Gary Dickman - September 9, 2026

0:00You know, this song is not one of my songs that I picked out for the show. I would have preferred something from Journey this morning. Went to the concert last night. Yes, it was excellent. I was thinking about the last time I went to the Blazedale. And if I'm not mistaken, it was four years ago when Journey was at the Blazedale. Pretty sure that's the last time I've been there for any kind of event. I still have great memories of a lot of sporting events at the Blazedale. Whether it was University of Hawaii, basketball, which I used to love going back in the day, but of course, Vancouver, Reno, Sanchez center, much better. But it just had that, I know the atmosphere, high school, state basketball, championship for both boys and girls. And a lot of concerts over the years. The thing is, it's small, sure, but for a concert, that makes it better. You are a lot closer to the band. I had the upper level third row. And it was the first section away from the stage.

1:01So you have very, very close. And they played two hours and 40 minutes. That is a long time. Not too many bands play that long. And I was looking up for Neil Sean, their founding member, the longest tenured member of the band, 72 years old. And boy, I could he jam. But yeah, it was a great concert last night. I'm glad I got to see them one more time. 808296 1500 is the phone number. It's a text number. I want to get a text in here now. This is from Paul, who always texts in early and yet to the idea to his text that early. So I want to get to it earlier today. It says Paulie here. Good morning. Just heard that former Chicago Bears fullback, Matt Sui passed away. He was part of the 85 Bears team with Walter Peyton, Jim McMahon. He was only 68 so young. Hopefully his passing will be remembered on the Bears season opener on Sunday. Thanks for sharing the news with the ESPN, Honolulu fans this morning. And then he set me a link to get a little bit of his Wikipedia, I guess.

2:07I do remember Matt Sui. And he wasn't one of the main guys on the Bears. But I was some reason I always liked him. He always seemed like a just tough blue good up work ethic, blue collar type of football player. And yeah, he did pass away on Sunday. And yes, fullback for the Bears when they did win that Super Bowl. Thanks for pointing that out. Paul, appreciate that. And we got a whole bunch here, of course, on University of Hawaii football. First one, this is a kind of interesting text. Mike needs to take the whole offense out for dinner. Now I know a year ago he took the offense, the whole offense. And there was like, I don't know, 45, 50 players. He took him the Ruby Tuesday, the one I worked at. And he treated him. He paid for the meal. And so that was pretty cool. I know he didn't bring them back to Ruby Tuesday this year. But I did see a couple of weeks ago that, and it might have been just the offensive line.

3:07He did take the offensive line out. And can't remember the establishment he went to. But he had taken them out for meals. Maybe he needs to take them out for more. I know Colt Brennan used to buy the offensive line to pizza every Monday was it. Or after the Saturday's game would take care of them. But good point, I know he's done it at least a little. Okay, let's get to some more text. Harris held the ball longer than that Stanford receiver before he touched out of bound. Okay, I think you're referring to the play on Saturday when Audrey Harris did not get credited for that touchdown. Do you say he held the ball longer than the Stanford receiver? Oh, I get it. You're comparing the two plays. And that's a kind of a fun point. The Stanford receiver, it's a great point. The Stanford receiver, although it is a little different, the Stanford receiver, remember the controversial play that was called the play of the day on sports center. That Saturday, August 29th, when he was falling out of bound.

4:08And they gave him credit for the touchdown where it looked like the ball was moving. A, it also looked like the ball hit the ground out of bounds, which would be incomplete. His hands were not underneath the ball. And even though it was not moving a lot, it was moving a little. And even if you don't think it was moving, I thought when you catch the ball like that and the ball hits the ground, it's basically in complete. You didn't have possession of the football. So in that way of looking at it, yeah, that was not a completion or it shouldn't have been a completion. And then for Audrey Carers, you're saying he did have the ball longer. Somebody had brought up yesterday and I didn't get a chance. I'm not sure if it was on this show or let's talk sports on our text line. But they were saying that and we most I think everybody knows that there's a difference in a running back and a receiver crossing the plane to indicate a touchdown for a running back. As soon as the ball touches, well, not touching, crosses the plane. There's not to touch anything.

5:08Basically, it's a touchdown plays over. You can knock it out a second later. Once it crosses the plane, the imaginary plane, it's a touchdown. Now for a receiver, you've got to land with that football and have possession. I remember a couple of plays with Calvin Johnson, controversial play. I think one was a playoff game in fact, where they said he didn't have possession, even though he was in the end zone and caught the ball. You have to land with the ball for it to be a completed play. The only thing I can think of on that play that would indicate that the officials were correct is that Harris never touched the ground with the ball. He landed on a receiver. Oh, he landed on a defensive player for a UNLV. If you look at it at that way, then the ball comes loose. It was never a touchdown. Now, I'd still like to look at it again and I still don't feel totally that that was correct. But that's the only way I can think of that play being called correct is that he,

6:11because he never hit the ground, that he wouldn't be deemed a touchdown reception because the play was not completed. He was still in almost an action which would give the right of the defensive back, if it was the defensive back, to not get away and it'd be in complete pass. By that way of looking at it, and I wish George Gussman was around, because he knows all the rules, is that how would the play ever be completed? Because let's say the receiver is on a defensive player and does not hit the ground. When would the play be called a touchdown if they doesn't move for three or four seconds? Or we remains on the person rolling on them or whatever. I know it's like a really fine line there, but I still get bothered by that. And as I'll say it again, I don't get bothered by official that much to say they made a difference in the game. But these last or these first two games for Hawaii, yeah, it does kind of seem like they did.

7:13And I'm not going to say, well, we should be two and I'm not saying we're Western Michigan and have that kind of a gripe, but it's different play, of course, anyway. But I think one call in each game really had a lot to do with the outcome, especially in the Stanford game. So a really good point for you. Thank you for the text. Here's a text coming in saying the UH quarterback is hurt already with an exclamation point. He can't even play a full season exclamation point. He is away overrated and looks smaller than 510 and 180. He can't scramble because he's going to get hurt if he does. If the offensive line can't pass block, run the ball. I blame the coaching for the 0 and 2 start. The head coach should have never got the extension. Go chargers. I'm not sure if you're talking about Pearl City or the Los Angeles Chargers, but okay, well, go chargers. Yes, see, this is the same texture who texted yesterday about why didn't he scramble more?

8:17And thank you for your text. Your entitled to your opinion. But I again, once again, disagree. First of all, I mean, 510, 180 is not tall. And I don't think he looked small in that. Have you ever been next to Micah? I have been a few times. I should put a picture of myself next to him. And I'll try to dig that up before the end of the show. It was from last season. I'm 62 and a half. He is not more than four inches shorter than me. And that's something that nobody else would debate even, to be honest. You're saying he's small than 510, 180. I don't think I've never heard anybody say that I've heard people say he's small, but he's not small than what he's listed at at 510. And I didn't say he's hurt already. I said the opposite. They're saying they just gave him the day off yesterday. So I apologize if I'm coming on too strong. But when I see these messages and they're so wrong, so off from what they are accusing,

9:17UH was specific players up. He's not hurt already. And I mean, to say he's way overrated and look smaller, well, and to say again that he can't scramble because he's going to get hurt. I think if anybody ran as much as he did, you're probably going to get hurt at some point. And give him credit every time he got hurt, he came right back. He wanted to come right back. You can blame the offensive line if you want for some of this, which you haven't done at all with your text, but to make these accusations and false accusations. Nobody's saying he's hurt. So I wish it would be a little bit more informed. Maybe you should spend more time criticizing your charges, whichever charger that is. And if you want to blame the coaching for the O and two's start, I mean, you can do that. You do mention about the offensive line a little bit, but for some reason, it seems like you really have it in for Michael Olihato. And I, again, I just don't feel the same about that, but you are entitled to your opinion.

10:19And I thank you for texting in. Feel free to continue to text, but try to find out a little bit more about what is going on before you do. Let's see what we got. We got some more text. We'll get to in just a second. 539 AM dark and early on this Wednesday morning. It is the Gary Dickman show on ESPN, Honolulu 92.7 FM and AM 1500. Christian McCurray would love to answer some phone calls from you. He will be making a phone call next hour. And that'll be the Eric Matthews, Captain Fun, our guest coming up in the 6 AM hour. I've got some impressive stats. And I've also got some volleyball tickets. This will be for tomorrow night. The Rainbow Ihini Art playing Thursday and Friday, both against Central Arkansas. And that'll be it before they hit the road to Las Vegas. Big tournament coming up for their next matches after this. So and also as far as Chile read up from what I've been told a day to day. So we'll see if we do get her in action this week here in those Central Arkansas.

11:23Match it. 8082961500 is the phone number. It is the text number. Let's get to it. Text coming up in just a second. I do want to bring up also and didn't get to spend nearly enough time on this yesterday. That is about the LSU situation. Before I go there, though, I'm going to get a couple of texts and okay, it's about the last text. I can tell already from a few of them coming in saying the first text says constructive criticism is good and healthy. However, the world is not ending because the team is oh and two. Good point. I mean, it makes the journey makes the the goal a little bit tougher. And as I mentioned, I don't think I should even mention it anymore, but the playoffs is not a topic we should be talking about. And I'll blame myself, I guess if I bring it up, but the goals as far as being a bolter and competing for a conference championship, they're still there. It's just going to be a little tougher. And before I go to the next text on there just to keep on this topic for a second, the UNLV game.

12:28I said before the season, probably of their toughest opponent, I still would feel that way, even though they didn't look exceptional. You know, they're offends didn't do a whole lot, although they ran. Well, I shouldn't say that they ran the ball almost that well. Their passing game was not much at all. They didn't put up, you know, 21 points to a team like that. I think we kept them in check basically, especially with only four. We didn't hate them until the last couple of minutes of the game were there. So I think also Stanford will see how they are. They played Miami the other night and got be pretty badly. They played pretty well. They played well at times against us. We made it easy for them. Let's see what Stanford looks like. Now in New Mexico state is not considered on the level of those two teams. So let's see what we do against other teams. And I'm not trying to say that. I'm going to make excuses for those losses. But at the tech said, yeah, we're not done yet. Does make this week's game fairly important not for conference play, but for bowl eligibility.

13:28You got to win these games and just to get some confidence before you hit the road for a conference game, the following week against Wyoming. But yeah, all is not lost. It's just going to be a little bit tougher. And we expected Hawaii to start the season kind of how we ended the season. I was going to have that happen yet. Another tech saying, hey, Gary, I think that texture is braided sugar. Dawging, Micah, no, it is in braiding. Shaker is definitely supportive of a Micah. We had him on our show a couple of months ago. He's still in the CFL with Saskatchewan now. It's a backup quarterback. But thank you for the text. Another one. Same topic. Hey, Gary, you're absolutely right in that. We have a right to our opinions that being said that texture with his opinions about Micah. He is not. I won't use the phrase. Wasn't that bad. But anyway, I will leave that part out. He said he's the type of Hawaii fan that can only say positive things if we make another sugar bowl, go cheer for Oregon State or something, somebody else. Anyway, thank you for the text.

14:28Again, your entitled to your opinion, I don't mind when people will say the football team is bad. This player is bad. If you wanted, that's fine. But when you say like Micah's heard already, it shows that you have factually incorrect, factual information, I guess. You're wrong. I don't know where you got that from. That he can't last a whole season. That he's not even 5'10". That I don't think is true also. It just seemed like he's going over and beyond the normal types of criticism. It's understandable to, you know, false certain units or the coaching staff, whatever you want when you're in two. And they haven't played well. You know, there have been spurts when they've done a couple of good things. But overall, no, this team has not looked good at O&T. There's no denying that. I don't think anybody, for the most part, is saying they have looked better. But it is all not, it's not all over. And from Micah, the criticism, it's a little bit over the top, especially with some of

15:30the other critics, uh, text that have been critical of Micah. You know, we saw what he's done already. I don't think, again, I don't think he's regressed. But it hasn't been a good start. That's for sure. What a difference a week could make. And hopefully, uh, calm down the naysayers and the haters. It's like that all the time here. And you know what? Pretty much like that everywhere. I'm sure in a lot of places around the country, there are sports fans football, then, who after a tough loss have been real critical of their team. And we'll see that throughout the year. We'll see that every single year. Okay. So before I go to break, again, the LSU situation, this is hopefully, hopefully, hopefully coming to a slow, unpainful death as far as the back and forth with the two players. And the latest since we last talked to you yesterday at this time, the first part I found very, very interesting where the SEC is having a meeting tomorrow.

16:34And this is still on, even though LSU did something right for it change. But the meeting is to discuss maybe kicking out LSU out of the SEC. That is incredible, incredible that is even something they would be considering. And they do have, they say under their bylaws, uh, the, the authority to do that. Now, from what I've read, mostly at ESPN dot com, they're not going to do that. But they would need, I believe it's a two thirds or three, four votes majority vote to get them out of the conference. The fact that they brought that up and they are still apparently going to discuss it means something. They're not dealing with LSU like, okay, well, the court say this will just abide and everything's fine. That's it. No, they're, they are not happy with LSU. It's been obvious from early on. And more specifically, they haven't been happy with Lane Kiffin. And he has just done a bad job with this.

17:36But you know, and see, the problem to me is, it's not as much as Lane Kiffin is at fault although he is. It's the system that allowed some of this to take place. That's where the big problem is. And Lane Kiffin tried to take advantage of, let's say a loophole, a judge, a legal aspect and try to make more out of it, try to make the most out of it. So in a way, you don't blame him. Although, again, I still will, but the system that is set up is so awful right now in college football. When they set a rule or policy in place, you got to make sure what the ramifications are, what the after effects are. And when they set this new rule, they should have given it a year, the five years and five seasons and five years. They should have given it a year or they should have made it with the seniors were allowed initially. Because there's a lot of bad aspects of what has taken place and what has taken place just in the last 24 hours. And I'm going to expand on that when I come back. There's a couple of people specifically that I think got a raw deal on this.

18:39And I'll tell you about that in just a minute. Nine, coming up on eight minutes before the top of the hour. If you've listened to my show over the years, even with the sports animals, one of my guests I've had on from time to time is Dan Wolken. Used to be with USA Today's sports. Now he's with Yahoo. And he covers college basketball, college football and tennis. And last night he tweeted, I'm not a big tennis guy. And you're probably going to tell by the way I pronounce this name. He tweeted last night that Carlos Alcaraz is the best male tennis player he has ever seen. Ever. Now that's saying a lot and Dan covers tennis. And I'm saying that because he's in the midst of a US Open Championship. He's in the quarter final yesterday, I believe. I don't even know who won that match to be honest, but that was quite a statement there. 80829615, 100 is the phone number, the text number. I want to get back to the LSU topic.

19:39And there is a United States Senator named John Kennedy out of Louisiana. I don't think he's related to the other Kennedy. And one of his quotes after hearing about the SEC having a meeting tomorrow to ex-possibly expel LSU, he said, and I quote, that the conference is complaint is bone deep down to the marrow's stupid and that he and other members of Congress will be on them like a hobo on a ham sandwich. I am not exactly sure what that last reference means, but I can kind of take a guess at that. And it is 2-3rd. If the SEC gets 2-3rds of their members to vote LSU out, they are out. LSU has been in the SEC since the beginning, since I think I read 1933. I don't think they're going to kick him out again from what I had read mostly at ESPN.com. They are not, but they're sick of what Lane Kiffin has been threatening to do and was about to do. Remember, he was going to have those two NFL players on his roster on the sideline against

20:43Clemson. One of them said he still needed a two-weeks Xavier and Harris. He said he would need a couple of weeks to get back in game shape, but Dequan Wright said he was ready. And they held them out. They realized that this might be not worth the risk of playing these guys. And now yesterday, the first, those first stories that the SEC was going to look to expel LSU, the second story is that now, and only now or yesterday, Lane Kiffin and LSU decided to end that quest to get those two players on the team. They added two players to their roster, and I wonder where they were all this time. Because it's quite hard to keep them in limbo, but they added two players. They're not going to add those two NFL players that story, as I mentioned, and it hoped for, is coming to a slow close. But the damage is kind of there as far as what Lane Kiffin was threatening to do and all the back and forth and all the judges. There is where the NCAA is issuing new guidance on the standard.

21:45That's actually another story. But the NCAA has a lot to say about this too. They've got to get this down right, and they handled it poorly as far as the timing of it. They should have waited a year to grandfather it in or include the senior. So as I said, even though Lane Kiffin and I never fought in him as much as others over the years, I think he got a raw deal at USC with the Raiders. And really at Tennessee. Now, he's not the friendly as guy. He's come out with something. I think when he arrived at Tennessee as an example, I remember this one. He arrives at Tennessee. And of course, they're going to have a big press conference. Somebody in the football administration office, I think it was a secretary in fact, was supposed to pick them up at the airport, and they were late. And you know what Lane Kiffin did? He fired her. Fired her that day. Before he ever had a press conference, he fired her. Well, he's not, again, the most friendly as guy. But again, I think he's gotten a little bit of a raw deal in this particular situation.

22:47No, no, not at all. And he shows up on Saturday on Game Day with Livy Dunn and Brooks Nader, two influencers, two actresses. I guess they claim to be now. They're going to be on the new Baywatch reboot coming out in January. And he has them walking behind him. I think it was a big, you know what, bleep, bleep to what Nick Sabin said. And is, I think it's going to be a Netflix series coming out where he told people to stay, keep Lane Kiffin away from the kids. Things will around along those lines. And there's been accusations about Lane Kiffin with students. And for him to do that, I think it was basically saying, bleep you to everybody else, I'm going to do what I want. And he does doesn't care. Well now he cares a little bit. But I think they took this threat seriously about LSU, maybe being kicked out. They didn't want it to go any further. I got a lot more than that. I want to get your take on that. I will tell you who the innocent victims are and you get to them yet. Little after six o'clock on this Wednesday morning,

23:50I'm day at the Gary Dickman Shawnee SPN, Punalulu, 92.7 FM and AM 1500 coming up this hour spot in store. We'll have Eric Matthews, Captain Fun, and his last day of office. And maybe we'll get a helicopter to take him away after he leaves the University of Hawaii. He will be missed. He is going back to the mainland to be in your family. And he will be joining us one final time. That's coming up in about 18 minutes. And one of the things I'm wondering, I'm wondering if they got a replacement for him. There'll be a big shoes to fill. He's done a great job, but we'll talk to him a little bit later. I've got a pair of volleyball tickets and I will give them out. And it'll be a simple trivia question. If you were paying attention last weekend, it'll be an easy one. This will be a pair for tomorrow night, again, Central Arkansas. First of two matches back to back nights. And then as usual, an impressive stat or two. The top story as I brought up last hour was Michael Ali Hato being held out of practice

24:51as far as being a participant yesterday. He was there and it was beyond your Njurgenson. Getting most of the reps with the first team offense. And Micah did not participate in drills. Timmy Chang did say afterwards it was just to give him a break, just to give him a day off, not indicating anything else. And I did mention that a few times during the hour. I again got a text from somebody who is saying something that is incredibly opposite of what I say all the time and what I did say today. But I'll read this text right now. So as Gary, please trust the UH football coaching staff. What you seem to be reporting about quarterback Micah is simply what's on the surface. You do not know the ways and means of the coaches. Trust them. I don't know why you texted that. I am trusting them. And I'd say often that I don't pretend to know what, why they are doing what they are doing. And without knowing that, it's very unfair to criticize them.

25:55But any staff really, when fans criticize the coaches and say they should have done this, they should have done that. Why did they do this? They don't know what went behind that decision. I don't know. Every now and then they'll just, they'll, they'll let us know and give more insight to what they did as far as the play call the first game when they took Micah. Whether you agree or not, they will give some more insight. But I always say that I will not be too critical. I wonder and I'll be curious, but I don't know everything as far as the decision-making process, what went into it. As far as what I'm reporting about Micah is simply what's on the surface. Yeah, I know. I said that. He was held out of practice. So I'm not sure why you are almost accusing me, which is okay if I have an opinion that you totally disagree with. That's fine. But when you say, please trust the staff, I've done nothing but trust the staff there. So I'm not sure where that is coming from, but you can expand with another text if you like. I don't think as of right now that it's going to be anything that would hold them out of the

26:56New Mexico State game. Why would we think that? Now if he's held out of practice today, that might be a different story, but Timmy Chang did say that he just wanted to give him a break. Now what I had, you know, wondered about as far as that is concerned is to give a guy a break after just two games. It's a little, seems a little unusual. Not being critical. I just said that it is a little unusual, which it is. It's not like you're, you know, eight, nine, ten games in getting banged up and beat up. And you want to give the guy a day off or something. It's a little bit different, but maybe he has been banged up enough where you want to give him a day off. And if you're going to give him a day off, I would think the smart way to do it is what Timmy did, which is early in the week. You're not going to give him a day off two days before the game. The deeper in the week, you go, the deeper the preparation goes. And they're not doing that. So I still have, still have a lot of confidence in this team. You know, when I, when I talked about this team before the season, I did bring up how important the UNLV game is,

27:57how important the first two games are. And there were only three ways it could have ended up two and 0, 0 and 2, 1 and 1. Fortunately, we got the worst possible scenario, first, first possible outcome at 0 and 2. I don't think the season is over. I still think that they have a chance after one game, everybody has a chance to play in the mountain with championship game. Well, maybe not Nevada and you tap on the are pretty bad, especially you tap and Northern Illinois, for that matter. But you get my point on that. The season is not over with now. I should say that was a very important game because you don't want to lose to a team that you might be competing for a conference championship. Just in that opponent and Vegas by itself, if you play them in the conference championship, well, they have the tie breaker. If they have the same record, they, and they, they beat us. They also have a game up on us in the standings. So you put yourself behind the eight ball a little bit, but all is not lost. They're going to have some tough game.

28:59But you, of course, you want to win that game. The difference in winning and losing that game could be monumental. But right now it's just one loss and you got to look at it that way. I am more concerned more than the O and two start and what that represents. I am more concerned with what they have shown on the field because I, I feel like they're better than this. I feel like they are. And on offense, you got a lot of returning weapons, but not as far as the wide receiver and slot slot. And maybe that's where the Felly comes in. And even on the offensive line, you got Ethan Spencer, you got risky. Who moves at a right tackle spot. Hasn't been good enough. The offensive line defensively. There were only three technically returning started. They got guys like Matanki Thompson, who is not a returning starter, but he did start as a freshman several times. Several games until he got hurt. And he is now starting now. I don't have any problems with the safeties. But Tanki Thompson and Konamore looked really, really good.

30:01Konamore in two games has had double digit tackles. In each game, Jermai Otis had a really good game on Saturday. And I'm not looking for some positives or moral victories. I guess I'm just looking at a big picture. It's not like this team has got awful. Oh, and two looks bad. Fields bad, sounds bad. Short hurts them a lot more than it hurts us. But there's still a lot of football left. Last year, there were people saying in the beginning of the season that they're not going to make a bowl game. And not only did they make it, they clinched it rather early. Two years ago, people were thinking the same thing. The season was over early. And it came down to very late in the season where they just missed out on a bowl game, not making excuses for them. I'm just pointing out that this team under Timmy Chang, if nothing else has played better, the second half of the season. We're not near the second half of the season yet. It's just a reminder that this team can show how they are playing early on and get better.

31:02By the time the season gets into mid season or latter, latter part of the season. So I'm hoping the fans aren't going to give up. And I don't think they will. I think that most of the sensible, knowledgeable fans realizing what I just said. And hopefully they won't have too many fans jumping off that bandwagon. And that is definitely the hope and a win this week will definitely go a long way to helping them in that situation. It's a team that I'll get more in depth the next two days on them with Tony Sanchez, their head coach, who was a former UNLV head coach. And great high school coach. I believe what's he might have been the bishop, Gorman head coach. If not, it was that one of the other top high schools in Vegas and went to UNLV. They're okay. Nothing as special as far as what they thought he would accomplish. And now is that New Mexico state. And they are not a very good team. And they're in conference USA.

32:02But as I mentioned, Hawaii can't afford to overlook anybody. And Hawaii will be well aware that they put up 51 last week. It's an FCS opponent in Mercyhurst, who I have no idea where they play. I heard about them in basketball this past year. Some reason I'm thinking the Carolina's I don't know why. But anyway, they did put up a lot of point. It's not going to be an easy game. The point spread started off at nine and a half. That's an indicator where Owen to and were favored by nine and a half over a team. But it dropped. It dropped the six and a half. And now is that seven and a half. I don't know what that is in regard to. I don't know about any injuries or any injury updates on New Mexico state side. And it might be because Michael was held out as far as a full participant, participant in practice yesterday. It might be something along those line. Hopefully again, Hawaii will win the game. I'll right now I'll be happy just with a win. I'm not going to say, well, they they've got to make a statement.

33:03So to speak, that would be nice if you play and beat them convincingly. Yeah, in a perfect world, you want that. But right now, because of the struggles that they've had, I just want to get them to win. And if they can do that, feel a lot better about everything. And hopefully that'll be the case. One thing I wanted to look up coming up and I'll get this in just a minute or two is New Mexico states. As I normally do is look at the opponent's offensive line. That is just something I one of the first things I look at when I look at the opponent every week. And I'm going to scroll through their median notes in just a minute here and see if I can get it. Hopefully they're not as big. I mean, you know, they had some big guys. And we saw actually when you look at Stanford, they had some big boys too on their team. They had sides and you would expect that from a power forward team. New Mexico state, I would think would be a little bit smaller. You know, a few years ago, New Mexico state was on our schedule fairly frequently. And I remember the one year where we played them and we were supposed to be better than them.

34:07It was a top-grammed year, I believe. And we ended up losing to them. And that shook people because it's New Mexico state was supposed to be better than them. But it just shows that teams can improve. Teams can get better. And the Mexico state is an example of that. We've seen them have some more success in recent years. Still though, I don't think they're as good of an opponent as what we have seen the first two weeks. Now here's their offensive line. Let me get to it. Okay, let's tackle 67315. Macayee Lee. Pretty good size there. He's in his fifth year. Only his fifth year. Be perfect at LSU next year. Left guard. Luke Moise. 6300 junior. Their center James William. 6300 20. Their right guard. And he's a junior right guard. Tyler Kenneth. 62318. He's in his fifth year. And their right tackle Armand Owens. 65310.

35:10The one thing that stands out and this is more than norm now. I've always checked this for years and years. I always look at the opponents offensive line. And now it's standard. Every college team that Hawaii plays and I would imagine almost everybody in the country now. Your offensive line is over 300. Everybody. It wasn't always that way. You would get maybe one or two. And guys would be 28290 maybe. But you're getting height and you're getting side. Everybody on their offensive line, the starters. The smallest one. In fact, James Williams, I might have said it wrong. It's 320. The smallest one is the left guard at 300. But other than that, you got some size there. And you got the left tackle at 67315. In his fifth year, he is experienced. So they got some size there. We'll see what they can do at some other spots. We'll look up more of their number. Their numbers are a little deceiving because you put up 51 of your 68 points.

36:11Against an FCS school. So if I break down the numbers and the average, it's deceiving because again, nobody on the same level as conference for them or for us. At them being a group of six school. So they're almost irrelevant when you look at their first two games and their numbers there. 8082961500 is the phone number. It is a text number. We've got Eric Matthew starting in just a couple of minutes. Let me get a couple of other texts in here. And I will get to. Wow, I got two on tennis. I just brought that up because I saw what Dan Wolken tweeted about Alchoraz. And I thought that was pretty impressive. Okay, the first text says I just happened to tune in from the third set of Alchoraz versus Ben Shelton last night. It was ending very late in New York time, 3 30 AM. I don't know how these fans stay up. Every night that I watch the US open, it's ended well after midnight or one or two AM on the East coat. Anyway, getting back to the text gives the score. It's been the winner in a great match.

37:12And that's from Craig. So Alchoraz is out. Might be the best tennis player Dan Wolken has seen, but he's out in the quarters. Another one on the text line say great tennis reference, Gary. Alchoraz did lose the match yet today against Ben Shelton in a five set thriller because of that. An American will be guaranteed in the final on Sunday. Couple of football texts. The only fans that would give up on coach Timmy's team are the ones who never played football and realized what a tough game it is. Yeah, I think there's some of that both way, but thanks for that. One more on football saying like you compared Stanford, do you wish being in a power for Florida state is also from a power for and Mexico state is from a very lesser conference and put up 17 points. That's saying something. Yeah, it's saying something. I still don't, I mean, when I look at Florida state, they lost on a last second field go to SMU and Florida state. When you hear that name, you're thinking pretty good football program, but not over the last, let's say decade.

38:13They have missed bowl games to the last three years, I believe. That is not acceptable for Florida state. So even though you can say well, they're a power for team and I'm not comparing them with Stanford, that's apples and oranges. I understand your point. So putting up 17 is maybe something. But again, when Florida state lost SMU and the score look so close, SMU is ranked preseason. It looks like well, maybe Florida state's not that bad. It was a home game for them and they were fortunate to be in the game. SMU had so many turnovers and miscues that they kept Florida state in the game. Florida state was not as good as the score showed. And if anybody watched that game, correct me if I'm wrong or get your thoughts on that. I'm not trying to take away that there is still a power for school and had power for size, I would imagine. But the Mexico state still lost by 17. Some people would call that a blowout. I don't know if I would call that a blowout, but I would call it a decisive win.

39:14But thank you for the text Eric Matthews coming up in a minute. Let me get two more text up. Nevada is not that bad this season so far. They beat Western Kentucky 49 14 and are at 79. The ESPN power index compared to UH at 95. A win will do that. And I don't know enough about them this year. I'll be honest. I do know a lot about them in previous years and they've been really bad. Even when they're supposed to be better, they've been really bad. But maybe this year they are better. Urban Myers said that a few weeks ago, you can see them winning the conference. He was also talking to a Nevada sports person when he said that. So take that with a grain of salt. And then one more text saying, did Michael Ali Hado treat the O line to dinner this year? Ha ha ha ha. See you all the game this Saturday and keep climbing warriors. He did take the offense out to dinner. I'm not I think this year it might have been just the old line. I know I read that or saw the video on that. Not sure if it was the entire offense, but it was probably knowing

40:14Mike and he's got the money. You would think 22 minutes after the hour of 6 a.m. on this Wednesday morning. It's a Gary Dickman show on ESPN. Honolulu. There's a lot of ways. You know it's a good time of the year in sports, certain games, certain seasons starting and stuff like that. Well, you know it's good time of the year when just you're the past commercial when I don't even know his name, but when he said the NFL and that's a bad impersonation. But the guy with a voice and he talked about the NFL on Westwood one. I know things are well in the world. Anyway, with that, we want to welcome our special guest. And this is almost a little, I guess, bittersweet because over the years, he has been a friend of the show, a friend of ESPN, Honolulu, a friend for for anybody who's been associated with University of Hawaii sport. And he is bidding us all a low half for now at least. And he joins us captain, fun. Once again, Eric Matthews joins us. Eric, good morning. Oh, dear. Good morning, my friend. I will miss that and I will miss you.

41:18And I've been letting our listeners know that you will be. This is your last day of work, officially working at University of Hawaii. But to let you know how important you are, how much that you have affected the fans in such a positive way, when the news broke a couple of weeks ago, we can have two weeks ago. And I know you let the media know they were people calling and texting our shows wondering if it was true. They don't usually do that with people in marketing if they leave the University of Hawaii. But with you, it got a lot of attention. I will let you tell our listeners what came into your decision making process with this. Well, that's that's very nice to hear. I did not catch wind of that. I heard a lot from from you guys from the media and others that worked with. I didn't know that they kind of that fans were curious. And so that does mean a lot because I don't. I don't think you go to too many markets and people fans know who the marketing director is at a university. So the fact that they know who I am and I've made a presence on here and I've

42:21made an impact that that means a lot. But did your question? So I love Hawaii and give me opportunity to work here was not. It was not viewed as a stepping stone. It wasn't viewed as come here for a short while. The plan was to come here and to stay here. And that that really hadn't changed until like the last. Probably that the last year, maybe six months. Basically what it comes down to is and this is me getting in personal is I lost my mom almost six years ago to pay credit cancer. And so it's just my dad and I'm an only child. And he's 73. He's in great health. But at some point, I probably need to get back to spits of time with him and to not focus entirely on the career, but focusing on other parts of life and enjoying those parts of life.

43:24And we had talked about him coming out here at some point and just it wasn't going to work out that way. So when everything happened with my mom, like that mindset, it didn't shift immediately because I was so driven to be here and wanted to make everything work here. And things were starting to happen. I got this position and I felt really good about what we were doing here. And I felt really good in my career. But over the last year, it just kind of started to set in that I need to join more time with my dad. I need to be around that part of life that I had been a part of. I haven't been around family for Thanksgiving in almost 15 years. And that was a change was was starting to kill up my mind that need to happen. And that ultimately is what made the decision to make this move and to leave the the islands for now.

44:24I'm not sure if you can disclose, but can you tell our listeners what your next gig is? Yes, I am the new assistant athletic director of marketing effect experience at Western Kentucky University. That's where I graduated from. I'm not from that part of Kentucky. I live there for four years when I was in college. It's about three hours away from where I grew up. So it's still close, it's still very close to where my dad is. But I will be starting there next week. And I will be doing the same thing there for the Hill toppers that I've been doing here for our university. Eric Matthew joining me on ESPN Honolulu as he spends his last official day at work at the University of Hawaii. I remember hosting Western Kentucky back then it was the rainbow class. They can have a great time with them. But that is pretty cool. But just again to show you the impression that you've affected with fans. I got it texted as you were just speaking and it says, Oh man, going to miscaptant fund five exclamation point.

45:31Darn he's a good one. And that was just from one of our listeners a couple of minutes ago. When you took over in marketing because I'm not sure if people are aware you were the SID for a women's basketball for a number of years. Was that your first job at the University of Hawaii? Yes, when I first moved out here nine years ago, I was in the media relations office SID. I worked with women's basketball soccer and then over the years I picked up responsibilities for water polo and baseball and I helped out with softball here and there. But the one that I don't think really anybody knew was before we go to marketing, I was running our social media, at least a good portion of it with football. And with the Hawaii, the Hawaii legs accounts in all that stuff. I was really a big part of our social media before I moved over to marketing about four years ago. Now that you're in marketing and some of the things that you were brought and I'll use let's say the arena sports for first for first because I have seen such a change.

46:32I think everybody has for example, with you leaving, are we still going to have the mystery box? I think that's my first question about that. You had the first one asked that Gary. I don't have an answer for you. I know. I hope it does. I want things that we had started and things that I think were popular. The reason why they were popular and the reason why they started to kind of happen was because we were listening to the fans and we were paying attention. I'm not saying that that wasn't done before, but I'm saying with this current office, it was. The part that people I don't think understand or realize, it's not because they're supposed to, because they're not in the inner working of it, is the marketing office, it's 90% students. This isn't an office that is heavy with professionals that have been in the business for years or anything like that. It was basically myself, Brittany Neue, who's been with the department for almost 20 years.

47:38I think that's a very creative mind that I've been doing for a couple of years. From that point, it was mostly air by under the age of 28. Then, 90% of it was all students. The office itself is creative, but it didn't have what I think people expect from maybe a professional team where there's all these ideas and everything that's kind of fought out and all these different things of all this research and stuff like. There's none of that. We're in development office, even though we've done a lot of good things over the years. My main focus was, yes, obviously helping the fact experience and those things, but was to give students at UH a opportunity to learn and be a part of the business and to get their start. I took over four years ago. Our marketing office had, I think, 12 interns.

48:38Now, our intern program of because of, and we put it into it, and we're able to pull off all these different things, we're able to pull off our intern program, we went from 12 to 50 last four years. We had a lot of things that people saw that we were doing, were organized and thought out because we had the manpower through students, majority of them not getting paid, they're just getting their start, they're getting their experience. And they were seeing those type of things. And so that was something that I said a lot, pride in that we were able to accomplish was we were helping young people get their opportunity, get their start, learn how to do things the right way, learn how to communicate, learn about timing, learn about being organized, and just about teamwork. And when you're teaching them, then they're kind of, they're doing whatever they can to kind of help you, got to be there and instruct them, be here at this time, do this at this time, all these different things. And that's why we're pulling off the measure of pulling off. Is there anybody that will be taking that position as you leave? I don't know.

49:38I know there's conversations. About a few things. I haven't been privy to all of them. I've heard stuff here and there. But I don't know, Gary. And that's bad. I'm sure that would be the case. But again, with some of the things you have done, I'm using more of the arena sport that I've seen that has made it such a more fan friendly event with everything that's gone on during timeouts, whether it's a different variation of cams that you have in the mystery box, the dot race and everything like that. It's a different atmosphere. It really is. And I know you have a staff that works with you, but you are the leader of the pack and you've done a great job. And they making you work on your last day. Then what are you doing your last day of work? I don't know. We're better to find out. I mean, my whole thing was I didn't want to I didn't want to leave anybody hanging. So I've been trying to get get ready for football for this Saturday. We haven't really had deep discussions about what my last day will look like or even like that.

50:41But we were upstairs yesterday. A few of us came in, even though campus is closed, we were there yesterday. We were cleaning up rooftop so that we could have rooftop, Iina for Saturday. And and doing all that. So I mean, even though today's my last day and I'm on a flight tomorrow, I told everybody in the office, I am here until I'm not. I got your back until I'm on a plane. And so I haven't treated it like it's my last day. I haven't treated it like it's my last week. I just treat it like I'm a member of this team until I leave. And I'm going to keep it there away for the next 24 hours. That just shows how special the person and special of a job you have accomplished there. The rooftop, Iina, how did that work out? I didn't get to see that, but I did see what you guys had on the new and LV side on the visiting sideline by the arena side where you are. I had seen a side where you had the picnic tables. I'm not sure how you describe them, but I saw a lot of people enjoying having a table and a seat and food and drink. And that looked pretty cool on the sideline Saturday.

51:42Gary, I got to be honest with you. The thing that you talked a lot earlier about the arena sports. And I enjoyed every bit of that. The thing I took the most pride in was what we've done at football as a team the last few years, whether it be the stuff that we did in game that was marking responsibility or that. The VIP sticks that you're talking about, that those tables are there. So you had the sideline view and it's catered and has that that came from the ticketing side that came from out all well on his team and ticket sales. Then there's going to be our stuff you're going to see. It's going to pop up probably this week where they're going to do stuff at the old beach volleyball courts that's behind the boxes that you're going to see. So make sure you go and give that a look. But that type of stuff was with things that we all worked together on to make happen to make a reality. And then there's others that had really direct involvement on rooftop, Paena. Matt was the one that was like, hey, what can we do to make this better? And that's where this idea came from was rooftop rooftop has been in the works for almost two years.

52:46And how can we take. How can we make our product and our atmosphere feel like college football again because it felt like a few years ago that. Why didn't have that feel like they had a little stadium, even a little stadium was more of a profile because there's a pro stadium. So how can we really put in the college football aspect and when we did stuff at less more comedy, it was getting there. It felt like, okay, we're right here next to stadium, but kind of enclosed, but it had aspects we really liked. Then we wanted to let's get campus more involved in campus, open their doors and let's try stuff here on legacy past. That was cool because you're right there next to tellgate we find a tellgating reality which. That took years off my life just trying to get tellgating proved and put back on campus, but we had that and then when we started having a coverage about this year and what we could do, we needed to do something that was more permanent.

53:47And more we got stopped moving around because we're going to start confusing people if we keep moving around. So the idea actually came from an influencer that was here last year and myself and Derek Enochi and him and I are very close and we've worked together quite a while. And him and I had a conversation were looking to do some stuff and we had noticed that at the University of Tennessee that they were allowing people to tellgate and to do stuff in their parking structure. And so we already had the idea that we saw this and we're like, OK, here's how we can start executing this. And so when Matt kind of brought up, that's kind of where we just took it and ran with it as a team from everybody in the external side to digital media to marketing to media relations, ticketing. And how can we make rooftop and I took a lot of pride in seeing that happen and was able to see it for a game before I left this past Saturday because that atmosphere was awesome. And it felt like college football. It felt it felt special and people that were up there, they brought a vibe and it made a difference and it was awesome.

54:55And I could not have been happier with how rooftop turned out and what's going to turn into. Yeah, I saw the videos of it. It was pretty cool. I want to definitely check it out in person this week. Before I let you go and again, thank you for everything you've done for me, the station and just fans in general. I know you don't need advice in your new job, but just if I could give you a little bit, the suggestion would be to try to schedule western Kentucky to play Hawaii and men's basketball, women's basketball football. Again, because they were here a few years ago, baseball you name it bring western Kentucky over here for every sport, then you get a free trip over here. What's funny was yesterday, I've talked about rooftop, Pahena and cleaning that up. The baseball team came up there to help us and Rich Hill and I are really good friends. We're actually neighbors. So him and I were kind of talking because that was the very first guy that he met when he came here and we were kind of talking about it and he was like, we got to get we got a WKU out here. I agree. That's what just happened.

55:55The other part of it is Diamond Head Classic and basketball in general. WKU is top 20 all time in NCAA and men's basketball wins and like they're up there with the blue blunts. I have not missed a WKU men's basketball game of 25 years. Like I said, I graduated from there. My goal is to try and get WKU basketball in a Diamond Head Classic or here in Hawaii to play you age and to have that battle. So hopefully I can make that happen. Hopefully I can influence and Gary and we can make that a reality. Well, that would be great. Hopefully we can still keep in touch and talk from time to time again. Thank you for everything you've done. I think I speak on behalf of the fan. We will miss you. We will not forget you. Good luck at West Rican Talkley and hopefully we'll talk again soon. Gary, I appreciate it. It means a lot to me into the entire UH fan base. Thank you for last nine years. I hope this is not goodbye. This is just I'll see you later for now.

56:57Thank you Eric. Appreciate it. Eric Matthew saying a thing I did at the end, but we will miss them. You've done such a great job. Well I do have those volleyball tickets. Let's talk sports coming up next. We'll have volleyball and football tickets to give out. I hope that football later on this week, but I've got a pair for tomorrow. against Central Arkansas. The question once again with the rainbow walking volleyball team who was the MVP of the Outrigger Invitational. I'll give a hint. It's one of the new players transferred from Dayton. I'll give you that for now. And if you get it right, those tickets will be yours. 808296 1500 is the phone number. You can't text in for the tickets. Unfortunately, but give us a call and those tickets will be yours. Okay, I do have a couple of impressive stats that I want to get into. And

57:59the first one. Kind of interesting. Well, they all hopefully are interesting. Colorado State football. They played their home opener and season opener this past Saturday. Remember, they're in the new pack 12 and they played Wyoming. They had I know their stadium is what maybe five, six years old, post to be a great stadium by all accounts. They had a program record 40, 548 for their game against Wyoming. The more impressive part of that stat and it's not the win that they did win over Wyoming 35 13 is the amount of students that showed up. That was also a record. I don't know if they had some kind of special promotion besides it being opening day 17,573 students showed up for that game at Colorado State. I know that's a record, as I said, and that seems to be pretty incredible. I know we get a lot more

59:00students for our home games now than we did at a low-how stadium. But 17,000 is remarkable. We don't even see 17,000. And that's how many students they had that showed up. So anyway, that is one impressive stat. The other one, I saw a column or a post on Instagram. And it has the dollar amounts that every school got paid to play last week. If you got paid, for example, if it's a conference game, you don't pay your opponents the fees that you normally get like you and Elvide didn't get money for playing Hawaii. But UMass got a million, 550,000 for beating Rutgers. The largest payout though for last weekend, 1.9 million from ball state, well, from Ohio State to ball state for showing up. That's an easy road trip for them. They got destroyed, but they got a big payday out of it. Western Michigan got 1.5 million for going

1:00:04to Oklahoma. Boise State got 1.3 million for almost beating Oregon. And there's a ton of these. I won't give all of them, but a few of them, the cheapest one, for example, North Carolina, A and T got 225,000 for going to Georgia State. Lafayette got 300,000 for going to Georgia State. And that's how they got the $225,000 for going to Georgia State. Lafayette got 300,000 for going to UConn. Anyway, I thought those were kind of interesting some of the dollar amounts and the differential in the payout. Those are the impressive stats of the day. Don't act like you're not impressed. I was making sure Chris was paying attention. He was a good job. Chris, before I go to break, also, I should have brought this up last hour. I think this is kind of good news. The Rainbow Wahini soccer team, it was announced yesterday will be playing the rest of their games for the rest of the season on campus. They were supposed to play

1:01:08the first seven and they have they have a record of 3 3 and 1. They were supposed to play the first seven and then go back to white P.O. I don't know if it's more so that the field is not ready at white P.O. Or that things have worked out pretty well here on campus. I think that's a good thing. I would imagine coach, but it's probably happy about it. The crowds have been getting a little bit better. Now you got conference play starting and hopefully we'll get more and more fans there. It's great for the team as coach, but told us last week that they can just walk out of their dorms and walk over to the game as opposed to sometimes getting caught up in traffic going to white P.O. Nothing against white P.O. is a great complex, great venue, but I think having it on campus with all the circumstances like traffic make it a lot better, but it was made official yesterday. They are back and going to stay on campus for the rest of the season. That is a good thing. Got a few minutes left in the show. By the way, nobody called to

1:02:08answer the very, very tough trivia question. It was Panna Rockie, Rockie, who would play of the week. And also the MVP, that was the question, the MVP of the Outrage Remotational. She was also one in award with the Mountain West. So I'm going to do it now with the volleyball tickets. Caller number two. If you're the second caller at 80829615, those tickets will be yours for tomorrow night. They play Central Arkansas Thursday and Friday. Before I go back to another texture to realize I didn't bring up one final point on the LSU situation. As I mentioned earlier, there were two innocent victims. And I think the two players that are at least for up until yesterday enrolled at LSU, Dequan Wright, who was waved by the Cleveland Brown, the tight end, and Xavier Harris, the other player who was on Ole Miss's team, who was now at LSU, ready to be reinstated, ready to win the by virtue of the judge voting

1:03:08in their favor, ready to join LSU's football team. So yesterday, as I mentioned, the SEC is going to have a meeting tomorrow and maybe vote on getting rid of LSU, getting them expelled from the conference, which probably won't happen with the fact that they're discussing it, shows how serious they are taking and how upset they are with what LSU and Lane Kiffin has done. Yesterday, Lane Kiffin didn't really say it outright, but they added two other players to their roster. The Max is 105. They don't have any room for those two players. And they basically had mentioned they're not going to have those former NFL players on the roster. So what happens to them? Now, it's not necessarily like they had a lot of options, but they basically were held in limbo for the last couple of weeks with LSU. I don't think that part is LSU's fault, but it's another example of the system being so wrong that you have two players by virtue of what was legally in front of them, where judge voted they can come

1:04:11back and play. You can't blame the players. And now they have no football team. I mean, maybe they could have gone to a school and played with somebody that would have let them play. Doesn't seem like any FPS conferences are allowing that. But maybe they could have found somebody, maybe an FCS school. I don't know if it's too late, but through no fall to their own, they are now in a situation where they're left hanging. There were just so many ways this has been so badly handled by the NCAA, by LSU, by Lane Kiffin, and by those judges that just judged and gave a waiver or granted the appeal on players in a hometown where they were apparently football fans of the school. And I thought that was just so bad. Let me go to the phones right now. I think we have to say the second caller. Okay, so Al, for Millie Lonnie, is not on the phone, but he was the second. Oh, he's on the phone. He wants to be on the air. Okay. Hi, Al. How's it going? All right. Right on. All right. You are the second caller. How about that?

1:05:16Oh, thank you. I'm glad you're excited. Have you been to a volleyball match this season yet? Oh, no. Just watch what I'm in. Okay. Well, you're going tomorrow. That is a good thing. Hang on and Chris will get some information. We'll get those tickets to you. Okay. model. Okay. Great job. Al. He was caller number two. We will have more tickets to get out both with Ken O'Neill and Billy and Josh and Chris Hart later this afternoon. They will also have football tickets and speaking of football tickets are final texts of the day. A great one. A football win would lift Hawaii spirits. Definitely a great comment. I agree. And hopefully that will be the case. Also want to remind you Monday night football is bigger and better with ESPN. Honolulu and big city diner catch Denver and Kansas City at the big city diner in Kailua Monday. Enjoy great food when awesome prizes and have a whole lot of fun. See you tomorrow at five. Aloha.