In this episode of The Recruiting Guy podcast, Richard Davenport interviews David Bazzel on what it takes to prepare an all-star lineup of speakers for the Little Rock Touchdown Club. Along the way, the Baz shares stories of the club's most memorable guests, including it's most recent headliner Terry Bradshaw.
Richard Davenport: Welcome to The Recruiting Guy podcast, this is Richard Davenport, of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, wholehogsports.com. I'm excited to welcome David Bazzel, I would kind of give a bio of him, but it would take too long, it would be the entire podcast. So we're not going to do that. But we are going to, I approached him about doing a podcast on the Touchdown Club and how he lines up the guests. Because every August, obviously, he holds a press conference and announces the lineup, and it's always very impressive. But what happens behind the scenes to get all that done? And that's why we're bringing on David right now. And David, thanks so much for agreeing to do this, because I'm really excited about doing this.
David Bazzel: Yeah Richard, I appreciate it. Yeah, obviously, you and I have known each other for a while. And, you know, it's one of the things that I do that I spent a lot of time doing. And it's sort of grown from very little, you know. We started with the first meeting where we had 45 people there and had a little bitty room over at the I can't remember what it was, the Sheridan or Hilton in over the University near the mall near the stadium. And now, you know, the other day for Terry Bradshaw, we had standing room only, almost 650 people, and pretty remarkable how this thing has grown. And with it comes the challenges of you know, the membership wants to see a star-studded lineup every year. And so the pressure now has gotten bigger every year to see: Can I somehow keep up with or equal or top the previous year? So it's become challenging, especially the last three, four years.
Richard Davenport: Okay, you announced the lineup in August, but go through the process of when you start in how, what's all involved in trying to get to that lineup,
David Bazzel: You know, it's funny, we're the only touchdown club in America, I think that has 15 straight Monday meetings, weekly meetings. And then of course, you know, when our awards banquet is held in January, the following January next month. And I think we're the only one that does that. So when I get through with our banquet in January, that first, second week, third week in January, I give myself about a month off, two months off, and then at the end of February, early March I crank it back up. So I actually start it in March. And work from March, all the way to, right up to the announcement date, which is usually the first week in August. That's how long it takes. Just, you think about it, you've got 15 weeks to fill and all these speakers have their own agenda, their own calendars and then you're trying to make it fit with schedules of teams. Because you know, built in we always have, you know, the kickoff is always going to be the head coach of the Razorbacks. That's always the first meeting. And then we'll always have Arkansas State represented, we'll have UCA represented. We'll also have, you know, our sportsmanship awards, James Street award. So you sort of back your way out from those meetings. And Hunter Yurachek is always — the AD from Arkansas is always invited. So you've got those five, you know, five or six meetings that are staples, so you sort of start with them. So you make sure you've got their dates when they can be here and they can speak and then you start backing it out from there. And then just try to find, I always sort of try to find an angle if I could, what would be an interesting story? What would be, who is somebody we've never had? Who is somebody this club would like? Do I go NFL? Do I go college? Do I do coach? Do I do broadcaster? For example, this year, I sort of took on the theme of, I just happened to look at the dates and thought, you know, I think it's the 20th anniversary of the seven overtime game. What would be the chances of being able to get Eli Manning and Matt Jones together to reminisce about that game? So I start doing that, again, working every angle I can, and everybody I knew who knows them. Of course I know Matt, of course. And so that process takes you know, several months just to be able to connect and look at the dates because these people are busy too. So yeah, and then all of a sudden you have a no. And then you gotta restart back up. And then you have somebody who says, "well, I can do it on this date." And so then it's really almost like a checkers or chess piece. In other words, you're moving pieces around constantly. And I'll tell you, Richard, I've actually almost every year — and it happened this year — I'm on the phone right up to the announcement, there, the presser we have Simmons bank, to get all the names in. I hate for it to be that way. It's just the nature of it is trying to hit these home runs trying to get them plugged in. And sort of the the other thing I've done Richard is, I've learned that if I let this slip out, any of the speakers, it takes away from the overall impact. And so what I've tried to do over the last 10 years, I don't tell anybody. I don't tell my girlfriend, I don't tell anybody. Because sure enough, the minute I tell somebody, I'll lose that speaker or it gets out and everybody, everybody starts saying "Have you heard who's coming?" And so, I do have to let our sponsors know, but I've really realized that the more you keep it a secret, the more impactful it is when you announce it.
Richard Davenport: How many times have you been almost ready to make the announcement and you've had a last second cancellation? Or have you?
David Bazzel: Yeah, oh no, I know. There's no question. I actually had one I lost, I lost a speaker this year on the last day. But it was a combo speaker, so that was okay. In other words, there was already, I had one speaker lined up, I was gonna have a secondary speaker, just like I had with Matt Jones, and Eli. So that was okay. And I've also — listen, this is no joke — I've been on the phone, the press conference starts at 10 and I'm on the phone with an agent at 9:30. And I say, "Okay, I'll do another $5,000" if that's what it takes to get him. It might have been $10,000 to do it, if that's what it takes. Boom. I don't even have the picture in the release, I just am able to announce it at the meeting. And then sometimes I'll pull the trigger on something that may not work, I know, but I've had a tentative yes and come back later, a month later go "oh, that speaker ended up saying he couldn't do it, at the time we thought he could do it." So it's a juggling act, I guess. You know, again, you think about this, just this year you got Terry Bradshaw and Verne Lundquist and Eli Manning and the great matchup between Houston and Arkansas. You remember the shootout between Andre Ware and Quinn Grovey? We've got both of them coming in and so it's- and Lynn Swann. And then of course, you know, the other part like this year, Richard, we had both Cliff Harris and Drew Pearson going in at the same time. So you know, we do an award for Cliff Harris. So I thought why not instead of just bringing Cliff back we bring back his buddy and teammate Drew Pearson — who went into the Hall of Fame together — the same weekend? So those are all just things that make it a little spicy. Of course, you know, one of the biggest ones we did was two years ago — obviously, we didn't meet last year, with covid — Bobby Petrino. You know, I reached out to Bobby. And then at that point, he wasn't coaching and I said, "How would you feel about coming in and talking to Arkansas, talking to the people of Arkansas?" And I think he realized it was an opportunity for him to get some things off his chest. And I think he trusted me and trusted it wasn't going to be one of those gotcha kind of meetings. And that turned out to be one of the biggest meetings we've ever had just because of, you know, the context of what he shared.
Richard Davenport: I know you won't mention names, but describe maybe one of the more difficult negotiations.
David Bazzel: I'll give you one this year. I'll give you one this year. Because of covid, I had a speaker that we were paying big bucks to and they had agreed to do it. And then he came in and said, came back to the agent I was dealing with and said okay, these are the things I need to have on top of what you're already paying me. If I get covid, you have to take care of all my medical bills that are incurred because of covid. Then you're also gonna pay me $25,000 on top of what you're already going to pay me. Won't do any photos unless I see a vaccine card, or you're wearing a mask. Of course at this point, I just tell the agent, I said, listen, I like this guy he's a good guy. I get his concerns with covid. But it sounds like to me it'd be better if he just decided not to speak for a while until all this covid passes, because nobody's gonna sign that agreement. Nobody's gonna agree to do that. You’d have to be an idiot to do it. So anyway, so you get those kinds of situations. One of my favorite stories, Richard, was — I can't remember what year it was — it was a great Tom Osborne. And coach Osborne was on my selection committee for the Broyles Award, and so I knew him that way. And he retired. It was probably back in, sheesh, 2008, 2009. I can't remember what year it was. But anyway, so, we pay up to $25,0000, $30,000 for certain speakers. Now, I don't like doing that, but sometimes that's the only way you can get them. But coach Osborne, back then, I think I'd offered him 4000 bucks plus a ticket to come. Again, this was you know, 15 years ago, 12-15 years ago. So he's on the phone with me. This is the great Tom Osborne, obviously, legendary Nebraska coach, you know, three time national champion, one of the really good guys. And he goes, he said, “David, I'd really like to get that to,” you know, “I'd really like to get that to 5000 if we can.” So what am I supposed to say to Tom Osborne? Coach, you got it. Whatever you say. But I was thinking to myself, Tom Osbourne’s squeezing me. He's squeezing me for another grand. But you know, but listen, for a guy like that it was certainly worth it. But I love those kinds of stories where, you know, these guys know that we have sponsors and they know there's value in it. Of course, you know, I don't make a dime. I've never made a dime off this club. And we just do it because people here in Central Arkansas enjoy it. You should have seen it this past week with Terry Bradshaw. But you know, besides the Hogs winning which made the crowd electric, Terry Bradshaw was unbelievable. You know, his star power was through the roof and just to see everybody have access, to be able to see him in person. You know, we did Q&A for 50 minutes. So, I get a lot of satisfaction out of people enjoying that. Like I said, we got great sponsors, a lot of businesses chipping in and Simmons Bank being our presenting sponsor. So that's my reward out of doing it.
Richard Davenport: How was he to deal with?
David Bazzel: He was super nice. You know, one of the connections to him was through Lowry Barnes, his doctor. And Lowry had done knee replacement on him probably five, six years ago. And so you know me, I start about every year I'll call Lowry. I said, hey you think Terry would be willing to come speak? And every year I'd ask, he'd ask him, and Terry would say no. So he finally said yes this time and so, I did not have a whole lot of interaction with him until he got here, until he was wheels down. So on the way to the hotel, I was just telling him, hey, Terry, this is how we're going to do this thing. Are you comfortable doing this? You're comfortable doing that? He was super nice. He requested we not do a couple things. And he said, “but man,” he said, “if it's really important to you, I'll do it.” But, so he was super nice, super nice to everybody. And I'll tell you, Richard, most of the people that we bring are that way. You know, I thought maybe Mike Ditka might be a load to deal with. Super nice, nice as guys could be. You know, there are, sometimes you get some quirky guys. But for the most part, our track record has been everybody's been pretty nice. Plus, you know, you always have those sort of, interesting stories. I'm not going to tell you who it was. I'll just say it's one of the college quarterbacks that has come here. Yeah, I might not even say that, you know, now that I think about it, he wasn't a quarterback. He was an All-American, though. And so we were getting our bill at the end of the week, and Kelly Lasseigne, who was our executive director at the time is saying, "Wow, this speaker really enjoyed watching movies." And I said “what do you mean by that?” He said “we got a bill at the hotel for $35 worth of movies.” And I said, “well, that's not for $35- that's for one type of movie that you had to pay $35 for.” And he, of course, charged it to the Touchdown Club. So as you can imagine, you know, we always don't get those adult movie charges to the Touchdown Club. But every once in a while we do and if we do we pay for it, so.
Richard Davenport: Well, who's maybe another speaker that just, it happened just instantly, it was almost like, wow, it was just too easy to line up.
David Bazzel: I tell you some, you know, I'll tell you an interesting one. You know, a lot of times, you know, I'm the guy who will always try to book guys that are out of coaching. For example, we brought in Ed Orgeron, you know, the year he was out of coaching. He was absolutely fantastic. Matter of fact, his speech still gets, makes the rounds on social media — on YouTube — he was so good. But I'll tell you one of the most fascinating guys was Mike Leach. So we got Mike Leach, I guess it was the year he got fired out of Texas Tech and was out of work. So I brought him in and he flew in about 11:30. This is 11:30 Sunday night, you know, I’ve got to get through the radio show early the next morning. He goes, “man I sure am hungry, can we get something to eat?” So I'm thinking, oh my gosh, we're in Little Rock. There's nothing open at 12 o'clock, you know, on Sunday night. I said, “coach, we got one place to go.” I said “Waffle House.” He said, “let's go.” So we go to Waffle House, like at 12 o'clock on Sunday night and he, we just dive in. And of course he finds out that I know President Clinton and he just starts you know, zapping me full of questions. And just a really fascinating guy with just a ton of stories, but also wanting to hear, you know, what I brought to the table and the unique kind of stories. And so anyway, those are the kinds of guys to me that are interesting that you're not expecting, you know. I tell you, Larry Csonka was another one. Super nice. Larry flew all the way in from Alaska, which is I think it was 20-something hours I think. And, you know, he had to stay over the next day. But he was super nice, Richard. You know, you got a guy like that who's a, you know, Hall of Famer, gold jacket, comes in and flies 20-something hours and probably you know, he's making enough money he doesn't have to do this, but he knows you know, it's okay. It's good to do for his brand. And he's also doing outdoor guide fishing up in Alaska. But he was super nice. You know, that year, if you think about it, we had Larry Csonka, Too Tall Jones and Mean Joe Greene and Earl Campbell all together. I mean, are you kidding me? Mean Joe Greene, Earl Campbell, Larry Csonka and Too Tall Jones all in the same year. All iconic guys. And all super nice. You know, it's funny. Mean Joe Greene asked that he not sign autographs, didn't want to take pictures or sign autographs, just didn't feel like doing it. Which is okay. Well, when Earl Campbell found out about that, you know, I told her I said Earl if you don't want to take pictures or sign autographs, you don't have to. And I said you know I mentioned some of the ones you've done it, some of the ones who have not. He goes, “what do you mean Mean Joe didn't do it?” He said, “well if Mean Joe didn't do it, I'm gonna do it. You tell him I did it.” And so here's Earl Campbell. He can barely walk, Richard. He sits in his chair over there. We have, like a recliner, you know, like a Lazy Boy up on stage, and that sucker sits up there and signs every autograph and takes every picture, probably for 30 minutes afterwards. So again, there's somebody you wonder what he's gonna be like, you wonder if he'll be nice or, you know, high maintenance and he was not.
Richard Davenport: You talked about picking up Leach from the airport. And I know you do that quite a bit and sometimes have, I would assume, you have dinner with them and chit chat with them before the club. Who else were some of the more interesting guys that you talked to and some of your conversations that you had, you know, after you picked them up?
David Bazzel: Well, I'll tell you what's interesting about it is that, just so you know, most of the speakers do not want to come in the night before. They want to get in and get out. Because, you know, obviously they have schedules, too. So what's a challenge is trying to book flights. For example, I got Darren McFadden coming next week. So I offered Darren the opportunity to come in the night before, see family, whatever. He said, man, he said just obviously I had a baby, another baby. So he's flying in that morning, we take him from the airport straight to the hotel, he does his pictures, does the speech, you know, heads back to the airport and goes back to Dallas. And so that's some of the challenge. For example, Terry Bradshaw flew in his own jet and didn't get here until like 11:05. And so all of our speakers speak on the bus, and so we're rushing to get him in. So we're sort of at the mercy of what these guys want to do. So I wish we had more of that. Steve Spurrier, we brought him in the night before and we had a great dinner. We had the Broyles family in and he was talking about his memories of coach Broyles and at Augusta. You know, he was a fascinating guy. And, I'll tell you, guys like Marcus Allen and Michael Irvin, who spoke at our awards banquet, great dudes. I mean, impactful. You wonder how good they- if they would connect with young people. They really did. And then you have a guy like Archie Griffin, two-time Heisman Trophy winner. You know, he's an older guy, but man, all those all those young players at our awards banquet liked him because he was a two-time, you know, Heisman Trophy winner. And then you got a guy like Bill Curry, who is historic in the nature that he played for Vince Lombardi, and he played for Bear Bryant and just the stories they can tell. And then you got motivational guys like Herm Edwards, you know, who was outstanding. Brian Bosworth was another one of those sort of superstar guys that, that everybody just was, you know, was wowed by. But he got choked up and cried during his speech, just, you know, talking about the things he went through. So, you know, it's just name after name, person after person, all of them, whether it be, you know, we've had a lot of former Razorbacks that have come through that have spoken. And there's some who have passed. You know, we've had Howard Schnellenberger, you know, come through. Johnny Majors, Pat Dye, we've had a lot of you know, obviously, Coach Broyles, is deceased now. And so we've had a lot of good ones come in that are no longer here. And that's, that's been special that we're able to get them in here before you know, they passed.
Richard Davenport: Okay. Obviously, you tried to get Terry on, Terry Bradshaw, several times. Who else did you try to get — and there's so many times you were told no — but when you finally booked them, you did cartwheels?
David Bazzel: Probably one of the biggest gets, I think was Ditka. I think that was one that was very- because I'll tell you, Richard, a lot of these guys aren't going to come unless there's a connection. Unless they have an agent that I connect with, and the agent will go to bat for me. And so getting Ditka was big. I'll tell you another one was a buddy of mine that I tried for probably six, seven years. Steve Atwater. And so you know, Steve was my teammate. And so when I first reached out to Steve, at that time, Steve told me, David, I don't want to talk about football. I'm moving past that point in my life. I'm in real estate now, I want to be known as a businessman. And I said, Steve, I completely get it. Respect that. I said, you know, I hope you know that you could do both of those, that you're never going to be able to get away from the football part of your life, but you can also be respected for the other. And so I sort of gave him some space, and over the course of time, we'd circle back around and say, hey, what do you think, Steve? And you know, he'd still be, “eh, I just don't feel it.” And finally, last year, two years ago, I asked him, he said, I'll do it. He started doing things for the Broncos. And you know, obviously now he's in the Hall of Fame. So that was really a cool one that I spent a lot of time to get. I'll think of a few others. I tell you, another great one was Archie Manning. And I sort of got him through a guy named Keith Ingram, who's personal friends with him. And again, it's hard to have access to those guys unless you know somebody. And then you've got to be able to show that you've got a structure in place that can get them here; there's a structure of how they speak. And then what happens too, Richard, is that, then you start, you have agents or you have these people, these speakers, that will look and go, let me see who you've had at your place. Oh, you've had Terry Bradshaw, you've had Archie Manning, you've had Roger Staubach. You see that, well, if they've had those kinds of guys, I can trust that those people there in Little Rock know what they're doing. We've had Mike Singletary, or Mark May or Danny Wuerffel. You know, there's so many different ones that we've had, you know, Bill Snyder, Dan Hampton, Houston Nutt. Just so many of them that were, it makes my job easier in trying to get those guys to consider. I'll tell you another one that was a fun one for me this year, was getting Vince Young the week of the Texas game. Because I do the Broyles Award, I reached out to the SID at Texas. And you know, “hey, can you connect me with somebody they connect me with with Vince?” And that turned out to be really cool. So again, it's 17, almost 20 years of doing it. And then it's 25 years of doing the Broyles Award, and you're working every, you know, every angle you can. Sometimes you get them, sometimes you don't. I've been disappointed. I'm not going to tell you somebody I tried this year. I'll tell you this: There's two guys that I've tried to get now for the last two or three years that I didn't get, and it was frustrating. If I would have gotten them this year, I would never be able to top this year's lineup in addition to what I already have. To have Terry Bradshaw, Verne Lundquist and Eli Manning and Lynn Swann and Andre Ware and Quinn and all these, if I got these other two that I had lined up, it would have been by far I never would have topped that. So I didn't get them. And so I know that that's gonna happen some time. And the tough thing about it, Richard, is it takes months for me to get a no. I will wait for literally two to three months to get a no and you think, you know, half the time, I would say, just give me a no. I'm okay with no but having to wait for two, three months where I can't book somebody else, that's the big challenge. And so it is frustrating at times because you get a no and that means you've wasted all that time and you’ve got to circle back around. But that's part of the game. I've done it long enough to where I realize that's part of the game.
Richard Davenport: Have you lost anybody because you were waiting on somebody else?
David Bazzel: Oh yeah. Yeah, that's happened a couple of times. And it is what it is. You know, sometimes if it's a big enough name, you know, you roll the dice. And you just know, you just say I'll put him on the list for next year and go from there. And I keep a running list of those that I missed maybe a few years ago that I want to try to get. Of course, then you think back, you have those funny moments. Like, remember the John L. Smith year? Where he gets up there and he says, you know, "we're proud of the state, the state of Alabama." And you know, I'm up there beside him and you see everybody look around in the audience and people start tweeting. And I had to lean over to him and say, "Hey, coach, you said ‘state of Alabama.’" And he has to correct himself and you have those kinds of things. And you have Paul Finebaum going after our sponsor, making a crack shot about some of our members that are there. So there's always something interesting. And it's really turned into a great gathering point, a community event. And in a great place to gather for football.
Richard Davenport: Who had the best personality when you were able to spend one-on-one time? Guy that just made you laugh.
David Bazzel: I tell you, you know, I hate to be most recent, but it's hard to beat what Terry Bradshaw did for the fact, Richard, the, all the other things he brings to the table. Now, Ditka was a big star. You know, we started asking: Who is the biggest star that you've brought to the touchdown club? And we've had you know, Roger Staubach and Steve Spurrier, Mike Ditka and Archie Manning. But I don't know if there's ever been, you know, Earl Campbell, they're, I mean, some of the biggest names to ever play the game. But I'm not sure there's been anybody that has been so dynamic in terms of television, movies, football career, four Super Bowl championships, two MVPs. You know, this year, we're gonna have two speakers that are two-time Super Bowl MVPs. I mean, both Eli did it twice, and so did Terry Bradshaw. But I think in terms of just getting up there in wowing people with his personality and super nice to everybody and engaging, I think Bradshaw has the high mark, I would think. I tell you, Matt Jones, super nice. You know, he's always- Of course, coach Broyles was great when he was alive. Dan Hampton is always a fun guy that always engages with fans. Houston Nutt, same kind of way. Bob Stoops was great. You know, you sort of thought Bob Stoops might be a little stuffy. He wasn't. Super nice, took pictures with everybody. So there really hasn't been, thank goodness, examples of problem speakers. You know, we've had the SEC commissioners, Mike Slive and obviously Greg Sankey. And so, again, we sort of covered all the- we had Pat Summerall. We had the great Pat Summerall, you know, after he had struggled with alcoholism. So, I think we probably booked 200 to 250 speakers, I think over the last 17 years, somewhere in that ballpark, I think.
Richard Davenport: Obviously without mentioning names, is there a guy that you had that you said, boy, I'm not, I don't want that guy again?
David Bazzel: Well, I will tell you this. I learned a lesson, and it really wasn't a thing where I wouldn't have him back. I'd like to have him back. But I think after we had Steve Spurrier in I decided to change sort of the structure of the Touchdown Club. Because, when coach Spurrier got there and spoke, he gave the sort of speech that he would give a Fortune 500 company. And I realized that man, you know, there's so many different directions we could have gone with Spurrier, about his career. And so after that meeting, we decided to change it and I've started going with a Q&A format. And so unless a speaker like Verne Lundquist comes in, and he says, "hey, I want to do my own thing." And that was something, I look back, I'd like to have Spurrier back and be able to do Q&A with him like I’ve been able to do with all our speakers, yeah, beforehand. You know, just because you can go so many different directions. There's one guy, though, there is one guy that I haven't gotten that is now that I'm glad it popped in my head. The most frustrating, the most irritating. I'm not giving up. But it is surprising. You've heard me name all these names: Hall of Famers, you know, all Americans, but I have not gotten Jerry Jones to speak to the Touchdown Club. It's the craziest thing that I've not been able to get him and I've tried over the years, I just have not been able to make it work. That's sort of my target every year is to try to get Jerry. You'd think we'd be able to get him with all these names I've mentioned. But for whatever reason, we just have not been able to pull it off and hopefully maybe next year we can.
Richard Davenport: One last question, David, and thanks, thanks so much for your time. Obviously, you know, President Clinton, you've encountered the biggest names in sports and a lot in football. Has there been a guest or somebody that you've talked to that even you were kind of like, starry eyed?
David Bazzel: Yeah, you know, I've had a chance to meet four presidents and be around four presidents. I did that through Jennings Osborne. So it was, you know, Jimmy Carter, and of course I knew President Clinton. He was governor when I was playing football. And of course both the Bushes, I met both the Bushes through Jennings. And they didn't really just blow me away. I tell you, the guy that was really the most interesting is, I used to be chairman of the Governor's Council on Physical Fitness here in Arkansas. Well, the head of the President's Council on Physical Fitness at that time was Arnold Schwarzenegger. So Arnold came into Little Rock to do a stopover to promote physical fitness. Of course, I was his host, and at that time. He just finished making Terminator 2 and he was one of the biggest stars in the world. And so that was pretty fascinating to me. As I remember we were actually running through the state Capitol to get to the elevator because kids were chasing us. And I remember thinking, now that is something, I'm running through the state Capitol with Arnold Schwarzenegger trying to get from point A to point B. He did doze off during one of our meetings in the governor's conference room because he was so exhausted. But I remember he said, he took his picture with me and I was pretty bowed up back then — I was more fat than I was bowed up — but he said, "normally I do not take my pictures with people that are bigger than me." You know, he's got the Arnold Schwarzenegger, you know, accent. And so he was sort of a larger-than-life guy. But, you know, it's funny, I never have been sort of starstruck by most of these guys, Richard. I appreciate where they are. But I know too, that they're just like us, it's just God blessed them with a, you know, a special ability, maybe athletically. But they're just like us in certain ways. They have their ups and downs, and so that's what sort of helps me in dealing with them too, is, they're no different than us. They've just been able to achieve some greatness, which I have a lot of respect for. And it's fun that people, like at the Touchdown Club, can see them up close and personal and realize that they're just like everybody else too, even though they sure do bring a lot of joy on, you know, Saturday nights or Sunday afternoons.
Richard Davenport: You hit it out of the park. David. I thank you so much, I really do. Because I, my last podcast, I said, “you're really going to enjoy my next guest.” And I think people will agree that you were great. And you gave so many interesting stories.
David Bazzel: Let me just say this. I saved this for the very last. I think probably if I had to say the greatest speaker we ever had spoke to us on November 18, 2013. You know who it was?
Richard Davenport: Maybe.
David Bazzel: It was Richard Davenport. You teamed up with Chris Hayes from the Orlando Sentinel. Remember that?
Richard Davenport: Yeah, I do. I do.
David Bazzel: That was back when we did recruiting. And you were, you spoke before Barry Foster and Lou Holtz the following two weeks and you did a great job.
Richard Davenport: No pressure. No pressure. But hey, you invited me and I was honored to do it. And I appreciate you. You're a good friend, too.
David Bazzel: I feel the same way about you, Richard. You do a great job, buddy. I appreciate your friendship.
Richard Davenport: Thanks again, David. Alright, thanks for listening to the recruiting guy podcast, this is Richard Davenport, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, wholehogsports.com. We'll catch you next time.