Dennis
Hi, I’m Dennis VanDerGinst join me in a series of entertaining and interesting conversations with entertaining and interesting people. We’ll explore various aspects of the human experience and what makes life more fun. This is Uncommon Convos.

Dennis
Thank you all for tuning in, I’m your host Dennis VanDerGinst here with the effervescent Dana Watkins.

Dana
Effervescent?

Dennis
Yeah, I had to come up with another word for you today. Before we get started, I’d like to remind you all to please subscribe, rate, and review our podcast if you like us. If not, then don’t, don’t worry about it.

Dennis
Also, check out uncommonconvos.com to leave comments and suggest topics and guests. Speaking of guests, we have a great one here today. My friend Bobby Hansen is here to talk basketball and business. Bobby is currently a regional director for the Better Business Bureau. And in his former life, he, he played basketball for Lute Olson and the Iowa Hawkeyes, where he graduated in 1983 as the 10th all time scoring leader in Iowa history.

Dennis
He then spent nine seasons in the NBA, mostly with the Utah Jazz, but finishing his career in ’92 as part of the Chicago Bulls championship dynasty with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. In fact, Bobby spurred the comeback in Game Six of the ’92 finals against the Portland Trail Blazers when the Bulls came back from fifteen points down in the fourth quarter to get Bobby his NBA championship ring.

Dennis
And I think that still stands as the largest comeback in NBA finals history. In addition to his responsibilities with the Better Business Bureau, Bobby’s been a long time color commentator for Iowa basketball broadcasts. And Bobby, as we’re recording this, we’re right in the middle of the NCAA tournament. So I’m really grateful for you to be here with us today. How are you doing today?

Bobby
Yeah, hi Dennis, hi Dana. Doing good. Doing good. I wish we were still playing this is the Lead 8 we’re, we’re doing this podcast and yes, I had high hopes for the Hawkeyes would get passed Oregon. And then the game would be, I think tonight.

Dennis
Right.

Bobby
Later. Would have played USC. But yeah, yeah, they had, had an opportunity and had a great year regardless. Luka Garza was phenomenal. So, yeah, all good.

Dennis
And we’re definitely going to talk about that quite a bit more. But as we get started here, I kind of alerted you that the first question that we were going to have to launch the podcast was going to be from you to you. So what kind of, what’s the question you want to ask yourself?

Bobby
Yeah, there’s a million, right? And I thought about it after reading it, and I haven’t come up with a good one, Dennis, but I had a nice long lunch with a good friend of mine. And I think the last time we were together was before the pandemic. So I guess my question was, what did we just go through this past year?

Bobby
Everybody, I mean, it affected every single human being on the planet. You know, how did we get through it? How did we survive it? What did you learn coming out of it? And as, as we talked at lunch, I said, I think we learned that we need the human interaction of people. OK, maybe the first couple of weeks and staying home was good, but you go stir crazy.

Dennis
Oh, yeah.

Bobby
Luckily, Mary and I live out in the country and I could get out and take a, we could walk around the pond and go outside and enjoy that. But it’s, I hope we never have to go through that again. And on top of that, yeah, on top of that was during this past year was the wind storm, the derecho that hit Cedar Rapids. So it really affected, you got the double whammy around here, the businesses, and it’s still still a mess. You see it, Dennis, you have your office over there. You got, that whole area got crushed over there. And it wasn’t like a tornado, where one area of town would have gotten nailed, but it was the whole 60 mile wide swath of destruction.

Bobby
But I guess the question of, you know, what we learn out of it and what did we become better, better people? I think so. I think more productive, more efficient in your production at your work. And you had to find ways to get it done. And I think the human spirit, they got it done.

Dennis
Yeah, I think you’re right. I mean, people had to be creative, that’s for sure. I mean, as, as we’re doing this today, we’re obviously in different locations, but we’re able to get it accomplished.

Dennis
It’s not that kind of contact that we probably prefer to have, but at least we’re creatively able to get it done. So that’s great. So I want to lay the foundation here for those listening in who aren’t familiar with you. I know that you played ball in Iowa, at West Des Moines Dowling, if I remember correctly. And then, and you won the 4A state title at that point and then you went off to Iowa.

Dennis
So were you recruited elsewhere? Why did you decide to go to Iowa?

Bobby
Yeah. Yeah, Dennis, I think being home state, I’m from Des Moines. Went to West Des Moines Dowling. Dowling Catholic. And at that point your recruiting process is a lot different than it is now or kids are making decisions earlier in their careers. My decision to go to Iowa came all the way down to after done in high school after we won the state championship.

Bobby
So Iowa had won the Big Ten title the previous year. And I guess for me, I didn’t know if I could play at that level, to be honest with you, Dennis. Always going doubt a little bit, but I was never one of these overly confident people that go in there and set the world on fire, but knew that they were good and had a great player in Ronnie Lester, All-American point guard. Now, it’s like, where do you fit into this structure?

Bobby
So I was looking at, you know the home school was Drake, kind of wanted to get away from, from home a little bit. Every 18 year old kid wants to. Marquette was just coming off a national championship in 1977, So I took a visit up there and the campus just did not compare to the University of Iowa in Iowa City. It was more of an urban city campus. Beautiful in its own right, but it was in the city.

Bobby
So just like now and then, probably Texas A&M, believe it or not, was where I was heading. And at that time, you know, there are a lot of recruiting perks and all that, that went along with what they were doing down there and sounded good to me. When I want to tell the coach or ask the coach come and and tell that to my parents, my parents said no, over my dead body. You are not going. Kinda put the end to that.

Dennis
That was probably a good thing, right?

Bobby
Well, that was probably a good thing. So Lute Olson, you mentioned Dennis, was a, Hall of Fame coach now, such a presence and at that time was really making a name for himself and he was, he did the recruiting. Would come to the games at Dowling. And so he put the call in to me, you know, OK, we got to know here. Scholarship offer. Here’s what you get.

Bobby
I said wow, Coach, I’m really having a hard time with this decision. Can you have a little bit of time? And he said, you bet. And we’re on the phone right. I’m at home, at the kitchen table. And I said, well, how much time do I have?

Bobby
He said, You have ten seconds and then I have to, I have know.

Dana
Yikes.

Bobby
Yeah, Dana. They put the hard sell on you. At 18 years old your, you know, air goes out of your head and I’m like, OK, I’m coming to Iowa, Coach. I don’t want to let this opportunity pass up, so…

Dana
Smart.

Bobby
My father was a big Iowa fan. So he was, he, he loved the Hawkeyes and I knew he would approve of it. He really liked Lute Olson. And liked Coach Olson, he thought he’d be a good coach for me. And, you know, your maturation process and it worked out worked out great, great group of guys. And we had, we had a good run there.

Dennis
Yeah. In fact. I’m sorry. Go ahead, Dana.

Dana
Oh that’s OK. Isn’t Iowa, University of Iowa like one of the top five party schools?

Bobby
I think it has been voted. I don’t know if it’s ever reached the top though.

Dennis
Had nothing to do with it.

Dana
Exactly.

Bobby
Yeah. We were disciplined athletes, Dana, so I think you’re right. It’s a fun place.

Dennis
So speaking, though, of that choice, it turned out to be great one. Your freshman year, you made the Final 4. And that, in fact, I believe that’s last time Iowa was in the Final 4 and only the third time ever. So what kind of, that had to be a crazy experience as a freshman, because you were getting playing time freshman year and all of a sudden as a freshman you’re in the final four, how was that experience?

Bobby
Yeah, crazy, crazy experience. And we were not, we were one of the last teams guys to make it into the, into the field. We became a five-seed in the east region and the four teams ahead of you were all nationally ranked, Georgetown, Maryland, Syracuse, Iowa, were the four in there. And I can’t remember who the other one was. But they were they were all expecting to go to the Final 4 from our pod, from our area.

Bobby
So we got everybody healthy. We had a lot of injuries that year. I had a broken left hand and to play with a pad on it. Ronnie Lester’s bad knee, you had Kenny Arnold had a broken thumb, just we only had seven available players, really. Everybody else was injured and couldn’t play. Markkanen my roommate and best friend on that team blow his ACL out early in the season so he was, he could not play.

Bobby
We lost an assistant coach Tony MacAndrews in a plane crash. He went down in a serious plane crash on the banks of the Mississippi River…

Dana
Oh my gosh.

Bobby
…and was burned badly and bruised and he survived and he’s doing good. But we lost a coach in the middle of all that. So it just taught you resilience and taught you to come together as a team. We didn’t go real hard in practice, cause we only had seven guys.

Dennis
Yeah.

Bobby
But you just advanced. You just took it one game at a time, one day at a time. Luckily we got into the NCAA tournament, as I said one of the final, final teams in, at large teams in, but went down to North Carolina and beat Virginia Commonwealth and then knocked off North Carolina State in their backyard, which was an upset. And then we marched to Philadelphia and knocked off a higher seed in Syracuse pretty easily on a Friday night.

Bobby
And then we find ourselves down fourteen maybe at halftime early in the second half against Georgetown, and guys all came together and we scored nine out of ten possessions in the second half and played good defense and won going away. And a shot at the buzzer and a free throw 81-80. So at that point that’s when it’s like wow, we’re going to the Final 4.

Dana
Yeah.

Bobby
And it was a wild moment because the year before is what I consider the, the rebirth of college basketball, with Magic and Bird with the 1979 Final 4 that they had. So now all the attention goes to 1980. We were in Indianapolis and there we were right in the middle of it all and ended up not winning on that Saturday. We lost to the eventual national champion Louisville Cardinals, but they had a phenomenal player, Darrell Griffith, who became a teammate for seven years. Yeah. In Utah. Great teammate. Great guy, but great, great memories from from that Final 4 year.

Dennis
Well, and then, you know, obviously, that had to have been incredible. But then you got even more playing time and, and more attention in the course of your career there at Iowa. And I believe every year that you were at Iowa, you made the tournament, didn’t you? And I know you went to 16 your last year.

Bobby
Yeah, yeah, we lost to Villanova 55-54 down in Kansas City, a couple of missed free throws in there and just heartbreaking. But that’s the year Lute Olson left as well. Right after the game. He accepted the position down in Arizona and rebuilt Arizona basketball.

Bobby
So, yeah, got to enjoy four years at Iowa. Got my degree in business and marketing and then it’s off to what are you gunna do with the rest of your life? And had that, had that foundation of the Hawkeyes and Coach Olson and your buddies, right? I was ready to get into a career of banking at that time in 1983. Banking or insurance. A good friend of mine, Eric Kirk, was just starting up Kirk VanOresdel Insurance Company, which has since been sold out to Marsh McLennan.

Bobby
But he had said, hey, if it doesn’t work out, then come work for us here in Des Moines. So, yeah, it’s kind of like main thing was to get to graduation in the spring there and then drafted into the NBA in June.

Dennis
Yeah. And I want to talk about that. But before we leave the Iowa playing career, what was it like playing for Lute Olson?

Bobby
It was an awesome, awesome time. Lute was a gentleman. He was a player’s coach. He was well-prepared. Your scouting report was spot on every time and now just was go and execute. But the beauty of what Coach Olson and how he how he coached that team put together the team was, the guy’s, you know, he didn’t want any knuckleheads coming in, messing with the chemistry of the team. So you were recruited by the current players, a lot like a lot of schools do now.

Bobby
They take them out. They want to know is this guy gunna mesh in there. So I think Lute picks his guys to be a part of this team. And I think it’s pretty common knowledge, Lute never swore. I’d never heard him use a swear word in my four years, six years that I knew him through the recruiting process and even after that. But that’s just the type of guy he was. He’s a dedicated family man, married to Bobby Olson, his high school sweetheart.

Bobby
She ends up passing away of really, really bad cancer down in Arizona. But she was a second mother. We would take the recruits out and then it’d be breakfast on Sunday morning. She’d be making apple pancakes and and meet everybody up back at the house. So that’s what the experience was playing for Lute Olson. And he took that down to Arizona and became a national champion, a Hall of Fame coach, down down there with the Wildcats. So, no, it was a decision made in a ten second time span. I’m glad I came to my senses, if you will, and said I want to be a Hawkeye.

Dennis
That’s that’s great. And I was going to ask what some of your fondest memories were, but I think you just kind of told us some of those. Who would you say was the best player that you played with at Iowa? I know you mentioned Ronnie Lester. Would you would you rate him up there? Who else would you?

Bobby
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, Dennis. Ronnie was an all-American that injured his knee. He tore some cartilage early in his senior year and was really never the same after after surgery and going to the NBA. And just the knee continue to bother him. But he was he was the best guard that I ever saw, best point guard that I ever saw. Just quick, stop on a dime rise up above taller players, shoot the shot. Came from poverty in the south side of Chicago, down by White Sox field in the projects where Kirby Puckett grew up down there, the Robert Taylor homes, which are now flattened, redoing that area up by 45th Street.

Bobby
But that’s where Ronnie grew up. And just a humble person, just a wonderful teammate. So I’d say Ronnie’s the best. And then after that, Vince Brookins came in from Cleveland. Vince was a phenomenal athlete. Under recruited. I asked him, I was talking to him a month ago and, talking to him about what’s going on in the world and the inequalities and all that and how Vince never saw color.

Bobby
And this was a kid that was stabbed in the heart when he was fourteen years old in a race riot in Cleveland. He had a very visible scar on his, right over his heart, plus the open heart surgery. And just Vince is a great friend, is a great friend and a fantastic shooter and in a net run to the Final 4, Vince never played better in his whole career. He was phenomenal. He was a member of the all his regional team.

Bobby
But I’d say Ronnie one, Vince, Vince was number two right there. And then Steve Carfino played a professional career in Australia. Steve was a great little point guard to came in from California. But we had a lot of guys. And Kevin Boyle, a real good friend of mine from, he was from Chicago, St. Laurence guy. He was an all Big Ten freshman player. His freshman year made the all Big Ten team. So Kevin I guess. Those guys, One, two, three.

Dennis
And you had the Twin Towers your last year, didn’t you, Michael Payne and Greg Stokes, by the way…

Bobby
Greg Stokes.

Dennis
…I played against Michael in high school. He was a year or two behind me and one of the most embarrassing moments in my career. He stole the ball from someone and I went to defend him as he went down court, him on me and just me, and just, voom right over my head. He posterized me.

Bobby
There you go.

Dennis
And the only thing, the only thing that let me save a little bit of face was he was called for traveling beforehand. But this was down at Quincy, you know, so, you know, the crowd was going nuts because Quincy is such a Mecca as far as high school basketball. But they had a great career, too, obviously, there at Iowa.

Bobby
Yeah. Michael, great, great, great guy. I follow him on Facebook. You know, that’s how old people got to get connected now. But Michael and his family are living out in Maryland now. Doing very well. And Greg Stokes is up here in Cedar Rapids. Yeah, forget about Greg. Those two were the second set of Twin Towers, Dennis. First set we played with was Steve Waite and Steve Krafcisin. Waite makes a shot against Georgetown in the free throw to send us to the final four. But both those guys were 6’11” big towers on the inside.

Bobby
But Stokes and Payne or talented offensive players as well. But that’s a good memory, getting dunked on there by Michael.

Dennis
I don’t know about that.

Bobby
I’ll have to bring it up to him. See if he remembers it.

Dennis
So. So who were the best players that you played against? You mentioned Darryl Griffith. You did play with, with the Jazz. Anybody else that stands out in your mind when you’re in college that you would say, oh, my gosh, those guys were just amazing?

Bobby
Yeah. Hakeem Olajuwon from Houston and Clyde Drexler, we were down there and we played them. Some guys from Arizona State, Fat Lever was on that team along with Byron Scott was on that that Arizona State team. We played UCLA. They had a bunch of really good freshman guys in my day. Darren Day and Rod Foster, Michael Holton all went on to play in the NBA. Jobbery Carroll at Purdue long NBA career. Gosh there’s too many to remember them all.

Bobby
I mean, the Big Ten back then was loaded.

Dennis
Yeah.

Bobby
Jay Vincent. I missed Magic by a year. He left after his sophomore year. Greg Kelser, long NBA career there. Yeah, just just a ton of them.

Dennis
Yeah.

Bobby
I can’t come up with all the names, but.

Dennis
Sure. Well, you know, you mentioned after your, your senior year, you get drafted into the NBA and third round choice, nine year career. By the way, I looked this up. That’s not too damn bad to have a nine year career, especially a third rounder. The average career, according to Wikipedia, is 4.8 years. So so, yeah, you you doubled on that. Absolutely. So and as you mentioned, your first years were spent with the Utah Jazz.

Dennis
How was that experience? I know you played with some great players there too.

Bobby
Crazy, crazy experience. Number one, Dennis, Yeah, they don’t have a third round anymore, so very lucky to even be invited, I guess, to try out into the NBA. But I was the seventh pick of the third round, pick number 54. They now have two rounds of 30 picks each. So 60 picks, but was chosen by the Utah Jazz and a team that wasn’t doing very well but, but needed players.

Bobby
They had the leading scorer in the league and Adrian Dantley from Notre Dame, who was coming back off injury. They had Daryl you had Ricky Green, who became an all star, that rookie, my rookie year. Frank Layden was coach of the year that year, but it all came together. And again, the power of teamwork, if you will, and you just do your job. My role was to play a little defense, maybe hit a three pointer.

Bobby
I’m not going to play a whole lot during that year, but played some some important times. And you got to perform during those, those big moments. But we won the Midwest division. That had never been done by the Utah Jazz. They were an ABA team that won the ABA title. But once they merged, they were always at the bottom of the of the NBA and the west, west coast. So we really kind of elevated that. Frank Layden like I said, a phenomenal New York coach came in with a great sense of humor, loved his players, deflected all the pressure and attention away from players, put it upon himself and had a good run there.

Bobby
We had Jerry Sloan, a Chicago Bull Hall of Famer, legendary player, was an assistant at first. And then he became the head coach when Frank went up. But I was just hoping to make it through training camp. I was in shape, trained in the altitude to go out to Salt Lake and play in that altitude. But yeah, it just worked out. I was cheap. Minimum rookie salary, yeah, that helps when the team is looking at bankruptcy, I guess

Dennis
Sure. Yeah.

Bobby
Yeah, my rookie salary was $45,000…

Dennis
That’s crazy.

Bobby
…playing in the NBA. Yeah it is nuts. And you look now I think the minimum for rookies is $500,000.

Dana
Oh my gosh.

Bobby
I wasn’t complaining. I was not complaining guys, so it’s just great to have that uniform on with that logo on, on the uniform and do whatever it takes to become a part of that team.

Dennis
Well, you know, and Frank Layden, I think was an amazing coach and executive for a long time. And as you mentioned, I think Jerry Sloan came on near the end of your run there with Utah, if I remember. Did he coach you?

Bobby
Yes, he was an assistant for, right from the beginning.

Dennis
Yeah.

Bobby
Yeah. And then I think four years into it, Frank, we had new ownership. Larry Miller purchased the team.

Dennis
Right.

Bobby
Here, here’s how times have changed. People understand money. Larry Miller bought that in two installments. First one was eight million. The next year, he paid twelve million to Sam Battistone and his father. Twenty million dollars for the team. And Larry passed away a couple of years ago. He was a great owner, fast pitch softball pitcher, was a parts guy for Toyota and started his automobile empire. Now, I don’t know. They got three hundred and some dealerships now, but Gail Miller and the family sold it a couple of months ago for one point five billion dollars.

Dana
Oh my gosh.

Bobby
Yeah, that’s the, that’s the way these teams have increased in value. And that includes an arena in there as well. But it’s still just, just incredible. But yeah, that was time spent with Frank in Salt Lake. Two of our children were born out there in Salt Lake City and just a beautiful, beautiful city. And we loved it in summertime, just as much as the wintertime. You go hiking and fishing and riding your bike all up and down the canyons. Sundance Canyon. Robert Redford’s resort out there was awesome. So I just fell in love with the state of Utah.

Dennis
Now, how’d you like playing with Stockton and Malone out there? Obviously, Hall of Famers great, great teams, when everyone was gelling out there. What was that experience like?

Bobby
Yeah, John came in the next year after my rookie year. They drafted him in the first round. He was part of the Olympic, 1984 Olympic team and, him and Barkley did not make the cut. That’s kind of when people first started to notice Gonzaga and what John Stockton is.

Dennis
Right.

Bobby
And as I tell the story, yeah, I think Frank drafted him as a backup to all star Ricky Green from Michigan, all star year that, the previous year. So they drafted John quickly the first couple of days of training camp. I think some of the passes that he made and some of the plays that he made, you can see that they’re like, this guy is not a backup, he’s a starter. But fierce competitor, John is. And to this day, he probably still is one of those gym rat guys who goes out and plays basketball.

Bobby
Think about him a lot when we see Gonzaga having the run that that they’re having right now. Reacquainted with John. Had kind of not talked to him. He was one of the first people to call me after we won the world championship, how he got the number, I have no idea, to the apartment in Chicago, but he was one of the first ones to call Karl Malone right behind him, considered him friends. Karl and John, my wife and daughters got a hold of a lot of guys and asked for video.

Bobby
Happy birthday. I turned 60 a couple of months ago, so I had this crazy surprise video and got to see a lot of those guys.

Dana
Aww, how nice.

Bobby
But it brought a tear to my eye. Made me laugh, made me smile.

Dana
I bet.

Bobby
Just to see those guys and bring back some great memories. Karl, Karl doing great down in, down in Louisiana. He lives outside of Ruston. He’s got, he told me, 6000 acre ranch. Come on down and do some hunting and fishing down there with Karl.

Bobby
So he he had a recent scare where his wife went into septic shock from trying to pass kidney stones. Yeah, she’s much better now. But he was telling me he had to race her to the hospital. Luckily, luckily, they weren’t too far outside of town. But, yeah, that crazy times. Those guys grew up, it’s almost like we grew up together. When you’re twenty one, you’re holding on to to thirty years old. That little short time frame that you have to be a professional athlete.

Dennis
Yeah.

Dennis
And you were there for what, seven, seven years or so?

Bobby
Yeah, I was there for seven, and then traded to Sacramento. I was on the golf course with my wife and we were at Larry Bird’s golf tournament in Indianapolis and a guy came out, one of the young pros, said I got an urgent message for Bobby Hansen. And I’m like, uh oh, something had happened to the kids. We had two little ones at that time, my parents were watching.

Bobby
And it had 801 area code. I’m like, oh, we’ve been traded. It was right before the draft. So at that point you’re like, where are we going to trade to? Philadelphia, Boston? L.A.? New York? One of them. And they’re like, we’re training you to Sacramento.

Dennis
Oh no.

Dana
What does that feel like?

Bobby
I hung up. And yeah, I was only there a year. They were trying a rebuild process. Had four first round draft picks, they were going to take those all those young guys, mix them with some older veteran guys and see what they could shake out but didn’t work out so well.

Bobby
And I was at the end of my career, my body was was given out, given out. Had shoulder surgery out there and knee surgery, nothing major. Just clean up cartilage in both spots. Have good doctors at UC Davis. And then I was just like, well, can you trade me back to the Midwest? I know this is going to be the end of my career. So I would never do that, but just sometimes you feel strong enough that, OK, you’re going to do this.

Bobby
And the general manager and I, Jerry Reynolds, had a good relationship from, knew him for a lot of years. He said you know, I’ll do that for you. So he said Chicago, the Bulls are here looking at you. And I went, really? The Chicago Bulls, not the Durham Bulls or somebody else? No, no. The world champion Chicago Bulls. I went, wow, who do they want to trade? He said, they want to, Dennis Hopsin, one of the young guys, and not playing a lot.

Bobby
You’re backing up Jordan and he wants to break free a little bit. So I said he’d be good out here with these young guys. So it took a few days to get the deal done. And I was on, when I got the word, I was on the next plane out of there. Put all my stuff in my car put it in storage and then flew to Chicago. And you take the physical, you land late at night, early morning physical.

Bobby
And then here you go to the practice facility. And they were just finishing up practice and I was just getting there to meet the coaches, and first person I run into is Michael Jordan. So it’s kind of like, OK, we’ve been, we’ve been wrestling, fighting for seven years here. Now we, we going to continue it right here in the hallway, or what? But he stuck his big hand out and said, welcome to the Chicago Bulls.

Bobby
Look me up and down and said, get rid of the shoes. I had an LA Gear contract. And I’m like, OK, they’re gone. Give me some Nike’s. He said, you want some like I wear? And I said, no, I can’t wear Air Jordans, but give me some like Pippin’s got. So he was my shoe contract, ol’ Michael was. And whenever I needed them, he had them. Gear, whatever. He had, he had a direct line I guess somewhere to Nike.

Dennis
I’m sure he did. Dana, you were starting to ask something.

Dana
I don’t know how the trade process works, but so what I gather is the first time you traded, it wasn’t your choice, right? It just kind of happened.

Bobby
Say that again, Dana. I was adjusting my screen here.

Dana
Oh, no worries, when people are traded, athletes are traded, I always wonder what that feels like, especially if it’s a surprise or it’s not their choice.

Bobby
Yeah, absolutely. The second one was my choice. You’re right. The first one, we were a little bit bitter, I guess. Yeah, I knew it was just part of the job. Nobody wants to be traded from their job to come knock on the door, oh we traded you to the contractors union or something.

Dana
Yeah, sure.

Bobby
So yeah, there’s a certain amount of bitterness. And I think for Mary, my wife, they kind of get picking up the pieces, you know, move the house, move all that, though the NBA does all the moving for you. But it’s still, you know, your kids have friendships and you have friendships. And we were, we were firmly entrenched in Utah. We were there for seven years. Had a home there, had a condo, had a home, then had a home, and then just living there in the summertime. And then all of a sudden it’s like, oh, see you later, you know? We’re trading you to Sacramento.

Bobby
So, yeah, it was tough. And but yeah, you got to know the guys in Sacramento, there were a couple of the veterans I knew from, from basketball. Antoine Carr was a good guy from Wichita State. Antoine was a buddy out there. Wayman Tisdale, who’s passed away. He was the star out there. Yeah. You kind of got to find your group and find your guys. And I got hurt early and didn’t, didn’t play a lot out there. But again, the body wears out.

Bobby
And luckily that got me through one more year there, my ninth year.

Dennis
But at least that, that was your you’re launching pad to the Bulls.

Dana
Yeah, yeah.

Dennis
Nice way to end your career, with a championship ring.

Dana
I would say so.

Dennis
I’m sure you’ve seen The Last Dance, right? The series about the Bulls run.

Bobby
Loved it.

Dennis
So, so, so yeah. So from your experience with the Bulls, was that a fair depiction? Is Michael really that kind of a slave driver and, and everything that was reflected in that in that series?

Bobby
Yeah, no. I would say,

Dana
Hahaha.

Dennis
Hahaha.

Bobby
I always had a good relationship with him because we wouldn’t talk a lot of basketball persay. He, he’s a golfer, as you know and I like to golf, there was a lot of stuff come out of his, you know, playing for big money golfing that I was just like, damn man, how do you lose $100,000 on a golf course? I got mad if I lose $20. He’s said I play like a fifteen handicap when you had a seven handicap.

Bobby
I said well, you got to have a higher handicap then dude. But we would always talk about golf, and different courses. And so he never, you know, I was older than he as well. It seemed like in The Last Dance I was only there one year too. I wasn’t there in that final stretch. I was there at the beginning. Those were young, that was young talent, Michael. Young Scottie Pippen, those guys were young thoroughbreds, man. They just wanted to beat the tar out of ya, the opposing team.

Bobby
So that common ground that we had of beat the opponent, that, that was that locker room. And Phil Jackson as the coach, was so, so brilliant and inspiring and making them, make him think outside the box with his Indian folklore and conversations we had to start practice. Practice was not at eight o’clock in the morning. Practice was that eleven, knowing the value of rest and late nights the night before. So Phil had a really good handle on the group he always like to call it.

Bobby
And if something started to go go away, he would pull it back in right away in this meeting. We read from a little journal each day, just a daily thought, and we’d discuss it. Just a lot of different topics and gun control to whatever, you know, alcohol, driving while drinking and just different things and get guys, make them open up and think about something other than themselves and basketball and kind of connect the group together.

Bobby
Bill Cartwright, phenomenal as a captain of that team. But what I didn’t like about The Last Dance, guys, was the portrayal of Jerry Krause, the general manager. Yeah, they kind of…

Dennis
He didn’t like it either.

Bobby
Yeah, but he’s like that. Jerry, liked to you know, get in the locker room, and they kind of make fun of him, but it was kind of all in jest. But sometimes it went pretty hard and nothing I could say and get away with. They’d cut me, but Michael could get away with it.

Bobby
But I always like Jerry Krause. He tried to trade for me while I was playing in Utah, so he always kind of was puting this group around Michael. He couldn’t have all his guys. He had to have some some different stuff. So Jerry made a bold move and got an old guy and me to come there and be a part of that team. And so I am forever grateful to Jerry Krause.

Bobby
So, of that, and a lot of those guys are, I know. But it seemed like the, the popular thing was to pile on there, but it seemed like he took a bad rap. But anyway, that is what it is with that.

Bobby
But Michael liked to challenge the young guys. And what you saw, I think I can’t remember the kid’s name, that he was always trying to motivate. Michael, Michael had a motor that ran a thousand miles an hour all the time. Twenty four hours a day. The guy who lived on two, three hours of sleep and just one of those, one of those individuals that is driven. Don’t know what it is that drives him, but he’s a driven person.

Dana
Yeah.

Bobby
But yeah, just to be a part of that, Dennis, and you have good days and bad days. Michael seemed to be a guy, he and Scottie and I would do a lot of three person drills together and he could tell if you had a bad day. Like hang in there, hang in there, man. We’re going to get you a ring. And I’m like, OK, I’ll hold you to it, so. In the end, when we won, we had that come back and was able to be a part of it. And subbing in for Michael, and I ended up with a game ball. Paxson had thrown it up and I’m like, OK, this is college education for my children someday.

Bobby
Yeah, I knew I could keep it, so as I got it down to the locker room and sat there with Michael, I’m like, you want this basketball man? He said, you bet. And he grabbed it and took it and he went and chased down the next three, I think three or four. So he has five of the of the six basketballs. And it’s important, I guess.

Bobby
When we’re doing our three person shooting drills, I asked him one time, like, where is that first basketball, from when you guys beat the Lakers out in L.A. He didn’t say anything. And Scottie’s kind of laughing. I’m like, where’s that basketball at? It’s got to be somewhere. It’s got some historical value in Chicago. And Scottie’s like, I got it. And I looked at him and went, well why do you have it? He said because I got it. OK, well, I got the next one, and I said I got to give it to the man. Got to give it to Michael. So yeah, that was a fun moment.

Bobby
And then one of my lasting impressions is when we were over, we were celebrating champagne and all that down the locker room. And Phil whistled, he had a great whistle, Phil Jackson did. He whistles everybody in and said, hey, they want us to go up on the, he asked me first and said they want us to go up and celebrate on the floor. What do you think? And I said, it’s Chicago. Let’s go. Let’s go back up.

Bobby
So he wants everybody in. Let’s go up, back up on the floor. So Michael jumps up on the scorers table and he’s got the basketball in his hand and dancing to Queen, We Are the Champions of the world. Was a great way to end it. I kind of knew right then that, that was, that was going to be, that was going to be my swan song. And what a great way it would be to, to go out like that and.

Dennis
Absolutely.

Dana
That’s cool.

Dennis
Absolutely. You know, and you mentioned, first of all, Phil Jackson, another one of my personal heroes as far as, as far as coaching and sports go and and the way he coached, the way you’ve kind of described that. Where do you put him as far? Because you’ve obviously played with great coaches. How do you compare the coaches that you played for?

Bobby
Hard. It’s hard. I have been lucky. You’re right, Dennis. All the way back to, I had a great youth coach, John Morrow. He’s a Polk County supervisor forever and ever and involved in politics in Des Moines. But he was, he was the first one. And I say that because he was the first one to throw me out of the gym for not paying attention.

Dana
Wow.

Bobby
So, yeah. Kind of set it straight right there in seventh grade. It’s like you’re in here, you’re going to work. So, you know, my father would not want to hear any of that. So that was hell to pay, I guess, when that came down. But Johnny was the first one. And then John La Bonya my high school coach was made me a guard, I was a center in high school. So he saw that you’re not going to play center at Division One basketball. You’re going to have to learn to play facing the basket. I had already been doing that in summertime and that.

Bobby
So he put me in that position. And then Lute Olson, obviously a Hall of Famer. I mean, can’t argue. But they’re all different. And then Frank Layden to Jerry Sloane, who ruled with an iron fist and just toughness. Grab your lunch pail and put on your hard hat. And nobody cares about your troubles and nobody cares about if you’re sick or hurt, that you show up and you go to work. You owe it to these guys that, that was Jerry Sloan, his philosophy.

Bobby
And then you go, Dick Motta was a little bit like, like Sloane. He was a Hall of Famer in his own right in Sacramento. But then Phil Jackson. And he was different than all of them because of the way he connected as a former player with the New York Knicks, a free spirit. A hippie, well documented. You know, Phil traveling the country, hitchhiking in his early days and getting the job. So that was fun stuff to talk was still about.

Bobby
One of my best friends in the NBA, Rich Kelley, played with Pete Maravich a Stanford Graduate, Stanford MBA. Rich was very intelligent. But he was Phil’s roommate while they were together in New Jersey Nets. So we had that connection. So, Phil, always would seek out your thoughts like, like I said, ask you do you, should we go up to the to celebrate on the table? So Phil was always in communication, knew that if you wouldn’t play for a week straight, he’d try somebody else in there.

Bobby
And he always made a point to say, you know, stay ready. I’m going to use you, I’m going to use you in the in the Western Conference finals because you know, these teams. I said, I’m ready, Coach, staying ready. So his connectivity to, to the players, I think what separates him. Also the people he had around him. Tex Winter.

Dennis
Tex, yeah.

Bobby
Yeah. Of the triangle offense, I think really was totally different than what Doug Collins was running for Michael. Everything was structured. Everything, you call a play out 15, 17, 19, whatever the play might be, where the triangle offence doesn’t have any play calls.

Bobby
He had one which involved an obscene word and kind of like called it as a sideline play we called What the Eff? Everybody was supposed to look around like I don’t know what the eff, whatever. And it was a back pick dunk up to the basket. So that’s the only play call we had. Everything was predicated on where the pass went. Never throw it to the corner. Reverse the basketball around, use that high post on the back side and then you got tremendous talent. Well, surrounded with Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, I mean two to the greatest of all time.

Dennis
Sure, sure. And then I’m going to put you on the spot here a little bit. I mean, you mentioned Michael and Scottie, two of the greatest. I think, you know, most people when they’re talking about the greatest of all time, they’re going to throw Michael in that mix. And depending on your age, maybe it’s certainly LeBron and Kobe comes into that discussion sometimes. Who would you say is the greatest player of all time? Not including Michael.

Bobby
Yeah. For me, it’s Michael Jordan, no doubt.

Dennis
Yeah, yeah.

Bobby
To see the work that he puts in relentless. Refuse to lose, refuse to die, never lost in the finals. 6-0 in the finals. Just people came at him. When you could, you could beat them down. I mean, the bad boys, the Detroit Pistons used to take cheap shots at him and just beat these guys down. Michael never back, never backed away from from that one bit.

Bobby
But I like LeBron. I would be quick to say that. I think what he’s done is amazing. Just, just the body that he has and the good work that he’s doing as well. Putting students through college, get them in that high school, what he’s done for the city of Akron. I think it all comes into play. You mentioned, you know, it depends on how old are you. Oscar Robertson, the guy average is a triple double. Jerry West, Kobe Bryant.

Bobby
Yeah, I mean, there’s so many. I mean that’s your Mount Rushmore of all time greats in the NBA. At my position, and at the time, a two guard position the big guard shooting guard. There are some phenomenal athletes from Walter Davis, Clyde Drexler, Danny Ainge. I mean, was playing Dennis Johnson, passed away Boston Celtics. Every team had a scoring two guard. And my job was to try to slow them down a little bit.

Bobby
But different game back then, guys. It was really physical, hand-on game. Now it’s like you touch these guys. And that’s why, Michael, if he played under these rules right here, he’d averaged fifty points a night before he would wear out. But, yeah, it’s just, it’s completely different.

Dennis
And it’s funny, you know, mentioning Michael, one of the things that struck me when I was preparing, obviously, I’m familiar with Bobby and his career and all that. But, you know, when we go into these podcasts, I want to be a little bit more prepared than just a conversation.

Dennis
So I was, I knew at the time, but I had forgotten that you had participated in the three point contest, the All-Star game with Michael and Larry, who finished last and second to last in that contest, ironically.

Bobby
You do your homework, don’t you Dennis?

Dennis
That’s right. Yeah. Yeah.

Bobby
I think that was 1990.

Dennis
Yeah.

Bobby
1990 or ’89. We were in Miami. I know that. They were playing the Miami Vice music. That was your, that was the minute to shoot. Yeah. So Stockton would help me, John would set up the racks and after practice we would, we would practice that. We’d play the music and, and do that. But yeah I was invited ’87. They go by your stats and my percentage was pretty high. I didn’t take a lot of shots but it was above the threshold and you’re fifty percent at that time. But I was invited to shoot in Seattle where Larry Bird had won in ’87, I think.

Bobby
You take his warm up but he won that. But, yeah. Mary and I have set up our wedding day during the All-Star break, so it was going to be good publicity for Utah and they wanted us to move the wedding to Seattle. That’s not going to work guys. I’ve got to turn that down. So luckily I was invited once again in 1990 and it was a treat. I finished fourth, and got $2,500 for finishing fourth.

Dana
Nice.

Bobby
Craig Hodges, the future teammate of Chicago, had won. Reggie Miller was second, Jon Sundvold, third. I was fourth. But yeah, you’re right, Michael was seventh.

Dennis
I think he was last. Yeah, I think he was last. I think he got 5.

Bobby
Yeah, he was frustrated. He became a better three-point shooter as the years went on. But our lockers at the time were together, we’re near each other. So he comes in and the press is waiting for him like they always are just surrounding him. And, you know, you could tell he wasn’t real happy, he was a competitor. But he sat down and looked over and kind of gave him a head nod and and I said, what are you gonna do with your shoes?

Bobby
He said, Nothing. You want him? I said, throw him over here. So he took them suede shoes off his feet and tossed them over. And I’m like, all right, I got my first pair of Air Jordans. These are comfortable.

Dana
Gross.

Dennis
Now that’s the kids’ tuition too, right?

Bobby
Yeah, they’re still, they’re locked away, no doubt about it. But after about a minute, I’m looking at them. You know, they got the funky little shoelace clip on him. He’s like, you need some help there? He said, you know how to operate these? I said, I’ll figure it out, Michael, thanks.

Bobby
But yeah, he, he was, he was a great teammate and just, his kids, and to see his kids now growing up and all that, I think it’s awesome. Now he’s a young dad a second time around with a couple of twin girls. So we get a chuckle out of that when we all get together and laugh.

Dennis
Now, you know, after nine years in the NBA, what was it like to go through retirement? I mean, they, that’s the end of that career. You had college and high school and all that. That’s gotta to just be surreal.

Bobby
Yeah, it is. And I kind of knew, guys, that it was the end. I did not have a contract and I didn’t do anything special to lead the league in scoring or whatever, but you kind of want to keep going, maybe get that tenth year. My father, my my wife’s father was dying of lymphoma, cancer, old Marine Veteran. And it’s like, you know, you need to be with your dad for the rest of his days, however long that is. I’ll take care of our two little ones, the best I can here while you’re at the hospital.

Bobby
So it just dragged on into October and then they, called like come back and, you know, we’ll pay what we paid you last year. I’m like, if you just guarantee it, I’ll come back. But they wouldn’t guarantee it. So I’m like, you know what? I’m done. That was a great way to walk away.

Bobby
It’s never easy, as you mentioned, Dennis. What made it easier for me was that I got into radio, started doing the Hawkeye games right away. Jim Zabel invited me to sit in with them on a December weekend tournament that the Jerry Strong was doing the games and he had to do more coaching responsibility at that time. So sitting there with Jim and it went well and did not do any more games the rest of that early season. Had nonrefundable tickets and all that from, Mary and I had a vacation planned in January and night before Chris Street gets hit by the snowplow.

Bobby
Tragic accident. Yeah. And kind of got the word there. And we’re flying out the next morning and missed it, saw it from a distance over and where we were vacationing. And then when we came back, they called. Because it’s incredible emotional victory against Michigan State, WHO, it wasn’t all Learfield IMG College like it is now. We were a separate entity.

Bobby
So WHO said, hey, can you do the game? We’re playing number two, Michigan, I think on Sunday, 1993 in the Fab Five. So we did the game. And another huge emotional victory. The team marched the basketball over to Mike and Patty Street. They were sitting courtside there just, Jim and I are tearing up, crying, hugging each other on the radio post-game as the Hawks had this incredible win.

Bobby
And WHO called that Monday and said, hey, are you retired? And I said, I think I am. They said, well, do you mind? Would you do the rest of the season with Jim, and Jerry? Said, yeah, love to. So I haven’t missed a game from that point forward from that Michigan game I’ve been through, Jim and I did 5 years and now Gary Dolphin and I just finished 24 years and have not missed a Hawkeye game on the road or at home…

Dana
Wow.

Bobby
..calling the basketball game. So that made the transition a lot easier than it would be just, and everybody goes through my wife would say, all of these guys have to go through it.

Bobby
What you miss and I’ll, I’ll finish with this. But what you miss is not money and it’s not running around jet-setting around the country in different cities and all that. You miss the camaraderie of the locker room. You miss your buddies. You miss your friends and hanging out with them and just doing, you know, playing cards and doing whatever you do, so you never really find that, that teamwork.

Bobby
Companies talk about it. People try to to replicate it in different ways. But it’s never the same as that, as that locker room is inside that, that, that athletic locker where you have that one goal, that purpose, that one, one thing that unites everybody, black, white, Asian, whatever it is that you’re going to you’re going to win that basketball game. You’re going to dominate the opponent.

Dana
Yeah.

Bobby
That’s what you miss.

Dennis
No, I can definitely see that, you know, any time somebody reaches the pinnacle of their profession, whether it’s sports, or law, or whatever it is, I’m always curious as to what it is that has driven them. You know, what motivates them? What, what, what gets you, for instance, as far as basketball, into the gym every day? What’s that workout regimen like? What was it for you that propelled you?

Bobby
Well, you know, I’d be lying if I didn’t say, you know, you’re trying to make money. You’re trying to, you know, I made nothing early in my career, but, yeah, you’re always, and then once you get there, you want to prove yourself. And then at that point with Utah, we were always chasing the Los Angeles Lakers. We could never get over the Lakers, and Magic Johnson, it just, you know, but that’s what drove you, is to not be embarrassed when you’re out there guarding Magic Johnson.

Bobby
I mean, you want to get stronger, you want to jump higher. You want to become a better shooter, a better ball handler. Those are the things that, you know, I guess you’re driven by, by you don’t want to be embarrassed out there and can easily be embarrassed and exposed out there on the basketball court.

Bobby
So you just, you know, be the best that you can, try to keep yourself healthy. You know, so many guys get hurt nowadays. I mean, it just I don’t know if we had the same type of injuries as kids are having nowadays, but, yeah, so and then to get traded to Chicago, what drove me there was to make it to the finish line. You have one shot in life, I remember telling myself, Dennis, all the time, you know, just keep everything in check, keep it together.

Bobby
And I wanted to maintain my conditioning because I don’t want to be fat and out of shape and you sit at the end of the bench and they put in and your buddies laugh at you. So that always drove me. Running around Grant Park and running up the steps. We lived in a high rise on Lake Shore and I’d run up all fifty steps of them and keep yourself in shape. I’ve always prided myself on on that. And then to get to the finish line, not many people win their last game.

Dana
Yeah.

Dennis
Right.

Bobby
For me, I got lucky. You don’t win your last court case. Some guys do, but kind of like, you know what, this would be a good time to to walk away. Say thank you.

Dennis
Perfect. Now, you mentioned the color commentary being what kind of made it a little bit easier. We talked before the podcast began about this last season and how weird it has been for all sports. But obviously we’re talking basketball here. Tell the folks what, what that’s been like trying to, to do color and follow the games for the Hawkeyes during the course of this pandemic’s season that’s been so nuts.

Bobby
Yeah, Dennis, it started, let me think, well, a little over a year. March 12, I think we were at the Big Ten Tournament and getting set up to maybe play Illinois, maybe Minnesota. I can’t remember who was. Getting ready to, for the game. And they told us, well, the night before we had we’d been in Banker’s Life Arena and saw Fred Hoiberg who’s coaching Nebraska, looked like his skin was going to fall off. We heard this virus was out here.

Bobby
Well, what did that mean? We had gone through a virus in the NBA with HIV. No one knew how that was transmitted early in that. So you kind of had this unknown happening once again. And wake up and, well let’s get over to the arena. Well once we got there, they’re like, get out of here, or you’re going to be staying in here for two weeks. We grabbed our stuff and headed back to the hotel. And that’s when we got word that everything was getting shut down now.

Bobby
And our businesses has shut down. And so we go back through what we’re going through. Didn’t know if you’d get this season going. You kind of assumed that they would. What the kids have done, the staffs have done of kind of their own little bubble. I mean, that’s an incredible amount of discipline, an incredible amount of just staying away from your family. That’s crazy. What they’ve had, kids have had to do. What it’s going to do to mentally. And I just hope everyone paying attention here to what these kids have gone through.

Bobby
But we were not able to travel. We didn’t go through the whole testing process as the kids are doing. Fran said six days a week they were getting tested all the athletes. And it was a rapid test, but if it was a positive, they get a lot of positives in rapid tests, then they do the PCR and you find out the true nature. So they did a nice job of containing it whenever it would pop up.

Bobby
Iowa this year, great expectations with Luka Garza. Wanted to be a part of it. Love being on the bus with those guys. I love going to practice and get up, go down to the coffee room there, the meeting room and you see people. And you weren’t able to do that this year, and our away game days consisted of doing what you do on a normal day.

Bobby
And then you had to Kinnick Stadium, where Gary and I would meet Korey Sheets, our producer. He’d have big screens set up in the network television booth up on the fourth floor. So we were relying on a video feed to come in from whatever location. Sometimes that video feed went out, sometimes the video feed, the camera wouldn’t move. It would just stick on the court. It wouldn’t move inside or watch. So you just did the best you can. And it was frustrating at times.

Bobby
We had a floor mic. So you heard the squeak, you heard the balls bounce. You felt like you were there to people that were listening from the outside. But I hope we never have to do that again. That was just, we were hoping we could get to Indianapolis for the NCAA tournament, but just too much planning and the whole testing thing, getting all that done. We had the feed drop several times and we would go from a live feed and we’d look up to the actual TV broadcast in the suite there, but it’d be 15 seconds behind.

Bobby
So you’d have to wait until it caught up and then say, oh, yeah, you stepped out of bounds on the sideline. There were times when Gary would be calling the guy dribbling to the basket and the feed would just go blurry, blurry blackout, and you’d have no idea what happened. And he’s look at me and I’d look at him and say, make something up. But then they’re taking the ball out of bounds. Then you could, yeah, but you know. As the great late, great Jim Zavo said never let the facts get in the way of a broadcast.

Dennis
That’s right. Yeah. Kind of reminds me, kind of reminds me of the old days when they’re talking about some of the radio shows that they do the baseball and they’d be kind of making it up as they went. They’d be getting the facts fed to them, and they’re trying to make it seem like it’s a play-by-play. But yeah, that had to be frustrating. But surreal, I’m sure.

Bobby
Yeah. Reagan, when he commentated games on WHO. Notorious stories about it, he’d have the bat and click it and that’s a double to second base on the left side field. People had no idea.

Bobby
And it was coming across the Western Union and he would read it and call the plays. So that’s radio.

Dennis
That’s funny. So OK. Well since we’re talking about the, you know, the year that the Hawkeyes have had and you mentioned Luka Garza, what happened, not just to Iowa, what had happened to the Big Ten in the tournament? Nine teams get selected. Only Michigan remains at the point that we’re recording this right now.

Bobby
Yeah, yeah. Huge shock. Loyola over Illinois. There was a bad matchup for Iowa and Oregon, probably a bad matchup just the way they defended Illinois.

Dennis
Right.

Bobby
Those top three teams, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan. Ohio State to a little bit. I had them a little bit further in my bracket. I don’t know. I think you beat each other up during the season. I think the PAC 12 stand up, take a bow. I mean, the team that they put in there. Yeah, the athletes that they have. And now Gonzaga would be my pick probably to, Gonzaga, Baylor in the finals.

Bobby
But they’re going to have our hands full with USC tonight. Gonzaga is Michigan. UCLA going to be a great basketball game as well. I think Michigan comes through that one, but Michigan was the best team in the Big Ten this year and their the ones still standing there to represent the Big Ten. But it’s kind of sad. I had a day of mourning for the, for the kids after we lost to Oregon.

Bobby
Tuesday was a hard, it was like you know, aww man. Almost just seems like, you know, what ifs. But that’s sports, I mean, there are winners and losers. The kids gave it everything they had and the sacrifice that they went through this year. They’re never going to forget this year, I guarantee you that. You could say, what were doing in 2020, it’s like, yeah, I’ll tell you what we were doing, nothing. We were quarantined and we just had to had to concentrate on basketball and then, you know it’ll, it’ll help them down as they move to their professional lives as well.

Dennis
Sure. I kind of thought that if Illinois had played Oregon and Iowa had played Loyola.

Dana
If.

Dennis
That would have been a better matchup for each of them.

Dana
Well, he’s just mad because his brackets blusted.

Dennis
My, my brackets been busted. Everyone. Everyone’s bracket is busted.

Bobby
Got a bunch of X’s all over the…

Dana
Mine’s, okay!

Bobby
I’ve got one that’s got Baylor in the Final Four, yeah.

Dana
When does the Final Four, where are we right now? When is the Final Four?

Bobby
It’ll be this Saturday.

Dana
This Saturday, so you usually have tickets? Yes, so you usually have tickets to the final four, right?

Bobby
Do I?

Dana
Yeah, you usually do, don’t you?

Bobby
No.

Dana
You don’t?

Bobby
No, they don’t. The coaches and depending on their level of tenure, I guess, whether they get for two or where they’re at. But no, I, I went to the Final Four, 1980, and then again in 1983, my senior year. But no, I’ve never been. Never been back to a Final Four. Tickets are hard to come by other than, you know, if you know a coach and coaches have, have their own people that they give them to. But I think it’s, man I don’t know what they’re going to do this year. Hopefully, they open up the Lucas Oil Stadium to a little bit more capacity. They get some more people in there.

Dana
Yeah, yeah.

Bobby
Tonight you have the final two games and then you’ll have your Final Four set for, for Saturday’s action.

Dennis
Yeah. Well, and I’m interested to see how that goes, but I think I’m with you. It seems to me Gonzaga is, is, they will have their hands full with USC. But boy, I like the way they’re playing.

Bobby
Yeah. The guard. Jalen Suggs, freshman guard from Minneapolis, was an all-American high school football quarterback on top of it. So that’s why I like them, the way he handles the ball.

Dennis
Right. So let’s talk a little bit about Luka. How do you think he’s going to come out in the NBA? You got any idea where he might get drafted?

Bobby
No, I don’t, Dennis. I’ve seen him, one of them I looked at a couple of weeks ago had him first round to Brooklyn, late in the first round. I think there’s a place for Luka Garza and the big bodies. And I say that we all know the game is changing more to what they now call positionless basketball. It’s, it’s not the center, the forward, the shooting guard, point guard. It’s like Oregon. It’s five guys that are 6’4”, 6’7” just running around and shooting threes and stealing the basketball and everybody helping out on the board.

Bobby
So the game has changed a little bit. Thanks, I think, to Golden State Warriors and Steph Curry. So, yeah, those guys shooting threes, and the analytics of it all. It’s better to shoot three than two. You know, when we played basketball, we try to get as close as you could to the basket to get closer, to make a two. Now that’s like discouraged. So, yeah, the three has certainly taken over the game.

Bobby
And and for Luca, it’s his hard work. It’s his work ethic. No one is going to be in the gym earlier. No one’s going to stay longer. He is going to be an inspiration to his teammates, see how hard he works to improve. A great kid. I would draft him on that alone. So I don’t know if he’s a first round pick, Dennis, but I think he should be somewhere in the second round. If not, he’ll be able to pick a team that could use a big player like Luka is with the ability to step out and make threes.

Dennis
Right.

Bobby
Went to his games last couple of years. And if all that doesn’t work out over here, he’ll make a lot of money overseas, as I believe his mother is a citizen of the old Yugoslavia, Croatia or Serbia. So he, he’ll have the opportunity to play over there.

Dennis
Yeah. Now we’ve got Luka leaving, of course, and Bohanon leaving, but they have a lot of other folks coming back next year. What do you think they’re, they’re going to look like next year?

Bobby
Yeah, different. I don’t think we’ll be dumping along the post as much. I think you’re going to see both Murry’s, Keegan and Chris out there. You got two guys, 6”7. They will, they will improve on that. Keegan had a great freshman year. Jack Nanji back healthy. Hopefully Joe gets positive feedback from the NBA, but he could be our star next year. Wieskamp come back for his senior year. He may not, and we understand that.

Bobby
But we’ve got a young freshman out of Walkie, Payton Sanford, who’s a shooter, like Jared Utah, was for the Hawkeyes. So they’ll be different. They’ll be more like they’ll be more and they’ll spread the court a little bit more positionless. I think you’ll see different guys attacking. So, yeah, I trust Fran to get it figured out. I think people, all of these teams are going to be looking at all these transfers and the transfer portal now. There’s over 990 of them, I think in there.

Dana
Wow.

Bobby
That’s three per team basically. Yeah, transfer kids getting out there. So yeah, we’ve had success with transfers. Jared Utah, Bakari Evelyn, in the past. So he may, Fran may end up looking there but, they’ll be competitive, no doubt about it. The league will be a little bit different. They lost a lot of star power this year and losing Kofi Cockburn and Ayo down in Illinois and Luka Garza. And I think Michigan is going to lose a couple of guys as well.

Dennis
Probably. Yeah. So I want to talk a little bit more about your your day job. Better Business Bureau. It’s something that I know you also take very, very seriously and is extremely interesting to me. I’ve learned a lot about the Better Business Bureau in the last few years that I thought I knew, and had taken things for granted. Can you explain to the folks what the Better Business Bureau is and does and what your role is?

Bobby
Yeah, Dennis, great to have you as a member as well. That’s where you and I first met.

Dennis
Right.

Bobby
At the Torch Awards when your firm, received the Integrity Award. I loved your opening comment for you said being a personal injury lawyer, the irony is not lost on me getting the Integrity Award. And I said I want to meet this guy. I gotta meet him. So that’s how Dennis and I’s relationship started.

Bobby
But the Business Bureau is run by Chris Coleman, our CEO, president. He’s a great guy, loves people. He just loves helping people out. And he recruited me to the BBB after I was at the Iowa Speedway when they sold and closed down for a little while. And really, you know, were not in a good place. So was out looking for a job, I knew I had to do something I couldn’t sit around all the time. So the Better Business Bureau came calling and I’m like, yeah, OK. Kind of forgot a little bit what they do.

Bobby
My mother was a big believer in Better Business Bureau and honesty and integrity and transparency, and so after I met with Chris and he was kind of thinking of a different, more like a guy that, or a person that could write press releases, a media relations person, but we ended up kind of combining several jobs into one.

Bobby
But the Better Business Bureau has been around for over 100 years nationally. It’s now an international association. It’s nonprofit. We’re completely supported by our members dues, accredited business dues. There are no outside sponsorships or anything at this point. You’re graded. They grade companies from A+ to an F. They are a clearinghouse for complaints and reviews, reviews that are vetted to make sure they are actual customers, not just a competitor trying to put a bad review up there. We make sure these things are all real.

Bobby
On a daily basis, I take phone calls and direct them to our specialists. People in this area, Dennis, who’ve got crushed by the contractors and that coming in from out of town to try to make sure that they’re on the up and up. We award scholarships to students of integrity as you saw at the Quad City Torch Awards. You had four or five young students get $2,500 scholarships to advance their education. Kids that have gone above and beyond what normal high school kids would do on an integrity basis. Inspiring stories. We have a nonprofit arm that called Give.org where we’ll check out charities to make sure that the real number one and not a bogus cancer charity.

Bobby
We work in conjunction with attorney generals that are consumer advocates. They want to know what we’re hearing on the front lines, what the complaint is, what the problem is. We had a contractor here in Cedar Rapids that just seemed, after derecho would collect down payment for work and never get back and do the work. So normally, you know, Dennis, these are these are civil cases when it comes to contractors. They are now charging them criminally with felonies of taking the money so…

Dennis
As they should.

Bobby
Yeah, we really, really, really the worst people in the world taking advantage of people at their lowest point. They have a tree sticking through their living room, you know, and then come take a $5,000 down payment and then never show up. You’re like, what do you do? So we got a ton of those calls and they’re going to, it’s really going to get ramped up here now as people start putting the roofs back on with the weather and work is not yet done.

Bobby
So we are prepared for that. But we basically are a place, the bbb.org, you can go to look up a company before you hire them, make sure that they’ve got an A+ rating. I would not want to mess, would not even want to talk to an F or a D rated company. That’s just a company that just doesn’t care. In it for all the wrong reasons. But believe me, there are companies out there like that.

Bobby
Not responding to complaints is the biggest area that, that will drop the grade of these companies. They were not always you know, companies were always graded by the BBB. That’s only been, I think, in the last 10 to 15 years that they’ve done that. But my job was brought in to talk with the larger companies of the state of Iowa, the Hy-Vees, Casey’s, Pella Window, Vermeer, these big manufacturers, big grocery touch point places that you know. And you have to explain why should I join the BBB? Well you’re joining a network of like businesses that have the same common goal is to try to create a marketplace out there that’s built on trust.

Bobby
We are not the police. We don’t we can’t come and arrest you or beat you up or whatever, I’d like to do to some of these people. But we can put them on notice that they’re being watched and we need a response. You don’t get the response, we’ll do it again. And then they do turn it over to the county attorneys or state Attorney General Tom Allen.

Dennis
Yeah, you know, one of these days, we’ve already gone on for quite a while today. And I don’t want to take too much more of your time. But one of these days, I’ve got to have you come back and talk a little bit more about the Better Business Bureau, because I did see a presentation that you did online that you talked a great deal about how scammers were really kind of taking advantage of the elderly and some other folks. I think that’d be a great thing for our audience to hear. So I’d love to have you back to do that.

Bobby
Yeah, that’s a presentation for the Johnson County Commission on Aging and had a lot of good response from that. Everybody’s getting those calls, Dennis. It’s crazy. And the robo calls coming through. And again, it’s they’re getting enticed to send gift cards. And in some cases, people send cash, cash to a P.O. Box. They’re fearing that their grandson is going to be murdered in Mexico, he’s been kidnaped and it’s just preying on people in the middle of the night.

Bobby
The phone rings on an elderly person. And it’s the people as well, Dennis, and know the data centers that are, are selling these people’s phone numbers. Age generated lead lists somewhere. We’ve got to get that to stop.

Dennis
You know, the way you have, you know, your passion about this, the way you were passionate about basketball. And it reminds me of one of the articles I read that, oh, my gosh, this was I think when you first went to Chicago and somebody was talking to you about a potential interest in going into politics, is that something that you would still consider doing?

Bobby
Oh, no, no. Yeah. Why would anybody want to that? Right? And my, my godfather, Johnny Moreau, Polk County supervisor forever. He said it’s an intoxication of power because you can help people out in that way. You get jobs for people in certain situations and it’s like. I don’t have that desire anymore. I may have at a time. There was a time I wanted to go to law school too, Dennis, after, I think it’d be good to see our young children watching Dad study in your 30s, but you’re just too old at that time, I think, for me and my world.

Bobby
But yeah, politics, I certainly thought about it on a local basis years ago. But after following, you know, these past six, eight years, it’s like there is no way. I mean, I don’t, I don’t know why anybody would want to put up with that type of dissection of your life. And it’s just, it’s we’ve got to get past this side, that side, red, blue, you know, Democrat or Republican. It doesn’t matter.

Bobby
So let’s help people out here and people in dire need. And I think that’s where politics needs to start to listen up and wake up, I guess, if you will. And I just don’t see that happening yet as whoever’s got the majority is going to force the agenda onto these people. So we need to reach across the aisle.

Dennis
Well, you’re doing good things with the BBB, so that’s, that’s fine. You stay put there and do the good work that the politicians should be doing, right? So before we let you go. Well, first of all, Dana, you usually have some interesting questions. Do you have any?

Dana
I do. So what’s the best $100 you’ve ever spent?

Bobby
Oh, I say I just put it in my son-in-law’s card. I just got him a hundred dollar bill.

Dana
Oh, that’s nice.

Bobby
Giving it away. I think a hundred dollars doesn’t seem like much anymore, but he’s got a birthday coming up. My wife thinks it’s cool to get a $100 bill. And so, yeah, fresh in my mind, I’m just giving it to him. He’ll spend it on my daughter.

Dana
Who doesn’t want that? Oh, that’s nice. That’s nice.

Dana
OK, so what’s your what’s your biggest pet peeve?

Bobby
I blow out my garage all the time. I just don’t like bugs, you know, we spray it, out in the country we’re always spraying. So I’m constantly got the leaf blower and clearing out the garage, is probably a little bit of, I don’t know. There’s a disorder about that. The closet, all the white shirts, black shirt, blue shirts, everything got to have an order. And I blame my wife on that one because she is a clean freak, neat freak that has really got me doing that. So that’s probably my biggest pet peeve is everything has got to be in order.

Dana
I gotcha. So in all of your time, I’m sure you met a lot of famous people doing basketball. I said, doing basketball.

Dennis
Playing basketball?

Dana
You can tell I’m a sports buff. Who’s probably the most famous person you’ve met?

Bobby
Most famous? Jimmy Buffett. How about that?

Dana
Oh, that’s fun.

Dennis
I love Jimmy.

Dana
That’s fun. Did you ever meet?

Bobby
Backstage at…

Dana
Go ahead.

Bobby
Say it again?

Dana
Backstage…

Bobby
I said we were backstage at Kona, Hawaii, Ed Podolak is dear friends with Jimmy Buffet, Eddie does the football for Iowa. He said, if you’re ever anywhere Jimmy’s at, just knock on the door and tell him your’re a buddy. I’m like, I’ll buy a ticket. No ticket, sold out. Fifteen hundred seat ballroom.

Bobby
So my wife is six months pregnant at that time with our oldest child. So thirty one years ago. So their T-shirt girls were selling T-shirts. So young kids, and I went up and said, hey, blah blah blah blah blah. The girl goes, let me go get let me go get my dad. It was Savanah Buffett.

Dana
Oh my gosh.

Bobby
And so she goes, follow me. So, yeah. So she’s like, how do you know Poddy. Playing golf in Iowa. And they said that’s how we know him, so come on. They slap backstage passes on me and my wife and I don’t think she had a great time, she’s six months pregnant. But sitting on a guitar cases and talking to people and the Memphis horns. And first, my first Jimmy Buffett concert and just watching the man, big fan now.

Dana
That’s so fun. I love that. That’s good.

Dennis
That’s that’s that’s all you got. Dana, you did want to ask about Bill Murray. That’s her, that’s her man.

Dana
This is funny. So I thought I was reading the article that you were in and it had talked about having tickets to all of the Big Four games,

Dennis
Final Four.

Dana
Final Four. Yeah, I don’t know how that was mixed up, but I’m super excited because one of the famous people they sat next to, whoever this fellow was, was Bill Murray. And Bill Murray is my best friend. So have you ever met Bill Murray?

Bobby
No, I don’t think I have. I know it’s a big Chicago guy.

Dana
Yeah.

Bobby
Yeah. I love his work. Loved Caddyshack. We were watching it the other night, laughing. And, but no, he, did he have a kid playing or coaching? One of his sons were coaching?

Dana
I don’t even know.

Dennis
I mean, he’s he’s definitely a big Chicago fan. Cub fan. Bears, Bulls, everything. Yeah, I don’t know about that.

Bobby
Harry Carey. Can I put Harry Carey in there too?

Dana
Yes! I tried to find your video of where and I couldn’t find it anywhere.

Bobby
Yeah, I met Harry at the ballgame. Yeah. Sang that, yeah, that was a different time. But this was the day after the National World Championship. We went there and they knew we were there and come up and say hello to Harry and Steve Stone. So I have a Harry Carey autograph Chicago Cubs hat. He signed it in a ballpoint pen on the bill of my cap. So just a super gentleman.

Bobby
I grew up listening to Harry when he was doing St. Louis Cardinal Baseball. I was a huge Cardinal fan. So listening to Harry and then Chicago. I got to, I got to have the great Harry onto that list of famous people.

Dana
That’s fun.

Dennis
For sure. Love, love, Harry. Well, we’re going to wrap it up, but I think I mentioned we’re going to play a little bit of would you rather, OK? And then we’ll wrap things up here. So I’ve got this list here. Would you rather be compelled to high five everybody you meet or compelled to give wedgies to anybody who’s wearing green?

Bobby
I’ll go with the high five on that one.

Dennis
All right. All right. Would you rather never be able to wear pants or have breath so bad that it makes anyone within six feet of you vomit?

Dana
Oh, that’s tough.

Bobby
You don’t want that, Dennis. I’ll go somewhere I can wear shorts. Does that count as no pants?

Dennis
I’ll give it to you. All right. Would you rather be forced to wear just one color all day or have to wear nine colors all day? So your clothes are either…

Bobby
One color.

Dennis
One color. You’re not going to have the multi-colored, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, type of look.

Dana
I don’t know, that seems very Jimmy Buffetty.

Dennis
All right.

Bobby
No, I’ll wear one color, all black.

Dennis
All right. That’s easy. Would you rather have the police hunting you for a murder you didn’t commit or have a psychopathic clown hunting you?

Dana
Jeez.

Bobby
I think I could reason with the police. Say you got the wrong guy. I’ll go with A.

Dennis
Alright. Last one. Would you rather have, or rather be an amazing virtuoso at any instrument, but only play if you’re naked or be able to speak any language, but only if you close your eyes and dance while you’re doing it.

Bobby
You have to play it naked.

Dennis
Alright.

Bobby
I could sit there.

Dennis
Alright. Well, Bobby, Bobby, thanks so much for spending time with us.

Dennis
Like I said, we’re going to have to come, have you come back and talk a little bit more about business.

Dana
Definitely.

Bobby
I’d love to.

Dennis
I really appreciate you being here and for those of you at home. Thank you all for joining us today. Again, please be sure to subscribe, rate, and review us. Also, check out our other podcast, Legal Squeaks.

Dennis
And you can get information for both of these, the podcast at uncommonconvos.com and legalsqueaks.com. Hope you tune in next week when we have another great guest. In the meantime, have a great day, stay safe, and I love you all.