154: Yogi Roth: Analyst on the Pac-12 Network, Creator of the Life Without Limits podcast, Author and Filmmaker, and Hugh Millen: Ex-NFL Player and Football Analyst at Seattle’s Sports Radio 950 KJR talk about ways that football teams, players, coaches, and conference are adapting to COVID-19.
Yogi Roth and Hugh Millen
How does returning guest to the show Yogi Roth feel about the word ‘limits?’ “To me I never believed in limits, right? You can’t play major college football? Screw you, I’m going to play it. You can’t coach at SC. Yeah, I can, watch me. You can’t call big games. Watch me. Like, that was always a mindset. But, now it’s like, well if our 5-year-old is like, ‘Hey, I want to go bombing down the street on my bike at rush hour.’ There are limits around that, dude. That’s not allowed.”
On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Yogi Roth, Analyst on the Pac-12 Network, Creator of the Life Without Limits podcast, Author and Filmmaker, as well as Hugh Millen, Ex-NFL Player and Football Analyst at Seattle’s Sports Radio 950 KJR. Hugh Millen shares his opinion on both of his athletic sons’ coping with the restrictions that have emerged in response to COVID-19. “You control the controllables, and we don’t know what is going to happen with this pandemic, and the one thing we can control is our response to it, our attitude about it. Whether it is a few months like we have had or a few more months, whatever it is, it is our choice.”
What You Will Learn:
Yogi Roth talks about growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania with his mom’s parents being holocaust survivor’s and how that pushed him to be strong, resilient, and to never give up. “The harder it was, the more obstacles that came in front of me, the more joy I would get out of it and it wasn’t healthy at first because it became about proving others wrong. But, eventually as an adult, it has turned into proving myself right. That is a challenge I think every athlete and competitor probably goes through in some form. Most of us deal with that later in life. I try to tell high school kids, deal with that now because it is much more of an enjoyable process.”
How is Hugh Millen controlling his attitude as a dad around his kids losing a season or even playing amid the pandemic? “It is two-fold in different ways. My oldest son at Oregon, it is actually somewhat of a blessing for us selflessly that he is home now, and so, what I’m doing I’m out there throwing with him, coaching him up and he is coming off an injury, a shoulder surgery. So, we’re making sure his mechanics are where he needs to be.”
Hugh Millen discusses talking about sports careers with his kids. “First of all I say, ‘What is your goal?’ If they just tell me one time, hey, I don’t want to be an NFL quarterback, then I change. When they say I want to be an NFL quarterback, my first response is, get in line. Right, Yogi? You aren’t going to talk it into existence. You are going to work it into existence, and it is going to get into how do you prepare and how do you perform. Very simple. It is as simple as that and that will declare whether or not you have that opportunity. But, the message I try to say is, let your work ethic match your goals.”
What is Yogi Roth hearing as the path for college football after the pandemic? “I interviewed every head coach last week in the conference. Talking to a bunch of people. Everybody is optimistic. Like, there is this narrative out there that, yes the SEC is going to play. They don’t care. They’re going to put fans in the stands. You're in Texas, fans in the stands. But in the Pac-12, they’re not going to play, and that is the furthest thing from the truth. The truth is, is that everyday the conference commissioners get on the phone, along with their liaisons, with their support staff, medical representatives, etc, and everyday the people leading the conversation around the medical side of COVID-19 and college football are the people on the west coast. It is the Pac-12 conference.”
Hugh Millen makes an insightful point about convenience versus fatality as it pertains to COVID-19 by using flu season deaths as an example. “If we really cared about cutting those deaths down, we could have said our entire lives, none of us grew up wearing masks on an airplane. But it could have been. There is another universe that we could have lived in where all of our lives we were used to wearing masks during flu season, because we want to say, wait a minute, 40,000 deaths is not tolerable for the flu. We have to try to cut that done.”
Post-Pandemic Sports Fans
Yogi Roth talks about what college football stadiums might look like in the fall. “Fans in the stands? Packed? I don’t know how many fans are going to want to be in the stands, packed. I don’t know. I’m sure conferences will make those decisions as we get closer. But, I don’t see that decision being made until two weeks prior to the first game.”
High School Football
During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, the discussion with Yogi Roth and Hugh Millen also delves into high school football fans and players. Hugh Millen says “Our head coach doesn’t know anything in terms of what is going to transpire because the people above him don’t know. The principal doesn’t know, the superintendents of the schools. Again, it is going to be above the paygrade of any football people I would assume. But, what I do hope is, and I do have a little bit of concern,. But it is an unfounded concern. Then maybe in a few months I will gain more wisdom and I will say, hey, I should have not been concerned.”
Links to Additional Resources:
Mark Pattison: markpattisonnfl.com
Emilia’s Everest for the Epilepsy Foundation: markpattisonnfl.com/philanthropy-wb/
Yogi Roth on social media: Linkedin Instagram Twitter
Yogi Roth’s website: yogiroth.com
Life Without Limits podcast: yogiroth.com/podcast
Hugh Millen on Sports Radio KJR: sportsradiokjr.iheart.com/featured/hugh-millen
Premium
Plus
Comentarios