a bolo hook from the side when i wasn't looking and and uh and that i think that was you know that was just the way it went do you think in your next life you could be a meteorologist after

studying can you if you can ride meteors that'd be fun Do you think in your next life you could be a meteorologist after studying? If you can ride meteors, that'd be fun. Facts. Man, now, you immediately, after you hit this, for the day, you guys know you guys made history. Immediately or? I mean, we made our history. We made our history we were it was that was what it was about anyway because it's so much like that anyway right you can you can go out and do something that you think for you is monumental

and then you see the pictures or you or just the way people people respond to it or like oh yeah that's what's the big deal and then you can do something that maybe you don't have the same thing and people make a deal out of it but definitely for us it was clear like we were clear that what we had experienced that we had experienced something unlike anything that we ever could have imagined and uh and there was no denying that like we were we were we were clear about our, and again, having that nucleus of your guys together and that whole thing, it was like, if you ever doubted that you didn't,

you just look over at your buddy and he looks at you and you're like, exactly. Like you know and I know, exactly. So that's what's nice about that kind of, and you get the pictures and the those things and those things take time too it wasn't like insta you know this wasn't this was an instantaneous yeah you know these were these were 25 years these were cameras and these are cameras these were like wait till the stuff did the shot come out good was the guy

in the one spot i mean the truth is is that and i and i don't i don't we don't tell the story very often but the one guy camera jammed like the guy that had the film camera had a had a jam i mean he shot one of the other waves but the actual wave i think he's never he's camera jam yeah like like you know like 16 millimeter whatever camera jam like you know like so and then you got to get the thing you know you still got to get them you got developed you got to exactly yeah so there's all that it wasn't like instantaneous come in and scroll the phone and be like on post and there was none of we weren't doing that so but what but i was we're so used to that that was

normal that's our little 22 year old that does a of our... You can't just take picture and see right away. Yeah. You never... Yeah, he never had that in his life. Yeah. Now... You can't see right away and then throw away. Yeah.

See and throw. You can't just see and throw. Now, what's your reaction when you first see those pics? Well, it's... It's like... I mean, it's a... Because first of all all when you are on the wave you're not seeing the wave yeah you're just seeing you're seeing you can feel it you can

feel it i and i know what it was like i didn't i couldn't see it but i could feel that thing i i mean you just you feel waves you know where you are on them you can tell by what's you know i i said surfing's an interesting thing where you can you can tell what's going on behind you by what's happening in front of you not a lot of things are like that but you know like you can just look at what's happening in front of you and you just know what's happening behind you so i knew what was going on in front of me that there was something happening behind me and uh that was unlike anything that i you know and i and we listen i've seen every kind of different grinding waves and you know because in hawaii we have so much variety that you see some variation of every style of wave so i had a pretty good idea just by

the the draw of the of the water but but yeah seeing the photographs and being able to look from the perspective and stuff it's i mean there's some from land you can't appreciate you can see the curve a little bit but like from land half of the wave is below the horizon like you like the land shot from the land is like the wave is you see the only like the top half of the wave yeah because it's subterranean because like the whole thing's drawing off the off the reef but yeah definitely seeing the photos is you know that's insane now how like and to have and to have two guys shooting and have them be in the right spot i mean they could like oh there's so

many variables to it all had to go right it all or just not go bad or not go bad or not go bad now we always ask guys after these games or the women that have played in games that we go over. Yeah. How'd you celebrate? Well, I had been not drinking and I think I had a beer. That was about the extent of it. Hell yeah.

That was about the extent of it. The boys. And I think I got to talk to Gabby too. And I think that was like, that was an emotional thing that I got to communicate with her. So that was cool. That's amazing. That was good.

We hadn't been talking either. And then we got to, my friend always likes to say, oh yeah. And he wasn't drinking. And then we drank, you know, it's like,

I think I had a beer at lunch or something like that just to try to decelerate. But you know, the, the, the, I mean, we have had a lot of experience with post-traumatic just,

I call it, you know, after the surf gets giant, the bigger it is, the more aggressive it is, the more you come down. It's just the nature of it. It might take you three days. It could take a week. It depends on. So I've already at this point, 36, I've gotten it to be a little bit like I've gotten better at it.

I've gotten better at kind I've gotten better at at kind of knowing what's coming like how to pull the plane out before you just drive it in the into the ground because you can do that easy you can come off of that you know that that high that that peak and then just blow up you know drive it right into the ground. So try to pull that out a little bit. But I think I had to travel out of there pretty quick. And, you know, there was other stuff to do. But, yeah, lunch on the thing in the rain.

It was awesome. It was a good thing. Until the next one. That's right. Until the next one. Until the perfect storm wave. What's the aftermath of this bad boy, Jackie? This became the biggest, the heaviest wave Laird had ever surfed.

Made surfing history. It was on magazine covers around the world. Surfer magazine, to be exact. One of the biggest ones. Toe-in surfing history was made. And this really changed the human perception of what was possible to do on a board, which is just insane. Really gave birth to the modern wave of big wave surfing. And, of course, it's further cemented, layered as a legend in the world of action sports, surfing, all the above.

Man. So sick. So sick. Well, you know what that did do though too it did legitimize towing because towing was getting a wrap it was it was getting a there was still like some hey you know you i mean we can do you can paddle into these waves there was still some kind of gray area that that the people weren't you know the so-called core gabby and always laugh about core because she's like like how do you get more core than just dedicating your

whole entire life to something and every waking hour and you know like but maybe you just need the right shorts or something i don't know but um so but but, you know, like they're talking about core and, and we're, but the, that kind of really may, it was a clear line about what, what toe in could do. Yeah. And then, and then the result of that now is okay. Not only jaws and other, other stuff, but you know, you have like Nazare exists because of it without toe in Nazare wouldn't be Nazare. Like Nazare is something because of the

of towing in so uh that's an example of what portugal yeah have you ever thought about yeah if we foiled that wave you foiled that wave we did we foiled a giant too like wow how high that thing's like a hundred hundred footer well it's got a unique thing that it does. You know, again, waves do all kinds of, you know, there's rogue waves, and that wave has a unique ability to take two waves and stack them on top of each other, and not like a rogue wave where they become one, but two separate pieces go across each other

at the moment that it's going to break. So it, it, it, it has a strange thing where it'll have the face of a wave. That's, that's, you know, whatever they, whatever measurement they're giving it. Cause they love to do that. You know, the Guinness world record. I'm like, Oh, here we go. You know, it's like, how do you measure a cube by measuring the face of it? You know, like it's just like it's an impossible thing but but uh but yeah that that that uh that place does a unique has a unique uh topography on the bottom has a unique uh a thing where it makes the wave grow into two waves and it's right in front of a cliff there's no doubt the danger of that spot is is real and then beautiful it's just again it's another one of these special natural you know

phenomenons yeah yeah it's one of it's like one of the seven wonders of the world like you go there it's like high level stuff and you go to yosemite you're like wow beautiful you go to jaws you're like oh my gosh go to chopu wow amazing it's like these are like and this is nature and so there's some you know there there's worth seeing let's just put it that way yeah we're worth going to worth experiencing that's and you got crazy dudes like you that go fucking surf it seems like there's no shortage they're making a new one every day yeah there they are now last legacy of this where does this amount uh where does this rank among best moments in surfing history for you individually that's is that is this your high or is there still like we already we already kind of went over that yeah yeah i mean i i obviously i think it's a uh i mean i look at it like a heart rate it's one of

the high points on multiple high points so one of what i would say one one of i mean at the time it was the it was the crescendo but there's been other you know that's an irregular heartbeat bro yeah that one right there ain't no flatline and ain't no flatline. And then who's the Mount Rushmore of surfers for you? For you individually, it doesn't have to be the best, but that four. I mean, you'd have to give the Duke, right, kind of the award for, first of all, spreading it all over the world. Crazy Olympic gold medalists out swam everybody with the weirdest,

you know, like didn't even know how to kick turn and smoked everybody. The Duke? Rescued Duke Ahonomoku, rescued a boat full of like, spent a day saving like a boat somewhere in california southern california boat rolled over and went out and saved all these people um and didn't couldn't save them all and it was pretty he was pretty destroyed from that but you know somebody like that like you give the it's hard for me to give it to any anybody now because it's i don't know if we're capable of that yet you know like i i don't know if we're capable of that yet you know like i don't know if

we can i think that that's somebody like that right it's got to be somebody that that has already lived yeah so you know yeah you gotta be yeah you gotta be dead you gotta be dead you can't you only that's that. You got to be only dead trophy. It's true. Only the dead guys. We'll be right back after this quick break. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden.

We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions. Like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or, can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do,

like resume specialist Morgan Sanner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it, like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep.

Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports, where we live at the intersection of sports and culture. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Every great player needs a foil.

I ain't really near them boys. I just come here to play basketball every single day, and that's what I focus on. From college to the pros, Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Angel Reese is a joy to watch. She is unapologetically Black. I love her. What exactly ignited this fire? Why has it been so good for the game?

And can the fanfare surrounding these two supernovas be sustained? This game is only going to get better because the talent is getting better. This new season will cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke. Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America.

I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford, and I've spent my career exploring the three-pound universe in our heads. We're looking at a whole new series of episodes this season to understand why and how our lives look the way they do. Why does your memory drift so much? Why is it so hard to keep a secret? When should you not trust your intuition? Why do brains so easily fall for magic tricks? And why do they love conspiracy theories?

I'm hitting these questions and hundreds more because the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life by digging into unexpected questions. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And this is, we're coming to the end where we score the game we usually score a game okay we'll score the wave the name of the game the name of the wave the millennium wave the oh my god wave the heaviest wave of all time which one would you like to pick the millennium wave the oh my god wave or do you have something oh my god wave the oh my god wave oh yeah

like that love that score the game is this the greatest game of all time let's score it Or do you have something? Oh, my God wave. The oh, my God wave. Oh, yeah. Like that. Love that. Score the game. Is this the greatest game of all time? Let's score it. The stakes of the wave, 0 to 10. Got to be like 9-9. 9-9. 9-9-9-9.

Life and death, baby. 9-9. I'm going, I mean, you're pretty much dying if you don't do this thing right. Dunzo. And it's the heaviest of all time. Hasn't been done. That's a nine. Jack did 9.5.

I did 8.9. Why 8.9, Kyler? I am my spectrum. The Russian judge. My spectrum. Russian judge. From confording this is tough. You're doing my best here.

I know, I know. Star power. Zero to 10 of the team. The team? Probably get five. Five? Five guys. That's right, baby.

I'm going fucking. You can include the wave, too. The wave? Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, well. Then you get nine- nine five i'm going star power we got 10 flared baby let's see russian judge jack did seven even i did seven yeah yeah oh wow just the amount of people like we do a football game you get you know yeah yeah yeah we got it it's okay a lot of you know fucking guys yeah the wave play or should i say the wave play usually how the game goes is back and forth

wave that was the wave play was pretty that was you know i i go nine nine again nine nine jules i gotta go nine jack with an 8.1. Seven. Three. These are good scores. These are good scores. The name of the wave.

Oh, my God wave. And also the cultural impact, too. The cultural impact. It's a huge. Significant. I got to go first. Zero. Zero.

Zero. That. Zero? That's modesty. That might be our first zero in the nuthouse. Cultural impact. We didn't even think we could surf this fucking wave before. I'm going nine. Jules with nine. Jack does a 7.6.

I did an 8.8. What's our grand total? Calculating. 8.16. 8.16. I did an 8.8. What's our grand total? Calculating. 8.16. 8.16. That's pretty good. Where's it ranked in the games that we've done? Very solid.

That puts us at 17, just above the 2011 NBA Finals Game 6 Mavs versus Heat, and just below the wide right Super Bowl XXV with the Bills versus the Giants. That's respectable. That's very respectable. I'm in good company. A lot of good company. Laird, thank you so much for coming on. Totally.

Games with Names. This is Waves with Names now for this specific episode. It's been a pleasure. Glad we could slide in there. What do you – that's my little doggie, Rocky. Hi. Also, check out Laird'sfood we're we're all concerned yeah so laird long time lover you got your superfood can you give us a little yeah run down on that we got to tell the folks uh well there's there's a lot of incredible products in that line and it started from like my own personal love for coffee and then using that as energy and then and we kind of are the basis is really that we're all the ingredients are whole

food ingredients yeah so we're not putting any weird stuff no bad oils no bad fillers no and i mean we have green incredible greens incredible red uh performance mushroom stuff we have green, incredible greens, incredible red, performance mushroom stuff. We have all the creamers. We have instant line. We have incredible hydration products, and we have crazy bars. Yeah. Like, and so, but really just stuff that you can go in with a free conscience. Yeah.

You know? Definitely. Yeah, that's good. So, and there's nothing that somebody doesn't like like i said i there's there's something for everybody and he's got this turmeric powder that i'm gonna put on my ribs yeah you can do that i'm gonna cook with it you're gonna you're gonna thank me for that that's that's high level and and for all you guys that are listening out there like just to put in perspective this guy's 60 years old and whatever he puts in his body,

you should definitely put what he's putting in his body. He looks like he's fucking 31. Facts. Well, the thing is, we have all the good fats. We have all the good nutrients. Surfing.

Chicks dig me, but they're all my daughters. Well, I have my wife. it's the only ones that matter that's the only one that matter thank you lair that's awesome thank you so much for coming man i appreciate it aloha aloha bro you're the man you are we appreciate it man i have a new man crush absolute icon i'm there right there with you, bro. Laird is so cool. Mindset. Aura. Talk about aura.

Aura through the, oh my God, bro. Look, Aura Max, bro. Yeah. I mean, handsome, cool, got balls. But he also seems like a great dad. He does, bro. Family guy. No Peter Griffin, bro.

Family guy. Loves his wife. jack was starstruck i was i was a little shook i'm not even gonna lie bro i've been i've been watching laird i've been drinking laird for years and years man no diddy on drinking laird like creamer the mushrooms like i'm i'm gonna we're stacked up with the laird no i stole so many i'm a laird evangelist super food i'm gonna go train i gotta go train you got it bro the you got the invite you got the invite that is oh my god bro i'm a little intimidated also is is laird our first guest that we can just refer to by first

name and you know him he might be our first guest that it has a single name yeah it's like lebron it's like share layered prince It's like Cher Layered Prince I'm gonna think I think he might be dude McLovin McLovin No Gronk

Gronk Gronk It was a last name though It's one It's part of a last name Yeah okay But close That's the closest we've come

Lily met Gronk Yesterday She met him when she was younger And I go Yeah this is This is rob you remember him lil and she's like no no she's kind of shy because rob's a big guy oh yeah you know rob starts being rob and he gives such big kid vibes so you could tell that she was like she was comfortable and we get in the car to go to soccer i I go, you don't remember Rob?

She goes, uh, not really. I go, you remember Rob Gronkowski? She goes, that's Gronk. I go, yeah. She goes, yeah, he just looked a little different. I didn't know that was Gronk. You said his name was Rob. I go, his name's Rob Gronkowski.

I thought you were going to say, because you were like, this is Rob. He's one of the greatest football players of all time. And then Rob goes, one of? The. He said the. I love it, bro. Also, news alert, news alert. Rob might be joining the Coast Productions Fantasy Football League.

Oh, I like that. That's big time, bro. That's big time. I wonder how he's going to take it. His name? I don't know if I can say it yet. Does he have it already? He dropped it for us. Instantly he said,

what did he say? Gronk Soar Ass? I believe it was Gronk Soar Ass. He's trying to rival the Ernie Adams family. As far as best name in the league. With two ones as L's. Yeah, he's trying to rival it, man. He's already coming in, baby.

Making waves, throwing haymakers. That was awesome. Oh, my gosh. I can't wait for fantasy now. I can't wait to see how many quarterbacks he has on his roster. I can't wait for fantasy now. With Gronk in the league? Man.

I know, it's going to be fun. We've got to step up right here. It's going gonna be fun bro and before we while we're back on the lair topic gotta let the fans know just what jules is rocking today by the way this is a deep cut real deal og vintage i bet y'all didn't even know laird was with nike back in the day nike aqua gear laird dead stock vintage i wore them on rebox though you see that facts facts facts facts we love rebox shout out rebox but just had to shout it out let the people know what you got on

i mean we were also so nervous about having laird on the show that like jules has a whole sauna set up and like the cold plunge i don't know if it's gonna be cold enough so jules was like let's go get some ice and get the cold plunge cold enough yeah i mean i wanted my fucking like because i cleaned it. And usually it takes, like, two days to get to, like, cold, cold max temp. And I needed my, just for him, if he wanted to stick his hand in or go maybe do a cold plunge sesh together. Yeah, I had it ready. You had to be ready, baby.

I had to be ready. We had to be, dog. You stay ready. You ain't got to get ready. Hey, shout out. Hey, shout out to all our boys in the field. We called on all our surfing community homies, Stevie, Rob, Will. We called on everybody.

Uncle Bob. Shout out to everybody. Yeah, who helped us. That was fun. That was a fun episode. Our boys in the field. That guy's a poet. He's like a poet.

He's a poet, bro. He was dropping some serious knowledge. There's four or five things he said that just rolled off his tongue where I'm like, man, that's cool. Did you hear me trying to drop in the point break? He didn't even acknowledge it.

Wait, was it a Johnny Utah? Yeah, with the sharks. Yeah. I said, he said something like, if a fucking shark takes me out, that's a hell of a way to go out. Big time. And I go, well, you died doing something you love. It's not tragedy, Laird. He said something like, if a fucking shark takes me out, that's a hell of a way to go out or something like that, right?

Big time. And I go, well, you know, you died doing something you love. It's not tragedy, Laird. Oh, yeah. He didn't. I don't know if he heard it. Maybe not. He didn't know that movie line.

He was in the remake, though. I mean. Before we move on, we like to do, like, stupid questions in, like, the pop culture and just the dumb question of, like, riding the perfect wave and him be like, oh, yeah, I'm already working on it. The perfect storm. The perfect storm.

The perfect storm. Oh, yeah, I got a plan. Yeah, I could do it. You just got to get me out there. No, he was more like, I haven't got it. Or what did he say? It's possible. He's like, we're working on it.

I got my guys. These guys, they just emit testosterone. I got my boys. They emit testosterone. That is, I mean, that was sick. All right, what do we got here for this post-guest segment here? NFL week one around the corner,

which means it's fantasy football draft season. On today's Hotline Bling, we'll answer your burning fantasy questions to help you win your league. Like I'm going to win mine. I hope Rob is not listening to this. I'm taking Rob out. Bite his kneecaps.

I'm going to MCDC him. Again, that number is 424-291-2290. Let's get into it. Also with Gronk, I told Lily that Gronk could take John Cena. Oh, totally could. Just because that's the only way she'd think I'm cool, is if I know someone that'd do that.

So she looked at me, she goes, does that mean he's stronger than you? I go, it was defeating, but... You admitted it. I had to tell my daughter. I got Lil's a John Cena head. The John Cena. Loves the John Cena.

She doesn't say that no more, though. She's grown out of the John Cena. Oh, man. Hey, Lil's a John Cena head. The John Cena. Loves the John Cena. Didn't say that no more, though. She's grown out of the John Cena. Oh, man. Hey, what's up? It's Troy. I was just wondering about the Atlanta Falcons this year. Especially with the fantasy. I've been thinking about Dijon Robinson a lot.

I think his upside is just way too high. He was underused last year, in my opinion. This year, new head coach, new system. I think he's going to be a big breakout player. Now they got Judon and Justin Simmons. I know it's not fantasy, but Falcons are off. Falcons are looking devious if the coach can figure it out. Yeah.

I mean, what's the question? Is Bijan Robinson a monster a monster yeah we're thinking yeah i think he's gonna be i mean he's he was electric last year he's got to stay healthy yeah not a lot of belt cop backs out there either so the thing is they had the other back who's the other um algier alger he was getting a lot of the run. Maybe he gets a little more of it this year, Bijan. But, you know, I don't know how the team's going to do with it. Maybe they do the two-back system to, like, try to save the guy because you want them in December.

I mean, that Judon trade, I think that's a win for both teams. Yeah. You know, Judon didn't want to be there anymore, you know, for that price. And that, you know, they're not going to, you know, the Patriots are looking at it. He's 32. He didn't play last year. We can't reward him.

At least that's how I think that they probably think. Then you get a third for him. Then you get a third. This Falcons offense. So the Falcons, you know, they're going to pick up a guy that they needed. They needed an edge guy. They lucked into that. This right here makes the Michael Penix pick look a lot better, I think,

because they should have used an edge guy. They couldn't stop the run or get at the passer last year at all. They lost a lot of those one-possession games last year, I swear. I don't know the exact number. Now you've got a pass rusher like Judon. They've got a really good team. It's going to come down to the coach. Like what's our guy?

Troy said. The coaches can figure it out. And from a fantasy perspective for Robinson, there's a quarterback there now. So that makes the offense better. There is. Potentially, you know. You have to think he's going to get a lot of the touches,

particularly in the red area. Good pick. I think it's a good pick. Youentially, you know. You have to think he's going to get a lot of the touches, particularly in the red area. Good pick. I think it's a good pick. You're not PPR. Amen. I think Bjarre, I think this is a really good question. I think great trade for both. Judon's going to go to a better team, have a chance to play in the playoffs.

Patriots are going to get a third rounder. They need to get some linemen. Let's go. Maybe a playmaker. You never know. I like how you described him as devious. That a baby Troy. You see that?

I like that. That's a good word. Hi, it's Ricky from Borough of Lowered Island. You guys have been a part of my morning routine since Sam was on hosting. Every week makes me get up out of bed be able to listen to that podcast and get ready to go to school but uh my fantasy question is i took cd lamb in the first round third pick overall and right now i'm just a little worried with my pick because you know the whole the whole contract issue with Jerry Jones,

not really seem to want to get a deal done with him. What do you guys think? Should I trade him for something more safe, or do you think I should just hold on because of that output that he could potentially have for my team? Yeah, that's pretty much it. Thank you guys for giving me something to look forward to each week for classes. All right.

See you. Ricky, no problem. We're honored to have you. Is he listening to the show during class? Dude, I hope so, bro. We're dropping serious knowledge, man. This is 400-level stuff. I guess I haven't dropped enough knowledge.

Because, first off, what is my guy doing having a draft this far before? We can't have drafts. We still don't even know who's hurt. You do draft night before week one. Like, you need to have cemented rosters

before we start drafting. We're at 90 guys right now. I mean, what if you drafted Dattelson? Or J.J. McCarthy? before we start drafting. We're at 90 guys right now. Facts. I mean, what if he drafted Adelson? Or J.J. McCarthy? Gone for the year. What are we doing?

So I admire the courage of having an early draft. But this is a tough situation because Jerry playing hardball. It sure is, baby because Jerry playing hardball. He sure is, baby. Jerry playing hardball. And what makes me a little scared with the C.D. Lamb situation, when he comes back, is he going to be in football shape? That's the question. Two things can come with that.

Now, he could be C.D. Lamb and still just come start balling right out the gate. Like we know he can. Like we know he can. Like you know he can. Making that 88 pass. But when you don't have that training camp, you're susceptible to maybe a hamstring pull or does he have his football legs under him? Does he last the whole year?

That's a tricky situation. Would I trade him? I would trade him and try to get a running back. Would you really? No. Scared money don't make money. All right. You drafted a guy like him and Prescott have a connection.

Just fucking, you did it. Let's go. All right. I think he did the right thing at the time because CD is certainly ranked on all the boards. Who else are they throwing to over there? I like Ferguson, the tight end. I like Ferguson. Yeah, he's nice with it.

Michael Gallup. Brandy Cooks, bro. I like Ferguson. Yeah, he's nice with it. Michael Gallup. Brandon Cooks, bro. I like Cookie. I got Cooks back there. I like Cookie, but he's going to be getting a lot of that coverage, I bet, this year because he had 120-something catches last year. Zeke's back there, baby. We got Zeke back.

But, I mean, Ricky, I think you made the right move in the moment. First pick, third overall. You went with receiver? Probably PPR. Is it a PPR? Yeah, I suspect. But even if it's PPR, you're still dependent on the execution of a pass. Don't you always go running back first PPR?

It's changing a lot lately. I know, yeah, I see that. It's hard. People are kind of thinking. Wait, why didn't he get Tyreek? Getting older? Tua? Who would you rather throw into your guy?

Tua or Prescott? You're telling me you'd rather have CeeDee Lamb over Tyreek Hill in fantasy football. I'm not telling you that. Tua plays in the sunshine half the year. Maybe he'll win second. You never know. You know that for a fact, Tyreek Hill is going to have like a 40-point game. Cowboys playing at Dome.

I know. There's also a lot of pressure and agony going on over there. It's true. Maybe that messes up of pressure and agony going on over there. It's true. Maybe that messes up the feng shui of the team. The McMuffins are a little extra salty, baby. Extra salty. Extra salty right now. A lot of mouth defeats in Miami, too.

A lot of mouth. You got Waddle, you got the boys. When you're paying a guy like Tyreek Hill, what is he, 31? He was on a crazy pace last year, too. He had, like, what, two? He's 30. 30? 30?

Yeah. Now, even if he slowed down, 10% is still faster than everyone. He's got Noah Lyles, baby. He might dust Noah. He said he could dust him. He said that? That's what he said. No, he didn't.

Yes, bro. He laid down the gauntlet. Wait, what? He laid down the gauntlet. He said he wanted to challenge Noah Lyles. I don't know if it was a 50 or 40-yard dash. I don't know. Oh, 40? Yeah. He didn't want to go hundy? I don't he said he wanted to challenge noah lyles i don't know if it was a 50 or 40 yard dash i don't know oh 40 yeah he didn't want to go hundy i don't know if he wanted to go hundy and maybe maybe it didn't mean 100 i mean tyreek get out the blocks he's a beast bro he's quick those but those guys those guys now the new 100 100 sprinters are like six

three i know they're long big bodies bodies, baby. They can move. That would be so fun. I'd pay to watch that. I would pay to watch that. I just want to see. You should bring back. I just want to see. What are those like man versus beast? Like have them run against like a.

I think Ocho raced a fucking horse or something, didn't he? Like a camel or some shit. Bro, my last piece of advice for Ricky, fantasy. I don't care about that. Out the window. We are part of your morning routine. I suggest you add a little bit of Laird Superfood in there, baby. A little Laird Superfood.

Mix that into your morning routine. I put that in there. You know what? If you would have done that, your cognitive, because of all these mushroom supplements, would have made you realize, like, man, we should have probably had this draft six weeks later. Next year.

Get those adapted. Next year. Hello, Julian. Actually, year. Get those adapted. Next year. Yo, Julian. Actually, Mr. Edelman. My name is Joey. I was wondering who do you think should be the second or third tape? They say it. They'll pass.

Second or third tape in the thing? Second or third pick. So this is the conversation we're having. CeeDee Lamb? So McCaffrey won, probably. So is it CeeDee Lamb or Tyreek Hill? I think we covered it. Yeah. Yeah.

Or do you throw like a Jamar Chase or Justin Jefferson in there? Probably not. I know Justin Jefferson and Sam Darnold. They might be seeing some ghosts out here, right? Yeah, I don't know about that. I'm interested to see Sam in a good offensive scheme. I don't know. Colin Coward's got me thinking about Sam Darnold being decent. Really?

But remember how he gets his takes. What? How he told us. He just likes to just like, what's the best story? No, but he likes Sam Darnold. Over the years he's always had his back. He could be Baker Mayfield type season this year. That's what I mean. Yeah. Because he's got a lot of talent around him.

We've got one less with Addison out. Yeah, it sucks about Addison. It's terrible. I mean, who'd be kidding? Did we think J.J. McCarthy was going to come in and light it up right away? NFL media going crazy in early preseason. Let's do two more here. Hey Jules, wondering

if it's worth taking Tom Brady in the last round of fantasy draft this year. Let me know if you have any insight on if he's coming back or not. Thanks. Tom Brady in the last round of fantasy draft this year. Let me know if you have any insight on if he's coming back or not. Thanks. Tom Brady in the last round? I mean, I'll probably do it if he's available. Don't hate it.

You do like to hoard quarterbacks. I do. I like to hoard quarterbacks. And speaking of Minnesota. Because you can get trade bait. But then send bullshit trade offers all year. I mean, you need a quarterback. Those quarterbacks outperform your

quarterback so much better than what your quarterback the only reason you beat me last year in the playoffs which i'm still bitter about is because i was on a beach in costa rica on christmas day and fucking josh jacobs didn't play and i and i just like the one time i didn't obsessively check i'm on my honeymoon i didn't obsessively check fantasy football and you fucking beat me by like four points bullshit what do you talk i can't think i can't i can't take credit for that win i gotta sit and thank each and every individual on my fantasy football team my guys went out there that day and they put a little extra into it they caught caught a couple extra balls. You DMing players after a win? Yeah, I thank them all the time. Congrats, King.

Congrats, King. You know, I got to tell you, those guys, they had the competitive stamina in the championship rounds to be able to overthrow your guys. Not everyone can be a winner. Overthrow. Not everyone can be a winner. I will never apologize for winning don't draft

tom brady in the last round what you do is you let him sit on waivers for a while right and then when your team's in the play you definitely don't draft tom brady you see him he's doing cliff dives in fucking paris right now this guy he ain't throwing a football your team's in the over on the fanatics boat throwing fucking bombs to guys on jet skis. You think he could take a hit? Your team's in the playoffs. He's looking good, though. His body looking good.

I saw him shooting a hockey stick today. Is he good? Okay. He's athletic. He's Tom Brady. Bro, but you know that I'm coming back vlog is going to hit extra hard. He's got a vlog right now. He's a vlogger, bro.

What's it called? It's called I Should Have Launched. I think it's called Last Week. Wait, wait. Tyga, give us the rationale, though, here. What do you do if you're GM? Okay, so this is my move, and this move has gotten me a couple championships.

You can't do it in the season, right, because that's a wasted roster spot. When it comes to playoff times, and you kind of have your team, and you've got a couple of defenses, what you do is you need a locker room guy. You need a character guy. I've won a couple of defenses, what you do is you need a locker room guy. You need a character guy. I've won a couple championships picking up Tim Tebow,

just riling up the group. I did it with Tony Gonzalez when he was out of the league. I just needed some veteran leadership. I did it with you. You were not playing anymore, but I brought you in because I needed some fucking sandpaper in the locker room. It works. So maybe Tom Brady in the playoffs. He's a winner

you know what kyler as the wise old bill belichick would tell me this is a production business so you could do all the hooting and hollering you would fucking want to do you could have the pre-game speech you could do the goddamn war dance before the game the fire the smoke this that it all comes down to the little fucker produce when it's a pressure situation. And that weekend, my guys did. You know, some of us were, you know, behind the keyboard making moves.

Some were in fucking beaches in Costa Rica. Who do you think is going to win that? I'm going to start calling you. You did the boat trip to start calling you. You did the boat trip to Miami, bro. You boat trip to Miami. I'm going to quote Bill again. Someone make that a meme. Get Kyler and his

wife on the boat in Miami. Headshot it. Maybe don't you bring a dog or something? Odell, baby. And make sure you put some weird sandals and some blue socks on. Are they blue today they're green oh they're green speaking of our photoshop our last our last questions from our guy dalin

who's our resident photoshop guy he's our meme guy where's our meme guy this guy who's about to speak in two seconds hey guys it's yours truly down calling obviously that's incredible get some white whale get but uh the last episode with macho man Randy Savage speaking to Jack got me thinking you know who's your you know nuthouse in the sky guess you wish you could get you know like macho man would have been incredible bill wall like leach you know those those guys that we we may not hear from that would make a perfect addition to the Nuthouse interviews.

So just wondering who might fit that list for you. Love you. Bye. I mean, those three right there would be amazing. I agree. Dallin, never to correct you, I love you, brother, but Macho Man took over all three of us that day. He was – we were embodied. Oh, my God. He came down here and he spoke through all of us that's my only correction but yeah mike mike leach legend bro

when i would go hang out danny after like super bowls and stuff we'd go get you know have a couple pops or something and we would call mike leach every time. It didn't matter what time of the night it was. He would pick up, and he would talk to us for like 45 minutes telling us crazy stories. I don't really remember because of those adult beverages that we had, but I just remember we would call him all the time, or he would call us randomly, or Danny, and then I would be there. He was a fun dude.

Bill Walton, I mean, that's half the reason I watch college basketball. I didn't watch the games. I just wanted to hear his stories. Legend. Our guy. The guy I love, Pac-12, Pac-10. Mike Leach, another great Pac-12 guy. Oh.

Man. Remember Mike Leach in Hawaii? That's so beast. Dude, the guy that picks up the phone and is down to clown and talk for 45 minutes at 2 in the morning. Game plan before game. Eating like a Snickers or something. I'm fully picturing the scene in Happy Gilmore when Abe Lincoln

and the alligator are waving down. These kind of guys. Chubbs. All right, so those kind of guys. Yeah. Vince Lombardi is a great one. Jim Thorpe. Walter Payton. Great one. Yeah. Vince Lombardi's a great one. Yeah, Jim Thorpe. Walter Payton.

Great one, beast. Walter Payton would have been fun. I heard he was a cool dude, too. Huh? Madden would be awesome. John Madden would be the best podcast guy ever. Oh, my God. He would be go to you.

I'm thinking of, too. Wait, Nick Cage is playing John Madden? Yeah. Yeah, what do we think about that? Nick Cage is playing John Madden. Yeah. Yeah. What do we think about that? Nick Cage. So it's the director, David O. Russell. He did Silverlighting Playbook and The Fighter. He's a great director.

I wonder where Nick's audition was. The audition? He doesn't have to audition. You don't think Nick? I don't think so. No? They just said, hey, we'll put Nick Cage as John Madden? Nick Coppola.

What do you think John Madden would think about Nick? He'd probably like The Rock and stuff. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I wonder. But Nick Cage in the last 15 years has been different. How many games of football do you think he's watched? Maybe he's a big football nut. Maybe we're assholes.

Maybe Nick Cage is going to knock this out the sky He better be working If anyone could do it He better be working on his Madden catchphrases Boom boom boom Now here's a guy Boom tough acting I mean he gotta get in there baby

I got faith in him I do love The Rock You like The Rock as John Madden? No the movie The Rock. You like The Rock? Is John Madden? No. The movie The Rock. With Sean Connery. We gotta get Nick Cage in the nuthouse and just see what his... Maybe we start the PR

campaign now so we get an old Raiders game and see what he knows. I'm sure he's done he's a professional so he's gonna do his research. This guy will probably research the shit out of it. He better not be going in bare-knuckle Barry on this thing. Yeah, let it wing it. I got a couple, because I think you go moments, like games,

and go backwards. So I was thinking Olympics just wrapped up. Jesse Owens. Jesse Owens. The Olympics in Germany. Winning some gold medals in front of fucking Nazis. That's fucking sick. That would have been... That would be all time bro

Man Maybe Just because we're talking We've been talking ball We've been watching hard knocks A guy from the first season of hard knocks Goose baby Tony Saragusa

I think Goose would be great in the Nuthouse How about Al Davis? Al Davis just win, baby. That'd be awesome. George Hallis? George Hallis. Curly Lambeau? That's a great question.

That's a good question. Let's put that in the comments and poll it and see what people would do. We'll clip that out. Thank you, Dallin. Thank you, Dallin. Great question, brother. Great question. Bill Russell.

Bill Russell, man. The greatest winner of all time. I did a signing with him. Did you really? Did you really? Thanks again to Laird. That was a fun episode. Very cool episode.

Hope you guys loved it. It was fun for us. That's been another episode of Games With Names. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts. Comment a game you want us to do. And remember, rate and review remember to follow games with names

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podcasts from iHeartRadio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Carrie Champion, and this is Season 4 of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game.

Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry, Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. women's sports. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's basketball. And on this new season, we'll cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio apps, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke.

Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford, and I've spent my career exploring the three-pound universe in our heads. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life, because the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, where I head back to my hometown in Kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot, the Rebels, into something everyone in the South loves, the biscuits. I was a lady rebel. Like, what does that even mean? It's right here in black and white in print. It's bigger than a flag or mascot. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.