Peach Bowl Inc. CEO on Georgia-Clemson Aflac Kickoff, how Michael Jordan almost joined Adidas

Oh, the roof is opening. Oh, yeah, look at that. We may wanna shoot that. Well, I'll tell you a uh pretty uh interesting way to start off this interview. Um Welcome back to the rundown of Reggie Chapman. I'm Reggie Chapman, uh your illustrious host and I'm joined by Gary Stoking the President CEO of Peach Bowl Incorporated. And of course, the man that's in charge of many of the biggest events that are here in Atlanta. That is incredible. Um Well, Gary, thank you for, just give me a second to, to, to talk to you, man. Obviously, we're here for this football season is back, great time of the year, the best. And uh your game, the athletic kickoff game is one of the biggest events that helps start the year um for you. Uh What are you most excited about heading in another year? Well, this could be a great year for Atlanta in college football. Um You know, four of our football games are gonna take place near Mercedes Benz Stadium are all top 15 teams. You look at our game, the Aflac kickoff game with number one against number 14. You go to the Chick fil, a Peach Bowl which is gonna have a Buy conference champ play against the winner of a first round game two, top 10 teams. You got the national championship game that'll take place January 20th and then in between that, you have the SEC championship. So those four games will all be top 15 teams, but four of the largest conventions in the city of Atlanta, which is the fourth largest convention town in the United States behind Las Vegas, Chicago and Orlando. And that's how important college football is for the top six conventions. And the fourth largest convention time in the United States are college football games right here in Atlanta. It's insane. And uh do you ever think about the fact that you've, you've obviously been here for a long time, you're the president's organization since 1998 and you've got a lot to help bring a lot to this city, right? You of course, had the pitch bowl game. You helped bring the kickoff game here. You helped the bringing of the college football Hall of Fame here and so much more, um all on a goal, of course, to try and make this one of the bigger sports cities on the planet. Why was that something that was important? You know, when I was president of Atlanta Sports Council and president of the Chick Fil A Peach Bowl or Peach Bowl, Inc uh Bob Costas in 1996. Uh because we're gonna host the Olympic games, said Atlanta is gonna be the capital of, uh, uh the sports capital of the world because with the Olympics and we had just won the rights to host the Super Bowl. It was gonna come in in 2000. And so I took that mantra and basically said, ok, let's build on what we're doing with the Olympics. Let's go get major league baseball, NBA and NH all Star games, which we did. We brought wrestle mania to Atlanta. Uh sat with uh Vince mcmahon and looked him in the eye and told him that, you know, I used to go to studio or to wrestling in the civic arena in Pittsburgh uh and cry because Bruno San Martino used to be bleeding. And uh I, I told that story and look Vince mcmahon right in the eyes. I sat right next to him and I could see tears well up in his eyes because his dad represented Bruno San Martino. And so he knew Bruno well and I knew I had him right there. And so we got wrestle mania, but that's another story for another time. But getting, you know, uh all the sporting events AC C tournament NCAA final four, men's NCAA, final four women. So we really concentrate on getting as many sporting events as we could in Atlanta. We won Sports Commissions of the year. You know, people really started to say Atlanta is the sports capital of the world. And then as I, as I looked at the next challenge, I said, you know, this is a college football hotbed with as many alumni we have living in the south that uh love college football. And so we started to with Chick Fil A coming on in 1997 to be the title sponsor of the Peach Bowl that really helped us. The Georgia Dome was fantastic. Uh ESPN was a great partner. The A CCS EC match up was made for sell outs. So we sold out 18 straight years. And then, um I looked at, uh I went up to the college Football Hall of Fame in 2002 or three. It was in South Bend, Indiana and it was very, it makes more sense. Yeah, it was very antiquated. Ironically enough, Don Keo, who was CEO of Coke and a Notre Dame grad helped move it from King's Island, Ohio to South Bend, Indiana. So when I went up to the induction ceremony, um it, it was very antiquated and I said, man, if we had this in Atlanta, it'd be unbelievable. They were doing about 60,000 people a year. And so I was going to, I had a meeting at Capital City Club with a lot of the CEO S the mayor and we looked at possibly going after the college football Hall of Fame, but NASCAR didn't have a Hall of Fame and Tony Hobson from Atlanta who owned an agency here came up with the idea to have a NASCAR Hall of Fame. And so at that time TNT was doing the broadcast T BS was broadcasting, NASCAR Napa Coke Home Depot. They were all sponsors of NASCAR cars. The CEO S got excited. Let's go up to the NASCAR Hall of Fame. So I pulled the college football Hall of Fame back in 2006. NASCAR said, you know, it's a great idea. We're gonna bid it out. So they bid it out to Richmond Charlotte, Atlanta and Daytona Charlotte wound up winning because all the NASCAR, you know, cars are up there and, and headquartered in Charlotte made a good decision. But as soon as that decision was over in 06, I brought the college football Hall of Fame out and legislature, Governor Perdue, Mayor Franklin, everybody got behind it. And in 2010, I signed a 30 year license as the CEO of Atlanta Hall management to bring the college football Hall of Fame here and build it. And um, so that was, that was a big piece in 2006. We had made a bid for the uh B CS to host the national championship because they were gonna bring on 1/5 bowl game other than the Rose Sugar Orange and Fiesta, we didn't win that bid. But the next year in 07, the NCAA legislated 1/12 game to the schedules and I'm competitive and I don't like losing. I don't like losing. So I went to my board and I said, if they're not gonna listen, the B CS on the back side, we're gonna start the B CS on the front side of the season. And before this, there were a lot of non directional school games. A lot of the big schools would play easy wins the first three games and then play their conference schedule. Well, we changed the face of college football because we brought in Clemson number nine in the country in Alabama who was borderline top 25. And we played, um, in 2008, the first Chick Fil a kickoff game sold it out. Alabama won. The game was on the cover of Sports Illustrated to Alabama's back. And if Nick Saban were here, he would tell you that was the start of the Alabama dynasty. Wild man. I mean, when you take over the job all those years ago and all these things aren't really here, what about Atlanta made you feel like this would be the place that you could do all this stuff and how hard was that selling it to other people knowing it is this massive city in the south. But at that point, it wasn't anything like it is. Now, I give Billy Payne a lot of credit. He and Andy Young, really what they did in Atlanta to establish the uh 1996 Olympic Games. They got corporate support they got volunteers, they got, uh, the government, the mayor and the governor's office and the legislature all behind the Atlanta Olympic Games. And it changed the way Atlanta thought about itself in 1990. When the U, um, the IOC selected Atlanta, a lot of people around the world didn't know Atlanta. They thought Atlantic City won the host rights to the Olympic Games because they didn't know Atlanta. And so that, that movement from the Olympics really uh across the city and across the state really made us believe that we could do things. And so to have the best airport in the world, most effective and and efficient airport in the world to have three interstates intersect in the middle of downtown. The infrastructure was there 16,000 hotel rooms in walking distance to our facilities, great facilities. Um You know, the volunteers who really enjoy providing Southern hospitality to people, the corporate support from the Chick Fil A's, the Cokes, the Deltas, the Kia, the Home Depots, you know, um and, and I have a great staff, the best staff in the business. And so in a, in a wonderful board that's very supportive. Uh that's made up a lot of those companies that I just mentioned, you put all that together, it makes for a great recipe to become the capital, college football, which a lot of media this week have talked about us being the Capitol college football. And if you think about between the CFP quarterfinal this year. And the Chick Fil A Peach bowl. January 1st, January 20th, the CFP national championship in January 8th or ninth. Next year, the Chick Fil, a Peach bowl CFP semifinal. Within basically a year, we will host all three of the major CFP events in college football and there's only one place for a college football Hall of Fame. It's in Atlanta. You know, we've had Georgia, the national championship and, and I call them Athens, a suburb of Atlanta. So you put all that together and there's no doubt that we're the capital of college football. You guys joined the, uh New York six back in 2014, right? What was the process of getting that done? Like you said, they had the, the main four that were already there, um, to try and get you guys into that position. Was it a bigger part of it having Aleck kickoff game and telling them, you know, like this is obviously how things look here in Atlanta. This should be one of the biggest games on the schedule. Yeah, it's a great question. I, I credit, uh, John Swofford of the AC C. Um, and, uh, you know, we had built relationships, uh, with Mike's live at the SEC as well. Um, and we had sold out so many Chick Fil, a peach bowls that they knew that we could deliver because our staff, uh, was, uh, executed flawlessly. Uh, the Georgia Dome staff was fantastic. And we had the corporate support behind us as well. And, but those relationships that we had with the AC C and the SEC, because those commissioners were in that room, making the vote and the decisions as to what bowls they were gonna let in, there was two bowls that they were gonna add to the existing four. They wound up with us in the Cotton bowl. And, um, and we became part of the New Year six, which now elevates our game to all of a sudden, you know, having a semifinal every, every three years where you got number one against number four, you know, Oklahoma against LSU, Alabama against Washington. Uh, so we had tremendous matchups, sold them out, obviously because the Atlanta fans, which is another thing I should mention, the Atlanta fans really have helped us because they bought all the tickets year after year after year in support. So, um, but relationships are important as they are in any business and our relationship with the AC C and SEC with ESPN because we delivered sellouts really helped us when they became, uh, uh, when they went to make a decision on who they should add, uh, for the, uh, CFP. What was it like moving from the Georgia Dome which was a beloved place in the city of Atlanta to this building here? I mean, like this is incredible. How big was it making that move as well? And what was it the conversations like with the Blank Foundation and getting everything together to make sure that this was the best possible environment. Did you guys have a say in how this kind of looked as well? You know, it's interesting, uh ironically enough, I mean, we won the bid with the Georgia Dome because we played 1415, 16 in the Georgia Dome. And then we moved here in 17 when Mercedes Benz opened with the greatest opener of all time, the goat kickoff game with number one Alabama against number three, Florida State played here to open the Mercedes Benz stadium. Um, but I give Arthur Blank all the credit in the world, his vision to get back to the city, uh, his willingness to give back not only financially but strategically to build something that's, uh the number one fan experience in the whole NFL with lowering the prices of concessions. Obviously, the sight lines that they've created, um, you know, he, he just did a wonderful job of building this facility that we've been able to, you know, fill up numerous, numerous times. And, uh, and it's been good for the city, economic impact wise for the state and the city we deliver. Um, you know, they say Super Bowls are great, but you get a Super Bowl once every 1015, 20 years, we're delivering sold out kickoff games, AFLAC kickoff games and sold out Chick Fil, a Peach Bowls every year, twice a year. And so that's a big driver for sales tax dollars that go back in the city and the state coffers the hospitality industry over Labor Day and during the holiday season of Christmas, but there's not a lot of people going downtown in restaurants and staying in hotels. We fill them up at that time. So it's a win win. It's a win financially, but it's a win during the time of the year when they need us the most. So it's a double win for the city and the state. How have you kind of seen this game change over your time? Obviously, like you said, new, building, new arena. But um, the process for you, how has it been changed over the last couple of years? How do you guys keep, I guess, doing things differently every year to make sure that people keep coming back? Well, I remember in 1998 as you mentioned earlier, my first year, part of my job was to select the teams. And so we selected Virginia who I think 1213, 14, somewhere like that ranked and we selected Georgia who wasn't ranked. And uh, Mark Bradley of the AJ C wrote an article and said, and the headline was Georgia going to Peach Bowl, a third tier bowl game. So we were literally thought of as a third tier bowl game rightfully or wrongfully. That's what we were. And so I remember in 2016 when we joined the uh, the CFP and the New Year's six, we hosted the semifinal and we hosted number one Alabama against number four Washington. And as I gave the state of the bowl address before a press conference with, uh, Chris Peterson and Nick Saban, the two head coaches I stared daggers right at Mark Bradley and I said, you know, it's kind of ironic here we are hosting number one against number four, you know, in the semi final, the CFP and not bad for a third tier bowl game. And I never, I never forget Mark Bradley came up to me afterwards who still writes for the AJ C and said, man, you have a long memory and I said, you're damn right. I do. So go back to that competitiveness, you know, that was uh that was fun. You guys, how are things gonna be different this year for this kickoff game? But like you said, two, it's a massive games coming up here. Um How are you guys doing things differently for this year? Yeah, the CFP will be different. It won't be a total bowl week like we used to have and we used to take the players to uh Ebenezer Baptist church and you're not supposed to do this, but we used to sit them both next to each other in the pews and bring in ambassador Young Congressman Lewis when he was alive, Ct Vivian to speak to the kids about the civil rights movement. Um because Atlanta is the home of the civil rights and to be an Ebenezer Baptist church is, you know, history, right? It's very powerful. And um so dear Congressman Lewis, talk about the Selma Bridge and walking across the Selma Bridge to hear Andy Young talk about being a part of the, you know, the top eight decision makers with Doctor King and some of his stories and Ct Vivian, I mean, it was very powerful. It was a living history lesson that these kids couldn't get anywhere else. So that really differentiated as the bull, um taking kids to children's health care of Atlanta where those kids weren't gonna get out of the hospital for Christmas and they were might never get out of that hospital. But to have the coaches and the players just spare, share some holiday uh spirit with those kids and their parents was powerful. We're gonna lose that because we're now in a playoff system and you're gonna play week to week. Uh We're blessed obviously being a part of the semi final and quarterfinal. Hopefully, we can keep that from 26 to 31. But over the next two years, we have a quarter in the semi final here. So it's going to change, the game won't change. Obviously, in this place, it's a great place. I think it's the best stadium in the country. Our staff, as I mentioned is the best. Our volunteers are fantastic. You know, we'll put on a first class event this year and then next year with the semi final. And then hopefully, as I said, we negotiate a new deal for 26 through 31 to stay as a quarterfinal every two years and then a semifinal of the third year. Will you guys be changing anything with how it looks in here also, maybe more seats. Is there anything that's gonna be different when, when they come in to have this experience versus other years? You know, it's interesting. We, we just added 2800 standing room only tickets really for the Aflac kickoff game for Georgia versus Clemson. Uh, we've got about 76,000 tickets sold already and with another 2800, we could be close to our record crowd, uh, all time in Mercedes Benz Stadium between SEC championships Super Bowls, et cetera, uh, of our Chick fil a peach Bowl back in tw 2023 with Georgia against Ohio State. We had 79,330 people in here and for those 2800 we could, we could break a record so that, that'll change everything else is pretty much the same. Um, you know, signage is pretty much the same. Uh, the Bull week will change for the playoff, but, you know, being a part of that quarter and semifinal this year, I think college football is at the precipice of really exponentially growing. You know, we got a lot of chaos going on, which is we need to manage through the transfer portal nil realignment. Um, but when you look at college football, it's the second most favorite sport, Reggie in this country only behind the NFL. And, uh, with the 12 team playoff, you're gonna see more teams, 3040 maybe even 50 teams into November still vying for a 12 team playoff slot. Number one, number two. So I think attendance are gonna stay in and increase because more teams will be in the hunt. You have all the networks and you know, more, more people broadcasting the game between NBC ABC CBS, ESPN Fox. So there's more broadcast which means more promotion for the game. And because more important games are gonna take place through November viewership is gonna go up. So I think attendance and viewership are gonna be at all time high in college football this year because of the 12 team playoff. All right, Gary, naturally, there's a lot of things that go along with this game and everything that you do tell me a little bit about kick off with a cause. Yeah, thanks for asking, Regs. This is something that's very crucial to, uh, Atlanta Children's health care of Atlanta Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorder Center, as well as Peach Boy in, uh, the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorder Center was created by Aflac with 100 and $87 million now that they've donated to children's health care of Atlanta and in a new Arthur Blank Hospital, it's gonna be an awesome facility um to treat kids, not only from Atlanta and Georgia, but regionally and even nationally with some of the technologies, they'll have it. So all credit to Aflac. Uh when we did this deal with um uh Virgil Miller and Aflac to be the title sponsor of the kickoff game, we wanted to do more than just put on a college football game. So this is a kickoff for a cause. It's using college football for the greater good. And so we'll raise this year about $500,000 between us donating $100,000 to the Peach Bowl Legacy fund to find cures and trials to eradicate childhood cancer through the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorder Center, Aflac will match that $100,000. We'll have a 5050 raffle. We'll give that money to the Peach B Legacy funded Children's health care of Atlanta. We're gonna sell T shirts that were created and designed by a Georgia student that had cancer at children's health care of Atlanta at the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorder Center. She designed a T shirt. They can buy them through Aflac kickoff game.com for $35. All that profit is going to go to the Peach Bowl Legacy Fund and then we're also going to um uh through our, our relationship with Aflac create another probably $100,000. So all told, somewhere between four and $500,000 to find cures and trials to eradicate childhood cancer. Peach Boy Inc has given $22 million to the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorder Center to start the Peach Bowl Legacy fund to create trials and and find cures to eradicate childhood cancer. We now have 14 trials in four, in five different hospitals in four different states trying to find that cure and that trial that could get FDA approved to give a kid another month, another year or maybe a lifetime who suffers from cancer, from neuroblastoma to sarcoma to, to leukemia. Um and working hand in hand with Aflac cancer and Blood Disorder Center and children's health care of Atlanta. So this game is sure it's, it's a huge game number one against number 14 CFP implications, you know, great sales tax uh for the city and the state. But it's more than that. It's, it's a kickoff for a cause to help find cures to uh help kids. And uh we do so humbly and proudly with Aflac and, and children's health care of Atlanta. Is there a reason that you felt like it was important for your company to do this? Is there a personal reason maybe that you feel so inclined to make sure that you guys are giving back as well? II I will tell you personally, my mother always taught me, um you know, it's, it's more important to, to give than receive that was drilled into me. And so personally, you know, that's important to me. And I've tried to, you know, bring that personally to everything I've done with the 26 years that I've been at Peach Bowl Inc, uh and the Atlanta Sports Council. Um, but our mission at Peach Bowl Inc was in 19 in 1968 we were created is the ninth oldest bowl game, but the first bowl organization created for charity. And so we've kept that as part of our mission where we've now given away $63 million since 2002, which is a record in the bowl industry. Uh We're the most charitable bowl organization in the country through all 44 bowl games. Um And so as a mission personally, as a mission corporately, you know, we, we've, uh we've found a way to get back and, um, you know, it's very important in our board, our staff, our volunteers, the fans of Atlanta, you know, everybody's been a part of that. So it's really a great team effort and with children's health care and Aflac, we're able to really do something special with the Aflac kickoff game. I'm so excited. It's gonna be an incredible year. Uh Before I let you go, you mentioned how competitive you are. I have to ask about your life before you were doing this. Um You have a relationship with a man named Michael Jordan. Um You got relationships with other people in different brand campaigns used to work at Adidas, uh, converse. Um, what were you doing for these companies? And do you have a story that sticks out maybe more than the others about maybe trying to sign a guy running a campaign or anything like that? Yeah, I've been very blessed to be in sports for 44 years of my career and, uh, I had played basketball at North Carolina State, coached basketball for three years and, uh at North Carolina State and, um, then we went to work for Adidas, then converse and my job was to negotiate with coaches, uh, players, teams to sign them to Adidas or converse contracts and then put together an integrated marketing campaign to produce sales. So, uh I remember, gosh, I was at co, I was at Adidas in 1996 when Sonny Vaccaro was at Adidas. He had signed Kobe Bryant and I had 100 people from around the world because my job was global business unit manager. And um, we cr my team created Kobe's first shoe. Uh, and with all those people from around the world in one room, I led, uh, putting together our global marketing campaign for Kobe Bryant, which we sold out all of his shoes, all of his apparel. He did a lot to market them because he won rookie of the year slam dunk contest, et cetera. So I was involved with Kobe for his first shoe and launching him. Uh Michael Jordan. Uh I had him wearing Adidas all throughout practice and around campus at North Carolina in 1984. I gave him the 1st $100 pair of leather basketball shoes in the US market and told him to wear them up at the Olympic trials in Bloomington Indiana where Bobby Knight was gonna be the Olympic coach and Michael loved our shoes. And in the book called Swoosh, it's quoted, uh when Michael didn't want to go to Nike, his mom through David Falk's agent, talked him into going to Nike. He went out to Nike and uh had a meeting and when they came out of the meeting, Michael's dad said you're signing with Nike, right? And David Fox says, yeah, this is unbelievable deal. We got to sign with Nike and Michael's quoted in the book, Swoosh. No, I want to sign with Adidas and he always called me Mr Stoke and I was 29 years old. He was 2324 and he came back from Beaverton and he called me and he said, Mr Stoken, can you meet? And I lived in Raleigh, he lived in Chapel Hill, obviously. And so we met on, on a wall on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, Stonewall and we're both drinking Coca Cola and he looked at me and he said, Mr Stoke and I love you. You've been great to me and my family. I love Adidas product. If you can get close on the car, the shoe deal, the annuity, I'll sign with you, I'll sign with you. You don't have to beat Nike, just get close and I'll sign with you. And so I wrote up a three page marketing campaign, sent it to her Garro West Germany because the wall was still up. And that's where Adidas was headquartered. And, uh, the Europeans got back to me and said it was $2.5 million which at the time was a lot of money. Um, they said we don't have that kind of money to put in the US market. And, uh, I told him, I said, look, this is a mistake. This guy, he flies in the air kid is gonna love watching him play. He's not a big guy. So kids are gonna be able to identify with him, guards and smaller people because he plays with the ball in his hands and flies and dribbles and great defensive player because I had coached basketball. I knew Michael was gonna be great. And, uh, if you read shoe dogs, which is Phil Knight's book, he says that in 1984 Nike was bordering on bankruptcy. They were in a red big time because they couldn't find a bank to fund their growth. And so, um, we don't sign Michael Nike signs him. He sells 100 and $26 million of Air Jordan products. His rookie season in Chicago puts Nike in the black now and now his own brand is worth $7 billion. So the next year I took my family to the Bahamas and we're walking through the Atlantis, uh, uh casino to go to dinner. My daughters are 10 and eight at the time. And over on the left hand side of the casino, there's, you know, a cigar shop, a clothing shop, a jewelry shop. And my daughter says there's Michael Jordan and I looked over, I said, yeah, it is. Come on, we'll walk over and he had a moderate shot, Charles Oakley and Charles Barkley with him because Michael would run his golf tournament down in the Bahamas and they were down there for his golf tournament. So we walked over and he sees me, he put a smile on his face. He said, gee come here. He put his arm around me, put me in a headlock and he looked at my daughter, both daughters and he pointed to her and he said, your, your dad is the hardest working man in sports. My daughter's never forgot that. And he told Barkley and Rashad and Oakley. He said, yeah, the story I just told you, I want to sign with Adidas, but Gary didn't think I could play. And that's why Adidas didn't sign me. He stuck a dagger right in my heart like Michael loves to do so. Uh that's a Michael Jordan story. But I've, you know, between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird extending their contract signing, Carl Malone signing Herschel Walker signing Mikes. So I had the greatest college basketball coach ever, Mike SHS at Duke signed at Herschel Walker, the greatest college football player ever signed. And I had Michael Jordan, the greatest college basketball or greatest basketball player ever ready to sign. And they just didn't give me the money to sign him. So I left Adidas after that. So, yeah, you got to listen to it. Did, did you ever hit him with the kind of I told you so or that's interesting. Ironically enough, I went back to uh Adidas. Uh so that was 84. Um I stayed with Adidas till 89 and then went to Converse and then uh started my own sports marketing company. We sold it to a company in London. They want to get into the 96 Olympics here. And that's when I took the job the second time with Adidas when they signed Kobe Bryant. And um after we signed Kobe and did the global marketing campaign that we created, I went into the Adidas uh budget meeting the next, next uh year. And I went in with a patent hard hat, a foot long cigar fatigues. And I put my whole staff in fatigues. There's about 15 of us walk in the, in the board room. And I said, gentlemen, we're at war with Nike and we had stole five market share points because Kobe's launch was so successful and I said, we're at war and here's how we're gonna go to war this year. And I outlined everything. Now at the time, running was really huge. And Adidas said, well, we don't have that kind of money put in basketball. We got a really fun running, which made some sense to me. But they, they again forgot to see that the shoe wars were gonna be fighting basketball in the United States. And so they didn't give us the money we needed. And ultimately, I wind up leaving Adidas uh because a second time, uh I took the job, took the job here in 1998 and uh been here ever since. Incredible everything happens for a reason. God works in perfect ways. Well, last question um for you and just because you just talked about Mike and Kobe Bryant, do you have obviously a lot of people say they're very similar. Do you have a Kobe Bryant story? Everybody that's ever does podcasts, like they always has some sort of Kobe Bryant story about him personally. Um how he did things, do you have a favorite Kobe Bryant memory? You know, the thing, I reme two things about Kobe that I really remember. One was he was tremendously competitive and because his dad had played in the 76ers with uh doctor J and then played in Europe, he knew kind of the way of the world of, of pro basketball. He was exposed to it. And so he knew how competitive you had to grind and you had to be. Um, so that was one thing that really impressed me with him. And the second thing was he, if you look back early, everything he did was the same as Michael Jordan. I mean, he would even talk his voice, his mannerisms were the same as Michael because he knew Michael was so great and he wanted to be like Michael and he, you know, later in his career, he would talk to Michael and say, how do you do this? How do you do that? I learned a lot from, from Michael Jordan. Um The one personal story I have is when I was talking to Kobe, I said, you know, uh how does it feel to be a teenager coming from high school into the NBA? And he said this is a dream. And so in that global marketing campaign, I used the dream theme uh in the commercial to launch him uh because it was a dream. I had that dream when I played, I didn't get there. But Kobe, like a lot of kids have in, in high school and college. It's a dream to get to the NBA. And so we use that theme of a dream in the commercial uh in his global marketing campaign. So great guy gone too soon, for sure, absolute legend, absolute legend. Uh Gary, thank you for the time. Anything I didn't ask you that you thought I might ask you anything you want to shout out before the game comes up, man. You covered a lot of it. You covered a lot of it. Thanks for having us. I appreciate you for having me, man. Thank you guys so much for watching. Uh kick after that kickoff game coming up at noon on Saturday from here inside a Mercedes Benz Stadium, Georgia versus Clemson. It's gonna be an incredible match up. I'll be there, Gary will be there. We'll see you guys there too.